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Andre’s lips press to my forehead, staying as he softly speaks. “I don’t know how to comfort you.”
I wipe at my nose with the back of my hand. “You’re doing good.” I tip my head back to look at him. “Thank you for not letting her see me like this.”
He tips his head in a small nod. “Sometimes witnessing someone else’s pain is worse than suffering through your own.”
My diaphragm spasms again, hitching my next breath in two as I study his face.
How did I once think he looked hard? Unyielding?
Terrifying.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Andre gives me another nod.
I have so many, but right now there’s only one I can think of. “Are your parents alive?”
His eyes move down to where my palm rests against his chest. “No.”
I sniff again, but the breath accompanying it doesn’t shudder or stall. “Was it hard when you lost them?”
Andre’s hand comes to cover mine, wide and solid. “I never knew my mother. She died shortly after I was born.” He lifts my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss there before continuing. “My father died just before my twentieth birthday.”
“Do you miss him?”
Andre takes a slow breath. “Not him. No.”
It feels like he’s only offering me half an answer. “But you do miss someone.”
Andre’s thumb presses into the center of my palm, gently rubbing it as he stares across the room in silence.
I wait a little longer, but it becomes clear I won’t get more from him so I find a dry spot on his chest to rest my head and close my eyes.
“My brother.”
I lift my lids. “What?”
Andre’s thumb continues to slide across my palm but he doesn’t look at me. “I miss my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“I have five.”
Five? “That’s a lot of boys.”
Andre hums in acknowledgment.
“Do you see them much?”
“I don’t see them at all.”
“Not at all?” I don’t know what it’s like to have a sibling, but I can’t imagine not wanting to see them, especially if both our parents were dead. “Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“But you miss them.”
“I miss one of them.” Andre pulls me closer. “Beck. He was my closest friend as a child.”
There’s something in Andre’s expression that squeezes my chest tight. “Where is he now?”
“Miami.”
“What does he do in Miami?”
Andre’s voice is quiet when he finally answers me. “Pretends I don’t exist.”
