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“No. I was young. I barely remember your father’s funeral.”
“Too bad,” Asher said, his face crumpling briefly before he caught hold of his emotions. “Because you won’t remember how I didn’t cry. I was happy. Glad he wouldn’t live with us anymore. But then my mother married that dick from Philly and, well, let’s just say Mom’s attracted to a certain kind of cruelty.”
“I’m sorry, Asher. I never realized, but that’s no reason—”
“Why would you? And who cares. It made me who I was. Ambitious, hard, and sometimes cruel. You know what I’m talking about because you’re the same way. It’s why you never squealed like a little bitch when Elsa ended up in my bed. All part of the game. All part of being a pawn to life. I’m just checkmated right now, huh?” Asher closed his eyes and shook his head. The action caused him to fall to the side. “Whoa, I’m a little drunk.”
Brennan rose and walked to the window. Was he like Asher? He didn’t want to think so, but here he stood on Christmas Eve—a cold, hard man shutting the world out, refusing to hold on to the one soft thing that made him want to be more. The one woman who made him a better man. “I’m not like you.”
“Huh?”
“Me. I’m not like you.”
“Of course you are. Look at you. Look at me. We’re alone.Alone.”
Those awful words smacked Brennan harder than if Asher had punched him in the chest. He’d always been alone on Christmas—it was what he preferred.
Is it really?
Brennan shook his head, willing that little voice to go away.
You push everyone away.
You used the excuse of Mary Paige cheating to sideline your romance. So you wouldn’t get hurt. So you wouldn’t have to feel anything.
“Come raise a glass with me, cousin.” Asher slurred even more, sounding sleepy in fact.
“I’ve had enough,” Brennan murmured, wondering whether he meant the alcohol or the life he clung to…which was no life at all. Not without love.
“I’m still thirsty,” Asher protested, his eyes closing as his head sagged against the upholstered headboard. “Wanna make it go away…”
Brennan stood there, a solitary sober figure in the lonely hotel room, and felt nothing but regret.
Regret for the man his cousin had become. Regret for the youth he had been and the admiration he’d once had for Asher. And regret that he, Brennan Henry, would ignore love in favor of…
He didn’t even have an answer to why he held his heart so tightfisted. A person couldn’t use his past as a reason to grow into a robot with nothing more than switches, gears, and whatever else made robots function. At some point, if a man wanted to live, he had to know love.
He had to show love.
A random Bible verse filtered into his mind—and the greatest of these is charity.
Charity.
Love for his fellow man.
Brennan had experienced it these past few weeks, and now his soul craved a better purpose.
And his heart craved Mary Paige.
Asher started snoring, forcing Brennan’s attention to the man who had unintentionally proven what a future was when one lived for oneself, not bothering to open the door for anything other than self-serving opportunities.
Brennan didn’t want to be like Asher.
Didn’t want to end up drunk and alone on Christmas Eve with no one to love but himself. He wouldn’t let the ignorance and want in his soul win.
He walked to his cousin, who had virtually passed out, pulled the folded coverlet at the foot of the bed over him and turned off the bedside lamp. Brennan felt nothing but sorrow…and a smidgen of rage at the man who had hoodwinked him, who had seen Elsa as a game to be won, who had no doubt played the same game with Mary Paige. And Brennan was the bigger fool because he’d fallen for it, believing the degenerate over the woman he loved.
“Merry Christmas, Asher. You miserable bastard.”
