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“You’re really a jerk. What’s wrong with me? I love a jerk.”
“Promise?”
“A hundred times over.”
“I love you right back.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, but just the once. That’s all you need.”
forty-four
Kylian
If there’s one thing I know about myself beyond anything else, it’s this… well, actually, make that two things: one, I love Kiara with every fucking cell in my body, and two, I fucking hate being stuck in a hospital. And it’s worse when your whole family is there, the people who know you best, who know that you can't and shouldn’t be talking for a few days.
I’ll take a fucking bullet to my right nut before I choose to be stuck in a bed again while my brothers take turns roasting me so hard that I feel like a rotisserie chicken, well and truly skewered on a metal pole.
But that behavior is par for the course. Especially since they were paying me back for being so worried and having to drop everything going on in their lives to be by my side. Well, not Matthias, he doesn’t have anything going on in his life. Ever. But say he did, he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid to rush to me. That’s what we do, that’s what we’ve always done, and it’ll be a cold, frigid, day in hell before anything will change.
What was the surprise was when, after a day of lying there taking the abuse from my brothers, everyone had turned toward the door. Then, as if rehearsed, they’d cleared their throats and made up excuses to leave. When they were all done, someone came back into my room.
Nathan.
“Hey,” he says. His face unreadable.
“Hey,” I respond, even though it feels like someone is stabbing me in the chest with a rusty fireplace poker. But if there ever was a time to make an effort, it feels like this would be it.
“You look worse than that time we ended up in jail in Tijuana, wearing a table cloth as a toga.”
I laugh, and it ends up in a hacking cough.
“Stop that. You’re not supposed to be talking or coughing or anything like that.”
“Then don’t make me laugh,” I whisper.
“I wasn’t, I was reminding you of what happened last time we both royally fucked up.”
We had both done our part in that particular adventure almost ten years ago. I shouldn’t have thought that I could talk us into a back room poker game, and he shouldn’t have tried to hustle them when we got there. That time Matthias had had to come down and save both of our asses. Supposed to. He ended up in that prison cell right with us, having tried to hit on the pretty woman standing in front of the police station who turned out to be the police chief’s daughter. One day later, they got tired of the three of us constantly talking and dumped us at the U.S. border in the dead of night. When we finally found a motel to check into, I’d almost fainted at my reflection. It had been one of the best times of my whole entire life.
“Last time?” I croak.
“Yeah. As opposed to this time.” He walks up to the bed, and bangs the side of his fist gently on the bed rail. “You fucked up. Like, we’ve had more scraps like Tijuana where I thought we were going to actually die, but, this time, this stuff with Kiara, this is the most you’ve ever fucked up.”
I don’t have to say anything. I know I did. I was too wrapped up in trying to make it work with her, I forgot how much I was supposed to be trying to making it work with my best friend as well.
“You hurt me. You hurt me because you should’ve come talk to me. This time and five years ago. I wouldn’t have wanted you to date her, I don’t want that now, but at least I wouldn’t have to feel like you two thought so fucking little of me, that you thought I’d try to come between you if you’d given me the respect of talking to me. It hurt, man. It fucking hurt.”
“I’m sorry.” The pain doesn’t come from the trachea this time, it comes from my heart. He’s right. I should’ve known better.
“But I fucked up. I know I did. I reacted… badly. God, you don’t even want to know the things I said to her. And… I want you to know, I’ve talked to her about the stuff I said in London. I don’t think it was all… lies, but at least she knows that I said it out of hurt. And that you couldn't be a playboy even if you tried.” He ends it with a chuckle.
I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling. Gratitude. Relief. Happiness?
“Thank you.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I hate to hell and back, the thought of you and her… dating. Like I hate it with a searing passion. But, that’s my own shit. Just… you know… try to keep it to yourselves, at least for a bit. I don’t need to see my best friend’s tongue in my little sister’s mouth.”
