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I was such a dick.
The rest of the night had been a slow torture. Silas had sat between Ruby and my mum, keeping both entertained with stories from our last tour. I noticed he didn’t mention our onstage kiss, and neither did they.
Dad, Louis, Mia, and Duncan had gone out of their way to make Tristan feel welcome, asking him questions about films he’d been in and actors he’d met.
Me? I’d spent the entire meal watching Silas interact with Mum and Ruby. A bittersweet reminder of how much I loved him being here. Where he should be.
I was what was wrong with this picture. I never should’ve thrown his words back in his face. I should’ve sent Tristan away tonight.
Fuck. My mistakes started decades ago, right around the time I decided not to be honest with Silas about how I felt.
Who knew how much time we’d lost?
Silas had tried to dip out after the restaurant, citing an early morning as an excuse. Ruby and Mum had had none of it, though, practically frog-marching him back to one of the cars.
As was our birthday tradition, the meal was followed by several rounds of Monopoly at my parents’ kitchen table. I watched Silas like a hawk, waiting for him to go to the toilet or stretch his legs…anything where I could catch him alone.
But he never moved from his spot between Ruby and Mia, directly opposite me. He focused on the game in front of him, laughing in all the right places, teasing my family as he usually would.
Did they see how he was only going through the motions? Did they recognise that Silas wasn’t himself? That he couldn’t bring himself to look at or talk to me?
“You okay?” Tristan whispered, nudging me with an elbow.
My head swivelled to look at him, another whack of guilt hitting me as I realised how much I’d ignored him all night. “Yeah…I’m sorry. I’m terrible.”
“You’re not,” he said softly, keeping his voice low so no one else could hear. He rested his hand on my arm and squeezed. “It’s complicated. I can see that now.”
I gave him a grateful smile for his understanding. But when I returned to the game, I saw Silas had finally looked up at me.
Just in time to see me smiling at Tristan.
“Right, I think I’m off to bed,” he announced, getting to his feet and brushing down his jeans. “Sorry guys, touring takes it out of me.”
“You’ve been back for four months,” Mia protested, missing the obvious tension in the room.
He ruffled her hair, giving her a small smile. “I’m old now. Gotta get that beauty sleep in.”
I scrambled to my feet. “Si, wait.”
He didn’t stop, marching for the door and heading towards the stairs. “Too tired, let’s talk tomorrow.”
I flinched, hating that he was walking away from me. But could I really blame him, given how often I’d done the same to him recently?
I walked to the bottom of the stairs, hovering there for a moment. Should I go after him when he’d made it clear he didn’t want to talk right now?
Before I could decide, a hand landed on my shoulder, making me jump. “Help me with something in the garage, Kai?”
I nodded numbly at my dad’s request, following him silently through the door that led into the garage. It wasn’t used to hold cars. Instead, it was an overspill space for my parents’ hobbies. Now they were both retired, they had taken up various projects. On one side was my dad’s Warhammer collection while on the other was a variety of storage bins filled with Mum’s yarn.
“What did you need help with?”
“Well, you can start with what’s going on with you and Silas.”
I leaned against the worktop and sighed. “I didn’t realise you’d noticed.”
He grunted, mirroring my pose against the opposite counter. “You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. Tell me what you’ve done wrong.”
“Why do you assume it’s me that’s the problem?”
