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“But you didn’t. Or, you haven’t yet. Why is that?” I asked as I tilted my head in thought. “Normally, you are quick to brash action, but instead of cutting off my dick, you’re here, talking about it.” The Gareth of old would never have stopped to have a conversation, even if the conversation involved a lot of yelling and threat-like glares.
Gareth’s nostrils flared, his teeth grinding. I could tell he wanted to lash out, that he was probably thinking of cutting into me right now, but he managed to hold himself back and push off my desk, once again sitting in the same leather chair he’d occupied before his little outburst.
“I told her I wouldn’t kill you,” he muttered with a frown, “or Rick.”
“And you want to keep your word to her?”
It was a good thing looks couldn’t kill, because I’d be a goner right then. Although, if looks could indeed kill, I’d have been a goner a long time ago. “Yeah, isn’t it fucking crazy?” Gareth sounded bitter at that, bitter but resigned. “I don’t know what kind of magic your old man dick has, but—”
“I’m not old,” I cut in, unable to stop myself. I was thirty-five. Old in his terms, I supposed, but not completely ancient. Old enough that Brianna should be off-limits to me in every single way.
“You’re old to me, and you’re old to her, even if she doesn’t say it out loud. Oh, and in case you forgot, you’re married to her fuckingmom,” Gareth reminded me, as if I’d forgotten the band around my left ring finger. “Banging the mom and the daughter. Never knew you were such a kinky fuck, Uncle.”
I touched the wedding band, spinning it around on my finger. “Not that it’s any of your business, of course, but I am not, as you put it, banging the mom and the daughter. I did what I had to in order to bring Brianna here, but now… I don’t want Nicole, if you must know.”
To my surprise, the knowledge that I was not having sex with Nicole and Brianna at the same time made Gareth visibly relax. His shoulders fell somewhat, and he let out a long breath, his fingers no longer picking at the armrests. “Well, I guess that’s good, at least. Let’s circle back to what I said before. Did you bring Brianna here for me, or for you?”
My silence was my answer, and Gareth barked out a laugh. He shook his head and muttered, “I can’t fucking believe this. All this time, I thought she was your way of trying to get me to change, to behave, when in reality, she was all for you.”
“I wanted her to be for you,” I told him, holding his stare, meaning every single word I spoke. I never blew smoke up Gareth’s ass, never told him what he wanted to hear. Only the truth. “She was supposed to be for you, not for me.”
“Then what the hell?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you with a woman before, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying on their part. Anytime we went anywhere, to any event or fundraiser or ribbon cutting or what the fuck ever, women were all over you. Even married ones, and you not once showed interest in any of them. I thought you weren’t interested in that sort of thing.”
“I’m not,” I quickly said, but then I corrected myself, “I wasn’t.” Dating Nicole, feigning interest with her… being with her in more intimate ways… let’s just say the honeymoon had involved a lot of alcohol on both our parts. I didn’t often drink, but sometimes crutches were necessary. Sometimes you needed a little help to get out of your own skin.
The bodily pleasures of being human had never really interested me. I understood it’s what people did when they were in love or when they simply wanted to, but I’d never gotten to that point myself. When it was time to romance Nicole, I’d had to do a lot of research into what women liked, watch a lot of videos I’d prefer not to think about again.
But when it came to Brianna… it was so hard to explain. It was like everything was different, the world shifted around me and suddenly made sense. I found myself wanting the one girl I shouldn’t, craving the touch of her soft skin against mine, needing to hear the sweet moans she could make while she submitted to me. It was like I turned into a whole different person when I was with her, and if you put a gun to my head and demanded to know why, you’d have to shoot me, because I wouldn’t have an answer.
“But you are now,” Gareth spoke, cutting into my thoughts.
“Only with her,” I whispered, though I knew it would do nothing to lessen the jealousy and rage Gareth felt toward me for daring to want the same girl as him. “I chose her for you, but… somewhere along the way, lines got blurry.”
Gareth glared. “I fucked her first.”
“This isn’t a competition, Gareth.”
“No, but if it was, I’d win, because I fucked her first.” He leaned forward on the chair, smirking at me, though that smirk barely concealed the rage he held toward me and this whole situation. “Do you know how I did it? It was all thanks to your advice. I held her down and gave her no choice. Even then, she enjoyed herself plenty, if you know what I mean.”
I was fairly certain I did, in fact, know what Gareth meant, but I wasn’t certain what the point of telling me this was. Did he think he could make me envious? Was he trying to rub it in my face that he had her first?
When I didn’t say anything in return, Gareth hissed out a breath. “You know, for the longest time, I thought I was just like you. I didn’t give a shit about girls. I only really cared about painting—” He paused. “—and blood. Blood and painting, painting and blood. That was it. But then Brianna came strolling into the picture, and everything changed.”
I watched Gareth as he looked down at his knees, the anger fading on his face, replaced by something else, a thoughtfulness he didn’t typically have. He went on, “She was supposed to be a toy. That’s what I thought she was in the beginning, someone I could hurt, keep the pain in-house. Someone I could break. And I wanted to—I wanted to do all that and more, to spite her and you at the same time. But now, now I just want her.”
Gareth had turned a complete one-eighty, and I sat there, surprised. I didn’t know what to say, not right away, but as I sat there, studying my nephew, the person I’d done everything I could to protect his whole eighteen years of life, it hit me.
“Do you love her?” I asked, phrasing it as a question even though I already knew.
He looked up at me. “Do you?” The question was a heavy one, one that had no right to weigh on me. “Can people like us love? You’re the smart one. Why don’t you tell me the answer?”
“I think we can. I think, maybe, we don’t give people like us enough credit.” I didn’t know if Gareth believed me or agreed with me, but he didn’t argue, so I’d take that as a good sign. I remembered what Rick had told me before, how he wasn’t going to stop going after her, even if Gareth didn’t want him to. Even if I didn’t want him to.
My face must’ve said it all, because Gareth asked, “What?”
“Rick told me he’s not going to stop chasing after her, that he won’t give up. Is that what you want me to say?” I held my nephew’s stare. “Do you want me to say it as well, or do you want me to say I’ll back off? That she belongs to you and you alone, that I have no right to her.” The words were true, but that didn’t make them cut through me any less.
Gareth’s lips thinned into a line. He seemed unamused by the whole thing, and under his breath he muttered, “Never thought I’d share a girl with my uncle. Hell, I never thought I’d want a girl so badly in the first place. And I definitely never thought if Ididwant a girl that badly, she’d want my old-ass uncle as much as she wants me. Both my uncles. Can’t forget Mr. Deputy at the sheriff’s office.”
