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“Well, I’d better get back in that queue.”
“Jesse, please,” he said, putting a hand on his arm to stop him from rising. “Here.” He pushed his untouched glass across the table. “We can share this one.”
Jesse muttered under his breath, sipped from the glass, feeling the sweet drink unknot some of the tension in his back. He slid it back across the table to his brother. “So what did you want to talk about?”
Anton spun the glass in his fingers but didn’t drink. He stared hard at the table. “I wanted to apologize.”
Jesse blinked. “You did?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.” His brother finally looked at him. There were shadows under his dark green eyes and stubble on his jaw. Jesse noticed he’d lost some weight. Concern bloomed in his gut, but he held his brother’s gaze without speaking. “I know I’ve been a bit of a dick, Jess. And Dad dying isn’t really an excuse.”
“Well,” Jesse said awkwardly, “it is…really.”
“No, it’s not. I just worry about you…every day.”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Ant. I’m not a kid.”
“I know you’re not.” He sipped his drink. “It’s just taken me a while to realize that. And Dad? Well”—he shrugged—“perhaps you were right about him not being the greatest role model where handling emotion was concerned.”
“You think?”
Anton clenched his jaw a moment but then smiled. “Yeah, maybe not.”
“Okay,” Jesse said, reaching for the drink. “Was that it?”
“No,” Anton said, sitting straighter. “I wanted to say I’m sorry, yes, but I also wanted to say I’m not going to push you anymore.”
“Push me?”
“About your choices. About your decisions to keep things private.” He drummed his fingers on the table, staring hard at the surface and not at Jesse. “If you don’t want to share everything about your life, that’s up to you. But you should just know I can’t help you with anything I don’t know about.”
“I don’tneedhelp, Anton.”
“Sareena told me…about the adoption certificate.” He met Jesse’s eyes. Jesse felt the blood drain from his face. “Don’t be mad at her. We don’t keep things from each other.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Well, don’t be scared, then,” he said. “I told you. I’m gonna trust you to make your own decisions—and that they are the right ones.”
Jesse regarded him levelly. “You on drugs or something?”
“No,” Anton said easily. “I’ve just realized this is better for you, better for me, better for Oliver.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Guilt soured the mead in his gut.
“But—”
Jesse sighed. “I knew there’d be a ‘but’.”
“But…” Anton continued, firmly, “you know this goes both ways, right? I trust you to do the right thing. That means you gotta do it.”
“Yeah, I get it, Ant,” he said, a little testily. “Wanna get it tattooed on my arse?”
“I didn’t think there was any space left down there,” he said with a strained grin. “And swiftly changing that subject, we’d like to have you for Christmas.”
Jesse blinked. Warmth blossomed in his chest. “For real?”
“For real. Oliver wants you there.Iwant you there.”
