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“Please don’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
She squinted and frowned. “It’s a sore spot, okay?”
“Okay.” There was no sound for a while, just the tires on the road. “Okay,” he said again. “I just need to know one thing.”
“Okay,” she said, exasperated now. “What?”
“Are you in love with my brother?”
“No,”she said. “He’s marrying my best friend.”
“Is she still your best friend?”
“Yes. She’s my best friend. Yes, the whole thing was not great. But I got over it. And I’m certainly not hanging on to it now that they’re getting married. Anyway, what would it matter if I was in love with him?”
“A man can tolerate a lot of things, Alaina. But his wife being in love with his brother is not one of them.”
“I’m not a wife you want to sleep with,” she said crisply.
He didn’t say anything. She looked over at him, saw a muscle in his jaw jump. The muscles in his forearms flexing. “It’s a pride thing.”
“Oh. Sorry. I guess I just don’t see how pride fits in all this. But I’m not a man. So I’m not ridiculous.”
He laughed. “You’re not ridiculous?”
“I mean, maybe we’re both ridiculous. We’re driving out to a town that’s three hours away to go and grab some jewelry for a wedding that we’re having in three days. For a marriage that isn’t even...”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“For the house. For anything. Everything. The house is yours, like I said. All I know how to do is make frozen pizza. I never much learned my way around the kitchen. But that was the kind of thing my dad said was for wimps. So... I’ve suffered these long years.”
“You expect me to cook for you.”
“Yeah. In exchange for my protection, my house and all of my money. Seems fair.”
“Fine. Your dad really didn’t want you to know how to cook?”
“I think defining those kinds of things was one of the ways that he kept my mother with him. Women’s work and all that. Things he didn’t know how to do. He could be charming sometimes. At least, there was a time when he could be. I think toward the end there he quit bothering. Once my mom was gone. There was never any effort. With her it was an endless cycle. Apologies and helplessness. Before the violence started again. Yeah, he beat that shit into us. Mostly, though, I... Cooking in the kitchen reminds me of her and I don’t like it.”
She’d never really talked to Gus like this. Like they were...equals, or whatever this was. Sure, his burns couldn’t be hidden. Everyone knew he’d suffered terrible abuse; it was written all over his skin. “Oh. Well, is me cooking in the kitchen going to...?”
“I’ve got demons,” he said. “I don’t pretend I don’t. That’s the thing about my brothers. They don’t look like they lived through hell. So they can smile, and they can flirt and they could do whatever the hell they want. People don’t know. They don’t know the shit that they went through. Me? Did you see the way people were staring in the store?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, they were. They will when we go out to Gold Valley too. It’s one thing to hang out in Pyrite Falls. Everybody knows me. Nobody looks at my scars anymore. I mean, you guys make fun of them sometimes, but that’s preferable to looking at me like I’m...”
Her stomach twisted in a knot. She hadn’t ever thought of that. Of people staring at Gus like that. Openly. Because they didn’t know, or because it was shocking.
But he went out of town to...to hook up. So it made her wonder...
