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And it didn’t change a damn thing that the cake was wonderful, and so was she.
Because he was Angus McCloud. Angus Evander McCloud, chip off the old fucking block.
The boy who’d been left to heal from all those burns, and God help him if he’d healed twisted. Who’d been left with no one, and nothing.
So no. He didn’t worry about the taint of his father’s blood swimming through his veins. He just worried about the fact that the temper was there. That his own conviction in his rightness was enough to blot out everything else.
He wasn’t his dad; that would be a cop-out. He was himself. Filled with all the rage that his life had instilled in him, and he knew just how big the anger was. How bad it could be.
And those were things his brothers didn’t know about themselves.
Brody might worry. He might worry what their father had seen in him. But Brody had never tested it.
Gus had.
They might see him as a hero. But he couldn’t see himself that way.
The only good thing was that in the end of all things, he had protected them. Was that he had done the best he could for them.
That he never hurt any of his brothers.
But he had to watch himself. He had to.
That day he’d sent his father to the hospital. And that day he’d made a decision. To disengage any of the emotion that was left in him.
Because he had to. Because he had no other choice.
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” he said.
They didn’t touch, but they sat next to each other, eating the cake.
Nelly was sitting on Tag’s lap. Public gestures like that weren’t really in Elsie and Hunter’s wheelhouse. Something Gus was grateful for. Because any more of those displays and what was on edge inside of him was going to get pushed over completely.
And when they were finished, everyone said their goodbyes, and he got up and started putting plates in the sink.
Then he filled up the sink with water, and started to wash them.
Alaina came in a moment later. “Oh. I didn’t think you...did kitchen things.”
“You were going to teach me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t need to be taught how to do this. It’s pretty self-explanatory. I used to do the dishes for my mom.”
And then he realized what he’d said and looked back down in the sink.
“Oh.”
“I mean, once the place was mine I just started using paper all the time. And I don’t cook so...”
“Sorry,” she said. “I...”
“Don’t apologize for doing something nice.”
It was a weird thing, this distant space. Because he wanted to be grateful for what she’d done. But he also felt intoxicated by her nearness. By the fact that he found her so beautiful. By...everything.
