The Better Man (Allen Brothers Series Book 2)

by Barbie Bohrman

  “Look, we’re on our way there right now. Please meet us there as soon as possible, okay?”

  I was busy flagging down the taxi and getting my ass inside and didn’t answer Trevor right away.

  “Max, did you hear me?!” he shouted.

  “Yeah, I heard you. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  He hung up. No good-bye, no, I’ll see you later, no nothing.

  This was bad.

  I knew it in my bones.

  Arriving at Jack and Avery’s house just over ten minutes later, I threw some money at the cab driver and didn’t bother to ask for change. I practically ran from the cab up the steps and pushed open the door. Inside, the lights were all on and in their living room Trevor was pacing back and forth.

  “Jack just left,” he told me. “Veronica’s upstairs with the girls.”

  “Oookay, and now can you tell me what the fuck is going on around here?”

  He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Max, I’m not sure of all the details, but from what I understand, Avery was involved in some sort of attack from a patient tonight.”

  “Holy shit! Is she okay?!”

  “Honestly? I don’t know,” he answered. “But it was obviously serious enough that they called Jack and asked him to come down there himself.”

  Looking around the room, my eyes zeroed in on a bunch of photos in mismatched frames on the fireplace mantle. It always drove my parents fucking nuts, especially my mother, to see all the different frames. It brought the tiniest hint of a smile to my face in the midst of this craziness.

  “Fuck me, and you said he just left?” I asked Trevor.

  We both looked up at the sound of feet coming down the stairs. Veronica was trying to be quiet and had her fingers to her lips to shush us.

  In a loud whisper, she told us, “Guys, the twins finally fell back to sleep, but I’m not sure how long they’re going to stay that way.”

  She went straight to Trevor’s side, where he pulled her close to him and kissed the crown of her head. “Thanks, babe.”

  I sat down on the window seat, blankly staring out onto the street as Trevor and Veronica took the big couch. We were in it for the long haul, waiting for who knew how long until we got word from Jack. And if there was one thing I hated, it was waiting…for anything or anyone. I was anything but patient. When I was a kid, I remember my brothers having to explain to me over and over that Christmas only came once a year. It drove them crazy that the concept just wouldn’t click for me. Finally, they took it upon themselves to make it Christmas during the summer for me because I wouldn’t stop whining about how long it took for the real thing to get here.

  As I recalled some of my past childhood makeshift Christmases, my fingers started tapping out the theme song to Frosty the Snowman against the frame of the window seat. I kept doing it over and over to distract myself from waiting.

  “Cut it out, Max. It’s driving me fucking crazy.”

  Looking at Trevor over my shoulder, I saw that he wasn’t kidding around. He wouldn’t even crack a smile. I wasn’t exactly in the happiest of moods either, but this waiting around was for the goddamn birds.

  “Oh shit, I almost forgot! Daphne can tell us what’s happening with Avery,” I said, hurriedly going through my pockets to find my cellphone.

  “How can she do that?” Veronica asked and then looking to Trevor, asked him, “I didn’t know Avery and Daphne were friends, did you?”

  “No clue, babe. Max, do you care to elaborate on how they know each other?”

  “Long story,” I mumbled. “After I get Daph on the phone, I’ll explain. Stand by.”

  My first call ended up going to voicemail. Before I tried again, I told Trevor and Veronica the very, very abbreviated version of how Daphne was at the same hospital as Avery tonight…or today, this morning, whatever time of day it technically was. Understandably, I was a bit out of it when it came to figuring out what exact time of day it was after having pretty much pulled an all-nighter. I tried calling her one more time and she answered. She was hysterical; practically hyperventilating and I couldn’t make out one word of what she was trying to say.

  “Daph, sweetheart,” I told her as calmly as possible. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  Glancing over at Trevor and Veronica, they whispered between themselves like a couple of teenagers who had busted their parents saying sweet-nothings to each other. Rolling my eyes and ignoring them, I got up and went to the kitchen for some privacy.

  “Okay, take a big breath in, Daphne.”

  I could hear an intake of breath so loud through a sequence of hiccupping that had her on the brink of losing her shit again. It was starting to freak me the fuck out. Seriously, when she left my place a few hours ago, I was under the impression everything was cool with her brother.

  Daphne got her voice back long enough to say in a quiet, eerily alarming voice, “Max, something terrible has happened.”

  “Sweetheart, is your brother okay?” She had me panicking too and imagining the worst about her brother. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s not about Eddie, it’s Avery.”

  “What about Avery?” I asked and then rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to make sense of what Daphne was saying. “Is she okay? Can you tell me what happened to her? My brother just left his place because we got a call saying he had to come down there and—,”

  “She’s gone, Max.”

  “What do you mean she’s gone? Jack is on his way to meet her and—,”

  “She’s dead,” she cried, her voice collapsing with emotion. “She’s gone. I’m so sorry, Max.”

  “Stop fucking around, Daphne, it’s not funny!”

  Her crying was so loud and so guttural that I knew she couldn’t have heard me. All at once, I felt the blood rush from my face. A fear so real, so fucking terrifying settled into the pit of my stomach. I dropped the phone down onto the ground with a loud a clatter that would have woken up everyone in the house. Grabbing the edge of the kitchen counter, I heard myself repeating the word “no,” over and over.

  Trevor came into view out of nowhere it seemed and tried to make sense of what was going on. The words just wouldn’t come from me. I tried talking, but it was of no fucking use. My brain, my emotions, my entire world was all over the place. Veronica followed soon after and picked up my phone from the counter. In a matter of seconds, the look of shock and horror on their faces was enough to confirm that Daphne wasn’t messing with me at all.

  What we were able to piece together from Veronica’s conversation with Daphne was that her brother’s friend, Joey —in an attempt to get out of going to jail for stealing a car— decided it would be a really fucking good idea to try and escape from the emergency room. Avery thought she could help mediate the escalating tension between the cops and Joey. And that’s the best part, because as soon as I heard this bit of information, I smiled a little because that is exactly what Avery would want to do. She was always the type of person to try help anyone in need. And it appeared as if her final breaths on this Earth were because she was as fucking selfless as ever. The rest of what happened and the exact details were a bit sketchy since no one could tell us how Joey ended up with a gun from one of the security guards that was working tonight. All we were sure of was that Joey tried using Avery as a hostage and gain some leverage with the cops. But that just made everything worse. Apparently things quickly got out of hand once he must have realized he wasn’t going anywhere but jail. Instead, he shot Avery in the head, point blank range and she died instantly. And then he was shot twice and killed immediately afterwards.

  All of that for nothing and for some reason I was hoping that it was a dream and that I was still in my bed about to awoken. But this wasn’t a dream that I could just wake up from.

  This was a real fucking nightmare.

  The next couple of days were a blur.

  A complete and utter fucking blur that I wished I could erase. I barely knew if I a
s up or down. I was going through the motions and keeping myself together by sheer force of will. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost my shit on more than one occasion and my memory from that day was scattered at best.

  When Jack eventually arrived back from the hospital he looked like he had seen a ghost. He was a shell of himself, a literal walking zombie. He hadn’t breathed a word to anyone. It was just as well, because the fucking outcome would still be the same…Avery was gone. Isabelle and Annabelle were jumping up and down at seeing their dad like it was any other day. They didn’t have a clue that their world was about to be turned upside down. Jack scooped them up in his arms, both of them hanging onto him like little monkeys, giggling all the way as he carried them up to his bedroom. It hadn’t taken long for us to know the exact moment Jack told the girls what had happened. The crying and pleading for their mother could be heard a mile away. And from where I was in the kitchen, it was fucking torture hearing the twins wail as their hearts were breaking. If I went the rest of my life not ever hearing my nieces crying like that again, it would be too soon, because it broke me too.

  After a stretch of time that was too quiet, honestly, I couldn’t remember if it was an hour or two, or maybe more than that, we all thought it would be a good idea if someone checked on Jack and the girls. Between us, we thought it was best if Trev was the one to do the checking. When he came back downstairs, Trevor hadn’t said a word. He grabbed a hold of Veronica and hugged her to him. She started crying again and then Trevor was crying. I couldn’t remember the last time I had ever seen either of my brothers in tears.

  It turned me inside out.

  I felt myself slowly losing it, so much so, that I ended up walking straight out of Jack’s house. It was the only thing I could do to keep myself together at that point. I kind of remember walking around Jack and Avery’s Upper West Side neighborhood and eventually, I stumbled into Central Park. How long I sat on that park bench and stared out into the void, I had no fucking idea. I had shut off my phone and wouldn’t dare turn it back on until I could get the thoughts in my head straight. That was the problem though…I couldn’t make sense of any of this craziness. Why the fuck would this happen to Avery?! Out of all the people in this world, why her?!

  It wasn’t fair.

  Not even by a long shot.

  Somehow I ended up back at my apartment that night. I couldn’t recall how I arrived exactly, but once I was there, I let every emotion go that I had been holding onto. I cried for the first time that night since I was a little boy. I cried and cried like a fucking baby wanting their mother. And that’s when it had hit me. Losing Avery made me feel like I had lost my own mother. Yes, our parents were still around, but they were never “parents” in the true sense of the word. They would probably be more concerned about how their “friends and acquaintances” were going to respond to the fact that Avery was working in a hospital in Queens when this happened to her, rather than express true compassion and remorse over her loss.

  The closest thing to family I had ever known were my brothers of course…and since she came into our lives, Avery. She was like the mom I never knew existed growing up. She always watched out for all of us. She made me feel like I wasn’t just the littlest Allen brother; the runt of the asshole litter. No. She made me feel like a part of the family and that someone was looking out for me even though I was a grown-ass man.

  But all of that was gone. And my nieces…when they popped into my head, it was like the pain started all over again from fucking scratch. That pain stayed with me through that first night and into the second day, carrying it with me in my chest like my fucking heart was literally breaking.

  In those first couple of days, I would be forever grateful to my soon to be sister-in-law, Veronica, Trevor’s fiancé. She was the glue that held us Allen boys together while we rode out the storm. And it was Veronica who showed up at my apartment on my second day of zombiedom and forced me to adult. Actually, what she said to me was something I’ll never forget.

  “Avery would be so fucking disappointed in you, Max. Your nieces need you to step it up and be the uncle they deserve. And your brother Jack needs you now more than ever. I don’t give a damn if I’m hurting your feelings. I don’t give a damn that you have this exciting television career and you’re semi-famous around here. What I do give a damn about is Isabelle and Annabelle…and how they’re wondering where the hell their mother is while you’re over here feeling sorry for yourself. Suck it up and get your shit together because those girls need you. Your brothers need you. And dammit, I need you.”

  Yeah, that speech was enough to shake the fucking cobwebs out of my head and see what was most important right now: family.

  My family always came first for me. And Veronica was absolutely right; family should continue to come first for me. So, I sucked it up and started to make like I was going to leave right then and there with her and head over to Jack’s place.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Veronica said with a hint of a smile. She delicately placed a manicured fingernail in the middle of my chest. “You’re going to have to at least take a quick shower or something before hitting the road.”

  She had a point. I hadn’t showered in two days. I hadn’t eaten anything other than a bowl or two of cereal during that time either. I quickly gave myself a whiff, and yeah, I was pretty damn ripe. My stomach also picked that exact moment to start grumbling and cave in on itself.

  “You haven’t eaten either, have you?” she asked me.

  “I was just about to make a—,”

  “Stop right there, Max. I’m going to have to ask you not to lie to me since I know you probably weren’t going to be making yourself anything to eat any time soon.”

  She was good. Too good. It was kind of scary how “on” Veronica was. At that moment I both envied Trevor for having found someone who could keep him on his toes. But I also kind of felt sorry for the poor bastard.

  During our cab ride, Veronica was combing through her cellphone. Angrily, she turned to me and said, “You can turn your cell back on at any time now, too. We’ve all been trying to get a hold of you for the last couple of days.”

  “Oh shit, sorry. I just—,”

  “No, I get it, I do, Max. It’s just that I don’t want you to be freaked out when you see all the missed phone calls and messages on your phone, okay? You’ve been warned.”

  She went back to scrolling through her phone as I picked my ass up a bit to slide mine out of my back jeans pocket. Sure enough, once it was turned on, it kept on vibrating over and over as notification after notification was received in the order they had been sent. It was fucking crazy how many missed calls I had. Not to mention the text messages from people I hadn’t heard from in years expressing their condolences.

  Within the deluge of messages, I saw that Adam had reached out to pass on his condolences as well as Oliver. Thank God, because I had totally blanked the fuck out when it came time to being fucking responsible. Daphne must have stepped in and gotten in touch with Oliver herself because his message said he wouldn’t expect me in the office until next week.

  Daphne…

  That was another person who had left me messages…quite a few of them.

  “Daphne’s tried to get in touch with you…with Jack too,” Veronica told me as she spied over my shoulder. “I told her that you’d be calling her soon. Sorry, I didn’t know what else to tell her.”

  “How did she get your number? Or Jack’s even?”

  Veronica worried her lip a little. “She didn’t. Daphne went to Jack and Trevor’s office. Jessica, their assistant knew who she was —she watches your show, big fan, by the way. Anyway, she gave Daphne the phone number for Jack’s house and our place too.”

  It wasn’t sitting well with me that Daphne had done any of that. From what we were told, if it wasn’t for Daphne’s little brother and his friend, Avery would still be here. It was their fault she was dead. The friend may have pulled the fucking trigger, but maybe if they weren’t in
the goddamn hospital to begin with, Avery would still be alive.

  “She called Jack?” I asked.

  Veronica shook her head. “No, but she called our apartment late yesterday afternoon.”

  “What did she say to you? Did she say talk to Trev?”

  “Trev wasn’t home…he was with your brother. And it wasn’t bad or anything like that. She’s been really worried about all of us. She wanted to talk to you herself but—,”

  “To hell with that. Maybe she ought to concern herself more with her little brother because that little piece of shit ruined my family.”

  “Take it easy there, Max. You don’t really believe that, right?” Veronica asked. I couldn’t bring myself to even answer her. It had been pissing me off by the second thinking about how Avery was put in the crosshairs of a situation that she shouldn’t have been in the first place. “Never mind. Listen, I don’t know what was going on between you and Daphne, but it sounds like you need to talk to her yourself and straighten things out.”

  Veronica went back to checking her phone while I sat and stared out the taxicab window getting more upset. Leaning forward, I rested my head against the glass and closed my eyes. I wanted to hate Daphne and her brother for what had happened…and was still happening to my family. I knew it was a visceral reaction and not her fault, sure. But it made my blood fucking boil over thinking of how that juvenile delinquent murdered my sister-in-law in cold blood. Avery was gone and never coming back. Yet Daphne’s little brother was able to live and breathe and go on with his fucking life.

  It wasn’t fair. Not by a long shot.

  And as far as being together in a relationship and picking up where we left off, I couldn’t imagine it happening for us now. I couldn’t begin to fathom how that would affect Jack and my nieces. How would I explain who she was to my nieces or anyone else for that matter? Yeah, the television show was how we “knew” each other and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity just as Oliver had promised me. But I wasn’t so sure I wanted any part of the show or Daphne after what had happened. It was giving me a fucking headache that wasn’t being helped along by riding in the back of a New York City taxicab. I was feeling too raw right now to contemplate anything, much less Daphne or the show.