His hands lifted placatingly. “It’s cool if you are, man.”
“What in the hell would make you ask that?”
“What you said earlier,” he said defensively, his voice rising.
I looked around as if whatever I had said would magically appear in front of me. “The fuck did I say?”
“About that guy,” he began, voice louder still. “How he was the best guy you knew, or something like that.”
A harsh breath punched from my lungs. “And that translates to me being gay?”
“No, I—” He ran a hand over his head and exhaled roughly. “It’s that and other things.”
A disbelieving laugh left me as I tried to think of what other things could make anyone think that about me.
“Whatever happened with your girlfriend . . . you coming back. You’re locked tight about all of it and being weird as shit about it. And then you mentioned this guy, I just thought . . .” He sagged against the wall. “I don’t know. I just wanted you to know I would support you.”
“Well, as much as I appreciate that, I’m not attracted to guys.” My head shook as I bent to rest my arms on my knees again. “Jesus fucking Christ, this family,” I muttered under my breath.
“Then who is he?”
The greatest man I’ve ever known.
I let my head hang as a soul-deep ache speared my chest.
“I mean, if he taught you to cook, you must’ve been around him a lot. Yeah?” Sawyer asked, prompting me to answer when I’d spent too long lost in memories of the man.
“Yeah,” I answered. “He, uh . . . he took me in not long after I’d made it down to Houston. Helped me get the job on the rig in Port Arthur—made me work my ass off for it, but helped me.”
A smile touched my face, remembering those first months.
I’d had a chip the size of Texas on my shoulder, but he hadn’t given up on me.
Patient and tough. Compassionate and stern.
He’d taught me everything. He’d made me want to be better. Made me into the man I was today.
I owed him my life.
“He know you’re here?”
The smile slipped at Sawyer’s question, and I cast a glance in his direction. “He died a couple months ago.”
Sawyer remained silent for a moment before saying, “All that time, and you never mentioned him?”
No condolences.
Just more questions on why I did things the way I did.
“Didn’t think you’d want to know,” I said honestly and straightened when his brow drew together in question. “You saying you would’ve?”
His head moved in a slow shake as if he knew he was missing something but couldn’t figure out what. “Well, why didn’t you?”
“Everyone was blaming me for Dad’s death, and I was supposed to tell you about a man who was more of a father to me in the first few months of knowing him than dad was in nineteen years?”
Sawyer went utterly still.
His face was a mask of stone.
There was a warning that bled from him: To think carefully about what I was saying. That the ground I was walking on was dangerous. To stop before I could make this worse.
“You continued to remind me how much everyone grieved this amazing man year after year who was only ever a bastard to me, and I was supposed to tell you that I didn’t miss him at all? That I’d hated him?”
“That’s enough,” he said, voice low and lethal, but I continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“That I had someone who was teaching me how to value life and to be the person I’d always wanted to become?”
“Enough,” he barked, storming toward me.
I stood, feet grounded and hands ready, anticipating what would come next, but he stopped a foot away.
“You think Dad was a bastard?” he bit out. “You were constantly fucking up. You were always having run-ins with the law. Who wouldn’t be pissed off at a kid like that?”
“Pissed off,” I said with a deprecating laugh.
“Not even Beau would say shit like that about him, and Beau was the worst of all of us. Constantly in trouble. He almost got sent off to military camp, for Christ’s sake!”
“Not to Dad.”
“What?” he demanded roughly.
“Beau . . . he wasn’t the worst.”
“Oh, get the fuck over yourself, Cayson.” He rocked back, head moving in slow, wide shakes. “Poor, fucking Cayson. Not getting enough attention, so he does more stupid shit.” He reclaimed the step and got in my face, voice taunting and low. “But then you got that attention and . . . what? Hadn’t expected it to be punishments for your actions? Decided you couldn’t handle it, so you went off and got a new dad who would coddle you and give you the attention you wanted?”
“Yep,” I said through clenched teeth, voice surprisingly calm for how much anger swarmed my body. “You found me out. Congratulations.”
Sawyer slammed his hands into my chest, sending me back a step. “You killed our fucking dad and found a replace—”
My fist connected with his jaw before I knew I was moving.
All those phone calls and messages of those exact words. All that time spent believing them. I was bound to snap at some point.
Granted, I was sure it would’ve happened back then. Not nine and a half years later.
You killed him.
How could you?
This is all your fault.
Dad’s dead because of you.
Shoulda been you.
Shoulda been you.
Shoulda been you.
I knew I needed to rein it in. Needed to put an end to this now and try to deescalate the situation.
But when I drew my arm back and put my hands up, mouth open to apologize, Sawyer delivered a near-identical hit.
Copper filled my mouth as I struck his face again while blocking his next hit.
He hooked his leg around mine and sent us stumbling back until we hit the wall, his fist driving home into my stomach. “He’s dead because of you.”
I blocked the next one, grabbing his wrist and holding tight.
“You ruined everything,” he spat.
“You don’t know what I went through,” I ground out as I wrenched his arm back and struck near his temple.
“Oh my God, stop!”
Sawyer staggered away at Rae’s horrified voice, one hand reaching behind him, toward her, as if he could stop her from seeing this. A look of panic crossed his face when he glanced at her.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she said softly, her head shaking in disapproval and disbelief.
“Rae,” he began just as the doorbell sounded throughout the house.
With another assessing look at us both, she left.
When Sawyer twisted back to me, his face was pure rage. “Fuck you, Cays,” he said through heaving breaths that matched my own and wiped at the blood coming from his nose. “You should’ve stayed gone.”
I nodded sharply, but he was already turning away and storming from the room.
Within seconds, I was filling my bags.
In minutes, I had them in my grasp and was walking out of the room.
Past and present accusations and assumptions were swirling through my mind, screaming their torments so damn loud that I didn’t notice the voices in the living room until I was already standing in there.
Staring at wide hazel eyes and lips so damn full that were painted such a dark red. Begging me to look. To taste.
My breaths were erratic before . . . wasn’t sure I could catch them then.
My heart had been in a steady, wild beat, but I was pretty damn sure it was trying to tear from my chest at the sight of her.
My hands had still been clenched in tight fists, but they were now aching to touch this girl.
I let my stare dip over her, taking in her knee-high boots, fishnet stockings, and long shirt that tied into a knot against her thighs.
Once again, I was pretty damn sure she’d m
issed the weather outside.
I also wasn’t sure I cared if the end result was her looking like that.
“What the hell happened to you?”
When I glanced at the source of the question, I caught the shift in Emberly’s expression. The way her eyes had narrowed into slits and her pouty lips had fallen into a sneer.
“What?” I asked when I met Gavin’s concerned and expectant stare.
I hadn’t even realized Sawyer’s other friends were in the room until he’d spoken.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Gavin slowly dipped his head, all while studying me in a way that clearly showed his disbelief.
I’d forgotten to check a mirror when grabbing my stuff from the bathroom. To see how bad I looked.
“Well, it’s, uh, good to see you,” he said slowly, unsure.
I forced a smile and curled my hand tighter around the bags, taking a step in the direction of the door.
Emberly kept her stare straight ahead, never looking at me.
But I couldn’t stop from looking at her.
From taking her in one last time as I passed by.
So I saw the tremble in her chin she tried to hide. The way her eyes glassed over.
But I didn’t delude myself into thinking it was for any reason other than the fallout my leaving would cause. I’d already heard enough of what she and Sawyer had said.
“Okay then,” Gavin muttered as I reached the door.
But there wasn’t anything left for me to say.
Talking with him, with them, would only prolong this.
I slipped out without a backward glance and headed for my truck.
With each step, those screaming accusations grew louder until I felt that searing ache slice through my chest.
Until I was nineteen years old again, wanting to escape a life of humiliation and shame so I wouldn’t get lost in it forever.
“Cayson!”
I blew out a ragged breath a couple of feet from my truck, my head falling back and a curse slipping out to the dusky sky.
“Cayson, please,” Rae said, voice strained. “Don’t do this.”
With another slow, fortifying breath, I turned to look at her. “Look, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure about you at first because of the way you came into this town with your secrets and the fact that you’re Emberly’s sister. But you’re great for my brother, really. That makes me happy for him because he needs someone like you. But this . . . this is something you can’t understand.”
She glanced at the wide-open door behind her, driving a hand into her hair when she turned back to me. “You can’t leave.”
I fought with what all to say before rocking back a step toward my truck and saying, “It’s for the best.”
“It will ruin them if you do.”
“I’m ruining them already,” I said with a defeated laugh. She opened her mouth to argue her side again, but I gestured to the door behind her and continued. “Do you notice that you’re the only one who wants me to stay? You aren’t from here, and you’re the only one. That should tell you something.”
“That isn’t true,” she said earnestly.
We could go around and around, neither of us ever giving. But the sooner I left, the better it would be for everyone.
I offered her a smile, silently telling her she was wrong.
Silently telling her I appreciated her trying—her willingness to listen.
“Bye, Rae,” I murmured, then reached for the handle of my truck’s door.
She stood there, watching, never attempting to stop me again.
And I appreciated it.
Then again, from what Sawyer had told me when they’d first gotten together, she understood.
She used to move from place to place—always leaving at a moment’s notice, without warning to anyone in her life.
But as I pulled out of the driveway and left the neighborhood, something tugged harder and harder at my chest.
Screaming that I’d come back for a reason.
Urging me to stop.
To stay.
“Well, shit. Think we know what happened to Cayson’s face,” Gavin said with a low whistle.
I turned from where I’d been staring at the open front door and felt my own face fall when I saw Sawyer’s.
His busted nose and lip.
The bruising under his eyes.
“Guess that’s why you ran through here without saying hi,” Gavin continued, his tone all amusement and none of the devastation I was feeling.
Sawyer’s eyes flitted from Gavin to the front door. “Where’s Rae?”
Gavin and his wife, Faith, were answering, talking quickly, but I couldn’t focus on anything they were saying.
All I could see or hear were the vacant spaces Cayson Dixon had left behind.
I’d been worried about tonight—game night in the house where Cayson was staying. Worried about what would happen, what would be said—intentionally or not. But I’d known if Cayson was in Amber, there was no avoiding him. Not really.
Especially when my heart and mind couldn’t decide if I wanted to.
The mixture of joy and dread that filled me when he walked out of the hall had vanished into horror when I’d seen the drying blood coming from his mouth and dripping down his chin.
The red mark on his jaw.
The bags in his hand.
He was leaving. Already. Just over a day after arriving.
I wasn’t sure my heart would survive the emotional roller coaster of Cayson blowing through town that way.
Bringing up the past.
Taking hold of my heart without so much as a thought.
Leaving without a word . . . again.
Sawyer hissed a curse and went to step around me. “Why did—Rae.”
“He’s gone,” Rae announced angrily half a second before the front door slammed shut.
My eyelids slipped closed as the burning in my eyes intensified.
“Why did you follow him?” Sawyer asked, voice quick and quiet and with an underlying hint of panic he was unable to hide.
“To try to stop him,” she nearly shouted, as if it should’ve been obvious.
“Why?”
I turned at his question, but Rae spoke. “Why didn’t you?”
“Fuck Cayson,” Sawyer barked, “he shouldn’t have come back.”
Rae straightened, sorrow and disappointment swirling across her features as she watched Sawyer. “Do you even know why he left the first time?”
The question came out so soft, I barely heard it.
But from the depth in her voice, it was as though she knew the truth.
As though she knew about the night Cayson disappeared.
Sawyer scoffed. “Because he was a needy bitch who couldn’t handle the consequences of all the shit he did.”
The silence in the room felt suffocating.
No one moved.
It felt like no one breathed.
Finally, Rae stepped around Sawyer with a slow shake of her head, moving her hand away from his when he reached for her.
“Rae,” he pled, turning to go after her, but she’d already stopped to face him.
“I know that isn’t why.”
Sawyer stopped short.
His back straightening. Staring at Rae with a toxic mixture of confusion and suspicion.
“I was only around him for a few hours, and it was achingly obvious that there was something so much bigger than anyone ever noticed. He told me everyone had just assumed why he left,” she went on. “There’s a much deeper reason that you never cared to find out about, and it hurts me that he’s not only silently lived with this for years, but that none of you were there for him when he clearly needed you.”
She turned to continue on her original path through the house but whirled back around on Sawyer, finger pointed at his chest and hardened eyes narrowed at him.
“He didn’t leave because he couldn’t
handle whatever bullshit he got himself into, he left because no one heard him crying out for help.”
“You can’t know that,” Sawyer whispered.
My stomach twisted uneasily as the night Cayson left replayed in my mind.
As other nights quickly took over.
My lips parted as the words climbed up my throat, jumbling and choking me, but I forced them shut again.
It wasn’t my story.
It never had been.
“No?” she said with a frustrated laugh, then held out one of her hands. “Hi, I’m Rae Jacobs. Apparently, we don’t know each other.”
Before he had a chance to react, she turned and headed for their room, leaving Sawyer standing there, staring at where she’d been for a few seconds before slowly following.
Hands entangled behind his neck, head dropped back.
I glanced over my shoulder at the huff that sounded behind me, bypassing Gavin and Faith’s shocked stares to where one of our other friends was standing in the doorway.
I hadn’t even heard him come in.
“Man, why didn’t anyone tell me to bring popcorn for the show? I thought we were just coming for game night.” He pushed from where he was leaning against the wall and pointed behind him, eyes wide. “Also, holy shit, I passed a guy a few houses back. Only got a glimpse of him, but I would’ve bet my life it was Cayson Dixon.”
“What the fuck,” Gavin mumbled under his breath.
“Honestly, where have you been?” Faith snapped. “And you were supposed to bring snacks. I sent you a list.”
I turned for the kitchen. “I need a drink.”
A drink had turned into a few.
A few had turned into bliss.
I’d lost count sometime after the bickering couple had rejoined us, and we’d finally started playing games. But before Gavin and Faith had announced the real reason they’d called this game night in the first place.
And long before the shit I was currently dealing with.
I was fairly certain I’d congratulated Gavin and Faith properly on their soon-to-be-parental status and didn’t actually cry that my chance at having babies with the man I loved had walked out the door hours before.
I was only sort of positive that I wasn’t crying over it still . . .
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 9
