Page 73 of Hate Me

Bastian held up his hand to me, then laid his other on Caleb’s hand. “I know you had your own painful issues to deal with, Cal. I get it. We just both wish you’d been able to do it here, to pull on us, on the brotherhood.”

“So do I,” he murmured, emotion flickering in his eyes that threatened to undercut the hard edge I was putting out there toward him. “I just… I had to remove myself from the situation. I couldn’t stand infecting either of you with the poison that was running through my veins and taking me over at the time.”

Bastian smiled sadly and gave Caleb’s hand a squeeze. “I get it. I was like that with Cas too. In the beginning.” He grinned out at me. “But he wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to helping me through all that shit.”

“I’d do nothing less for a brother of mine,” I told him.

“If it helps at all, I did make sure you were taken care of before I took off. I wouldn’t have walked away without making sure of that, B.”

I stilled, my espresso cup halfway to my lips.

“You did?” Bastian asked, clearly so desperate to believe it.

He forgave easily, too easily sometimes. It was very remnant of his relationship with Damien. It was something I had to guard against, I had to ensure that his forgiveness was earned, that it wasn’t going to come back on him or hurt him like it had with Damien so many times over.

And maybe I needed to ensure it didn’t pan out that way for me either when it came to Caleb.

“Yeah, I mean, I led Caspian’s guys to you in that drug den.”

I started. “You were the anonymous tip?”

Caleb’s eyes met mine. “That was me.” He leaned back in his chair, snacking on his Pop Tart, then telling us casually, “It took me several days to track him down and breaking hell knows how many laws, committing a shit-ton of cybercrimes along the way, but I got there.”

“You covered your tracks exceptionally well, I couldn’t determine the identity of the person behind it.”

“I didn’t want to complicate matters through you knowing it was me.”

“You mean, you didn’t want to make it difficult for you to leave,” I bit back.

“It was difficult either way, Cas.”

I scoffed.

Bastian rose to his feet, taking a final gulp from his coffee cup, then telling us, “You two need to work this shit out. All this passive-aggressiveness is a real bitch to be around. I need to study, so I’ll leave you to it. If Sky comes out of her room, let me know, though, yeah?”

“Of course, Bastian,” I assured him.

“Will do, B.”

With that, he put his cup in the sink, then strolled on out, giving the two of us withering looks on his way.

Caleb chewed on his Pop Tart, then asked me with his mouth full, knowing how much I hated when he did that, “So, how do you want to do this?”

I glared at him as crumbs flew everywhere while he talked.

“Swallow your food, for one.”

He did so, then grinned at me. “Just checking if that still bothered you.”

“It does. Bothering me isn’t your best strategy here.”

“I disagree. I need to get under your skin to elicit anything from you, any actual reaction. That’s how shut down you are with me.”

“Do you think you deserve a reaction from me, Caleb? That you deserve anything from me?”

He sighed and shoved a hand through his thick blond hair. “It was never my intention to be gone for so long.”

“And yet, you were.”

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