Page 205 of Repairing the Wreckage

She shifts toward him. “You’re not the brother, are you?”

“No.” He drills her with a murderous stare. “But if you’re who I think you are, I’m not a fan of what you did to Molly, either.”

The corners of Diane’s mouth turn down. “But I spoke to Molly at the reunion. I thought we were good.”

“Molly forgives. I don’t,” Eraser says without so much as a twitch of his lips to indicate he’s kidding. He’s not.

I bite the inside of my cheek to hold in my laughter.

“Well.” Diane squeezes my arm briefly. “You’re doing good. And I have no doubt that you’re going to win Saturday.”

“Will you be there?” I ask.

“I’ll be around all week.”

Great.

Eraser’s eyes narrow to slits as he watches her hurry away from us. “What’s she doing here?”

“Honestly, I have no fucking idea. She said she’s a fan of combat sports.” I shrug. “Ready to go?”

He runs his hand over the back of his neck, suddenly seeming unsure of himself. “You looked good up there. Handled it well. I wanted to throw a chair at that punk.”

“Same.”

More neck rubbing.

“Bro, I love you, but I really want to get upstairs and see Molly,” I say. “What’s on your mind?”

“She’s still with the girls.” He runs his hand over his beard a few times. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

That’s a shift in conversation I didn’t expect. “For?”

He cocks his head like he’s annoyed he has to spell it out for me. “For giving you a hard time when you first came home.”

“I remember you checking to make sure I wasn’t dead several times.”

He huffs. “Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

“Ohhh,” I draw out the sound to a dickish extreme. “You mean the part where you believed a bunch of lies and bullshit about me cheating on my girlfriend? Or where you were mad at me about the way they portrayed her when I had no control over it? Or, or, wait a minute, is it because you never warned me that your orange-haired troll doll of a cousin was taking advantage of the situation by trying to date my girlfriend?”

Now he plows both hands through his hair and gives me a sheepish look. “All of the above?” He holds his arms out wide. “I know you and Remy already had your come-to-Jesus match back home so if you need a sparring buddy this week, I’ll volunteer.”

I bark out a laugh. I had way more anger stored up for Remy. “Tell me the truth, were you mad because you care about Molly?”

“Yeah, she’s my little McMuffin,” he says, showing off the teddy bear living under his gruff exterior. “She tried being all brave and shit when the show said all that crap about her, but we all knew how much it was messing with her head.” He closes his eyes. “And then that night. Holy shit. I hated seeing her so heartbroken. Then she fucked up her car.” His lips twitch. “Although, I was a little proud of her for that one, honestly.”

“Asshole. She could’ve gotten hurt.”

“As for my cousin,” he continues, “I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t like it either, honestly. And I made that really clear to him and Remy when I found out about their arrangement.”

“You should’ve told her.”

He tilts his head. “Come on. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but he does like her.”

“He’s a fuckin’ creep,” I grumble.

“Anyway. When I watched that reunion show, Griff.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Jesus Christ. I think it finally hit me how much lying and absolute bullshit you went through and I’m sorry if I made it worse by giving you a hard time.”

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