Page 114 of My Brother's Best Friend

“There’s nothing I can do about it now, except apologize,” she whispered.

“Are you going to keep fucking him?” I asked, hands balled into fists.

“No.”

“Are you sure about that? Because Oliver thinks?—”

Mom looked me directly in the eye. “It won’t happen again.”

I pressed my lips together because I didn’t know if I could even trust her. She had broken my trust so fucking badly this past month.What if she does it again? What if she feels lonely again and finds Oliver as an easy option?

“What if it does?” I asked.

“Then, you have every right to never talk to me again,” she whispered. “I just want us to be the family we once were. I want your father to love me and you again. I want to take those family pictures we used to do every Christmas by the Overlook. Back to being the Wolfe family. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mom said. “I’d do anything to bring us back together.”

CHAPTER70

ALEC

After listening to Mom cry for thirty minutes straight about how Dad didn’t love her anymore and that she would do anything to get her family back, I drove to Blaise and Vera’s apartment.

If she wanted her family back, then she would have to do a lot more than cry. Trust wasn’t earned overnight, and she had shattered mine to pieces after it came to light that she and my idiot best friend—if I even wanted to call him that anymore—had fucked. More than once.

Once I parked my car in the lot, I pushed open the door, and a blast of cold air seared my face. I wrapped my coat tighter around my body and sank into the Redwood Hockey–branded wool scarf around my neck.

Ice cracked underneath my dress shoes that I hadn’t changed out of since the funeral, the salt beginning to stain the edges. After hopping up onto the curb, I yanked open the door and let the heat from inside the building envelop me.

I rubbed my numb fingers together and checked in with the security at the front desk. Once he nodded, I tugged on my scarf and headed toward the elevators for a short ride up to Vera and Blaise’s apartment. The doors began to close.

“Hold the elevator!” a familiar voice called, jogging from the front entrance to the lift.

I slipped my arm between the closing doors to stop them and stared at Oliver entering the elevator with me. Halfway inside, he paused. We stared at each other for a few moments before the doors began closing again, and he finally hopped on.

After gritting my teeth, I moved closer to the metal wall. With ragged breaths from running toward the elevator, he stood on the opposite side in silence. I stared up at the glowing numbers above the door, wishing they’d move faster.

The lift ascended, but not fast enough. I balled my hands into fists by my sides and wondered what the hell he was doing here. As far as I knew, he didn’t know anyone here from school.

Is he following me around? Wondering when I’d talk to him? Forgive him?

When the elevator dinged and the doors opened on the fourth floor, we stepped out at the same time. I clenched my jaw and peered over at him to see him walking the same way down the hall with me.

He stopped at Blaise’s door.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked before knocking.

“I’m here to pick up Maddie.”

“I’mhere to pick up Maddie.”

“Hate to break the bad news to you,” Oliver said, pounding his hand on the door. “But she called me to swing by and get her. Said that you were too busy with your family. Had to call in the big bro to?—”

The door opened, and Blaise stood in front of us.

“Alec,” Maddie called, hopping up from the couch and running toward me. She threw her arms around my shoulders and pulled me into a tight hug, her face buried into the crook of my neck and her vanilla scent drifting into my nose. “What happened?”

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