Page 59 of Brother's Keeper

The song became a pleasant drone in the back of my mind, gradually fading until the sensation of falling roused me from the brink of sleep. My eyes flashed open to see Nash overhead, having bent me backward in a dip.

He smiled. “You still with me?”

“Never left,” I mumbled.

“Just resting your eyes?”

“Mmhmm.”

He pulled me up snugly against him, and I laid my cheek on his chest. The soft flannel of his shirt brushed my skin, smelling like laundry soap and cologne.

Awake enough to think again, my thoughts wandered back to the birthday party. Past the proposal and ensuing chaos and the frozen fear on the Briggs’s faces moments before the building collapsed. It was what came after that stuck with me the most: Tobin’s awkward thanks followed by Grimm’s scathing commentary.

In the pause before the next song, I whispered, “Nash, do you think I could be a hero?”

He kept swaying, holding me while the room slowly turned around us. “That’s a strange question.”

“Strange?” I echoed, then braced for the less flattering alternative. “Or stupid?”

“I’m just not sure why you’re asking,” he said. “The way I see it, everything you do, keeping your brother away from Grimm, sparing Maximus’s life, giving Maggie somewhere to stay, risking yourself to help Ripley… Not to mention kidnapping half a dozen people in the hopes of keeping them alive. It’s all heroic.”

“None of that shit worked out, though,” I replied with a heavy breath. “Donnie hates me, thinks I’m his prison warden. Maggie’s been living off roadkill for a week. Ripley’s missing, possibly dead, just like all the people I took and stored for nothing. The same’s probably true for Maximus. He’s alive because I didn’twant to hurt Holland, and now I have no idea what to do with him…”

I sighed. “Heroes do good things. All I’m good at is fucking shit up.”

All movement stopped, and Nash stepped back from me. “God, I hate Grimm.” He pulled out his earbud and pocketed it.

I steadied myself, bearing my own weight for the first time in several minutes. “What brought that on?” I asked.

He waved his hand as though shooing something away. “He’s all I hear when you say things like that. It’s like he lives in your damn head.”

“He doesn’t—” The headache spiked, driving pain from one ear through the other. I winced and cupped my hand to my temple.

Nash continued. “He only talks down to you to make you feel like you need him. It’s all he’s ever done. Since you were a kid.”

“Well, when you’ve got a winning strategy,” I mumbled.

He shook his head. “You’re better than him in every way. You don’t—”

“Nash, my brain feels like it’s been through a meat grinder.” My features pinched in pain. “Can we not talk about this? Or anything?”

The aggravation that had overtaken his expression dissipated. I thought I must have been exceptionally convincing until I felt wetness on my upper lip.

Nash’s gaze targeted the lower half of my face. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

I daubed my sleeve cuff against my sore nose, then frowned. “And you’re observant.”

“I’ll get a napkin,” he said.

Thundering footsteps from the back of the bar announced Pippa’s arrival before her shrill scream pierced the air.

“Nicholas Nash!” she shouted.

Instant concern flushed my brain with adrenaline that damn near knocked me out. I staggered, grabbing onto Nash’s arm as he spun toward the sound.

Pippa burst into the room, her ginger hair windblown and freckled cheeks splotched red. Anger contorted her features as she aimed a glare at her brother. “Why is the leader of our government in the goddamned cellar?”

Three weeks earlier

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