Page 95 of Brace and Chase

Beau smiles at that last part.

“It’s what brothers do.”

I feel a stab of pain right in my heart at his words.

“What they are supposed to do,” I correct him, hating myself for it but still unable to stop it. “Not everyone is like that.”

“I get that.” Beau nods without looking up from his task. “But when one brother fails, it’s the job of the other or others to forgive.” He’s so casual about it, and I...

“What do you mean?” My words come out harsher than I meant them to, but he doesn’t seem to mind this time.

“Well, it’s unconditional, isn’t it? Your siblings are the only people who are always there, who understand exactly why you’re fucked up, who understand your humor, your pet peeves, hell, your red flags, better than anyone. Even your parents.”

I can only stare, a stack of forks in one hand, and a stack of knives in the other. He looks up and frowns at my frozen state. I guess he thinks I’m not getting his point because he keeps explaining.

“Like when our dad died, Charlie was fourteen, right? He’s seven years older which doesn’t seem like that much now, but back then it was a lifetime. He left to go to some hockey camp right after the funeral. He left us to grievewithout him and he didn’t have anyone to support him either.”

My heart just about stops. I don’t understand how Charlie, the man I know now, the man who makes me fill up with feelings every time he smiles at me, could do something like that.

“How could he do that?” I whisper, secondhand anger starting to cloud my mind.

“Oh,” Beau says carelessly and waves a hand around. “Because he’s an idiot whose favorite defense mechanism is avoidance.”

Another punch. That sounds like someone I know... me. I’m like that too. Now. After the pain, that’s who I became.

“It was hard at the time, especially for Mom, but then Finn and I figured out why he did it.”

“Why?” I ask, desperate for him to reveal some redeeming qualities about the man I sleep next to every night.

“Because he was fourteen and suddenly the man of the house. He knew Mom hadn’t worked in a long time, and with Dad gone, someone would have to provide for us. Even though he knew we had a big-ass family to help. He still figured,well, I better make this hockey thing work.”

I . . . can’t. What?

Holy shit, this is...different, I remind myself. It’s very different to what happened with Max. But still, a new stab of guilt pierces my ego.

“How did—uh,” I stammer. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?

I’ve just gone through the most intense roller coaster of emotions in my life, and that includes the month when I found out Dad had dementia and Mom had cancer.

This is too much.

“So we forgave him,” Beau continues, unaware of how he just blew my heart up into a million pieces. “Without even saying it, we just did it. We supported him, and so did Mom. That’s what siblings do,” he says, frowning at me like he thinks I’m slow, but then he shrugs. “We better get this done. I’m starving.”

Just like that, the conversation is over.

I hurry around the table to set it up the way Charlie likes and then tell myself to act normal. I still have to apologize to Finn himself, and my goal of making a good impression on them is still important. But throughout dinner, it’s like I’m out of my body. Like I can act as I usually would and say all the things I’d normally say, but in reality I’m detached.

Even when Lou freaks out when he finds out he’s going to meet Sterling tonight and not only see him in concert, I’m not able toreallyfeel the tenderness his words would normally have brought out in me.

It’s not until we’re at the concert, hearing Sterling belt out one of his greatest hits, that I snap out of it, and it’s all thanks to Charlie.

We’re right at the front, and he brushes the back of hishand against mine for only a second, but the touch is firm enough to be deliberate.

I look over at him and find his eyes on me. They’re searching for something, and I smile to reassure him.

He noticed, then.

Looks like I’m not going to be able to fool him.

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