Page 13 of Ruin
“He’s in a good mood today,” Grizz says with a raised brow.
I grunt, bringing my beer to my lips. The sun is high, but there’s a nice breeze in the air. Summers in Maine are nice. I hear they’re hot as hell in other places, but I’ve never been to know. The only place I’ve been outside of here is New York and whatever states we passed through to get there. I hate that the only time I’ve been able to travel was because ofhimand his stupid birthday parties.
“Shouldn’t you be looking to get laid?” I ask Grizz.
He chuckles. “Yeah, maybe.”
No one in the club knows I’m gay. No one but my brother who I only told recently. I didn’t want to tell him, but he’s been weird lately. Even weirder since I opened up to him about that and what our father did to me.
Kaison was the golden child. He could do no wrong. He worshiped our father and was blind to all the shit he did to me. But I have to say, he didn’t question me when I told him what happened. Not for a second did it seem like he didn’t believe me. Granted, I didn’t get into detail, but I didn’t have to. Kaison understood what I was saying and he believed me. No questions asked, not even a flicker of doubt in his eyes.
My brother and I have never been close, despite our close age. We’re ten and a half months apart. But it meant something to me that he believed me like that. All these years, I felt like he wouldn’t and it’s why I said nothing. Well, one reason why. The other being I don’t want to fucking talk about it.
“Uh oh, someone’s in trouble,” Grizz mutters.
My brow furrows as I turn my attention to where he’s looking, to spot my brother walking toward us looking like an angry bear. Kaison is a big guy, and though he doesn’t scare me, I can see why people find him intimidating. He’s only an inch taller than me, but he’s got about seventy-five pounds on me. He’s thicker, built bigger, more like our father, while I’m leaner than they are.
“What the fuck, Kolton,” he growls under his breath.
“Catch ya later,” Grizz says before scurrying off, not wanting to get caught between another one of our disputes.
“What’s wrong now?” I ask. He’s probably just being dramatic, as he usually is.
“Why the fuck is Lucian Carter here?”
I try not to react to the name. I’m not sure I succeed. Kaison has no idea about Lucian and me, and I’d like to keep it that way. He’d freak out worse than our father would have, especially now that he knows all my secrets. He has his own issues with Lucian, and I have no idea what they are. Don’t care to know either.
“He’s getting an award,” I say with zero emotion.
“What the fuck did he do to earn an award?” he asks, as if it’s some impossible feat.
He could have won an award for the way he fucked me, but that’s ancient history.
“I suppose it’s more of a recognition. He funded the rebuild of the school ten years ago.”
“Fucking prick,” he mutters with a shake of his head. “He doesn’t deserve shit from this town.”
No, he doesn’t. But I don’t want to say that out loud because I don’t want to talk about him.
“Is your girl here?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes, looking at me funny. “Since when do you care?”
“Since you stopped dragging me along to the diner to eat their atrocious food.”
“It ain’t atrocious.”
“Says the guy who eats meals from the frozen food section.”
“There’s nothing wrong with those.”
I roll my eyes. He doesn’t get it.
I glance out at the crowd of people. Now that I knowhe’shere, I’m looking for him. But not because I want to see him—it’s because I want to avoid him. In order to do that, I need to know where he is. It’s like being trapped in the jungle with a hungry lion. I’m dead if I can’t sense him coming.
“No, she’s not here,” he finally says.
“That sucks.”
