Page 67 of Give My Everything
Wyatt chuckles. “What is it with everyone thinking I’m some relationship expert now?” he mutters. “Honestly? If you’re hoping for advice, you shouldn’t ask me. You should ask Hannah.”
“How’s that?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Dude, I lucked out that Hannah chose to forgive me based on the effort I put into it, but I had no idea if it was going to work.” He points a finger off in the distance, down The Strand, in the direction of where Hannah lives. “If you want to figure out what’s going to convince a girl to forgive you for being an idiot, go ask a girl. Not me.”
I let out an irritated sigh and lift my glass, taking another sip and finishing off the last of it.
It’s a hard thing to explain. I don’t necessarily need Remmy toforgiveme. I didn’t really do anything wrong; I was just teasing. But at the same time, I know what I said hurt her, or took her back to an unhappy time in her life, and I don’t know how to move us forward, move us beyond that.
Maybe my brother has a point. I only wish I knew what girl to ask, because I’m definitely not going to ask Hannah. She’s my employee, and our relationship is already crossing enough boundaries with her dating my brother.
“Speaking of Hannah,” I say, realizing this is the perfect chance to find out what’s going on, “she came to me the other day and asked to have the last week of the month off for some surprise you’re planning. What’s the deal?”
He chews on the inside of his mouth, a clear indicator that he’s either hiding something or doesn’t want to be talking about this. That’s the thing about brothers—a lot of your tells are the same, so it’s harder to get away with things.
“Honestly?” he says, and I nod, surprised he might be willing to tell me what’s up. “I’m taking her to London for a week.”
My head flies back. “Why London?”
“Well…I’m supposed to be moving there soon. For work.”
When I realize what’s going on, I can’t hide my surprise, not in my expression or my body language.
“Are you…taking her to London to try to convince her to move there with you?” I ask.
Wyatt doesn’t answer. He just taps his fingers against the table between us, the methodic thud slightly soothing and slightly irritating at the same time.
“Didn’t she like…justmove here to try to develop a relationship with her brother?”
Wyatt looks off into the distance, his emotions showing clearly on his face even though he’s trying to hide it.
“I love her, okay? And if there is even a small chance we can stay together instead of being apart for who knows how long, I have to go after it.”
I sit in silence, watching my brother from across the table, wondering when he grew into this…man. It feels like only months ago he was getting wasted and trolling the clubs, begging out of family stuff, moving away because he was the king of avoidance.
Now? It’s like finding something he knows he wants has given him a way to measure everything else in life.
It’s not something I ever thought I’d see in him, not considering the way we were raised. How our dad demonstrated ‘love’ and ‘commitment’ and ‘marriage’ to us. The ways he has manipulated and bullied and betrayed us over and over again.
But seeing that in his face…the certainty, the desire, the loyalty—the exact opposites of everything we knew growing up…
I’m happy for him.
And, if I’m willing to listen to that tiny little voice inside of me that seems to be getting a bit more vocal…maybe just a little bit jealous.
As confident as I am in myself, in my strength, there’s something about standing in front of Dominic Wallace that leaves just a sliver of unease running through me.
Give him a scar under his eye and a gun and he’d be a nameless bodyguard serving any 90s movie villain.
“Dominic.”
I give him a nod and stick my hand out.
Unfortunately, he lets it hang there. It’s the universal sign for you’re not welcome here and I plan to put you in your place.
The great thing is that I’m not at all concerned about getting Dominic to like me. We went to high school together, and we didn’t exactly run in the same circles.
Unsurprisingly, this big guy was on the wrestling team, while I tried to avoid school stuff as much as possible.
