Page 66 of The Older Brother
I reach for the broom handle as he moves past me, and he stops his strange, manic behavior when our eyes meet.
“Hey,” I hum.
A guilty smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“Yeah, I know. That was harder than I thought it would be, is all.” He glances at the open doors, where my father’s truck just pulled away.
I touch his chin, nudging him to drop his gaze to me.
“I think he’s fine with it, with us. I know he didn’t come out and say it, but it’s clear he knows. And he wasn’t angry.” My right shoulder scrunches up as Rowan’s head falls back with his faint laughter.
“Saylor, he’s your dad. He’s not okay with anyone. And I’m not so sure he’s okay with me. But he didn’t threaten to kill me or anything, so I guess?—”
“What did he say?” I ask, still burning with curiosity over their conversation by the garage doors.
There’s a distinct pause in Rowan’s breath, and a stutter in our connection as his gaze darts around me for a tick before finally settling back on my eyes. His smile is clearly forced, his lips tight and stretched wide the way a child would draw a smiley face.
“He said he was proud of me for going out on my own, for not taking the easy route and working for my dad.” His mouth snaps right back to the curated smile, and I can’t help but feel like there’s more my father said. But I can tell by the way Rowan’s eyes start to dim that whatever else my father said to him isn’tready for my ears yet, at least not through him. Maybe whatever my dad said is still being processed.
“I know you’ve got work soon, but after work . . . would you like to come with me to see my mom?” Rowan’s mouth pinches, and I feel like there’s a glossiness in his eyes.
The sudden, drastic pivot from him jars me, and I have to shake my head to refocus mentally.
“Wow, I . . . yeah. I’d love that,” I say, placing a hand on the center of his chest and standing on the tips of my toes to press a soft kiss to his lips while Miguel isn’t looking. “Thank you for asking me.”
Rowan holds my gaze as I fall back to my heels, his hand moving to the side of my face as his thumb runs along my bottom lip. His gaze follows his touch, moving back to my eyes again once his hand falls away.
“I want to share things with you. Honesty is sexy, right?” A guilty wince crinkles his eyes, and the fact that he locked that little nugget I said away, hits my chest with a heavy thud.
“The sexiest,” I add, tugging on the center of his shirt twice.
He holds my stare, sucking in his top lip. I let my hand trickle down his chest before moving back to the comfort of the sofa.
“I really hope so.”
The whisper is faint, and I’m not entirely sure Rowan actually spoke. By the time I descend into the sofa cushion again, he’s already returned to his sweeping invisible lines along the glossy floor. He slows when he reaches the spot where he spoke to my dad privately, and though the truth has never scared me before, the threat of it makes me a little uneasy now.
Chapter 21
“I wantyou to know I appreciate you, Rowan. You were just a kid when I left. And I always thought it was shit that you walked in on the same thing I did. A kid shouldn’t see the guy he idolizes, his father, being so disrespectful to his mom.”
I’ve been replaying my conversation with Saylor’s dad since the moment we spoke at the shop. I don’t know that a day has passed that I haven’t thought about the moment he mentioned. All the shitty things that have happened in my life seem to have been born that very second. It was my fork in the road, all because I decided to go to the office with my mom to take my dad his favorite takeout while he worked late one night. Caleb was busy with video games and didn’t want to go. My basketball practice had been cancelled, and I could have stayed home with him. But there was something about my mom’s expression, a sadness that dimmed the light in her eyes and kept her mouth from forming anything other than a frown. Looking back, I realize she had already known. It would be easy to blame her for letting me tag along, but I think on many levels her mind was broken just as much as her heart back then.
I’ve never blamed her for any of it. Not for the choices I made after. Nor the lawsuits she filed against our dad to get her fair share. Not even for leaving us in that house with him. He wasn’t physically abusive, and he rarely parented, passing duties off to Gitte, our housekeeper. Mom was starting over with nothing. She wanted us to stay in our school, to get the private education she felt our dad owed us. She wanted me to have that basketball team around me, and the chance to play in college if I wanted to.
No. I didn’t blame her then, and I don’t now. But I sure blame my dad. It’s his fault I hold people at an arm’s distance. When people look at me, I fear they see how similar he and I are. When Saylor stares into my eyes, I’m afraid she sees my father’s colors, his nose, the shape of his chin. And if she finds out the truth about how he ruined her life, drove away the parent she leaned on when she needed him most, I would understand if she saw the devil when she looked at me, too. Because that’s what my father is—the devil. And I’m his son.
I kept the truth about her parents’ rift a secret for her sake at first, and my brother’s. I did it because her dad asked me to. But now that we’ve grown closer, now that I’ve started to fall for her, that secret has been burning a hole through my chest. It’s haunted my dreams, like a threat waiting in the shadows to steal my happiness. I’ve kept my mouth shut these past few weeks for me. Because I’m selfish, and I don’t want Saylor to know the kind of man who made me. He’s rotten in so many ways. And if she looks at me and sees him, it will break me.
But now, I may not have a choice.
“I was angry when I left back then. Disappointed in my wife, for sure. Angry at your dad because of his abuse of power. Mad at myself for being so blind to it all. I didn’t want to drag things out, make a spectacle. I didn’t want Saylor going through that shit, or you and Caleb. Your family has had enough constant scrutiny as it is. But you’ve all grown up. Andthe band is going well. We just need that extra push. We want to stay indie, but it requires investments. And I think we both know your dad owes me.”
Jason Kelly added a stop to his band’s tour, not to see his daughter, but to get his due. And hearing him say those words tore me up from the inside out, because I know that the moment that began my spiral is the very same one that started his. And if Saylor finds out the truth from long ago over some post-concert dinner she thinks was meant to be a special reunion, it’s going to leave a mark. The kind that sends a life spinning, and changes dreams, breaks trust, and closes off hearts.
So, I’m going to tell her the truth first. All of it. Even the things her dad doesn’t know. I’m going to give her complete power over me. And I can’t rip the Band-Aid off fast enough.
It’s a testing day for her swimmers, and it’s hard not to draw comparisons to the ones who leave the water with the best times to their coach. Saylor always finished first, not just when a medal was on the line but when it came down to a stopwatch at practice. She could have made the team coasting, coming in as a top three time. But that was never good enough for her. She says she’s over the competition, but I think maybe she’s just shifted her focus to wanting to back others on their way to success.
