Page 16 of Breakdown
Liv sighed, flipping shut her knife. “What, you wanted to try to take on one of our enforcers instead of me?”
“Not really. But you can’t solve every problem by yourself, Liv, as much as you want to,” he said, like they were friends again, sliding past her and sauntering into the kitchen.
Liv fucking knew that, and she hated it.
He settled himself on one of the stools at her island, crossing his ankle delicately over his knee and swiveling back and forth idly in a quite frankly amazing display of balance. She wondered how sober he was. It annoyed her that she’d been overpowered by him so easily.
“So, how’re things?” he asked her casually, as if she hadn’t just caught him red-handed breaking into her house.
“They’re fine.” Liv was having a little trouble pretending that he hadn’t gone two months without returning a single one of her calls or texts until she was worried so fucking sick about him that she thought she was going to lose her mind. She wanted to both hug him and punch him square in the nose.
Her heart had been in her throat every time her phone rang, waiting for the person on the other end of the line to be the one to tell her that Peter was dead. And now he was sitting here at her breakfast bar like nothing had happened.
“What do you want, Peter?” she asked, her voice breaking in spite of herself.
For a brief moment, something hurt and needy flickered behind Peter’s eyes, and she held her breath. Maybe, for once in his fucking life, Peter was going to admit that he needed help. She would give him anything he wanted if he asked. She’d send Peter to one of those good, expensive addiction centers, the ones that all the B-list celebrities went to that were like resorts. He could ride horses and go for cleansing hikes in the California mountains and take detoxifying salt saunas and Liv would fucking rob their father blind to pay for it if she had to.
She’d accepted that she couldn’t force Peter into anything, but God, she was so ready to help him stop trying to kill himself. Olivia had tried to get Peter into rehab twice before: once briefly and successfully right after he’d overdosed, and last year, when he first started seeing Stav. That one was unsuccessful, unless you measured success in the number of times you were told you could go fuck yourself.
“What, a guy can’t just visit his big sister? Was I supposed to send a formal invitation?”
He mimed huge cursive script in the air, affecting a not-quite British accent. “Peter Bauer requests the pleasure of your company, on this, the evening of whatever-the-fuck-day-it-is, to catch up and drink your booze.” He moved effortlessly to the freezer, where Liv kept the martini shaker and the Cîroc. He tucked them under his arm, then retrieved the jar of olives from her fridge.
He looked so fucking sick in the pale light cast from the refrigerator bulb, and Liv just wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and lock him in her bedroom until he got clean.
“Honestly, I would have settled for a text. Or you know, anything that wasn’t a B and E.” She sighed. “There’s some leftover Chinese food in there if you want it.”
“Nah, I’m okay. Besides, I’m pretty sure two olives counts as a full and balanced meal.” Peter shook the jar at her, oblivious to the brine sloshing onto her kitchen floor.
Liv realized her fingers were clenched so tightly around the hilt of the knife that they hurt, and she forced herself to relax them. This was good, she lied to herself. He was back; she could at least keep an eye on him this way. You could pry him away from Stav. You could wean him off the junk.
“So, what’s new with you?” She struggled to keep her voice normal. “You haven’t been around.”
“You know,” he said vaguely. “I’ve been busy.”
Peter hadn’t been busy. After weeks of rattling the cages of LAs criminal element, she’d finally found where he was staying. He was shacking up in Vinnie D’Abramo’s rat-trap motel by the freeway, fucking Stav and getting high. She was paying Vinnie a thousand a week now to monitor his drug intake as best he could, and to lie to their father if he asked if Peter was staying there.
Liv wondered if she should have barged into that shitty motel room and dragged Peter out, but Peter never did anything he didn’t want to. He’d come with her, nice and easy, but the second she turned her back, he’d spook and go underground again. “I missed having you around,” she said.
Peter flipped the vodka bottle high into the air and Liv winced. He caught it easily by the neck and grinned roguishly at her, pouring a generous splash into the shaker. “I’ve been running with Stav’s crew a lot lately.” Peter smiled dreamily. “He really fucking takes care of me.”
Liv assumed Peter was probably too fucking high—then and now—to remember their last fight. “Yeah?”
“The Giannopouloses appreciate my work.” He looked suddenly sheepish. “Or they did, anyway; I might have kind of blew it. Forgot to show up for a job I was supposed to be driving for last night.”
“Jesus Christ, Peter.”
“Ah, they’ll get over it. Most people get that genius is temperamental.” He grinned and Liv almost wanted to throttle him on principal.
“Still, it was a nice fucking change of pace from Dad while it lasted.” Peter unscrewed the cap from the bottle of vermouth. “Is he pissed?” he asked, working hard to sound indifferent as he splashed it into the shaker.
Their father was fucking livid at the beginning, ready to burn half of LA to the ground to find his prodigal son and drag him back home. Liv had been working on Dad carefully, like an outmatched boxer, darting in to make her points and dancing out of the way of his blunt, brutal rages. Peter was doing what Erik had asked, she reasoned with him, and gaining closer access to the Giannopouloses only benefitted the family in the long run. By now, Dad was at a mild simmer over Peter’s unplanned disappearance. “You know him; he’s always pissed about something.”
He pulled a face she knew well from their childhood. Peter could do a perfect imitation of Erik’s annoyed expression, right down to the prominent vein throbbing in his forehead.
Liv couldn’t help herself, she giggled.
“Anything else exciting going on at the shop?” Peter asked her.
