Page 4 of Love Thy Brother
I took his place at Rubi’s side and gripped his hands, bending his bones and mine. “Leave with me. When you’re better. Get on your bike and ride away from this damn, fucking place.”
Rubi’s soul collapsed in his bloodshot eyes. He slowly shook his head. “Ican’t.”
“You can. If you really wanted to. We could go anywhere.”
“But we’d still be us, Riv. And we’d drown away from the people we love. Ourfamily. You know we would.”
“I wouldn’t. I don’t give a fuck about any of them.”
“You’d leave Orla?”
“She’d be with Nash.”
Rubi shook his head again. “It ain’t that simple and you know it.”
“It could be.” I dropped his hands. “If you wanted it.”
“I do want it.”
A cold laugh flayed me open. “You don’t want anything for yourself. You never have. And where’s it got you? Laying here dying for my brother while he’s counting his fucking money?”
“Cam’s not—”
“He’s not fuckinghere.” The anger returned, lashing through me as Rubi’s bloodshot eyes grew wet. “Youare, on your own, like you’ll always be as long as you keep riding into hell and back not giving a fuck about the people who love you.”
Rubi swallowed thickly, tearing his gaze from me and rooting it to the bunched-up sheet in his lap. “That ain’t fair. We do it allforthe people we love, just like your dad did.”
“My dad’sdead.” I spat the words. “A car bomb blew him up, remember?”
Rubi flinched, and a single tear snaked down his face. But still he wouldn’t look at me.
Goddamn.
I’d lost him a thousand times and I was losing him all over again.
I hung my head, the fight draining from me, leaving a gaping chasm in its wake. “You’re not too old to die young, boo. And you never will be. Not to me.”
Rubi buried his face in his hands.
My heart shattered with his and I left it there. Despite my promise to Cam, I leftRubi, and this time, I wasn’t coming back.
2
RUBI
Present day
“You have lipstick on your neck, and you reek of mangoes.”
Nash flopped onto the couch in the bar, his head landing on my socked feet. “Fuck off. It’s so dark in here you wouldn’t be able to tell if I’d painted my whole face as pink as your knickers.”
“It was an educated guess. And you still smell like you rolled in a puddle of Rubicon.”
“There are worse things I could smell of.”
Nash relaxed and closed his eyes, talked out, given that it was near dawn and he wasn’t much of a morning person.
Suited me. Early morning was my favourite time of day, nothing better than a wake and bake at sunrise, but I wasn’t in the mood for conversation either. The symphony banging against my temple had seen to that.
