Page 56 of Blindsided

She didn’t pick up on my dry tone and sighed. “There was a party at the hotel he was in last night.”

I was already rolling my eyes.

“The party got out of hand and the cops were called. Aston’s room was on the same floor and he had just gone over to tell them to knock it off when the police showed up. He got implicated in the party.”

Now Easton was rolling his eyes. Seriously? he mouthed to me.

I sighed while shaking my head. “Right. Just happened to be an innocent bystander.”

“We’ll get it all sorted out with the lawyers, hotel, and police. It’s just going to take time. Until then—”

And here it came. She was going to say something ridiculous, and I was going to hate it. We were going to argue. This scene had played out countless times in countless ways since I’d moved out. Every time, Aston came off looking like the misunderstood golden boy while everyone who knew Aston knew he wasn’t ever going to grow up.

“Can Aston stay with you?”

“What?” I didn’t bother hiding my shock as I yelled the word into the phone. “I must have misheard you, because I swear you just asked if Aston could stay with me, in Nashville.”

My mom’s sigh was filled with annoyance. “Yes, Francis. That is exactly what I asked.”

I hadn’t been called Francis since the first week I’d been in town, and it was a name I hadn’t missed. “No. He can’t.”

My mom huffed, annoyed at my pushback. “And why not? He’s your brother.”

I could list countless reasons, though none of them would be enough to deter her. “He might be my brother, but you and I both know—whether you want to admit it or not—that Aston is going to get himself into trouble again. I already upended my life because he got himself in trouble before and, according to you, it wasn’t appropriate to have him as the owner of a professional sports team at the time. I’ve been here all summer and I’m just now getting my feet under me.”

“Your brother just needs some time to be out of the spotlight.”

I looked over at Easton to find his face as red as his hair. He was ready to snap and for the first time I could remember, I felt ready to stand up for myself. “He won’t get it here. Nashville is a city. One with a lot of tourists, bars, nightlife, and parties. Aston will be distracted by those things and in the process become a distraction to the team. He’s going to get into something, we both know that. This close to the start of the season, it’s going to reflect badly on the team. A team that has the family name associated with it. Do you really want that press around the family… again?”

As we were talking, I pulled up a celebrity news site and found an article on my brother at the top of the page. It was clear from the video clip of Aston that he hadn’t simply been an innocent bystander. My brother’s eyes were bloodshot and he’d been filmed stumbling out of the hotel as the cops tried to get him in the back of the cruiser. He’d probably spent the night in the drunk tank, but my mom would never admit that.

Aston had always been the one who could do no wrong while I was the one tasked with making sure whatever he’d last touched turned golden. In the end, he came out looking like roses while my work was largely ignored.

The silence on my mom’s end of the phone told me I’d hit a nerve, one that had actually made Freight Train Naomi come to a halt. After an unnervingly long silence, the sigh she let out was resigned, not the gearing up of a new argument. “I’ll call your dad’s brother. Maybe he can take him for a bit.”

I bit back the urge to tell her that she could actually try to be a parent to him. “I’ll talk with you later.” I pressed the end button before she could say anything else, then collapsed backward onto the bed.

Easton came to my side, folding his large body around mine. “I’m so proud of you.”

“What?” I wanted to look him in the eyes, but his arms around me felt too good.

He kissed my neck. “You stood up to her. I know that wasn’t easy. I don’t have to know her to know that wasn’t easy for you. She was hell-bent on getting you to have him come here. You stood your ground.”

“Then why does it feel like I’m such a bad person?” I was being dramatic, at least a bit. I knew I wasn’t a bad person, but a little voice in the back of my head was telling me that I’d done something wrong by telling her no. “He is my brother.”

“And you’re not a babysitter. I’ve never followed your family, but I did look you up when I found out who you were. If the articles aren’t about the real estate business, they’re about your brother making a fool of himself. Answer me honestly—how often have you put your life on hold because of Aston?”

I wanted to say it had only been when I’d taken over the Parliament, but that wasn’t the truth. There had been the time I’d left Australia for California to “fix” a bad investment Aston had made. I’d barely gotten that taken care of when my grandfather had demanded I go to New York to run the real estate office there since Aston had proven too incapable. I’d been shuttled in and out of countries and states for the last three years because Aston needed a handler and my mom and grandfather didn’t want to admit it. And that didn’t count the times Aston had been sent my way to escape paparazzi. I’d become the de facto Aston-mess-cleaner-upper, and it was exhausting.

At the same time, I hadn’t had a compelling reason to stay where I was. There had never been something there that someone else couldn’t handle or a person I hadn’t wanted to leave. At least not since I’d left Bodhi.

Eventually, I shook my head in disgust at myself. “More times than I can count.”

Easton’s arm tightened around me and his thumb absently traced my nipple through my shirt. “I’m sorry. You deserve so much better than you’ve been given.”

I highly doubted that he’d meant for his touch to be erotic, but my focus was being drawn more to the contact than the conversation. It took a few seconds for his words to register. “I’m starting to see that.” I forced myself to turn in his grasp. “Shouldn’t we be leaving now?”

“Do you really want to go? Is your mind in it after that conversation?”

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