“You done?” I ask, trying not to sway on my feet.
“When you’re done being a brat, you should give your best friend a talking to.”
God? What the fuck does he have to do with anything? He’s always had issue with God. Probably because he has more money than him.
I navigate the stairs and collapse into my room, missing the bed and landing with a thud on the floor. Motherfucker, that hurt, and it’s uncomfortable as all hell down here, but I don’t have the mobility skills to get up right now.
I’m on fire. Hell’s fire scolds me, and hard droplets pelt down on me, attempting to put me out. But it’s gasoline, not water.
My body rocks violently from the terror racing though me.
“Rhett, where are you?”
I hear Robbie’s voice calling through the roaring of the fire.
The tree appears through the orange licks of flames and then I’m slipping through the mud beneath my feet It’s consuming me, hands pulling from beneath.
“No, stop, no,” I choke out.
“Rhett?”
“I’m coming, Robbie,” I cry, scraping at the mud, ignoring the pain all over me.
“Rhett. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Robbie’s voice morphs. “Wake up.”
The rain turns cold—not acid rain, shower water.
Hard tiles against my skin. I’m panting heavily. Jerking awake, I try to stand, but slip back to my ass. I’m not being dragged into hell. I’m in my shower.
My eyes adjust, and Chastity fills my vision. She’s soaked, fully dressed, sitting with me in the shower. What the hell’s going on?
“Chastity?”
“Yes, oh god. Rhett, you scared me,” she sobs, wrapping her arms around me.
“What are you doing here?” I croak, my throat stinging, a sour taste coating my tongue.
“You texted me to come over.”
Had I?
“I found you facedown in your own vomit.”
That would be the gross taste on my tongue then.
“I had to have your dad help me get you in the shower. He got upset and left.”
“You mean mad?” I ask, a throb beginning in my skull.
Shivering, she stands to turn the blast of the shower off.
Her hair is stuck to her face, makeup streaks her eyes, and sorrow mars those precious features. “No, he wasn’t mad, he was distressed when you were…” she pauses.
“Were what?”
“You were calling out for your brother and crying.” She sniffs, taking my hand and interlocking our fingers.
Fuck. “I’m a mess.”
“You’re hurting, but it’s okay. I’ll face that pain with you. You’re not alone, Rhett. You think I can’t see the pain in your eyes, the sorrow soaking your body?” She grips my face, absorbing my agony with me.
“I won’t pretend that I know how you feel, but if I could take some of that pain, that burden from you, I would, because I’m falling for you.”
I drop my eyes from hers, too ashamed to look at her after allowing myself to get so reckless.
“Look at me. Look in my eyes. You’re not alone anymore. It’s you and me now, and I won’t let you drown. You can’t do this to yourself.”
She holds me while I come apart. It’s not a girl who’s falling for a boy, or a boy tasked to seduce a girl he fell for. It’s a human sharing another human’s pain when they know they can’t carry it on their own.
Getting dry and into dry clothes I admire Chastity wearing my tee, it drowns her but it’s all kinds of sexy. I know in my heart that I want to see her wearing my shit after staying the night. After I’ve been inside her body. Made love to her in a way I’ve never adored a woman’s body before.
“Do you want me to make you some coffee?” she asks brushing her hair back off her face with one of my mother’s old brushes.
“No,” I look her up and down. No way is my old man getting to see her in only a shirt.
“I’ll get us some hot drinks, make yourself at home.” I tell her noticing either her or my dad must have cleaned up the sick because the room smells of bleach and there’s no puddle.
My feet are still unsteady as I take the stairs down to the kitchen, which is plunged into darkness.
Switching the light on, my heart leaps. My old man nursing a mug of something sat at the breakfast bar.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” My voice is hoarse, and my body feels like it’s been through an intensive wash cycle.
“You have nightmares,” he states.
I stop to watch him from the other side of the counter.
“I hear you at night. They stopped for a while, but tonight…” He frowns, running a hand through his hair, tugging on the strands.
“I drank too much,” I confess.
“You blame yourself?”
He already knows the damn answer to that.
“We all blame me,” I correct.
He swipes at his face. Is he crying?
“It’s not your fault,” he rasps.
Liar.
“Denial. It was just easier to place the blame elsewhere. Losing Robbie was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face in my life.” He admits.
He’s never opened up like this before. I wish I would’ve heard it months ago.
“It was me.” He croaks.
My hands grip the counter, my knuckles turning white.
“What was you?”
Sniffling, he wipes his forearm across his nose. “I told Robbie to walk.” He breaks.
My head swims. I don’t understand. “When…how?” I shake my head. He’s making no sense.
“He wasn’t feeling good. Called me using his friend’s phone. I told him he had to wait for you, but when he said he felt queasy, I told him to walk down to my office.”
He tugs at his hair, punishing himself.
Tension stiffens my body.
“Why? Why couldn’t you get him?” I demand.
Sickness threatens to spill out of me from his confession.
He’s known this shit all this time and kept it too himself. He’s a selfish cunt. Poor Robbie, let down by us both.
My darkest day was losing Robbie, that darkness has been cloaking me ever since and he’s had this information this the whole time.
He’s staring at me now, chin quivering, water leaking from his eyes.
Fuck him.
“I was mid-fuck.” He confesses. “Melissa was leaving for a vacation, and I wanted to get one last fuck in before I didn’t see her for two weeks.”
The utensil holder in front of me flies across the room before I even register throwing it at him.
“You make me sick,” I growl.
My entire body threatens to collapse at the weight of his words.
It was his fault—not mine. I didn’t kill Robbie.
“And what if he made it to the office?”
“We were finishing up,” he confesses, disgust on his own tongue.
My mind replays that night over and over, the time it would take to walk twenty minutes maybe? Thirty for Robbie whose legs were shorter than mine.
“Did you wonder why he didn’t show up?” I seethe.
Gulping he takes back his seat and swigs whatever’s in his mug.
“Your mother.” He exhales before continuing, “She caught us.” He grumbles into his cup.
That night is the night she caught him fucking his secretary?
“That’s why she wanted you to pick Robbie up, she was casing my fucking office building like a PI.”
Rounding the counter with revived energy I push him hard making him stumble from the stool and stumble back across the kitchen.
Pointing a damning finger at him I growl. “Don’t fucking blame her or make a mockery of what she had to do to prove her own sanity wasn’t playing tricks on her. Everyone knew you were a piece of shit but not her, she always had your back. And you blew it. For that blonde piece of ass? Really, is she worth it?”
Turning on my heel, I can’t even look at him. Urges to pound the shit out of him until he’s pulp of blood and bone pull at my restraint, but he’s fucked my life up enough, he gets no more of it.
Walking into my room I feel like a different person. A burden heavy on my soul has lifted. “You ok?” Chastity asks from her perched position on my bed.
“Yeah, I think I am.”
Her lips turn up into a smile and she pats the space next to her.
“Can you stay the night?” I ask.
She bites her lip nervously, a blush coloring her cheeks. “Just sleep, Chas, please?”
“Ok. I’ll call my dad and tell him I’m crashing at Maggie’s.” She attempts to get up, but I hold my hand up to stop her.
“You stay and call him, I need to make a call of my own, I’ll go outside.”
All my demons race around inside my head as I wait for Pride to arrive. I text him as soon as I left my old man to weep in the misery he created. This couldn’t be done over the phone.
Ten minutes later he’s pulling up across the street. There’s a nervous energy pulsing through me with what I’m about to do, but I know it has to be done. There’s no other way.
“You look like shit,” he says, meeting me halfway down the path.
“Good to see you too, asshole.”
He nods his head at Chastity’s car and smirks.
“That the reason I’m here? You got something for me?”
Shoving my hand in my pocket, I close my eyes briefly before pulling out the coin.
“I do, but not what you think.” I place the gold metal into his palm and wait for the lecture that doesn’t come.
“It is what I expected. The tasks are not made for all of us, and to be honest, I’m not keen on a lot of this shit. Just know you can’t control or forfeit what comes next. If you do…”
“I’m out. I know.”
I just can’t lose anything else. As if reading my thoughts Pride places a hand on my shoulder. “Losing a sibling is fucking soul crushing, believe me I know, so if she helps you, even forget for a second, then I wouldn’t risk it all for a task either.”