“Because I have to,” he said. “Listen, Bran, because I fucking have to. Rather me than some other random, yeah? Who the hell knows who else he could have signed up for this shit?”
His voice was a hiss and nothing more. My brain churned over where he could be. Hiding somewhere in Drake’s manor, out of earshot.
Pretending to be in my corner while Drake grinned away right next to him, holding back the laughter.
“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked. “Tell him no? Give me the line and I’ll do my best to take it, but he wants me to step up and take the lead over these next fucking shows. Wants me to be like you.”
I gripped the steering wheel hard as I let my brain tick.
He really could be on Drake’s side, laughing at my gullibility, in which case it didn’t matter shit what I had to say about it. Or alternatively, he really could be on my side, a puppet dancing to Drake’s tune just to keep him close.
Either way, he’d be stepping up to the plate Drake was setting for him.
No options. There really were no options on the table.
“She’s not been pushed to the limits by any stretch,” I told him. “Make sure you take it fucking easy. No crazy moves. No crazy fucking performances. Steady and respectful and with her best fucking interests in mind, understand? She isn’t a sixty-day girl, not anymore. She’s so much more.”
“Yeah, course I understand,” he snapped back. “You think I’m really out to fuck up the girl who’s gonna share my fucking surname?”
“Hold back from fucking her,” I said, then cursed under my breath. “Actually fucking her I mean. As long as you can, anyway. You’ll have a day or two at least, just insist you know what you’re doing about pushing her to her limits.”
“I will, don’t worry. Like I said, I’ve got no pressing desire to fuck my sister-in-law, just gotta do what Drake’s demanding to keep myself alive in this fucking place.”
The line was silent for a few seconds. Both of us stewing.
He was right on that front, too. If Drake told him to fuck Paige Emmerson there and then in front of him, there was no way he’d seriously be able to protest. Not a hope in hell it wouldn’t flag up his loyalties as being wayward if he tried.
“It was tough getting in there?” I prompted, taking his attention back to earlier.
“Fuck yeah, it was tough.” His voice sounded genuine. His experiences ripe. “He accused me over and over of being on your side. I had to give him a load of sad old fucking stories until he believed me.”
“Sad old stories?”
“Yeah,” he continued. “From when we were kids and you’d always be so much fucking better than me at everything we ever tried. From after your lover girl fucked you over and you were the biggest cunt on the planet to ever be around. Knocked me out when I told you to get over it, remember?”
I remembered well enough.
“I’m sure you conveyed the stories with enough spite to be believable.”
His laugh was quiet. “Yeah, I guess so. Just like the stories I told him about the past few months working with you. The way you spoke to me like a piece of shit and acted like I was a fucking nobody.”
“I’m sure those stories were plenty believable,” I said, because he was right. I did speak to him like a piece of shit and act like he was a fucking nobody.
“Believable enough that he patted me on the back and said he’d treat me with a lot more respect. Said I could be the side man with all the pleasure of being hands on from here on in.”
Even as I battled with the concerns of loyalty, I felt a wash of relief that he’d been accepted.
“Well done,” I said. “Good job getting in there.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “Just doing my bit for team Grant. Planning on being a part of it for quite some pissing time.”
I hoped he was.
I hoped I really was due to get a brother worth shit to me on the back of all this.
“I better go soon,” he said. “I’m in the bathroom upstairs.”
“You managed to smuggle an unrecognised number phone in there with you?”
“Like hell I did,” he said. “This was a SIM only smuggle. Got to be careful how I switch it with my normal one.”
So many words were backed up ready to blurt from me. I wanted to tell him about Drake and our father and what truths I was chasing after along the coast. I wanted to tell him I’d been back to our childhood and had so many hard revelations to process and make sense out of.
I wanted to tell him about Amelia.