T - I didn’t realize my sex life was so interesting to you.
L - So you were having sex? Interesting ;) Which poor girl am I going to have to console this time?
T - Mind your own.
L - Oh come on. Hartson’s Creek isn’t that big. I either know her or know of her. Who was it?
T - Get out of here.
L - Was it Van?
Tanner stared at the question. Why the hell did his brother have to be so perceptive? Logan probably knew him better than anybody. Right now that made him feel uncomfortable as hell.
Before he could tap out a reply, his phone started to ring. Sighing, Tanner answered it.
“Van? Seriously?” Logan asked. “Didn’t you learn from the last time?”
“I never said it was her.”
Logan laughed. “Your silence told me all I need to know. So what’s going on? Is she over what happened? Everything you did?”
The question made Tanner’s stomach lurch. He leaned back on the bed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We haven’t talked about it.”
“What?”
Tanner frowned. “Maybe it’s better to forget it all, you know? Leave it in the past. What I did… it was bad. And I learned from it.”
Logan’s voice turned gentle. “You’ve been paying for it for years, bro. I still remember the day you called me from Duke. You were broken, she was broken… and all because neither of you knew how to talk to each other.” Logan sighed. “I hated hearing you like that.”
“Is that why you drove down from Boston to see me?” The ghost of a smile pulled at Tanner’s lips. The one enduring thing in his life were his brothers. And when everything had got messed up, he knew that any one of them would have dropped everything to help him. But with Gray taking the music world by storm, and Cam neck deep in the football season, it had been Logan he’d turned to.
“Yeah, that’s why I turned up at your dorm room at the asscrack of dawn,” Logan said, humor in his voice. “We were worried about you. You and Van… man, you were like twins.” He chuckled. “And as much as Cam drives me crazy, I can’t imagine life without him.”
“Yeah, well apparently life still went on.”
“But did you?”
Tanner frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Logan said quickly. “Ignore me. I’m grumpy because two of my staff quit today. And the guy who supplies my meat decided to run off with another restaurant owner without making sure I’m stocked up.” Logan sighed.
“Come on. You obviously meant something. I want to know.” Tanner leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“We’re all messed up in our own ways,” Logan said, his voice quiet. “Look at Gray and Dad, constantly at each others’ throats. And there’s Cam who only seems to come to life on the football field.” He let out a sigh. “You and me, we deal with the crap life throws at us by being workaholics. For the past five years whenever I’ve spoken to you, you were either at work, coming home from work, or heading there. And I get it, man, I do. Because I do the same. Work is safe. It’s our haven. It doesn’t hurt us, and we can’t hurt it.”
“You think I work hard because I’m avoiding emotion?” Tanner shook his head. “That’s bull. It’s just the way we were brought up.”
“I’m just saying it like I see it. Mom’s death was like an explosion in our lives. There was before and there was after. Two completely different lives. And there’s a part of us that’s desperate to have the before again, but its scary as hell. So we bury our heads in work and cling to the after.”
Tanner was quiet for a moment, his brows pulled together as he pondered his brother’s words. “Logan?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“Have you gone to therapy?”
Logan coughed, though it sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “I might have.”
“Did it help?” Tanner was curious now. He remembered his own experience with therapy as a child. It was scary and made him want to run away.