Maybe I had some pieces of my past I needed to face as much as the other guys did. My own hostile feelings had obviously skewed this power away from my intentions. The demonic influence must feed off those kinds of emotions.
Fine. I could buck up and be a man. Chances were Gabriel was hanging out in his apartment upstairs right now.
I tramped up the steps grappling with a new resentment that was trying to bud over the fact that I needed to make this overture at all. By the time Gabriel answered the door, I’d just about tamped down on it.
He blinked at me, a beer bottle dangling from his hand by his side. “Hey. What brings you out here?”
How the hell did I explain this? “I felt like we needed to talk,” I said.
If that suggestion bothered Gabriel, he didn’t show it. He waved me in. “Sure. Can I get you a beer or anything?”
Yeah, a little alcohol sounded appealing right now. Take the edge off. Especially because my chest was already clenching up at his easy-going welcome and immediate hospitality, both offered so freely in spite of the distance I’d kept from him over the months.
“I could go for a beer.” I sank down on the sofa while he went into the kitchen to grab a bottle for me. My hands clasped together in my lap.
Gabriel hadn’t been anything other than friendly toward me, not since he’d come back and not when we were kids either, had he? Honestly, that was one of the things that had always annoyed me—that he could be so warm with all of us no matter how we treated him, no matter the shitty hand life had dealt him. Gabriel the Great, always knowing the right thing to say, the best way to handle any situation.
As if that were a bad thing.
He handed me the beer and sat down at the other end of the sofa, tipping his own bottle to his lips. “What did you need to talk about, Damon?”
I looked at my drink. For the first several seconds, words escaped me. I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t even want tothinkabout it.
But I had to—for me and for Rose. To be able to master the power I’d been granted so I could transform it into something good.
“I’ve been kind of a prick to you since you got back to town,” I said without raising my head.
Gabriel let out a low laugh. “Maybe a bit. It’s okay. I was gone for a long time, and I didn’t keep up with what was going on with the rest of you all that well the last few years before that either. I couldn’t expect you’d have been waiting to rejoice my return. And I know you and your mom had a tough time of it after Mr. Hallowell kicked us all out.”
“That isn’t your fault,” I had to admit.
“But we used to look out for each other, and then it fell apart. I regret that.”
Somehow the fact that he was being so compassionate about the whole thing made this even harder. I forced myself to meet his gaze. “You’vepretty much always managed to look out for all of us, haven’t you?”
Gabriel’s smile turned crooked. “I think it’s been a far cry from always.”
“Yeah, but it’s a lot more than any of us managed. We were all caught up in our own ideas and interests, and you were the one who kept us on the same track, bigger and better adventures back then, ways to support Rose…” My chuckle came out raw. “It’s really a wonder we managed to come together without you when she first came back. I almost screwed things up at least a half a dozen times.”
Gabriel shrugged. His eyes had darkened a little as he considered me. “I don’t know what to tell you. That’s just… what feels right to me. I couldn’t have forced us to gel together if we didn’t work as a group. Nothing centers me like knowing I’ve got the four of you and Rose, that we’ve got some kind of connection thriving between us.”
“You don’t have to explain it. This is about whatIshould tell you.” My grip tightened around the beer bottle. I took a swig to bolster my resolve. Then, staring at the gleam of reflected light on the glass neck, I managed to propel the words out. “I wasn’t a prick to you because I disagreed with how you handle things. I was a prick because it pisses me off thatIcan’t be half as good at any of that. I don’t think, when we hung out on the estate way back when, there was really anything I wanted more than to impress you. Hell, I basically wanted tobeyou, and it killed me how impossible that was.”
My throat closed up after the last comment tumbled out. An ache had formed at the base of it, so solid I couldn’t swallow.
Gabriel was silent for a moment. I couldn’t tell if he was waiting to make sure I’d said everything I wanted to get out or if, for once in his life, he simply didn’t know how to respond. When he did speak, his voice came out even but quiet.
“It’s not necessarily so great being me either. I’ve fucked up. I’ve hurt Rose more than once, badly, because of the crap I had to deal with in my own head. If I’ve given the impression that I think I know everything or that I can do no wrong, I’ve got to apologize for that.”
Maybe that was true, but— “I don’t think you could possibly have fucked up as many times or in as many ways as I have.”
The corner of Gabriel’s mouth quirked upward again. “Apples and oranges. You know, there’ve been plenty of times I’ve admired the risks you’re willing to take, the fact that you’ll tell people off when they deserve it no matter what the consequences might be… No one else thought to throw themselves into the line of fire during that last battle with the demon. I figure we’re best off with one of me and one of you.”
I glanced up at him, some part of me expecting to see he was pulling my leg about the whole admiration thing, but nothing in his expression suggested the remark hadn’t been genuine. It was hard to wrap my head around the idea of Gabrielactuallybeing impressed by anything about me, as much as I might have longed for that in the past.
He might even be right. We all brought something different to our weird family. It could be that removing the prick from the bunch would throw the whole dynamic off. And you couldn’t really have more than one ringleader.
“I guess that’s possible,” I said. The ache faded with a rush of feeling that surged through my chest. It was okay. All of it—the resentment, the snarky remarks, the envy I’d struggled with—we could set behind us, just like that. “Still, I’m sorry for when I’ve given you a hard time and you didn’t deserve it. I think I’m over that now. Wearefamily. I’m glad that we are.”