Diego’s attention had already shifted to the woman catching up to me. “Maeve?”
“Diego? Oh my god, hey! You look great.”
As I unlocked the door, they hugged like old friends. When I looked over my shoulder before going inside, my fucking brother was cupping her face like I’d done five minutes ago. And I...I didn’t say a single word. Just took the groceries inside and unloaded them all.
Diego wandered into the kitchen a minute later, grinning from ear to ear. “What’s Maeve O’Day doing grocery shopping with you, brother?”
“She wanted to bake.” I shrugged. “She’s staying in the guest room until tomorrow, then she’s going back to New York. Why didn’t you let yourself in? This is your house too.”
He grunted as he leaned a hip against the counter. “Wasn’t sure how welcome I was.”
I stopped what I was doing and turned to him. He had filled out, let his face get scruffy, but he looked younger, and maybe it was me projecting my shit, but he looked fragile. In him, I still saw the same grubby, rail-thin, ten-year-old kid standing at our doorstep with someone from social services, telling my old man and me Diego was ours.
I pulled him against me and hugged him roughly, soaking up his solid warmth. He was alive—alive and okay.
“You’re always welcome. Never fucking doubt that for a second.”
Maeve peeked her head in. “Hey, I’m going to go upstairs for a while to give y’all privacy.”
Diego turned toward her. “Don’t leave on my account. I’m sure my grumpy brother was looking forward to sampling your goods.”
She coughed, cheeks blooming pink. “I’ll come down later and you can both sample my goods.”
Her eyes met mine, pleading for me to say something. I didn’t know what to say. My tongue was tied, and my hands gripped the counter so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it’d cracked.
When I kept quiet, her eyes dropped and she walked away.
“So...how was the tour?” Diego asked.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No.”
He scrunched his face. “No?”
“No. We’re not going to be all casual, shooting the breeze like two old friends. You went to fucking rehab without even a conversation.” I pounded my chest. “You never even told me you were struggling. I’m...Diego, Dad cried. Our old man had real tears, openly crying over you.”
“Finally.” He exhaled and pulled me in for another hug, slapping me hard on the back twice. “You’re finally letting yourself be pissed. You don’t have to hold it in. I’m not as breakable as I seem.”
I held him at arm’s length, my eyes burning. “Yeah, I’m pissed. You hid a pill addiction for, what? A year? More? You abandoned the band, you abandonedme. You didn’t let me help you, didn’t even talk to me. I will bend over fucking backwards for you, and you hid this shit from me.”
He nodded, mouth tight. “There’s a whole lot of shame inside me. A whole damn lot. I’m going to tell you all of it, if you want to hear it.”
“Of course I want to hear it.”
In a moment so surreal, I had to yank at my arm hair to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, my kid brother and I sat in our living room as he laid out his slide into addiction point by point. Before we got famous and started making money, he’d smoked weed, done the occasional line of blow. Nothing big, at least not from the perspective of two men who’d grown up around a whole lot worse. After we started making money, Diego’s habit increased, but he wasn’t dependent on the high.
Not until he got hurt.
“The pain...I don’t know how to explain chronic pain. It wore me out, physically and mentally. I saw no end, and doctors kept throwing pills at the problem. So I took them, and I kept taking them until I wasn’t sure if I was in pain anymore. I never let myself come down long enough to chance it. Then, one day, I pulled open my bedside table, saw all the empty pill bottles, and I got scared. I was turning into my mom and that terrified me. It took me a split-second to make the decision to get help, a few phone calls to secure a spot in a rehab, and another couple minutes to text all of you.”
“You couldn’t wait to talk face-to-face?” It killed me he’d done that all on his own.
He shook his head, adamant. “No. I had to do it then, or I might not have done it at all.”
We kept talking, more than we had in years. He told me all about rehab, the people he’d met, what the sober house was like. He kept asking about the tour, but I kept steering the conversation back to him.
Eventually, we ordered pizza for dinner. Diego called up to Maeve, but she came to the top of the stairs and said she was going to bed, but to save some for her for tomorrow. I tried to meet her eyes, but she directed her remarks to Diego.
My guts ripped in two. I needed to be with my brother, but I was also betraying my girl every second I denied she was anything more than a friend.