“I did that for you!” he shouted. And maybe partly he had, but not completely.
“You did it for you too. He walks all over you. You have to lock your bedroom door and can’t keep your food in the kitchen. You clean up his messes and learn to sleep through his parties instead of telling him to have some fucking respect for the fact that you’re working your goddamned ass off and going to school. I’m not the only one who doesn’t have the balls to stand up to people he loves, so don’t judge me for it.”
At some point, I’d pushed off the table but couldn’t even say when. We stood a few feet apart, staring at each other, heat between us, missing the playful, sexual tension that had always been between us, even when we thought we didn’t get along.
“I’m gonna head out,” was all he said.
“Fuck,” I cursed quietly. “Brax.” I hadn’t meant to say any of that, but it didn’t make it less true. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“I don’t either. That’s why I’m going. Have a good lunch with your dad.”
He didn’t look at me as he turned and walked away. And I was a dumbass who just stood there and watched him go…wishing for a do-over, wishing we hadn’t fought and that I’d told him I loved him instead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Brax
The house was a disaster when I got home, but Asher wasn’t there. Dishes littered the counters. Beer cans, bottles of hard alcohol, and food containers were scattered around the room, some on their sides, leftovers spilled on the floor. “Fuck.” I dropped my head back, looked at the ceiling…tried not to think about Ty.
Ty, who’d gotten under my skin.
Ty, whom I wanted to be curled up in bed with.
Still, instead of going back to him, I started to clean up. I wasn’t doing it for Asher, but for Grandma. This was her house, and I didn’t want it to get fucked up. Which was true…but it also wasn’t, because leaving Asher here by himself ever since his fight with Ty wasn’t taking care of Grandma’s house. It was giving Asher free rein.
It took me almost two hours to return the place to a semblance of normal. When it was done, I unlocked my door and went into my room. It smelled slightly stale, having only been opened when I came in or out to get something before heading back to Ty’s.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, leg bouncing. One of Ty’s hoodies lay across the pillows. I wanted to smell it, which was all sorts of fucked up. He had totally taken over my thoughts, my world, and damned if I didn’t like that.
But being the stubborn asshole that I was, I didn’t head back to his place. Didn’t call or text. I tried to sleep but couldn’t, and not because of Asher either. For whatever reason, he hadn’t come home.
Before dawn, I got up, showered, dressed, and jumped on my bike for a ride. It always helped me clear my head.
I ended up at the beach I’d taken Ty to. I sat in the sand where we’d been, and tried to figure out how we’d gotten from there to where we were now; how I didn’t wish it was any other way. Well, I didn’t want to fight with him. I’d change that shit but not the rest of it.
Just as pinks and oranges began to color the sky, I took a photo, because of course I did. I was a mopey motherfucker after my first fight with my boyfriend, whom I was never even supposed to like.
I sat out there for a long while. When it wasn’t ridiculously early, I went to see my grandma.
“Uh-oh,” she said when I stepped into her room.
“Uh-oh, what?” In reality, I wasn’t surprised at all she knew something was wrong.
She sighed.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. She cocked a brow at me. Fuck my life. “Fine, something’s wrong.”
She sat in one of the chairs by the picture window, and I took the one beside her.
“I got in an argument with Ty.”
“Oh, Brax.” She reached over and grabbed my hand. “What happened?”
I started with the fight with Asher. How Ty had stuck up for me, approached Asher so I could sleep on a night before the test. How after that I’d been staying with him and we’d defined the relationship, before ending with what had happened last night.
She was quiet for a moment, her hold on me tightening. “You know he’s right about a lot of that, don’t you?” I closed my eyes, knowing she was going to say that and that she was correct. “How many times have you come in here and made excuses for why Asher doesn’t visit? How many times have you taken on his screwups and choices as your own? You did that with your father too.”