I wanted to make a snarky comment about hownot easyhis marriage had been, but I bit my tongue. The last thing King needed was my bullshit, especially given all he was going through. I sighed. “I know. You’re right. I just, I don’t even know where to start.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Still Rome
Five days later
I sat on a chair in King’s living room, clutching a stack of notecards. The list of dos and don’ts for Nix’s intervention were so freaking confusing. Give examples of hurtful behavior, but don’t be judgmental. Write impactful statements, but don’t be overly emotional.
We’d already broke that last ‘don’t’ a few times. Thank god King had lined up a counselor to mediate today. She was quick to jump in when we got out of hand which with us tended to be the norm. And she’d managed to talk Nix into coming back into the room when he’d realized it was an intervention and had stormed out.
But now it was my turn to speak, and I doubted I’d ever been this nervous. I wanted to say the right thing that’d snap Nix out of his self-destructive spiral, but I was worried I’d actually do the opposite and make everything worse. Here lately it seemed like every time Nix and I were in the same room chaos ensued.
Not to mention all the other bullshit I’d been responsible for lately.
“Rome, do you have anything else you want to say?” Willa, the addiction counselor, asked me.
I looked up from my notecards and stared across the room to where Nix was sprawled on the end of the couch, looking bored and annoyed. We weren’t getting through to him. He didn’t care what we thought.
I gulped and set the cards with my carefully prepared speech aside. “I, uh, I’ve done some really screwed up shit lately. I know I’ve hurt the people who mean the most to me. I’ve been selfish and myopic because I thought I knew best and screw anyone who got in my way. I hurt the one woman in this world who I—” My voice broke as I couldn’t even finish the sentence. “Sophia deserved better than what happened between us. And so did you, Nix.”
A frown crossed my brother’s face as he shifted toward me, his arms crossed.
“I don’t really have an excuse. Things just got so out of hand. And I really regret what happened between us at my house a few days ago. I’m sorry for my part in it. I acted like an immature asshole and antagonized you instead of reaching out and offering solutions. I’m sorry.”
Nix dropped his hands into his lap and stared down at them. A muscle flexed in his jaw but still he didn’t speak. It looked like he was listening, but for all I knew he was reciting rap lyrics in his head or something.
So I kept talking.
“But I will say that this version of you is so far from the little brother I remember when we were growing up and when you first moved out here. That guy would’ve given a shit when the girl I…when my girlfriend got hurt. That guy wouldn’t have sold his brother out to anyone, let alone the press. That guy would’ve stuck around when his big brother was going through the worst fucking ordeal of his life. King lost his wife—Zoe her mother—and where have you been? They needed you, and all you could do was show up to the wake? And then disappear again? That’s not love. That’s not support. That’s not the brother I remember having and definitely not the brother I want in my life.”
Tears shone in Nix’s eyes as my words penetrated that hard shell he’d been pretending protected him.
The rest of the intervention was a blur. But King spoke again and so did Willa. We’d both promised to stop enabling him until he got help. No more pool house sleepovers. No more cash ‘loans.’ No more parties at our houses.
I was stunned when Nix agreed to go to the rehab King had arranged.
He climbed into the car we’d ordered without a fuss. Willa promised to meet him there. Apparently, there was some rule about checking himself in—no one could do it for him.
He had to do it himself.
King and I stood in his driveway and watched the car pull through the gates.
“That was…” I didn’t even know how to finish my thought.
“Yeah.” King agreed. “Want something to drink?”
“Sure, but I’m not really up for alcohol after that.”
“I think I have some iced tea or lemonade in the fridge.”
I followed my brother back into the house and sat at the kitchen island while he grabbed glasses and a pitcher of iced tea.
He slid my glass across the smooth marble. “So filming’s done?”
“We wrapped yesterday.” I grunted before I drank some tea. “I’ve got a few weeks before publicity starts up forThe Kiss Off.”
King snorted, and I didn’t have to ask why. I didn’t pick the title.