At least I remembered why I’d done it now. I remembered how young Leander had looked when I’d gotten to the scene first—that bitch had called me before she’d called the police.
And Leander had looked so small, and then she’d leaned down and kissed him. He was still drugged out of his mind on whatever shit had made him crash in the first place, and there she was, kissing him and telling him she’d make everything better. She looked like a vulture to me, perched over him like that. Of course, it was exactly what she was.
Then she was marching me over to the cops, telling them I’d been the driver and they could take me down to the station to get printed.
“It was Milo who helped me get him away from her,” I continued.
Hope looked back at me.
“After the crash, Mrs.—”
“Janus,” Leander warned.
I rolled my eyes. “That woman was the one who pulled the switcheroo, so I was the one who got taken in. I used my one phone call on Milo. And he came back and told me he swore that if I did it—if I did the time for Leander, that he’d get Leander away from her and into rehab. And that he’d get custody of us from Mom for our last year of high school until we were eighteen.”
“I still don’t know how he got Mom to agree to that,” Leander said.
Knowing everything that had been revealed now, I shake my head. “I think Milo’s always been more wily than we knew.”
“Yeah, I guess he had to be, growing up with her,” Leander said. And then, more quietly, “I don’t think we even have a clue how bad it was for him. How many times did we come home from work when we were kids only to find him locked in the closet? He was older than us but sometimes we’d find him shaking so bad, he could barely drink water when we let him out. You used to cry sometimes because you were afraid mean mommy would lock you in the closet too.”
“I did?” I asked, surprised. I didn’t remember that. “I guess we all just sort of took care of each other.” After Milo and I talked, and I fully understood what Leander had been going through for years by that point—and how I’d missed all the obvious signs—well, going to lockup in his place hadn’t sounded like much of a punishment.
“Except I didn’t,” Leander said. “Nobody protected you in prison. You shouldn’t have even been there.”
“Janus?” Hope’s eyes came worriedly to me.
I put up my hands. “It wasn’t as bad as Leander. I just got a lot better with my fists than I ever wanted to.”
“You got beaten every day for months,” Leander said, scoffing. “I just had a lot of sex.”
“Would the both of you stop!” Hope cried. “Both of you, stop downplaying the trauma you went through! It was real and valid and horrifying, and I’m so, so sorry those things happened to you.”
She reached down two arms to help pull me off the couch. Then, not letting go of my hand, tugged me over so that she could hug both me and Leander at the same time.
She turned so that she was facing me. She murmured, “Thank you for saving your brother,” and then she kissed me. Slow and lingering.
Leander quickly took up position behind her, kissing her voraciously on the back of her neck. His hands worked quickly and opened her robe. Her large breasts sprung out against my chest. He moved back only a moment to peel the robe from her shoulders so that it pooled at her feet and then he was immediately back.
Her sweet, curvy body was sandwiched between our two hard ones.
Fuck. I landed a hand on her hip and my fingers sank into her flesh. I grasped hard and a little whimper came out of my sweet honey.
Leander was obviously done with slow. After what he’d confessed—something I’d never heard him say out loud to anyone, ever—
He needed her.
What we didn’t tell Hope? After I got out and Leander was sober, he only ever fucked women when I was there with him.
He didn’t trust his own judgement after she-who-will-not-be-named. He didn’t trust himself to be alone with women. He was afraid, full stop.
As for me…
Well… I’d lied to him about the full extent of what happened to me in prison. I didn’t know if my brother would be able to bear any misguided guilt if I told him what really happened the couple times when I lost the fights I got into almost daily. At least after they took me from county lockup to the state penitentiary when a judge decided he wanted to teach the playboy celebrity a lesson. But some things could just be swallowed up tight into one’s soul if they buried it deep enough, couldn’t they?