“Yes,” I spit out somewhat defensively before rolling over and covering my head with the pillow. My voice muffled, I went on. “I’ve had girlfriends, and I’ve had sex.” And please God, I begged internally, conveniently forgetting my semiagnostic ways, let that be the end of it. Naturally, it wasn’t.
“Really?”
At the fascinated tone in his voice, I flinched. Then with resignation I lifted the pillow just enough to gaze at him with one reluctant eye. “Yeah. When I was twenty-one, just like the law says.”
Confused, he tilted his head to one side. “Law?”
“It’s like drinking,” I lied without the slightest compunction. “You can’t drink or have sex until you’re twenty- one. We’ll buy you a book before then. A really explicit book with all the gory details. I promise. The Kama Sutra two point oh.”
“Oh. I see.” Settling onto his own bed, he leaned back against the headboard and gave me a look of overt sympathy. “If you’re a virgin, Stefan, you don’t have to be embarrassed or make up stories. Maybe we could both buy a book—or a movie. There seem to be lots and lots of movies. If we watch enough, we’re bound to learn something.”
I had been neatly wedged into a corner by a psychologically adept, offensively trained brat-on-wheels. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want him to know the big picture beyond simple anatomy. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been involved in my share of locker room exchanges with my high school buddies. Hell, one of my bases of operation for the past three years had been a strip club. I hadn’t had a girlfriend since Natalie, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get laid now and again. The thing was . . . I was Michael’s brother, not his father, and I didn’t want to get this wrong. It was important.
But if he didn’t have me to ask, then who did he have? Retreating completely under the pillow, I surrendered. “Jesus. All right. Ask away.”
“Great.” The thin layers of cotton and foam insulating my ears did nothing to hide the triumph. “Let me get a pen and some paper. I want to take notes.”
Notes—he was going to take notes. This was shaping up to be a long night.
A long, long night.
Chapter 24
The skyline of early-morning Boston was reflected in the rearview mirror along with a pair of seriously bloodshot eyes—my eyes. We’d reached the city at about two a.m. and slept in the car in a parking lot surrounded by a cluster of office buildings. The fifteen dollars we had left to our name wasn’t going to put us up in even the worst fleabag. But the lack of sleep wasn’t caused by the cramped quarters. It was Michael and his questions. They’d lasted most of the previous night and all of the following day. I should’ve actually bought him a book on the subject as I’d threatened, or two or a hundred of them, but I doubted that would’ve saved me. Somehow he had even managed to elicit details about the relationship between Natalie and me, and that was something I had refused to talk about to anyone.
It wasn’t sexual particulars he was after, which was good. I was an open book on all my other exploits, but Natalie had never been that. I’d loved her. At least it was as close to love as I could manage in the midst of my fixation with finding my brother and my obsession for redemption. I couldn’t give her my entire heart, but that wasn’t by choice. I simply didn’t have it to give. I did give her all that I did have. The small slice that was still open for business belonged to her—completely.
I bought her daisies every day. Sometimes it was a bunch tied with a ribbon. Sometimes it was only one. She was a daisy girl. Roses seemed too pretentious for someone as honest and down to earth as she was, and tulips didn’t have her life. They didn’t explode with light and energy. They didn’t throw their arms to the sky and gather in the sun. Nat and daisies were two of a kind in that respect. She was all about color, too, my girl. All our sheets were covered with whimsical patterns—fish, flowers, flying birds, diving dolphins. And every set was so tacky and garish that you were in serious danger of going blind at the sight of them.
I’d never claimed to love Natalie for her subtle taste. I loved her because of her lack of taste and for her freckles that spread like a wildfire in the summer sun. I loved her for her homemade caramel milkshakes, the best in the world, and for her tuna casserole, the absolute worst. And when she dragged that dog from the pound home for my birthday, I groaned and threw up my hands, but that was on the outside. On the inside I kept right on loving her. I’d told her before that I liked Labs, and that’s what she brought home. It had three legs, a tongue too big to fit in its mouth, and produced a gallon of slobber every five minutes. She named it Harry after my long-gone horse and gave it my spot on the couch.
With that, if possible, I loved her then even more. I loved her as much as I was capable. That was the key word, wasn’t it? Capable.
It wasn’t enough. When I finally broke down and told her what I did . . . what I had become since college, it was over. She could’ve handled just that, I think. Make no mistake; she would’ve dragged me by my ear out of that life and across the country if that’s what it took to break away. Innately honest and stubborn as all hell, she would’ve put my career to bed, for good, and before I could have taken another breath.
But it wasn’t just that. Natalie had known all along that she owned only a piece of my soul. Unreservedly, she had given me all of hers and waited patiently for me to come around.
I never had.
I hadn’t put her first. I was good at the daisies, but I’d never put her first. She wouldn’t have minded that. She would’ve understood. But I had never made her equal to my obligations either—never. It hadn’t even been close. It was one strike too many. She could’ve easily reformed me. I hadn’t ever cared about the business other than how the money from it could help me find Lukas. But while getting me on the straight and narrow would’ve been a piece of cake for Crusader Nat, she couldn’t force me to free up the rest of my heart. And she knew it.
I knew it, too. I hadn’t blamed her then, and I still didn’t. She didn’t leave me; I gave her up. I threw her away. I couldn’t make room for her in my life. There was Lukas and only Lukas. All Natalie ever had from me was the leftovers, the table scraps. Lukas came first, last, and always. Finding him was the only thing that had mattered. I’d made that choice before I had ever met Nat. When she was gone, I tried to tell myself that my only mistake had been to lead her on, to give her hope for a relationship I wasn’t equipped for. Yeah, that’s what I told myself.
I was wrong.
Lukas . . . Michael wouldn’t have begrudged me love while I searched. Generous of spirit and with a basic goodness he wasn’t yet aware of, he would’ve been happy for me. The denial wasn’t his; it was mine.
Jericho had stolen more than my brother on that beach. He’d stolen me too. He had hollowed me out, scooped out the important parts, and left a shell of brittle ice masquerading as a human being. When his man had left me for dead on the sand, he hadn’t been far off the mark. Not far at all.
I missed Nat. I missed her every time I saw a scraggly daisy blooming in the weeds, every time I saw a red kite flying high enough to block out the sun. I missed her when I bought boring white sheets and when I bypassed the dog food aisle in the grocery or when I bought thin, overly sweet fast-food milkshakes. I missed her and hoped she was someone else’s daisy girl.
I missed her and knew I’d never see her again.
So when Michael had asked me about love and relationships, things that were much harder than sex to explain, Natalie was the only place I had to go. It was a painful place, but it was a worthwhile one too. She deserved to be talked about, my girl, and Michael deserved to know there was glory in this life if you weren’t too damaged or too afraid to accept it. I talked long enough that my throat was sore. I didn’t want him to make my mistakes. It was a mistake no one should have to live with.
Michael had seemed to sense how painful a topic it was and thanked me before curling up in the backseat to leave me with my memories and my regrets. The sweet and the bittersweet; that was what life was all about. He slept for nearly six hours. I’d slept for maybe three, but for once my dreams were . . . nice—melancholy, but good.
“I thought your uncle Lev would be happy to see you. I thought you said he would welcome you with open arms and a heated house.” Jarring me from thoughts of kites, daisies, and freckles, a disheveled blond head popped
