“You didn’t come back. I waited. I worried about you. Nobody heard from you, Jude. I woke up in the morning and you were gone. I found your phone smashed to pieces on the kitchen counter. I had no way to reach you. You just took off and didn’t even care about any of the people you left behind.” Tears threatened but I forced them back. I’d shed an ocean of tears for him. He didn’t get to see me cry.
He grasped my chin and tilted my face up to his. “I came back to tell you that I couldn’t live without you. I came back to beg for your forgiveness.”
“What are you talking about? When was this?”
“Doesn’t matter. You made your choices, same as I did.” With that, he released me and strode to the door. There he went again, waltzing away with my heart and leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
You made your choices, same as I did.
We’d made all the wrong choices.
Goddamn you, Jude. Why did you have to come back here and churn up all these emotions again?
I hated him. I really did. I hated him so much.
If only that were true, life would be so much simpler.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jude
“This dinner is going to be awkward as fuck,” Gideon said, echoing my thoughts.
My mom sighed as she took the pies out of the oven. It didn’t go unnoticed that they were peach, my favorite. Or that the Black Angus steaks were thick and marbled the way I liked them. Gideon had already called this dinner “The return of the prodigal son.”
“Watch your language,” she told him. “Get off that phone and make yourself useful.” She pointed to the cabinet that held our dinner plates. “Set the table on the porch.”
Reluctantly, Gideon pocketed his phone that was attached to his hand twenty-four seven and grabbed plates from the cupboard while I continued chopping cucumbers and peppers for the salad.
My mother, for whatever crazy reason, was excited about having her whole family together for Sunday dinner. And by family, she meant every last one of us, including Brody, Lila, and their son.
It had been two days since I’d seen Lila, and I had yet to see Brody. I’d be happy to keep it that way.
Jesse plucked a cherry tomato from the salad and leaned his hip against the kitchen counter, running his fingers through his light brown surfer dude hair. My baby brother was almost twenty-five but I still thought of him as a kid. He’d always been the most easygoing, laid back one in the family and time hadn’t changed that. “How do you think it’s gonna go down?” he asked me.
“I’m not going to say a fucking word.” My gaze tracked my mom as she carried a pitcher of sweet tea to the porch. “I don’t want to upset Mom.”
Brody and I had unfinished business but a family dinner wasn’t the time or place to get into it.
“So you don’t think there’ll be a fight?” Jesse asked, disappointed.
“Nobody is fighting,” my mom said, the screen door closing behind her as she came back inside. “They’re grown men, not kids anymore.”
Gideon grabbed the utensils from the drawer and sized me up. “They’re equally matched but my money’s on Brody.”
“What the hell?” Jesse said, scandalized. There was a good reason Jesse was my favorite. He was loyal to the core. More than I could say for Gideon or Brody. “Jude would win with his hands tied behind his back.”
“There will be no fighting.” My mom wagged her finger at me like I was eight years old again and had just tracked mud across her clean kitchen floor. “Do you hear me?”
“I’m not looking for a fight.”
“You and Brody were always looking for a fight,” Gideon said.
If memory served, it was always Brody looking for a fight. Not just with me. With anyone who so much as looked at him wrong. He’d gotten me involved in more fights than I cared to remember. I’d always had his back. He was family, and family came first. Too bad he’d forgotten that. As soon as I’d turned my back, he buried the knife in it.
Speak of the devil and in he walks. Asshole. He hadn’t changed much. A couple inches shorter than me with a lean, muscular build and that cocky attitude that had always gotten him into trouble. Trouble I’d bailed him out of on more occasions than I could count. Obviously, he’d forgotten all about that too.
“Long time, no see,” he said, that surly expression on his face that he used to reserve for teachers and authority figures. “Was hoping it would stay that way.”
At least we agreed on something.
“Brody. Play nice,” my mom warned.
I laughed but there was no humor in it. “No reason to start now. Brody’s always played dirty. Isn’t that right?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. “Think what you want, cuz. You always did think you knew everything.”
Son of a bitch. My hands curled into fists. It took all my self-restraint not to plant one of them in his face. He laughed like he knew what I was thinking.
If we made it through this dinner without bloodshed it would be a fucking miracle. How could my mother have thought this would be a good idea? Why had I even agreed to it?
“Brody. Carry this food out to the table.” My mom’s tone of voice brooked no room for argument. She shoved the salad bowl at Brody’s chest. “Jude. That barbecue should be ready. Put the steaks on.”
“Noah won’t eat steak. Thanks to Jesse.” Brody shot Jesse a look.
Noah. That was their son’s name. Noah McCallister.
“Good thing he didn’t ask where burgers come from. But hey, being a vegetarian is a lot healthier.” Jesse patted his washboard abs. “Dad’s gonna have to start eating heart healthy, you
