“Kiana, I’ve always cared about you.” I shake my head. “Yes, things got a little complicated with your father, and maybe I could’ve done more on my end, but again—that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with this.”
“Easy to say now.” She glances back at me. “There were a lot of times when I could have used someone to talk to. I never realized how much I enjoyed those conversations, even if you were just humoring me, until you weren’t coming around anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and a sigh passes across my lips. “You trusted me back then, right? Trust me now.”
We’re silent for a moment. I can tell she’s contemplating what I said. I never knew how much those random talks meant to her. They meant something to me too, and I wasn’t really humoring her; she was important to me, although we had different motivations back then. Now we just need to find common ground. Honesty. I don’t know if I can fix her problem, but I want that chance.
“My brother.” Kiana looks away. “Hudson has been gambling for several years, but he’s really bad at it, apparently. Our father was covering the debts until he couldn’t anymore…”
“Couldn’t?” I blink in surprise. “He’s broke?”
“That’s why he sold his part of the company.” Kiana nods. “My brother got in bad with some guys who were going to hurt him. Since then, they’ve both been making some really bad decisions—enabling each other, I guess you could say. It’s my mom’s fault too. Every time Hudson gets in trouble, she turns on the waterworks until my father makes the problem go away.”
“Fuck.” I exhale sharply.
“Now, the problem is so big there isn’t enough money to fix it. There’s a new loan shark in the city named Mr. Diaz. He gave Hudson a line of credit because my father always paid it off. Now my parents are just sitting at home waiting on the phone call they don’t want to get.” Kiana’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m doing everything I can to make sure their phone doesn’t ring.”
“That isn’t your burden! Fuck!” I shake my head angrily.
“Someone has to carry it…” Kiana looks down, and the tears begin to stream down her face.
I can’t stand to watch a woman cry, but I understand Kiana’s tears. She’s been put in the shittiest of situations. Lawson, he always loved his family, but damn if he didn’t make some bad decisions if he let his son bankrupt him over gambling debts. I don’t know what I would do if the role was reversed, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t put all of that on Kiana.
“You really do need to take the next turn; otherwise, you’re going to have to hit the interstate to turn around.” Kiana wipes her eyes and points.
I would. If that’s where I was going. Kiana is a mess, and there’s no way I’m just going to drop her off at her apartment.
“I’m not taking you home. You don’t need to be alone right now.” I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. “You’re going to spend the night at my place.”
She doesn’t argue.
I doubt she wants to be alone right now either.
Chapter Nine
Kiana
I’ve never been good at keeping things bottled up when someone pushes me. It’s part of the reason I opened up to Bram in the first place when I was younger—when I got called a disappointment by my mom because I brought home a grade she wasn’t happy with. That word always stung, and once they realized it could do damage, they used it as often as possible to keep me in line.
But I wasn’t the real disappointment at my house. My brother was the one who should’ve gotten scolded, but he never cared if they were mad at him. It rolled off of him like water, no matter what they said, so I got the brunt of it since I didn’t know how to make myself invincible.
It was essentially what created a rift in my household. After my father sold his part of the company to Bram to pay my brother’s first real gambling debt, the rift widened until I didn’t even know my own family anymore.
That was when I needed Bram most. But he wasn’t there.
I can forgive that now because I think I need him a lot more than I did back then, even if he can’t fix everything.
“I’ll be okay if you want to just take me home.” I look over at him once I finally regain my composure.
“I don’t.” He shakes his head.
Good. I really don’t want to be alone right now. Admitting everything to him has brought all of those memories back. The ones I wanted to forget. The ones that were so damn hard to bury in my thoughts to begin with.
“My place is at the end of the street.” Bram turns on a road I don’t recognize and points in the distance.
I haven’t really looked at my surroundings much. We’re not in the city anymore. The houses around here are nice, much nicer than the one I grew up in. There was a time when my family could have afforded one like it, before my father began to squander everything we had to keep my brother’s head attached to his neck.
Now I just squander my dignity. One night at a time.
“This is your house?” I blink in surprise when he turns down the driveway and hits a button to open the garage.
“Yeah.” He nods. “I bought it not long after we started turning a profit at the company. Thankfully I paid it off before things started going in the opposite direction.”
I stare in disbelief until the car rolls into the garage, and he lowers the door. It’s hard to believe he has so much space and doesn’t share it with anyone. I was just happy to have my own bedroom, but it
