“Mostly,” Kelly replies and points to his eye. “We’re still working out some kinks.”
“Oh, Mum,” I say, loading a huge mouthful of duck on my fork because it’s delicious and I can’t eat it fast enough. “Kelly’s brother is getting married in two weeks. Guess who to?”
Obviously Mum would never guess, but she takes me literally. “Meryl Streep.”
I roll my eyes. “Mum, he’s not ancient.”
“He’d be lucky to have her,” she counters. “Meryl Streep is a queen.”
“Well, it’s not her.”
Mum tries again, listing her second favourite actress. “Kate Winslet.”
“No, it’s not her either—”
“Susan Sarandon,” she shoots out, pointing her fork at me. My brows rise. “Oohh Helen Mirren.”
“Mum!”
“I adore that woman,” she says like we don’t already know. She has Pinterest board dedicated to her different looks and hairstyles.
“It’s Grace Paterson. I met her yesterday when she was at Rehab visiting Casey.”
“Shut the front door!” she shouts, her gazing shooting to Kelly. “I love her. I’ve done her makeup a few times. But last I recall she was living in Melbourne. She’s living here now?”
He nods. “She is.”
“Where are they getting married?”
Crap. My mouth ran away with me. I offer Kelly an apologetic glance. His hand squeezes my upper thigh, where he’s kept it resting throughout the entire meal. It’s not a squeeze of reassurance. It’s one that says “I’ll get you for this later.”
“I don’t know,” he replies. “The invitation is on my fridge, but I haven’t really looked at it.”
Then Mum dives right in to the deep end. “Got your best man speech ready?”
Kelly pauses a moment before picking up his soda water. “I’m not going.”
Silence falls across the table. Fark. I place my knife and fork on my empty plate with a clatter and reach for my wine glass. Thankfully Dad refilled it just moments earlier. I take a huge gulp before setting it down and removing the napkin from my lap. “Thanks for dinner. This was absolutely delicious. We should get going though.”
I start to rise from the table.
“Oh,” Mum says, ignoring me, her brows pulling together. “Is it a destination wedding?”
“No.” Kelly stiffens beside me, every muscle rigid as he sets his glass back down. I sink into my chair, feeling lower than low. I want to punch myself. I actually want to punch myself in the face for introducing the topic. “It’s here in Sydney.”
“Oh, love.” She offers him a sympathetic expression as he picks up his knife and fork and pushes a piece of corn around on his plate. He’s trying to make an effort but his appetite is gone, and I don’t blame him one single bit. My gaze narrows on my mother with warning. Don’t do it, Mum. Do not. “Why aren’t you going? Do you not get along?”
My eyes lift to the ceiling. This is all my fault because I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut. Instead, I drag Kelly to our family dinner and spew his private business across the table. And my mother, being the intrusive yet caring person that she is not only picks it up, she fucking runs with it. “Mum.”
“We don’t,” Kelly answers.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Mason interjects, finally speaking for the first time since he arrived to the table.
Mason’s biting comment makes my throat burn. It burns. Kelly doesn’t have to be here. He doesn’t have to give a shit about Mason or my relationship with him. And yet he’s here. Because I asked. And the only reason I know he would agree to this awkward family dinner is because he cares. Of course he cares. He’s wearing charcoal-coloured dress pants with an ironed crease. His collared shirt is crisp and white and features a few discreet wrinkles that he missed while pressing it. But he made that effort. We arrived here with Kelly carrying a bottle of wine. And not the cheap four-dollar crap that I usually buy because it’s all I can afford. He brought the good stuff. And he gave it to my mother when we arrived with a polite smile, because just like she wants to make a good impression on my behalf, so does he.
During dinner he spent his time fielding probing questions from my father and inappropriate ones from my mother because I was a thoughtless idiot and brought up his brother’s wedding. He also fielded glares from my brother, who is so entangled in his own bitterness there is no cutting him free.
And I am done. I am so done with my brother that the insides of my nostrils fizz from restrained fury and my heart pounds so fiercely I can almost imagine what a heart attack feels like. I can barely choke out his name. “Mason. Enough.”
“Let me guess,” my brother adds in a snide tone, ignoring my thickly-voiced reprimand. “You shot him in the back?”
“Mason!” My fury unleashes, my hand slapping against the table, causing glasses and plates to rattle. Kelly inhales deeply to the right of me. He’s trying to keep calm. I can feel it. He’s trying so hard and it almost breaks me apart because he deserves the world. He grew up physically abused—hurt and hated on for no other reason except he was there. At the age of fifteen his brother left and his mother died before his eyes. Somewhere along the way he found the Sentinels, a new family, and knowing now that Grinder is the exception and not the rule, I thank God that they were there for him. They were there when no one else was. And somehow, despite the horrific childhood he endured, he’s still a good person. A person who is still willing to take a chance on life, and hopefully, if I’m lucky … love. And my brother … I take a breath. My brother is treating him like an absolute piece of shit. And while he’s busy doing that, the man beside me is not only taking it, he’s breathing air deep inside his lungs because he doesn’t want to lose his shit and cause a scene.
My eyes burn and my throat aches. It aches so goddamn much. I’m ashamed of my brother. So hurt and so … so fucking defeated. “You are done,” I tell my brother.
Kelly sets down his knife and fork with so much care. The task done, he looks at my brother with an expression so cold it chills my blood. “No, I didn’t shoot my brother in the back,” he says, his voice forged in iron. “Casey left me with an abusive father when I was fifteen. A man who killed my mother with a single blow to the cheek. He’s the one I shot, though not in the back. I shot him in the head. And I didn’t cripple him, Mason. He died. Instantly. So yeah, now my brother and I don’t get along.”
His words take my breath away. He shot his father. He shot his father. He … he … Oh my god. Bile rises, burning my throat. The entire table is silent, and I sit there unable to breathe, unable to think, and about to be sick. I have to do something, but I don’t know what— because Kelly shot his father. I spent my time in the kitchen complaining about some stupid degree and ridiculous student loans, as if my life were hard, and he let me go on about it as though it were important when all the while Kelly had shot his father.
He’s breathing heavy beside me. The admission has cost him. Rather than unleashing on Mason like he deserves, Kelly has shared something about himself that’s not just huge, it’s enormous. It’s … I don’t even know what it is.
All I know is that I’m an asshole. I put Kelly in this position where he got backed into a corner like a wild animal, and rather than lash out, he rolled to his back and exposed his belly.
“Kelly …” my voice is a cracked whisper.
Except he doesn’t hear me. His hands are fisted and resting on the table, his eyes on my brother. “I came here tonight because I care for your sister.” Oh god, Kelly. I blink back tears. I will not cry at this dinner table tonight. I will not. “So you understand why I have to tell you this. If you ever call Arcadia a bitch again like you did earlier tonight, I will hurt you.” My throat aches. After everything I put him through tonight, he’s still defending me, and it’s wrong. It’s fucked-up and all twisted around because I should be the one defending him. “She has stood by you through everything. She would take a bullet for you the sam
e way you did for her. She shouldn’t have to give up what she wants to make you happy. She shouldn’t have to push herself through a finance degree when her heart isn’t in it because you decided it was the only future safe enough for her. That’s why she chose numbers. You told her they were safe, didn’t you? And now she feels she owes you because the bullet you protected her from put you in a wheelchair. And now you’re telling her who she can and can’t have in her life. You’re making her choose, and I’ll tell you something, Mason. In this, everyone will lose.” Kelly draws a deep breath in and lets it out. “Being in a wheelchair is no excuse for being an asshole. And until you can start treating your sister like a human being, you can fuck off out of that house you share with her and move in with your grandfather.”
Finished, and only when he’s finished, does Kelly rise. He waited until he was done before standing because he didn’t want to loom over my brother unfairly. He spoke his threat at eye level.
“Get your bag. We’re leaving.”
My eyes are fixed to the table. I’m so ashamed of myself. Of my brother. I can’t even look at him because I’m scared of what I’ll say. Words can never be unsaid, I remind myself.
“Ace, let’s go,” Kelly tells me.
I rise, not knowing where to look, so I look at no one. “I can’t even look at you,” I whisper to my brother, turning blindly for my bag.
I thought tonight would be hard, but this? This is horrendous. It’s a like a bad dream, and I want to wake up. Kelly may care about me, but after tonight we’re done. I know we are, because no one would ever choose this. Especially not Kelly. And I’m not sure which pain is worse—the shock of what happened tonight or the ache for what never will.
23
Arcadia
Kelly doesn’t speak in the driveway of my parents’ house. He puts his helmet on silently and hands me mine. I don’t say anything either. I don’t trust myself to speak without the words coming out choked. And I don’t know how to apologise for what that was back in there. Sorry just doesn’t seem enough.
He climbs on the bike and turns the engine. It roars to life and he waits. My stomach is knotted as I climb on, trying to hold myself together when I feel ready to fall apart. My arms slide around his waist, wondering if it will be the last time I get to touch him and feel his warmth. Kelly always, always, puts his large hand to mine where it rests against his midsection before we take off. This time he doesn’t. He doesn’t and it says more to me than any words ever could. He revs the bike a little, both hands gripping the bars as he reverses us out of the drive.
I hate this. This coldness. It’s as if a giant black abyss sits between us and crossing it is impossible. My eyes sting and my arms wrap tighter. If he notices, he doesn’t let on. He simply draws to a stop at the red light before us and waits, his body stiff as if he can’t wait to get me home and off his bike.
“I shot him in the head. He died. Instantly.”
My throat grows tighter. I’ll never forget those words. Or how he spoke them, as if he simply did what he had to do. I try to picture a fifteen-year-old Kelly with a gun and it steals my breath. What he had to do … The strength it must have taken. He lives with the knowledge that it was too late for his mother. But you saved yourself, I want to tell him. And I’m pathetically grateful you did.
We arrive at my house far too soon. He idles the bike in my driveway, and I don’t want to get off, so we sit there as the minutes tick by, his feet on the ground holding us upright and my arms so tight around him I don’t know how to let go.
But I know I have to. He doesn’t switch the engine off or remove his helmet. And when I eventually unlink my arms and slide to the ground on unsteady legs, and after I tug the helmet from my head and tuck it beneath my armpit, he reverses from the drive.
I watch him go and my heart aches. It aches so fucking much. He disappears down the street, brake lights red as he slows before turning the corner, the bike roaring as he accelerates away. Then he’s gone.
The street becomes quiet with nothing but the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze. Then, and only then, do the tears start to fall. Faster than I can wipe them away. I have never, never, felt more like a piece of shit than I do right now.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, sucking in air and wiping at my face, but it’s long enough for Racer to pull up in his car, Mason in the passenger seat, his window down and face pale. He’s quiet as my grandfather switches off the engine, opens the car door, and goes to the back end to collect my brother’s wheelchair.
My jaw tightens as I choke back another sob. Fuck. Fuck. I want to throw my helmet at his face. Hard. I want to scream at him. Yell how much I hate him until my throat is raw and my body aches. Instead I look at him, unable to speak, disappointment and hurt laid bare across my face because it’s too much to hide.
“Leave it,” Mason says to Racer through the open window, his eyes on me. “You can pack me a bag from inside. I’ll wait here.”
So he’s leaving then, like Kelly told him to do.
“Are you sure?” my grandfather asks, coming around to the passenger side to eyeball him properly.
“I’m sure.”
I turn on my heel and race up the steps, knowing Racer will follow behind at his own pace. Heart in my throat, I go to Mason’s room and open his wardrobe doors wide. A suitcase sits on the shelf above. I stretch high for it, nudging it with my fingers until it shifts enough that I can get my hands on it properly.
I yank it down and slam it on the bed, unzipping it quickly and flipping open the lid so that it falls back against his pillows. Turning, I open drawers and seize his things, blindly tossing them toward the open suitcase because my vision is blurred. When I’ve cleared them out, I zip it closed and drag it to the floor where it falls sideways with a thud.
“Let me get that for you, lassie.”
“Do not!” I caution in a shout, my chest heaving and eyes puffy. Grandad’s lips press tight, and he doesn’t get in my way, which is really fucking awesome because I’d hate to topple him over in my haste to get Mason’s stupid bag out the door.
Jerking it upright, I roll it from the room, past my grandfather, through the living area, and straight out the front door. I stomp down the stairs and it follows behind, clunk, clunk, clunk, as it goes over each sharp edge and hits the ground.
I’m tossing it in the back seat of Racer’s car by the time he catches up, because it won’t fit in the boot due to Mason’s chair. “There’s your bag,” I huff, breathing heavy from rage and exertion.
Mason opens his mouth. I spin on my heel and start back up the stairs before he can speak because so help me god if he does, I will wallop him in his stupid face.
I slam the front door behind me and pause, hearing Racer’s car back out of the driveway, the sound slowly diminishing until silence reigns once again.
“I’ll tell you something, Mason. In this, everyone will lose.”
My breath comes out choppy. Then I hiccup, staring at the living and kitchen space. It’s empty. Void of life. Waves of sadness hit me, one after the other, until it sears me from the inside out.
I lost.
* * *
Kelly
Echo: Ace isn’t answering her phone. What happened with you two?
I ignore the text that dings on my screen. It’s Friday morning and I’m at the shop, my head stuck beneath the hood of a car. It’s Hammer’s. I’m replacing his leaky radiator after he did a solid for me with the greenhouse build.
I haven’t spoken with Ace since Sunday family dinner. It’s best if I don’t. Not after I overshared my past with her entire family. Not after I threatened her brother. And not after leaving halfway through a spectacular meal that her mother, Lydia, cooked with such obvious care. Ace has a loving, caring family. Something that any decent man would kill to be a part of, especially me, because I’ve always wondered what that was like. To even get a glimpse of it Sunday night made me feel like the little boy reaching for the cookie jar an
d getting smacked on the hand for his efforts.
“I can’t even look at you.”
The words Ace spoke flay me alive.
Echo: Do you read me?
Echo: Hello?
I switch off my phone.
Casey walks past my line of vision, here for a second Friday in a row. His wedding is in a week, and I know he’s catching up on paperwork before they embark on a four-week honeymoon around Australia, caravanning like a bunch of hippies. Grace has been at me again to attend. Badgering me. And for what? We’re not brothers anymore, not in the figurative sense of the word, so I don’t get it. I don’t get why she keeps trying to push a relationship that’s beyond repair.
“Why?”
My brother falters, slowly coming to a stop near me as he tries to work out if I actually just voluntarily spoke to him or not. I turn my head, looking him straight in the eye. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why does Grace want me at your wedding so much?”
He ponders the question for a moment then gives me a shrug. “Because you’re family.”
I straighten from beneath the hood. “The Sentinels are my family.”
My answer grates on him. I see it on his face. In his tight jaw and grim eyes. “And so are we.”
My brows rise coolly, pretending like I don’t give a shit when I ask my next question, when deep down, if I looked more closely than I dared to, I know I do. “Do you want me there?”
“It would make Grace happy to have you there, and I want Grace happy.”
I don’t know why I push the issue but I do. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He looks at me while I wipe my sweaty, greasy palms on a nearby rag. “Yeah,” he says quietly, nodding, his expression sad and resigned. “I do.”
“Why?” I push again. Because I know I’m not easy to be around. My resentment and bitterness are heavy, and I throw them in his face at every opportunity.
“Why do you want to know why?”