I forced myself to my feet, my knees nearly buckling beneath my weight, and headed to the shower, turning it on. It took every ounce of energy I had to shrug off my clothes before I stepped into the spray of hot water. I sighed as the heat massaged my sore and languid muscles. Leaning my head on the wall of the shower, I stood there, making myself breathe like Carter had taught me. Even though he was my boy, he taught me plenty of things too. Being a psychologist helped with that, I suppose. Anxiety was his specialty, as were emotions.
Dull pain throbbed in my chest, and I slammed a fist against my breastbone, but that didn’t help numb the ache, only made it worse. “Tell me what to do, Carter. Help me. Give me a sign. I know I don’t believe in heaven like you did, but give me something. Anything.”
No answers came, not this time, and not when I’d asked two days ago. Heaven and hell weren’t something I held stock in, but I believed in an afterlife and ghosts and all that shit. If Carter was haunting us, he didn’t have a thing to say.
I bumped my forehead against the wall and sighed. I’d stood there long enough for the water to cool, and I shivered as a result. Twisting the knobs to off, I stepped out and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around my waist. In that moment, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t ignore what Shane and I had done. He lived with me, and he was young. An eighteen-year-old would bring this sort of stuff up again.
“Maybe I should just live at the office,” I muttered, and I dressed in boxers and a plain gray T-shirt. The words didn’t work to ease my anxiety, though, and neither did the solace of hot water. The shower had always been my safe place, the one spot I could think about things and form fool-proof plans. Not this time.
I had to hit this head-on, talk to Shane. That’s what I needed to do.
Sucking in a deep breath, I forced one foot in front of the other as I made my way to Shane’s room. I reached the door and knocked, and when there was no answer, I opened it a sliver. He was lying on his bed, still in the clothes he had on when we did the thing. Guilt plagued me. Not the I did wrong by Carter guilt, because I already felt that one tenfold, but a shiny, new I betrayed Shane’s trust guilt. His intoxication made him a vulnerable person. It didn’t matter that I’d been drinking too, or that I felt my own blurriness of inebriation. I was the thirty-six-year-old in this house.
Sighing, I closed the door again. I’d talk to him in the morning. With that decided, I went back to my own bed and eventually fell asleep.
The next morning didn’t bring any new clarity to the situation. By the time I got to the kitchen, the house was still quiet, which meant Shane hadn’t woken up yet, so I started the coffee and made toast. It was Sunday. I couldn’t hide at the office today because it was closed, even if I did want to find a way to avoid the conversation we were going to have.
I drank two cups of caffeine before I heard Shane’s footsteps, and when he appeared in the kitchen, dark hair a mess and eyes bleary, I fortified myself with another sip of coffee courage.
“Sit down,” I ordered gently. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, he fell into the chair at the table.
He groaned and dropped his head in his hands. “I have a headache.”
“That’s what you get for drinking like that.” I grabbed some aspirin from the top of the fridge and passed a couple to him with a glass of water. “Shane, if you have a test on Monday, you’re screwed.”
He winced and threw the pills into his mouth, followed by a large gulp of water. “I know.”
Sighing, I sat in the chair opposite him. It was enough distance that Shane couldn’t touch me, but also not far enough that he’d be hurt by the gesture.
When he looked at me with those big doe eyes, I melted because Shane would always be vulnerable, like Carter had been. They asked for the same thing with that expression—guidance. I had a feeling Shane had no idea that he was meant to be a boy to someone, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him he needed to find a daddy to take care of him. Shane didn’t know about the game Carter and I played, and I didn’t want to tell him now that Carter was gone. We never felt dirty about it, but what we’d enjoyed in the bedroom wasn’t something you told a sibling.
Shane ran a hand through the long strands on his head, and air rushed out his nose. He smelled freshly showered, the scent of his aftershave flooding the kitchen with a woodsy musk that made me think of the outdoors. He’d put on a pair of gray sweatpants and a navy shirt, and it took me a moment to notice it was one of Carter’s favorites that he used to wear all the time.
I stared at the damned shirt too long because Shane plucked at his sleeve, ducking his head. “Is it weird that I’m wearing his clothes?”
“No.” I shook my head and pushed away all the memories of Carter wearing that top, including the time we went to one of the parks in New Gothenburg and watched the dogs play. That morning had been a few weeks before we found out he had cancer, and we had agreed to get a puppy of our own. That idea went out the window, along with a lot of our other plans, once he got the news from the doctors. “I made coffee.”
I grabbed the mugs with the already cooling liquid and passed Shane’s to him.
“Thanks,” he muttered, eyes downcast and lips pressed together tightly. He took a sip and licked his lips. “It’s good.”
This chitchat would kill me and put me in the grave next to Carter, if he’d been buried and hadn’t donated his body to science. The thought made me flinch. “We need to talk about last night.”
“No, we don’t. It’s fine. It happened.” Shane shrugged, but his cheeks flushed a pretty crimson, and he ducked his head farther. His dark bangs hung in front of his eyes, and I couldn’t see his expression from here.
“It’s not fine, Shane.” I took a drink of my own coffee, but it curdled in my stomach and I immediately pushed the mug away. “What happened was wrong and—”
“It felt good.” Shane darted a look at me then, and his brows knitted together. “It made me forget for a little while.”
“An orgasm is short-term relief.” I massaged my forehead. A headache began to throb there, right in the front of my brain. “We shouldn’t have done it. You drank too much, I drank too much, and it shouldn’t happen again. You’re Carter’s little brother.”
Shane tightened his hold on his mug and his face soured. “You don’t have to keep reminding me. I’m his younger brother, not little. I’m not little anymore.”
He certainly wasn’t, and that was entirely the problem. “I know.”
“Do you?” He narrowed his eyes on me. “Because you keep saying I’m his little brother, and it’s about time you see that I’m an adult, just like you are.”
“You are, but you aren’t, Shane. You’re eighteen, not old enough to drink or gamble yet.”
“Old enough to have sex and join the Army, though.” He shoved his own mug of coffee away and crossed his arms over the table.
That was the truth, and I couldn’t argue. I didn’t want to. “I think… it would be best if we forget this ever happened.”
He chewed on his bottom lip and dropped his gaze again. “Are you going to kick me out?”