“No. I went to New York and figured out who I was. Things were never as easy for me here as they were for you. I was the weird, quiet kid. I just wanted to lose myself in my art. And while I had my friends, we didn’t connect on that level. I left, and then I was around so many people who were like me. I wasn’t lonely anymore and—”
“You were lonely? Here with me?”
Jesus. He took the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d done it when his mom died, trying to carry his own pain along with his father’s, and now he was going to take my feelings on too?
“No. That was the only time I didn’t feel that way. It was always different when we were together. Almost like it was always meant to be, like we were always supposed to be brothers.”
Isaac closed his eyes. He let out a deep breath, shaking his head slightly. When he opened them, the wall was between us again. “Yeah, I guess we were, weren’t we? The perfect brothers. You never told me…that you felt lonely. You pushed me to talk, but you didn’t tell me.”
“Because I wanted to be strong for you. You deserved that.”
Isaac turned, walked away, then stopped and braced his hand on the back of the couch, not looking in my direction. “So you went off to college, and there were people like you.”
“I guess I just came into my own. I experienced more life, more diverse groups of people. I experimented with a whole lot of shit I hadn’t done here. Then one time, we were at a party given by an artist I really looked up to. His girlfriend was flirting with me. Freaked me the fuck out at first because she was taken. When everyone left, they asked me to stay, so I did, and apparently they liked to play with other people, men and women, and they wanted me. Initially he was just going to watch us together, but then he asked if he could join and—”
“That’s enough,” Isaac cut me off, still giving me his back. “You fucked a guy and realized you like dick. That’s all I need to know about that. You’re still not explaining why you didn’t tell me.”
“Because I can’t. I don’t have an excuse. I just…” I walked over to Isaac, dropped my forehead against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I miss you. I miss us. Everything feels like a mess right now, even though it shouldn’t. My dreams have come true, but I feel…empty? That’s too big a word, but like I’m not settled, and I think part of that is because of us.”
Isaac tensed beneath me, then turned, making me look up. We were so fucking close, I could feel his breath, smell the salt and leftover sunshine on his skin. Isaac had always smelled like a summer day.
“I want to be the kind of brothers we used to be,” I said, needing that to help, needing to find our way back to each other. It was why I’d come here, and if I were being honest, I would have admitted that to myself a long time ago.
“Okay,” he said simply.
“Okay? That easily?”
Isaac shook his head. “Stop pretending I’ve ever denied you anything. From the first moment you stepped into this house, I’ve spoiled you. It’s unfortunate for me, but I guess there’s no changing it now.”
I smiled, then Isaac did too, only his didn’t reach his eyes. I’d always been able to read him, but I couldn’t anymore, and it killed me.
Isaac leaned closer, palm against my nape, and kissed my temple. Then his arms wrapped around me, held me in a tight hug. His hand tangled in my hair, his cheek against the side of my head, likely with a face full of curls. He stayed one beat, two, then three, four, and five, before he pulled away. “Good night, brother.”
Isaac left me standing there as he went back downstairs. For the longest time, I didn’t move.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Isaac
Dad and Helena had been thrown for a loop when the next day, Lane told them he and Jayden had broken up. It wasn’t often a person went to bed with a couple sharing the house with them only to wake up with one of them gone…hopefully for good. I wanted to throw a fucking party. There were so many reasons I was glad he was out of our lives, I couldn’t choose just one.
They were ecstatic when Lane said he wouldn’t be heading back to Manhattan right away. Helena had wanted him to move back home for years, and though Lane had made sure she knew he hadn’t decided how long he’d stay, she just wanted her baby boy home.
That worked for me because I wanted him home as well. Only, he was even closer than I thought he would be, considering he’d asked if he could stay at my condo instead of with our parents. I’d said yes, because it was Lane and the little bastard had me wrapped around his finger, but having him there, in my space, wasn’t helping me get over him.
It had been a couple of weeks now of seeing Lane in the morning before I went to work, of hearing him walk around the condo at night, of him padding to the third bedroom to paint or draw whenever the mood struck. Of Lane’s chaos all over the place because fuck, how had he gotten even messier? Dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, paintbrushes all over the kitchen, a blanket on the couch from when he fell asleep there. I wanted to strangle him and make out with his face at the same time, which was a bit of a mindfuck. I guess no more than the fact that he was my brother.
We hadn’t talked anymore about Jayden or the past or why I’d pulled away from him. The question was always in Lane’s eyes, though. I’d see it when he looked at me, when he studied me those times he didn’t know I was paying attention, but I was always paying attention when it came to him.
I’d also had…a lot of sex. More sex than usual, both with myself and other people. I wanted to prove I was okay, wanted him to see me living my normal life, in the hopes that I could make this shit go away.
No luck so far, but I was a determined motherfucker when I wanted something. My fear was that inside, I didn’t really want it to go away. I wanted Lane to love me too. There were so many beautiful men out there, yet I was stuck on someone who literally left a dirty sock on the kitchen counter and didn’t understand why I was so freaked out about it.
It was nearing the end of work on a Friday, when Steven, one of the financial advisers, came into my office. “A few of us are going out tonight. Did you want to go?”
“You know, we’re likely the only office in the state where so many people are single and go out together so often. We’re numbers people. We’re supposed to be boring. I figured everyone would be except me.”
Steven chuckled. “Everyone but you, huh? What if people think you’re boring?”
“Impossible.”
“The funny thing about you is you’re not even joking. You’re the cockiest person I’ve ever known who isn’t an asshole; well, at least not most of the time.”
It was my turn to snicker. I knew I should go out with them. Sitting around the condo with Lane wasn’t doing me any good, and bringing men home wasn’t changing anything either, but still, my answer wasn’t going to be yes. It would have been if Lane wasn’t there waiting for me. “I don’t think so. My brother is in town and staying with me.”
“So? It’s not a work get-together without Isaac Pierce.”