“Thanks, bro. For everything.” Rémy’s voice hitched and a lump formed in my throat. It caused both my stationary and my stupid, twitchy eye, to burn with unshed tears. “Just,” it was Rémy's turn to sigh. “You have to try and let me be my own man now, okay? I really, really need this.”
“Yeah.” I sounded like I gargled with gravel. “I get it.” I changed the subject before I said something monumentally idiotic that messed everything up and made the already tense situation a thousand times worse. “When do the doctors think you'll be back on the ice?”
Rémy didn't—and as far as I was concerned, would never–know the extent to which I had gone, and wouldn’t hesitate to go to again, to keep him safe. Could never know. I had literally been protecting my brother for well over a decade. From nightmares, from pain, from the reality of our shittastic childhood… from our father.
Rémy grunted. "I hate riding the bench. Doc says probably next week."
“Just in time for my team to whip your team's ass.”
“Yeah, okay.” He snorted, amused. “We'll see.”
“Catch you later, mon frère.”
Rémy chuckled. “Bye, bro.”
My head was killing me. I tossed the phone next to me on the too-soft duvet where it sank down a couple inches. The thick material puffed up around the device, nearly obscuring it from view. I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling. The phone beeped, indicating it was low on power, and I groaned. Every damn device I touched somehow ended up malfunctioning. It’s like I’m some kind of human EMP. My very presence makes everything electronic spontaneously combust.
I didn’t have to look at the screen to know the battery was dying, because the stupid charger fritzed out yesterday. When I plugged it into the hotel's wall socket, sparks literally shot out of the damn thing. Without the stupid cord, my stupid phone would just have to up and stupidly die.
Shit. I dug both hands into my hair and swallow down the urge to scream. Rémy had no idea how much control he was asking me to give up. To go against more than fifteen years of deeply ingrained behavior. A decade and half of throwing myself on the grenade time and time again, in a bid to shelter my brother from the horrors of what used to be our life. Shielding Rém from Mom’s drunken binges and general neglect. Going to desperate measures to redirect Dad’s explosive anger and increasing violence onto me. I was the one who fed and clothed my brother. Made sure he got to school and took a bath and did his homework. I was the one to try and give Rémy the semblance of a normal childhood.
Okay, fine. We were dealt a shitty and no matter what I did to try and change things, our childhood was never going to be normal, but I hope I gave Rémy the illusion of normal. It was the best I could do and a thousand times better than growing up perpetually black and blue, haunted by pain and fear, telling your teachers your injuries were from hockey.
I know because that was me.
Then… I wasn't there for Rémy, and I would never forgive myself for my absence, even though it was the end result of something that needed to be done.
A sharp pain on my scalp brought me back to the present. I dropped my hands from where they were fisting my hair and yanking on it.
Twitch, twitch, twitch.
I got up and must've paced the room a hundred times, jaw clenched, fingers laced on top of my head, but it was pointless. The memories brought back the rage. I was too far gone. Too angry. Too worked up over both Rémy's injury and his request that I basically distance myself from him.
I growled and snatched up the remote. Maybe there was a game on. Or SportsCenter. Something, anything to distract me from the burning hot fury that sat in my stomach like a ball of magma. I smashed the power button.
Nothing.
Why the fuck didn’t anything ever work right?
Again and again I jabbed the button with the same result, until I hurled the remote across the room. It ricocheted off the wall and left a pretty serious dent. This time, I couldn't hold back my shout of frustration. Shaking, I sat on the bed and rubbed my twitching eye. I wiggled to get comfortable and felt rather than heard the crack of glass under my left butt cheek. I shifted to one side and pulled out my phone. The second I saw the spiderweb pattern across the screen, it was game over.
There was no calming me. Not if I was stuck in that room. And not when, in less than fifteen minutes, I was supposed to meet some of the guys in the lobby bar to grab something to eat.
Only two things worked to squelch the feverish anger once it built to such explosive levels. Both involved taking control. At that moment, it was strong enough where I could feel it, like this physical… thing, a big, dark mass that pressed against my insides and made my skin feel all tight and hot, ready to split open any second and pour out of me in a stream of uncontrolled violence reminiscent of dear old dad. Problem was, even if I used both of my coping methods between now and the next game, I knew damn well the second I stepped on the ice I would snap.
How was I supposed to keep my promise to Rémy and come face to face with Calloway tomorrow night for our final game in DC?
Kylie
“Where the hell have you been?”
I flinched so violently at another of Rocco’s sneak attacks, my keys flew out of my hand and clattered to the tile floor. I bent over to retrieve them while I fought to not drop dead from shock. Once my heart stopped trying to beat its way out of my rib cage, I straightened, looked at my brother, and gasped. The aftereffects of Rocco's fight with Sebastian St. Clair earlier in the evening were blatantly evident. Scrapes and bruises littered his skin, and his bottom lip was all puffy and split down the middle.
Fine. Rocco was angry. It's not as if I didn't know he would be. I did kind of leave Rocco hanging by grabbing Nat and ducking out, skipping our traditional after game dinner. Maybe notifying him by text message wasn't the greatest idea, but I knew he wouldn't get it until I was long gone and there was no way he could stop me.
At the time, I felt bad about it… for roughly zero point four seconds, then a flurry of nerves—the rush I crave, the adrenaline from the excitement of the unknown and doing something Rocco would hate—held me in its trance. Sheltered for so long by my well-meaning, hovering, helicopter brother from hell, sometimes I needed to do something dangerous. Something I knew Rocco would disapprove of, if not flat out for bid. If he found out, and I went to pretty extreme lengths to make certain he never did.
Unfortunately, even the best laid plans went sideways. Like tonight. I hadn’t planned on Rocco discovering certain things about me, such as the reason for my spontaneous moments of reckless abandonment, or maybe, last week when I hopped a ride home from the campus library on the back of my acquaintance slash study partner’s motorcycle, somewhere in my subconscious I wanted Rocco to see me pull up on Grant's rumbling crotch rocket. I had been over an hour late getting home and studiously ignored every single one of Rocco’s avalanche of texts and calls. Which meant I knew with one hundred percent certainty, my overprotective brother would be staring holes down at the street, waiting for me to arrive.
I can't explain it but there are times when I can't help myself. Can't control my actions. I don't like to think I torment Rocco on purpose, but I'm pretty sure that would be a lie. I want to say it’s an unconscious decision, to poke at the beehive the very sharp stick just to see what happens. But it’s not. The rare times I rile Rocco up, it's most definitely a calculated move. A personal, if petty, little rebellion that only one of the sides knows is deliberate.
In my defense, I actually knew Grant, unlike some of the other guys I’d gotten rides home from. Grant was in all of my journalism classes and came from old DC money, so even though Rocco didn’t like it, I knew Grant wasn’t a serial killer or something.
I felt sick and my hands were clammy, because Rocco—being the big jerk that he is—pounced the second I walked to the front door. He towered over me, a full foot taller than my five-six, and crossed his thick arms over pecs as wide as three of me standing sid
e to side, as he glared down. I shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. My face heated in humiliation. Rocco’s stare was so intense it was almost as if he somehow knew what I had been up to earlier in the evening. Just the thought of Rocco finding out was humiliating enough, despite the fact I chickened out.
And what if I had gone through with it? I was an adult and could make my own decisions. Maybe I was impulsive at times, intended to act first and think later, it was still well within my rights to make my own mistakes. Even if my actions were usually knee-jerk rebellions to Rocco's well-intentioned smothering.
“You jerk. You have to stop doing that! You scared me half to death.” I tried to return Rocco's glare, but nobody threw shade like my brother. With my body still suffering the aftereffects of the sneak attack, I prayed he wouldn’t notice how my hands trembled.
“Yeah? Well, you scared me,” he snarled. “So I guess we’re even.” Perma-scowl in place, Rocco's fury made me even more resentful. I was angry at him, but even more so at myself. Since he was perfectly good target, I directed all of my shame and frustration and fury at the tiny wrinkle between Rocco’s dark brows.
“I guess we are,” I snapped back. No way was I in the mood to deal with Rocco's issues. Not when I had so many of my own crashing down on me. I stepped around him and headed for my room.
“Hey! Don't you dare walk away from me.”
Oh no you didn't. I stopped dead in my tracks and tensed so fast my shoulders nearly smacked my ears. He did not just speak to me as if I were a five-year-old child.
Furious in a way I’d never been before, I spun on my heel and did something I almost never ever did. I took everything I felt, gathered it into a ball, and heaved it directly at Rocco’s head. I marched right up to him, tilted my head way back to meet his seething glare, and went off.
“Don’t you even start with that.” I stabbed a finger into Rocco’s sternum. Of course, because he’s built like a Mack truck, on the second poke, my index finger bent funny. “Ow! Dang it.” I waved my hand around in a ridiculous and futile effort to stop the pain.
Rocco lunged to catch my hand, which I narrowly avoided by spinning away, and almost landed on my ass for the effort.
“Christ, Ky. Lemme take a look. You might have broken it.”
Not feeling charitable in any way, when Rocco tried to grab my hand again, I yelped and cradled it to my chest. He did not get to treat me like crap then act all concerned and heroic. He did not get to be the good guy. Not tonight.
“No. Go away.”
Rocco rolled his eyes and scoffed. He held out his hand, palm up, with the clear expectation I would comply. “Stop being so damn stubborn and let me look.”
My jaw dropped so fast I might have felt my chin smack the floor. “Me? Stubborn?” I let out a very unfeminine snort. “You're the one who bulldozes over me to get your way and makes ridiculous demands by treating me like a kid.”
Using my uninjured hand, I waved at the den. Rocco followed the motion and his bruised cheeks flushed pink. Every light in the condo blazed bright, the huge television blared loudly, and six empty beer bottles sat like good little soldiers next to my brother's favorite chair… which just so happened to be next the windows that overlooked the front of the building.
“Case in point, Rocco. It's three in the morning and you're the one who decided to wait up for me like I'm a virgin on prom night. I don't need or want a lecture from you, especially one I didn’t ask for.”
Rocco winced and covered his ears. “Shit, Ky. I don't want to hear about your sex life.”
Considering an hour earlier, I almost broke my two-year dry spell, Rocco struck a nerve. I wanted to cry, and that made me angrier. Emotions all jumbled up, every last drop of my mental acuity drained, the dam that held me back finally collapsed. Every feeling I had, came exploding out of me like Mount Vesuvius.
After the cluster-you-know-what of a night—first watching Rocco get into a fight, then the guilt of thinking the guy who punched him was smoking hot, followed by me skipping out on Rocco after the game. Add in my failed attempt at a one night stand, having to call Nat from his place, her listening to me cry and snuffle as she calmed me enough to ask Grant to take me home, and top it off with Rocco giving me a ton of crap—the pressure became too much. And because I always hold back, too worried about hurting Rocco, my emotions decided to take matters into their own hands, and spewed forth in the form of a scathing rant.
“If there are things you don't want to hear, there's an easy solution, Rocco. Butt out of my personal life! God! It's not like I asked you to wait up and lecture me. I'm an adult, A-D-U-L-T.”
My words struck their mark. Rocco slumped, but the hardened glint in his eyes didn’t budge. Not one bit. When I finished my tirade, my chest heaving from exertion, Rocco replied, eerily calm in response to my rare outburst.
“You know I only worry because I care. If anything were to happen to you —“ Rocco closed his eyes and shuddered. When he met my gaze once more, I was, as usual, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of worry and fear radiating from his eyes.
I was so tired of arguing. An enormous wave of exhaustion crashed over my head, so immense and all consuming, I could have slept for days. I rubbed my eyes. It was late and I needed to get to bed or else I would collapse. I let out a long sigh and shook my head. Nothing ever changed.
Nothing ever would change.
Not if I kept giving in to the guilt. Which in turn, caused my spontaneous recklessness. Which then led to more guilt. And so the cycle continued. I just didn't know how to stop it. It was like being on a roller coaster as it crested the peak of the highest hill. Once you got to that point, there was nothing you could do to stop from going over the edge. But I had to try, didn't I? Otherwise we continue to have this conversation over and over until one of us eventually said something we couldn't take back.
My righteous fury drained. All I wanted was to go to my room and overthink every last second of my crappy night. Rocco would never back down, so it was up to me. I made sure to hang on to the edge the roller coaster tracks by my fingertips to keep from going over.
“I know you care, Rocco, but you have to understand. I’m twenty-one, not sixteen. I go on dates (ha-ha, not really). I have friends I do things with. Sometimes, I'm studying at the library. My point is, it doesn't matter what I'm doing. You need to get over yourself and stop demanding to know every little thing I'm up to or who I’m with.”
I didn’t mention how I purposely did things to upset him and that his smothering only made the urge to do those things worse.
Rocco’s brows smushed even closer, and that stupid crease grew stupidly deeper, while I watched his stupid chiseled jaw grind back and forth.
“I’m not going to stop caring, Ky. Ever. And I’ll wait up every single night if I goddamn want to.”
If that was how he wanted it…
Imitating my brat of a brother, I stuck out my chin. “Fine.”
Rocco blinked and cocked his head. “Fine?”
“Yep.” I popped the P. “Go for it. Wait up as long or as often as you like, but make no mistake…” I took a step back, not because I thought Rocco would hurt me, but because he really did look like he was on the verge of losing it. “I’ll let you know when I'm going out, but remember, I don't answer to you. Then, when I get home from wherever I was doing whatever the hell I wanted to do, I'm not speaking to you about it or justifying my actions. Not a word. I'll come inside and go straight to my room. Period. You'll get what you want—to see with your own eyes that I'm not dead or injured. That's the full extent of what you deserve to know.”
“But –”
Oh, hell no. No more capitulating.
“No, Rocco.” I inhaled a deep breath and it felt like every muscle in my body went slack from lack of energy. “I love you and I appreciate everything you've ever done for me, but you're not bullying me into getting your way. Not this time.”
Focusing on anything but Rocco, my tumu
ltuous emotions began to settle back into place… for the moment. My psyche might have been taken care of, but my body continued to react. Tiny beads of sweat trickled down my spine and my heart pounded as if I ran a marathon. I felt the ache of every single one of the imaginary twenty-six point two miles down to my bones.
For an almost college graduate, I had the distinct impression that I was terribly naïve. Nat tried to warn me, said I wasn't cut out for one night stands. And she was right. When I bumped into Grant at the bar and he asked if I wanted to leave, my mouth worked faster than my brain and I said yes. Reckless Kylie had been in the driver’s seat, eager for an escape, even if temporary, desperate for a moment of freedom from the constant anxiety and guilt. When I got to his place, I freaked out and locked myself in his bathroom. All I got out of my failed one night stand did, was to feel worse. And confused.
Despite how bad an idea going home with Grant was, I think I needed to do it. To attempt to step out of Rocco’s suffocating protective bubble. When Nat and I bumped into him at a college bar in Dupont Circle, Grant seemed like the perfect option for my first foray into no strings sex. He’s good-looking, and looked completely unlike his usual buttoned-up self. Instead, Grant wore a leather jacket and had a couple days of stubble on his jaw. His eyes shone with just enough danger to pique my interest, much different than he acted in class.
Fine, in retrospect it wasn't my best idea, but Grant really did put off some seriously sexy vibes. Why I freaked out, I don't know. Nat admitted she was glad I didn't go through with it. She said he gave her the creeps.
None of which mattered. Not Grant, not my inability to have meaningless sex, and not Rocco. It was a lose-lose situation. Part of me was angry, afraid, and ashamed at what I did, and worse, an even bigger part of me wished I had gone through with it.
Rocco scowled, still standing over me, waiting for me to give in. I hung my head, and exhaled.
Once again, I would hand over another piece of myself in order to make Rocco happy. Sometimes, I felt like a carcass, picked clean to the bones. Every scrap gone, my remnants hollow and empty. I took a deep breath through my nose and pushed onward. I made sure to keep my voice light to soothe Rocco's worries, if for no other reason than to get him off my case.