“That’s not what this is about. It’s not about getting laid.”
“I know,” he said, and he did know. His eyes and tone were sober with how intimately he knew.
“Although . . .” I dipped my head to the side as I considered how much of my sanity I would surrender for a lifetime of making love to Jennifer Sylvester. “Getting laid is definitely part of it.”
“Absolutely.” Billy’s eyes moved to some spot behind me and lost focus.
I got the sense Billy was fixating—insomuch as Billy fixated—and I didn’t want to interrupt. So I took advantage of his quiet, thoughtful pause to unpack the food on his well-appointed conference table.
When a full minute had passed, I interrupted his contemplative silence. “What kind of soup do you want? I have French onion and vegetable barley.”
“Vegetarian?” He made a face, standing from his big chair and crossing to the table.
“I also brought hamburgers.” I motioned to two closed food containers flanked by French fries.
“Much better.” He claimed a seat next to mine and reached for the burger. “Tell me what happened.”
“Eh . . .” I scratched my chin. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“It involves blackmail.”
His eyebrows jumped. “You blackmailed her?”
“No. She blackmailed me.”
His eyebrows jumped higher. “Come again?”
“She blackmailed me. Jennifer was blackmailing me. Just for a week though—or at least I thought she only had the video for a week—mostly, I helped her because I wanted to.”
“I don’t follow. You might as well start from the beginning.”
“Fine.” I unwrapped my burger and discarded the top bun. Top buns were superfluous. “She accidentally videotaped me taking evidence from the sheriff’s office.”
Billy choked on a bite and reached for his fountain drink. His eyes continued to bulge as he swallowed a large gulp, then asked with a raspy voice, “Who was it this time?”
“Pardon?”
“Who was it? Duane? Beau?” He hesitated, a flicker of intense concern flashing behind his eyes before he asked, “It wasn’t Jethro, was it?”
“No! No, nothing like that. It was evidence on . . . on—” I huffed, placing the burger back in the container. “I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to know.”
Billy’s narrowed stare moved over me, assessing; eventually, he nodded. “Fine. She videotaped you taking evidence and then she blackmailed you. To be honest, I wondered why you decided to help her. I knew it wasn’t out of the kindness of your heart, at least not at first.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t going to help her. I don’t fight other people’s battles anymore.”
He stiffened and a shadow of apprehension passed behind his eyes. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Cletus. You’re not responsible for the actions of our father.”
I looked beyond my brother to the window behind his desk. “He and his club brothers put you in the hospital when he found out you helped me.”
“I was older than you, and it wasn’t the first time he’d put me in the hospital, if you remember.”
“He broke your leg. You lost your football scholarship. Everyone in town might think you voluntarily turned it down, but that’s because no one knows the full story.”
“What happened is no one else’s business but ours. He broke your nose. And he killed your dog. You were only sixteen.”
A vivid flash of memory—a memory I’d stopped fixating on years ago—held my mind hostage. “I shouldn’t have tried to help her. Carla wasn’t family.”
“She was a friend.” He waved away my remorse impatiently. “Sometimes friends are family.”
“Carla wasn’t, though. She wasn’t that good of a friend and I’ve never required hindsight to figure that out.” I brought my eyes back to my brother, transposing my memory of his bloodied face over his clean features. “It was the unfairness I hated. I had no particular warmth for her. But her daddy, he was a monster.”
Carla’s father and our father were captains together in the Iron Wraiths. I didn’t add that our father was also a monster. I didn’t need to. Billy, maybe more than any of us, already knew.
“You helped her run away. That was good. You did a good thing.”
“And you paid for it.”
“Your only mistake was getting caught. Picking fights with bullies at school was one thing; calling out a captain of the Iron Wraiths is another. You should have kept your mouth shut.” Billy tried to keep his tone light, like we were talking about other people and their problems. His eyes were understanding, just like they’d been thirteen years ago.
My brother was a great man. He would achieve great things in his life, of that I had no doubt. His regard for us, for all of us, was humbling. I suspected sometimes that we didn’t deserve it.
“I’m so sorry, Billy.”