I sucked on more of the black nectar of the gods and started tapping out a beat on my knee with my free hand. I was always kind of a fidgety guy and the closer we got to my parents’ house, the worse it usually got. Brunch was always stilted and forced. I couldn’t figure out why they insisted on going through with it every single week and couldn’t figure out why Shaw enabled the farce, but I went, even when I knew nothing would ever change.
“She’s mad that you’re late. We both know she couldn’t care less if I’m there or not.” My fingers moved faster and faster as she wheeled the car into a gated community and passed rows and rows of cookie-cutter minimansions that were built back into the mountains.
“That’s not true and you know it, Rule. I do not suffer through these car rides every weekend, subject myself to the delight of your morning-after nastiness because your parents want me to have eggs and pancakes every Sunday. I do it because they want to see you, want to try to have a relationship with you no matter how many times you hurt them or push them away. I owe it to your parents and, more important, I owe it to Remy to try to make you act right even though lord knows that’s almost a full-time job.”
I sucked in a breath as the blinding pain that always came when someone mentioned Remy’s name barreled through my chest. My fingers involuntarily opened and closed around the coffee cup and I whipped my head around to glare at her.
“Remy wouldn’t be all over my ass to try and be something to them I’m not. I was never good enough for them, and never will be. He understood that better than anyone and worked overtime to try and be everything to them I never could be.”
She sighed and pulled the car to a stop in the driveway behind my dad’s SUV. “The only difference between you and Remy is that he let people love him, and you”—she yanked open the driver’s door and glared at me across the space that separated us—“you have always been determined to make everyone who cares about you prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. You’ve never wanted to be easy to love, Rule, and you make damn sure that nobody can ever forget it.” She slammed the door with enough force that it rattled my back teeth and made my head start to throb again.
It has been three years. Three lonely, three empty, three sorrow-filled years since the Archer brothers went from a trio to a duo. I am close to Rome—he’s awesome and has always been my role model when it comes to being a badass—but Remy was my other half, both figuratively and literally. He was my identical twin, the light to my dark, the easy to my hard, the joy to my angst, the perfect to my oh-so-totally fucked up, and without him I was only half the person I would ever be. It has been three years since I called him in the middle of the night to come pick me up from some lame-ass party because I had been too drunk to drive. Three years since he left the apartment we shared to come get me—zero questions asked—because that’s just what he did.
It’s been three years since he lost control of his car on a rainy and slick I-25 and slammed into the back of a semi truck going well over eighty. Three years since we put my twin in the ground and my mother looked at me with tears in her eyes and stated point-blank, “It should have been you” as they lowered Remy into the ground.
It’s been three years and his name alone is still enough to drop me to my knees, especially coming from the one person in the world Remy had loved as much as he loved me.
Remy was everything I wasn’t—clean-cut, well dressed, and interested in getting an education and building a secure future. The only person on the planet who was good enough and classy enough to match all the magnificence that he possessed was Shaw Landon. The two of them had been inseparable since the first time he brought her home when she was fourteen and trying to escape the fortress of the Landon compound. He insisted they were just friends, that he loved Shaw like a sister, that he just wanted to protect her from her awful, sterile family, but the way he was with her was full of reverence and care. I knew he loved her, and since Remy could do no wrong, Shaw had quickly become an honorary member of my family. As much as it galled me, she was the only one who really, truly understood the depth of my pain when it came to losing him.
I had to take a few extra minutes to get my feet back under me so I sucked back the rest of the coffee and shoved open the door. I wasn’t surprised to see a tall figure coming around the SUV as I labored out of the sports car. My brother was an inch or so taller than me and built more along the lines of a warrior. His dark-brown hair was buzzed in a typical military cut and his pale-blue eyes, the same icy shade as mine, looked tired as he forced a smile at me. I let out a whistle because his left arm was in a cast and sling, he had a walking boot on one foot, and there was a nasty line of black stitches running through one of his eyebrows and across his forehead. The Weedwacker that had attacked my hair had clearly gotten a good shot at my big bro, too.
“Looking good, soldier.”
He pulled me to him in a one-armed hug and I winced for him when I felt the taped-up side of his body clearly indicating some injury beyond the busted ribs. “I look about as good as I feel. You look like a clown getting out of that car.”
“I look like a clown no matter what when I’m around that girl.” He barked out a laugh and rubbed a rough hand through my spiky hair.
“You and Shaw are still acting like mortal enemies?”
“More like uneasy acquaintances. She’s just as prissy and judgmental as always. Why didn’t you call or email me that you were hurt? I had to hear it from Shaw on the way over.”
He swore as we started to slowly make our way toward the house. It upset me to see how deliberate he was moving and I wondered if the damage was more serious than what was visible.
“I was unconscious after the Hummer flipped. We drove over an IED and it was bad. I was in the hospital for a week with a scrambled noggin, and when I woke up they had to do surgery on my shoulder so I was all drugged up. I called Mom and figured she would let you know what the deal was, but I heard that, as usual, you were unavailable when she called.”
I shrugged a shoulder and reached out a hand to steady him as he faltered a little on the stairs to the front door. “I was busy.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“Not too stubborn. I’m here aren’t I? I didn’t even know you were home until this morning.”
“The only reason you’re here is because that little girl in there is bound and determined to keep this family together regardless if we’re her own or not. You go in there and play nice; otherwise, I’ll kick your ass, broken arm and all.”
I muttered a few choice words and followed my battered sibling into the house. Sundays really were my least favorite day.
If Rome and Cora rocked your world, get ready for Jet and Ayden’s story …
‘You keep telling me that I don’t know you, but the truth is, we don’t know each other, and I don’t know that either of us is really ready to handle the other. What I do know is that I want you more than I want to keep breathing.’
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