Ruben!
Hearing his voice and the hardness of his knock gets me moving towards the door before he holds to his word. I open it just as he’s about the pound on it again.
“About fuckin’ time you asshole,” he shouts and pushes his way past me into my apartment. He comes to a stop on the way to get himself a drink and points to the shattered glass. “You having a party without me?”
“Fuck you.”
His eyes narrow at my response. He walks back to me and, standing practically nose-to-nose with me, asks, “What the hell is going on with you?”
I open my mouth to answer, but he silences me with a wave of his hand. “I want the truth, not Lucien’s version of the truth. I want to know what the fuck is going on with Sabrina and why the hell you had to hurt her the way you did.”
If he didn’t already have my attention, he would now.
“All this time you’ve been saying that Lily is like the sister we never had, but anyone watching you receive Michael’s news could see that Lily means a lot more to you because your jealousy was written all over your face. Even Sabrina noticed. She closed down after you left, and Ramon took her home.”
I run my hands through my hair, ignoring my brother as I walk around him and drop to the sofa. My head drops to the back as I gaze up at the ceiling feeling drained. I’m forty-one, but right now I feel like I’m ninety.
“Talk to me.” I hear him pop the cap on a longneck. “What’s really going on in that head of yours?”
I sense Ruben getting comfortable opposite me in one of the recliners.
Where do I start?
“I’ve never lied about Lily. She’s an amazing woman and I’d be lost without her, but she’s Michael’s wife—the mother of my niece and nephew. Maybe when I first set eyes on her I felt a twinge of attraction, but that only lasted seconds.” I run my hand over my face, and hold Ruben’s stare from under my eyelids. He’s probably going to regret asking me to spill my guts to him by the time I’m finished.
“I wasn’t jealous of Lily and Michael…or rather I was, but not in the way you’re thinking.” I sigh. “I always wanted a family.” I sit forward and rest my elbows on my knees, and, with my head feeling too heavy to be on my shoulders, I drop my face to stare at my feet. “After Alyssa, I gave up on wanting anything remotely like the family we were brought up in. I buried all those feelings…until Sabrina. Hearing Michael announce that they are going to have another baby made me realize that I wanted that with Sabrina, but I’ll never get the chance. She deserves so much more than me.”
“Why?”
“What?” I ask incredulously. I would have thought it was obvious.
“You heard me. Why does Sabrina deserve so much more than you? What can some other guy offer her that you can’t? And I don’t want to hear anything about the fire. It happened six years ago. I think it’s about time you let it go and get on with living. These past years you haven’t been living, you’ve been existing.” He takes a drink of his longneck but his eyes never leave mine, as though he’s trying to make his words sink in. “I’m not trying to make light of what happened to you, but you’re not just hurting yourself and us anymore… You’re hurting a woman who would love you for who you are today, scars and all, if you only gave her a chance. You could have everything Michael has with Lily. Relationships aren’t easy.” He laughs. “God, look at Rosie and me, but I love that girl and even though our ages were a big thing for me to begin with, when it came down to it I couldn’t walk away from her. Don’t leave it until it’s too late. I’d hate for you to lose her.”
I’m supposed to be the oldest brother, the one to give out the advice, the one to look out for them. It’s not supposed to be the other way around. I shake my head. How things have changed.
“I hear you. I just don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
“Nothing worth having is easy.”
Ruben sighs before he continues, “Look. I don’t expect you to wake up tomorrow a new man, over what happened, but I do think you need to try with Sabrina. She’ll help you. You know that right? I’ve seen the way she looks at you. We all have, and I think she’ll do anything to help you if it means she gets to be in your life.” He starts grinning. “Shit! If anyone could hear me now giving you advice, they’d piss themselves laughing.”
I laugh with him, but my heart isn’t really in it tonight.
“Now I’ve set you on the course of discovery, I’m going to go and keep my woman warm.”
“Did I really need to know that?”
“Yep. Maybe it will help tip the scales.”
Watching Ruben leave, all I want to do is ask him to stay. It isn’t Ruben who I want here with me…
Chapter Nine
Sabrina