“Yes, it is,” Aidan insisted. “The people in your life, the very people that you’re counting now in your head as responsibilities, they don’t have to be a burden to you. We don’t want to be a burden to you.”
“You’re not,” Hud said.
“Yeah? Then prove it. You’re standing right here telling me Bailey can’t love you because she has too much to do, but we both know you’re the one who feels that way. You won’t let yourself love.”
“Will you stop with the love shit?” Hud asked. “I’ve got more important stuff than to worry about that right now.”
“Jacob, right?” Aidan asked. “But Jacob’s gone, man. He’ll come back when he’s good and ready, and not a second before. That’s not on you, Hud. You don’t have to put your life on hold just because he’s gone.”
Hud closed his eyes. “Yes, I do.”
“Why?” Aidan demanded.
“Because it’s my fault he’s gone.” Hud swallowed hard and shook his head at the memory of his harsh words. He was still able to perfectly see, even after all this time, the look of shock and hurt on Jacob’s face.
“Hud,” Aidan said with shocking gentleness. “No one blames you.”
“I blame me,” Hud said tightly. He opened his eyes and met Aidan’s confused ones. “There’s no one else to blame.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The last words I said to him were ‘we’re no longer brothers.’”
Aidan stared at him for a beat and then sighed. “You were angry—”
“No excuse.”
“You were hurt—”
“So was he,” Hud said.
Aidan put his hand on Hud’s shoulder. “Listen to me very carefully because I’m only going to say this once so you need to really hear me.” He paused. “What happened was every bit as much Jacob’s fault as yours. It was,” he reiterated when Hud opened his mouth to speak. “You’ve got to stop beating the shit out of yourself over it. More than that, you have to forgive yourself.”
“Yeah? And why is that?” Hud asked.
“Because wherever Jacob is right now? He’s forgiven you.”
Hud stared at him, wanting to believe that was true. “How do you know?”
“I know,” Aidan said in a voice of steel. “I ever tell you about the time I crashed Gray’s truck?”
“You never crashed Gray’s truck.”
Aidan laughed mirthlessly. “Wrong. I was fourteen and a real punk-ass, too, just like you. No doubt it’s in the Kincaid genes. Just one more thing to thank our dad for, right?” He shook his head. “Anyway, Gray had just gotten a truck. He’d saved for a couple of years, from even before he could drive. And he loved it more than he did girls, if that tells you anything. He was fixing it up every night after school and work. I wanted to help, but he wouldn’t let me. He told me to keep my grimy hands off it.”
“Let me guess,” Hud said. “You didn’t.”
“Nope. One night after he’d gone to bed, I stole his keys and took it for a joyride. It was snowing.”
Hud grimaced. Gray was notoriously, ridiculously attached to his vehicles. “You had a death wish?”
Aidan grinned. “Yeah, pretty much. The driveway out of the apartment complex we lived in—you remember it from when you came a few years later.”
“That driveway was a sheet of ice in the winter,” Hud said.
“Yep. I slid all the way down the thing and hit the mailboxes at the other end. Which of course saved my life because it meant I didn’t slide into the street and oncoming traffic.” Aidan let out a breath. “Which didn’t save me from Gray’s wrath, by the way.”
“A little pissed, was he?”
Aidan laughed. “Beyond pissed. I’d never seen him so furious before, or since, actually. Luckily, I had a concussion and had to go to the hospital. I fully expected to be arrested for grand theft auto when I was released, but instead Gray was waiting for me.” Aidan shook his head. “I saw him and thought, well, it was a good run, I’d managed to keep myself alive for fourteen years, and had a good time while I was at it.”
Hud laughed. “He kill you fast, or torturously slow?”
“I was just hoping for fast,” Aidan said. “But he shocked me. He hauled me in for a hard hug and said we were blood. He said that we’d never stop being blood and blood didn’t kill blood—much as it might want to. Gray also informed me that until further notice when he asked me to jump, I was only to ask how high.” Aidan shook his head. “I was his bitch for months.”
Hud laughed even as the humor was replaced by a hard knot of something in his chest. Grief. Regret. Frustration. “Jacob isn’t Gray.”
“No,” Aidan said. “But he is blood. You might have some hoops to jump, but nothing can change that one fact—blood is blood.”
Chapter 17
It was several hours later before Hud got any kind of break and headed back to the lodge, starving. He ran into Gray on the steps and they entered the cafeteria together.
At a corner table sat Penny, Lily, and… Bailey. The three of them were clearly enjoying a late lunch together, laughing over something.
Gray grinned. “I just found what I want for lunch.”