Page 124 of Broken Brothers

There was only one person who seemed to still have any interest not just in staying in my life, but progressing it forward.

51

“Fancy seeing you out here again, huh?”

I only had to sigh as I took a sip of my gin and soda next to Layla. She looked dressed to the ten, as I expected, her dress as seductive as the first time that I had taken her out to the dive bar and gotten handsy underneath the table.

“Well, my life is going to shit, how about yours?” I said with a laugh and a shrug.

“That bad, huh?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, which was not a cliche in this case and a literal true statement. “Things with the old man are… well, on the rocks.”

“As they always are, no?” Layla said, wearing a smile. “You must have something else going on that brought you out here. You wouldn’t have acted this way over just a normal bad day. I mean, let’s face it. I know you don’t want to be around me, but you find yourself pulled back when times get bad. We might as well figure out why, right?”

I swallowed my drink very slowly as I tried to digest how direct Layla was. I guess it was kind of obvious how I only wentto her when times were rough, but still… this was shocking in its directness toward me. I hadn’t anticipated that Layla would articulate such feelings before the moment of truth, especially since she had so well hidden everything during my dalliance with her uncle.

“You know I haven’t forgotten what happened between us, right?” I said. “I’m trying to give this a second chance because I realize now that you were manipulated and probably abused by your uncle to some degree, but I can’t just pretend that you were a puppet on strings. You made the decision to go along.”

“True,” Layla said, though she did not seem nearly as fazed as she would have in the days and weeks before. “But what is ‘this’ that you are giving a second chance?”

Boy, we’re really getting right to the point, huh? No beating around the bush here.

“If I knew, do you think I’d be going back and forth like I am?” I said.

I was beginning to feel the same thing that I had felt the last time I was with Layla—a degree of anxiety that was growing by the moment. This was so surreal, especially since as soon as I had left Layla’s and gone to Claire’s I was as smooth as a sea on a sunny day. I could do no wrong when I pleasured Claire, even as she begged me to go faster.

But here, with Layla?

I felt like that goddamn twelve year old all the time.

“I suppose the best way to do it is to just say it out loud, what my thoughts are,” I said. I took a second to collect myself and then thought,Fuck it. Go.“I think you’re a sweet person who got pushed to a spot where she had to do something she didn’t want to. I still find you physically attractive and very arousing. It goes without saying that the sex that we had was some of the best sex I’ve ever had. It goes without saying that, well, I still like you to a degree.”

I gulped. Layla showed no particular reaction to what I said, which was… mildly and weirdly disappointing?

“However, as I said before, you did do those things to me and you did shatter my trust. My entire life has seen nothing but heartbreak at the end of the line when it comes to women unless I first shut it off. I am a little…”

I swallowed.

“Concerned that this would be the same thing. Also, and this is the whole reason I’m out here before we got into a deep conversation, my life is kind of in a place of purgatory right now. On the one hand, the business Morgan and I launched is doing very well. On the other hand, a billionaire wants to ruin us. And, here’s the single core reason for why I’m here… I think Morgan is moving away from me and to his father.”

“Oh.”

Layla hadn’t changed expression much, but when she saw how much that hurt me, I could see how much she reacted in turn. Her smile, which bordered on cocky and daring just moments before, had vanished entirely, replaced by a kind of empathy only possible with the worst news. Her body language, shifted back in her seat, letting me come to her, had brought her forward. And what she said had gone from leading to deflated.

“Yeah,” I said. “I can afford to lose some things. I can afford to lose Edwin Hunt. I could afford to lose my job at Burnson Investments. Honestly, I could probably afford to lose MCH, although it would take me some time to rebound from that. But losing Morgan…”

Morgan was the closest thing I had to a lifelong stable other in my world. He was my brother, but he was also my best friend. From the day I was adopted, he had taken care to treat me as both a brother and a best friend. He never, ever mocked the fact that I was adopted, and he always picked me up when Ifell. From Sarah to the girl in front of me, his efforts after those breakups always made me feel better.

If he left, my name would feel too apt for my life. Everything would truly feel up to chance. I could never have anything stable, because the appearance of stability was just that. An appearance. I would no longer believe in the structural reality of stability.

“Losing Morgan would suck a lot,” I said.

I was surprised to find that I could not say anything more beyond that. Usually, when I was speechless, it was because a girl blew my mind or I was so fucking furious that I just reacted with anger and rage.

But grief? Sadness? Those were not emotions that made me silent. This was… this was very different.

“I don’t think you will,” Layla said. “At least, not in the long-term.”