Page 118 of The Long Way Home

Thirty

BJ

I’m reeling about New York. Sick to my fucking stomach.

Parks leaves pretty quick after I make that cut about Christmas. Feel shit about that, I shouldn’t have done it, but I had to — had to one-up her after that little revelation.

They nearly had sex in New York? What the fuck?

While Jo goes and pays the bill, Christian gets up and walks outside. I follow him because I feel like picking a fight, and I can’t fight with the girl I want to.

Round the corner and stop about a metre away, eying him.

“Are you fucking joking me, man?” I blink. “Her I get, but you? How could you do that to me?”

And then Christian scoffs. Scoffs, that cocky little shit. Shakes his head. “Beej, for fuck’s sake.” He pushes his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how to get this through your fucking head, but you need to understand that not everything is about you.” His eyebrows arch up. “That wasn’t about you.”

I let out this frustrated growl as I shove my old friend into the wall behind him. “She is always about me.”

Nothing sparks in his eye like it used to, he’s not defensive over her how he was before. He knocks my hands off him, looking annoyed more than anything.

“Sure, Beej, I get it—” He shakes his head. “You’re hers, she’s yours, but I wasn’t thinking of you—” He pokes me in the chest. “You didn’t cross my mind once. I was in New York with one of my best friends and my heart was fucked—” He shrugs. “I was in love with a girl who I couldn’t be with because she wanted something that I couldn’t give her. I was fucked up and so was Parks. We got drunk and I felt her up and it wasn’t about you.” He stares me down. “For me anyway,” he adds as an afterthought. “Everything for her is about you, but this wasn’t about you for me.”

I lean back against the wall next to him. “You could have told me.”

“Yeah—” He gives me a look. “Because historically you’ve always taken shit about me and Parks so well.”

My brother meanders over, looks between us. “You two sort your shit out?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Christian pulls out his phone, already done with the conversation.

“You knew?” I stare over at my brother and try not to look as betrayed as I feel. “About Christian and Jack-Jack? And you didn’t say shit?”

“Yeah.” Henry shrugs. “Because I sort of think it’s probably just time you loosened your grip on who Magnolia can and can’t sleep with now that, you know, you’ve had an affair and have, like, a live-in girlfriend and shit.”

I glare over at him, shaking my head a bit. “You know, you could take my side once.”

He shrugs completely indifferent, maybe with a hint of anger too. “I might give it a crack if you weren’t in the wrong most of the time.”

“That’s not true.” I shake my head. “You’re just under her thumb.”

“Right.” Henry yawns. “Yeah, I’m the one who’s under her thumb.”