Page 118 of Theirs for the Holidays

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go. We could do Porter’s or somewhere else.”

“There’s a cute diner in downtown Cartersville,” Violet tells us. “It’s only like twenty minutes from here.”

“Done,” Lennox declares. He gets up and goes to rummage through his clothes for something to wear. “Up, you lazy bums,” he says, snapping at us. “Breakfast waits for no one.”

Violet laughs and gets out of the cuddle pile. “Sir, yes sir,” she teases, giving him a salute.

Rhett and I exchange amused glances, but we get up too, and the room becomes a flurry of finding clothes and getting in them. Really, we should all shower after last night, but none of us want to deal with the wait of four people needing to take turns in one shower.

I pull a shirt over my head and grab my leather jacket, and then I see Lennox, glaring down at his own shirt. His hand is trembling, and it’s clear he’s having trouble doing up the buttons.

I already know that helping Lennox when he doesn’t want it means I’ll get my head bitten off, but it’s not fun to watch my brother struggle either. He’s always been so damned prideful, refusing to accept help, let alone ask for it. Then he just gets more frustrated when things fall or break or he can’t do his buttons.

I weigh the options of making a comment about just putting on a sweater. We’re all in a good mood this morning, and I don’t want to ruin that. Dealing with Lennox’s moods has always been a balancing act, and it’s been even worse since we had our falling out.

But to my surprise, Violet makes the decision easy. She steps in with a smile and takes over doing up Lennox’s buttons.

I wait, assuming he’s going to snap at her or tell her he can do it and isn’t a child, and there is a tiny moment where his shoulders go tense. But just as quickly, the tension bleeds out of him, and he doesn’t say anything.

Violet smiles up at him when she’s done, patting his chest. She doesn’t say anything either, just leans up to kiss his cheek before moving away.

“Has anyone seen my hairbrush?” she asks, glancing around the room.

“Kitchen,” Rhett says.

Violet frowns. “Why is it in the kitchen? I don’t brush my hair in the kitchen.”

“You did the other morning because you ran in to make sure you weren’t out of butter in the fridge. And I told you that you brought an entire three pounds home from the bakery, so there was no way you were out. But you needed to see for yourself.”

She blinks at him, lips parted. “I vaguely remember that.”

Rhett just shakes his head, a smile pulling at his lips. “Come here, Tink. I’ll show you.” The two of them step into the kitchen, and I glance over at Lennox again.

He’s moved on to finger combing his hair, and I notice that even though his bad hand still isn’t all that steady, he’s not avoiding using it like it’s the plague anymore. The sight of Violet helping him, and Lennoxletting it happenrocks me to my core.

It’s progress, and something in me wants to give us a little more.

“Hey,” I say to him.

“Hi?” He tips his head to one side. “What’s up?”

“I just, uh, wanted to say something. To you.”

Lennox’s eyebrows lift to his hairline, but he waits for me to get my words out. Sincerity has never been a big thing in our family. We were always the ones who didn’t need words because we knew each other so well.

That definitely didn’t make things easier when our relationship fell apart because we didn’t even know how to talk to each other about what the problems were, and I’m realizing now that we all just sort of assumed the others would figure out how we felt and then got angry when it didn’t work like that.

But someone has to say something. Violet has done so much of the heavy lifting for us already, and it’s up to us to keep fixing things.

“Here’s the thing,” I say, just getting right to it. “You’re the older brother, right? We’ve always looked to you to know what to do because you always did know what to do. But I think maybe that wasn’t fair to you.”

“What?” Lennox’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“You said—when we were talking to Violet about everything that went down with the company and Mom—you said that you felt like you had to make the right decision. But it shouldn’t have been all on you. We were grown, we could have spoken up, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, I guess you could have. And… I could have asked what you guys thought was the right thingto do. I didn’t have to take it all on myself. I just felt like that was my role. Dad always let us do what we wanted, and I guess I felt like someone had to be there to make sure you didn’t get in trouble and Rhett didn’t isolate himself, and then Mom died, and it was like that feeling multiplied.”

“We should have checked in with you more,” I admit. “I think we were all so buried in our own grief and anger and… whatever the fuck else. And you were just trying to keep things afloat on your own.”