when it’s so obvious he wants to.
I push up on my hands more. “I love how you keep telling me to say what I want, but you hold back every time you can.”
“Trust me, there’s a difference.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“No.”
“Why not?” I snap. “You clearly have an issue with my brother. What do you care?”
“It’s Brayshaw—”
“Brayshaw business?” I say at the same time, cutting off his last word. “Is that not why you brought me here, so I can learn more? Did I not pass your little drug test? Help your family with Enoch? Were you not about to use me today?”
“Watch it.”
“Why am I even here, Royce?!”
“I said watch it.” His tone is an icy black that has me biting my tongue. “You wanna know what happened?” He gives in. “Your brother almost got his ass fuckin’ hung and hung tight. The only reason he’s still breathing is because he stood with and protected Raven when we weren’t in reach to do it. Why weren’t we in reach, because the motherfucker went behind our backs to help where she needed it.”
Betrayal? All my brother ever talked about was loyalty. Honesty.
I swallow, a queasiness swimming in my stomach. I barely get my next words out. “He turned his back on you guys?”
Royce’s jaw flexes and shakes his head. “Every ounce of his loyalty was rooted in our grounds, in our name, and then Raven came along. She became his friend before any of us knew she was a part of us, so when word dropped she was of Brayshaw blood, hidden away for eighteen years only to come back with a fuckin’ bang, he was already all in. His loyalty shifted to her.”
My shoulders fall, and I turn my body to face his better. “Was that wrong of him?”
His eyes cut to mine and he releases me. “Was it wrong to do and be whatever the hell she needed of him? No. It wasn’t. Not even a little bit.”
Royce speaks with unrestrained anger, but the boy is right beside me, and his tells are clear.
His heartbeat is heavy as is his mind, his fists tight but shaking, his breaths deep and harsh, but aching.
Anger is only the outer layer, front and center for all to observe, to fear, while something much deeper suffocates behind it.
I can guarantee I’m not supposed to understand the difference.
He bleeds on the inside too.
His glare is a guard, an impenetrable piece of armor that serves him well.
He has no reason to question his most practiced protection, but pain recognizes pain.
“It wasn’t wrong of him... but it felt like it.”
He grinds his teeth and looks away.
“Tell me what happened.”
He scoffs, licking his lips as he focuses on the sky. “I don’t even fuckin’ know you.”
He says it, but his tone tells a different story. He says he doesn’t know me, but he feels as if he does, and maybe it scares him a little. So, I tease.
“Sure you do. You’ve been watching me, remember?”
He keeps his head facing forward, but lazily slides his gaze to mine. “Took Polaroids too,” he jokes.
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” I laugh lightly, and he lets a hint of a grin tip his lips. “One thing my brother did tell me was how nothing is ever buried or unreachable, nothing is off-limits, and no one can do a damn thing to stop you.”
“Me or my family?”
“I thought he meant all of you.” I lift one shoulder. “But now I’m kind of wondering if he did mean you.”
He eyes me a long moment and then turns his attention to the bent plate at my side.
He leans over, picks it up, and taps it against his free palm.
I study his profile, the doubling tension framing his eyes.
He wants to talk, a true conversation, but he’s unsure... and he hates it.
Like me, he has no one of his own to trust, not with anything real or unscripted.
Pain recognizes pain.
I reach out, swiping my hand along the dust of the blue stamped letters and he holds it out, revealing what’s beneath it.
“Lame for a custom.” He stares.
I nod, tracing the number four with my middle finger, and decide vulnerability is only fair when it’s coming from both angles. I don’t talk to people either, but talking to him somehow feels right.
“It was the gift my sick mother gave her casted up son a day after she begged him to lie to the doctors when, for the first time, he couldn’t be ‘fixed’ with time, a