Restraint - Adriana Locke Page 0,77
coming to a family event again, but I ignore it.
My mother points at a box on the top shelf. “Can you grab that?”
“You couldn’t have one of these assholes get it?”
“They’re filling their plates,” she says. “Besides, I wanted to talk to you.”
I know. I knew it when she pretended to need my help.
The cereal box that has nothing to do with brunch is retrieved from its spot next to the crackers. I hand it to my mom.
“She’s lovely,” Mom whispers. “She’s so, so lovely, Holton.”
“She’s lovely,” Boone whispers sarcastically as he walks by.
I glare at him. He laughs.
“Should I get used to seeing her around?” Mom asks. “We’re having the Champagne and Crudites event at the Country Club next week, and I’d love to invite her.”
I glance at Blaire over my shoulder. She’s engaged in a conversation with my father, who looks captivated by her.
I get it, Dad. Me too.
“She’s going back to Chicago in a couple of days,” I say before turning around to face my mother again.
She looks confused. “To get her things? To see her family?”
“To work.” I blow out a breath “She’s … She doesn’t live here. And she’s not going to. Her life is in Illinois.”
“But I thought …”
Oliver approaches us from the table. He looks between my mom and me.
“Hey, I need to talk to you for a second,” he tells me, motioning toward the hallway.
“We will reconvene this conversation later,” Mom warns.
I roll my eyes and follow Oliver into the hallway next to the dining room.
My back hits the wall as I exhale all the stress that was just heaped on my shoulders.
“I figured you needed a reprieve from that bullshit,” Oliver says.
“Thanks.”
I run my hand through my hair as I hear my mother calling Dad and Blaire to the kitchen. It sounds so normal and something I could totally get used to … in a perfect world.
One we don’t live in.
“You’ve gotten yourself in deep with all of this Blaire stuff,” Oliver says quietly. “I know it. But you’re going to have to block out Mom and Dad and whatever else and focus. I need you, bud.”
I blow out another breath.
“I know. I’m here. I promise,” I tell him.
He leans against the wall next to me. We stare out the windows and into the front yard. The ferns my mother hangs off the porch every year sway in the breeze.
“You can do both things, you know,” Oliver says.
“What two things?”
“You can work and have a relationship.”
My head hits the drywall.
I can’t have both. I can’t have both for so many reasons.
“She’s going home soon, right?” he asks.
I nod.
“Do you know where you stand with her?” he asks.
“Yeah. She’s going home.”
The words fall flat into the air.
Oliver sighs. “Is she going home because she wants to? Or because you didn’t give her the choice?”
I roll my head to the side and look at my brother. “Are you a relationship expert now?”
“No, but I don’t have my head clouded by Blaire’s pussy either.”
I groan.
He’s right. Of course. And I hate that he’s right this time more than ever.
My head is clouded. I do feel pulled. Two things I hate even more than Ollie being right.
“Listen, I—” I begin, but Oliver’s chuckle stops me. “What?”
“You’re getting ready to talk in a circle and give me a bunch of excuses as to why you can’t do what you want.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m not fucking you when she leaves.” He turns his body so we’re facing head-on. “Because she’s gonna leave you, Holt. Are you ready for that? If you think you’re distracted now, think about what that’s gonna be like.”
My blood boils from the tone of his voice and the words spilling from his mouth.
“She has to leave me.”
“Oh, wise one. Please explain.”
“You know how our lives work,” I tell him. “I need to be in the office for twelve fucking hours a day. Sometimes, fourteen. Fuck, isn’t that why you just pulled me in here? Your first words were that you need me to focus.”
“Yes, but—”
“Then fuck you, Ollie.”
I blow out a breath that’s red-hot. My brother’s features darken as he takes the start of my wrath.
“I have to be ready for her to leave because she’s going to,” I say. “And she should.”
“How can you say that?”
“How can you say anything differently? You don’t know the ins and outs of our relationship.”
“But you’re admitting you have a relationship, right?”
I roll my head around my neck. The bones pop from stress.
He doesn’t understand that being with