“This is a fucking joke to you, all of it.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. You think I’m just the asshole making you toe the line. I’m trying to give you a life here, Sean, a way to make a living and take care of yourself in case something happens to me.”
Sean laughed. Laughed. The sound harsh in the quiet room. “You’re not dad, Finn. I don’t need you to give me a life. I can do that for myself. Contrary to popular belief, I can take care of myself.”
“Because you’ve done a great job of it so far?” Finn asked.
“Fuck you,” Sean said and walked out.
“What’s the damn emergency?” Finn yelled after him.
But Sean was gone.
This left Finn in charge of the place for the night instead of getting to go back up to 3B where he’d left his mind, and maybe a good chunk of his heart as well.
The next morning was Sunday and despite it being a weekend, Finn was back at the pub. He was working his way through some of the never-ending paperwork that seemed to multiply daily when Sean appeared.
“Where have you been?” Finn asked, hating himself for sounding like a nagging grandma.
Sean ran his hand over his bedhead hair. “Slept on the roof.”
Finn shook his head. “Bet you froze your nuts off.”
“Just about.” Sean paused. “I shouldn’t have walked away last night. I’m sorry for that.”
“Just tell me the damn emergency already,” Finn said.
Sean’s jaw went tight, a muscle ticking. A very unusual sight, and a tell that he was actually feeling stressed, something Finn hadn’t known his brother could even feel.
Sean pulled two envelopes from his back pocket. “You know how I said I wanted to help you with the business side of things and you said I had to start at the bottom, and I said like the mail room? And you said we don’t have a mail room, but yes a little bit like that?”
“It was a joke,” Finn said. “Because you think you just jump in but there’s a learning curve. So I suggested you start by handling our mail and our accounts payable. And you agreed as long as I didn’t come along behind you to check up on you.”
“Didn’t need dad in the house looking over my shoulder,” Sean said.
“Actually, if I’d been dad, I’d have used my fists, or whatever else was handy and just beat the shit out of you,” Finn said. “Or have you forgotten?”
Temper flashed in Sean’s eyes. Temper, and something else that he got a hold of before Finn could. He didn’t speak for a moment, which was rare for Sean. He just stood there, fists clenched at his side, working his jaw muscles. “Fuck it. Fuck this,” he finally said and started to turn away but stopped. “No, you know what? Fuck you. Sideways.”
“Mature.”
But Sean wasn’t playing. He shoved a finger in Finn’s face. “You think I’ve forgotten which one of us dad got off on beating up? You think I don’t remember at night when I close my eyes that you took it for me, every single time? That I don’t know you made sure you were between him and me so I’d be safe? That I survived only because of you? That I’m still surviving because of you? You think I don’t know that I’m a fuckup who’s only here with a semblance of a normal life because you gave it to me?”
Okay, so the something else in Sean’s gaze had been grief and remembered horror. And Finn shouldn’t have tried to be glib about it, there was nothing glib about how they’d grown up. “I didn’t mean to take this there,” he said quietly. “You’re not a—”
“I forgot to pay our liquor license.” Sean’s face was hard. Blank. “I forgot and it was due today.”
Finn stared at him. “That was the one thing I reminded you of two months ago when you took on the bills.”
“The envelope fell behind my desk and got lost. And it wasn’t alone. The property tax on the house was back there too and that one’s now past due.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Sean inhaled a deep breath, spread out his arms and shook his head. “See? You were right. I really am just a fuckup. You should demote me back to—”
“What? Sweep boy?” Finn found his own temper. And hell if he was going to let Sean default to his favorite thing—self-destruction, just because it was easier than growing