Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,76

to hold back tears as my throat closed. This was bullshit. This was Ben trying to excuse himself for all the wrongs he’d done.

“So, you gave them my name?” He knew what they would do to me. But better me than him. Typical Ben.

“Yeah.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, then caught the look on my face which, if the outside matched the inside, must have been somewhere between heartbroken and horrified. “They were going to kill me!”

“No, Ben. They were going to kill me! They couldn’t find you.” My voice screeched and as much as I hated how I sounded, I hated more what he’d done. I hated how he shifted the blame. He made the bets. He took the money. He used my name to guarantee a marker.

“I just said you had some cash.” He knew I did not. “I didn’t know they were going to go after you.” Of course he did. That was why he gave them my name. “I just needed to buy some time to make it all work out. I swear, I was about to close a major deal that would let me pay it all off, right when my laptop froze.”

I groaned into my hands and my face ached and stung from the cuts and bruises I was touching. I was angry, but more than that, I was hurt. “Why didn’t you come to me, Ben?”

“I did! You thawed it!”

“Not about the fucking laptop. Why didn’t you come to be about the debts?” I threw my hands up, desperate for him to understand how badly he’d hurt me. “We could have run away, gotten out of here together!”

He met my anger with another roll of his eyes. And to add another layer of insult, he spoke slower like he was dealing with a child. “Seb, this is what I’m talking about. You don’t get it. These guys are national. Fucking international. There’s nowhere to run.”

I inhaled, clenched my fists, and forced my words out through clenched teeth. “You seemed to do okay at running. But you could have warned me.”

“Why would I do that?” He looked genuinely puzzled.

“Because we’re brothers!” I gestured at Derek and his family, the family he’d chosen who had shown me what real brotherhood was supposed to look like.

But Ben wasn’t looking, he was laughing. “Are you serious? We’re not the kind of brothers who share secrets, or beers, or even talk most days. I can’t tell you about the women in my life because you don’t like women. I can’t tell you about my business because you’re a bartender. You wouldn’t get it.” Theft wasn’t really a complicated issue, but I let him go on. “You’re a baby who doesn’t know about real life because you’re too busy with your head in the clouds and your dick in places”—he scoffed—“it shouldn’t be.”

He picked Matt and Sean to shoot his smug, amused grin at, as if they were going to yuck it up with him and share some mutual heterosexism, but the twins stared back, deadpan, and quiet. No yucking it up to be seen. Then he tried Richie, Eli, and Braxton. No bites there either.

“You really are a dick.” I sighed as the weight of years of denial lifted off my shoulders. A lifetime of trying to talk myself into liking him, accepting him, taking his insults and injuries…gone.

“Well, I guess that’s good with you then, right? You like dick.” Another smug grin. Another missed opportunity to be a good person.

Hunter caught my eye and cocked his head, asking if it was time to move the plan along. But I needed one more answer. I was shaking with anger, but I needed the truth. All of it.

“What happened that night?” I was clear and loud now, desperate. I needed closure so I could move on with the rest of my life. Or forming a real relationship.

“What night?” He was playing dumb, and he wouldn’t meet my eye.

“After I got your computer working, you were mad as fuck. I blacked out, then I woke up in the hospital. Did you…attack me?” I took a steadying breath and mimicked the tone he used when he was being condescending, talking slow and clear.

“Yeah, I kind of freaked out.” He rubbed the back of his neck like there might be some human emotion hiding back there but came away with nothing. He was going to play this off as no big deal. “I hit you over the head.”

I denied