spend the rest of his life hating me, that’s fine. But he will not treat his sister this way.
I knock on the door and he pulls it open without checking the peephole. When he sees me, he shakes his head and lets out a long breath. “Fuck, man. Come on. I don’t feel like doing this shit right now.”
“Can I come in?”
“What? Fuck no. You’re never stepping foot in here again. You lied to my face for weeks. You took the one thing I deemed off-limits. You overstepped, man.”
I nod as I tuck my hands into my pockets, letting him know that I’m not here to fight. If he wants to hit me, fine, but my hands are staying in my pockets. I’ll let him fucking pummel me if that’s what I have to do to get him to listen. “I know I did, Brad. You think I wanted this? You think I liked sneaking around behind your back and doing the one thing I was asked not to do? You know me, man. You know that I’ve always respected the rules. You know that I always want to do what’s right. Deep down, do you really think I wanted to do shit this way?”
He thinks it over for a brief minute and shakes his head. “Nah, I guess not.”
“Can I come in, please?”
He takes a long breath and blows it out quickly. “Fine, but the second you piss me off, I’m throwing you out.”
“Deal,” I agree, taking anything I can get if it means he’ll listen.
We stay in the living room. He sits on the end of the couch and I sit in the recliner far away from him. “It started before I even moved in here,” I confess, and his eyes jump up to mine. “I had only just ran into you while I was jogging, remember that?”
He nods.
“I went out that night and I ran into this woman. She took my breath away. I bought her a drink and she told me her name was Danielle. We danced and after a few drinks, we took things outside.”
He shakes his head. “So fucking like her.”
“After we hooked up, we went our separate ways. I didn’t get her number, even though I was kicking myself for it the whole way home. I already had it in my head that I was going to look for her around town, find her, and ask her on a date. A real date. But then I came to check out the apartment, and you introduced me to Deven, who I’d known the night before as Danielle. Once I found out who she really was, I called it off, and it killed me to do it because I felt something when I was with her that I couldn’t ignore. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything, but I wouldn’t let myself out of respect for you.”
He doesn’t bother looking at me. He keeps his eyes on the TV that’s been muted, but I know he’s listening. He’s hearing every damn word I say. I can tell by the way his back is straight and his hands are balled into fists in his lap.
“As time passed, things got harder and harder to ignore. Not to blame anything on her, but she’d flirt and tease me, letting me catch her naked.” I shake my head. “I couldn’t fucking take it anymore. I had done nothing but fight with myself about what I wanted. I couldn’t fight anymore. So that’s when things started up on a regular basis. Things were good for a while. We had fun sneaking around here. There were a few times you almost caught us, but we always managed to get away with it. Then came the day when what we were really doing hit Deven. She was scared that you’d find out the truth and push her away. She was terrified of losing the only family she has left. She wanted us to sit you down and talk things out, explain how things got started and how what we were doing wasn’t just fucking around. While we didn’t know it at the time, every time we were together, we were falling a little more in love.”
His head turns and his eyes lock on mine. I’m surprised to see that they aren’t filled with anger or resentment.
“But I was scared. I didn’t want to admit that I’d wronged you. So she broke things off. For two fucking weeks, I was a