Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,66
to bother, he had no one whom he could turn to if he was in trouble, and he was always the person who had to bear other people’s burdens. He’d willingly taken that on. And for the first time since he was a kid, he wished he could be as cavalier about other people’s needs and feelings as his brother was. As his father always had been with his wife.
He wished he could be more like his brother and take what he wanted. He wished he could shirk all of his commitments and not even feel guilty about it. And when he thought about obligations he would shirk and things he wanted—it all coalesced into one thing.
Sasha.
“C’mon. You always do this. It’s not like you have a swinging social life.” Chris was such a dick.
“Shut up.”
Chris laughed and walked toward the car, clicking the electric locks on his Tesla. “Let me know if you need me to pay any bills for Dooley’s. I’ll take it out of my mad money.”
Patrick picked up his pace as he followed Chris. Their childhood home had a hedge right next to the walk that they used to try to push each other into when either one of them was unaware.
It wasn’t kind or mature, but he couldn’t really do anything about what he truly wanted. So, he shoved his brother into the hedge and then jogged to his rusted-out Toyota before Chris could retaliate.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WHEN SASHA RETURNED HOME after her haircut/boozy brunch with Hannah and Bridget, her sister’s belongings were strewn all over the living room and several suitcases were precariously perched on pieces of furniture. She hoped this meant that her sister was either going back East or moving into her own place.
Although she’d appreciated her help with work in the past few weeks, it wasn’t an ideal situation to teach her sister how to be an adult and have a real job. And now that Hannah was back in fighting form, they didn’t really need help anymore.
Before Sasha could ask her myriad questions, Madison had her own. “What happened to your hair?” Madison asked as soon as Sasha walked through the door.
“I cut it.” The night before, she’d hidden the chunk of hair that she’d cut off with a ponytail. Although she and her sister had grown closer over the past few weeks, Sasha wasn’t ready to spill the beans on the fact that she’d been hooking up—in a manner—with a frocked priest. “Going somewhere?”
Madison’s wide smile in response was alarming. For that matter, the way she was dressed, not in sweatpants but her former housewife uniform of jeans and high boots and a cashmere sweater, set off alarms as well. “I’m getting my own place.”
“So, you’re really going to leave Tucker?”
Madison nodded, and her grin got wider.
“And you feel good about that?”
Her sister just shrugged and kept folding clothes. “He called me last night and we had a long talk. It turns out that he was so bored with me that he could have died, too.”
“Have you told Mom and Dad?” She wouldn’t put it past her parents to threaten, cajole, or bribe any one of them into falling in line. Sasha just happened to have turned that around on them enough that they didn’t bother to try very hard with her anymore.
“Not yet.” Madison stopped folding and sat down. “Seeing Mother completely lose her shit made me scared of her. I feel like I understand you a lot better now.”
“I think the point is that you understand yourself a lot better now,” Sasha said. They’d made so much progress, and Sasha was filled with hope that her sister was actually turning a corner and about to make her life into what she wanted. Sasha thought Madison might stop caring about what other people thought a little bit more.
“I’m afraid. I just don’t want to end up with nothing.” Madison motioned around the room.
Then Sasha got angry. Her sister really thought she had nothing because she hadn’t followed their mother’s very precise playbook for success? Her sister didn’t have any room to talk. “You think I have nothing?”
“Well—”
Sasha had her own business and was on her way to buying her home from their parents. She would never deny that she’d been given a leg up in many ways by not having student loans to pay back and not having to worry about rent the first few years out of college, but her life was not frivolous, even though she planned parties.