Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,76

it to dominate my life.

If this was real and Ramsey was finally coming home, there was a chance we could put this behind us once and for all.

“I have to tell Thea,” I rushed out, the combination of excitement and adrenaline making my body hum like a hive of bees had taken up residence in my veins.

“No,” Ramsey barked.

Jesus. Those two were going to be the end of me.

I’d spent twelve years being the middleman for Ramsey and Thea.

Ramsey desperately, and somewhat successfully, trying to force her to let him go.

Thea holding on to a ghost and the promises made by a seventeen-year-old boy.

Both of them equally as stubborn.

Leaning around the bar dividing the kitchen from our living room, I peered down the hall. Thea’s door was still shut, and if I knew her at all, she had her headphones on, watching travel videos while planning a top-of-the-line vacation she should have been taking herself. But just in case she wasn’t, I kept my voice low as I laid into my brother.

“What the hell do you think is going to happen, Ramsey? You’re going to get out and she’s not going to find out? If nothing else, she deserves the chance to yell at you. You cut her out of your life completely.”

He let out a groan. “I’m not having this conversation with you again.”

“Fine, then just listen to me have it.” I looked at her door again. “I love you and I respect you, so I’ve kept my promises. But when you get out of there, that word is no longer valid. You owe her a conversation. Hell, you owe yourself a conversation. You love her, dummy. Let her love you back.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, please. I’m the only one who knows what I’m talking about here. But I’m going to drop it for now because today is huge and I don’t want to spend it fighting with you over the inevitable.”

He cussed under his breath, but I smiled.

He was coming home.

Ramsey was finally coming home.

We talked for a few more minutes. I asked a million questions he didn’t have the answers to. And we briefly talked about the logistics of his homecoming. He asked me to find a place for us to live without Thea. I lied and told him I would. If ever two people needed to be under the same roof, it was them. I’d tried to keep the drawers in my head as empty as possible over the last few years, but I was positive Cupid had told a few white lies in his time too.

After we’d exchanged I-love-yous, Ramsey and I hung up. I took the chicken on the counter and put it back in the fridge. Tuscany could wait for another time. Thea and I were officially going out to celebrate.

It was so close to being over.

Ramsey could be free.

Thea could be free.

Maybe then I could be free too.

“This isn’t legal!” I yelled from the wrong side of the bars of a Clovert jail cell.

So, remember that “maybe then I could be free too” horseshit?

Yeah, things didn’t exactly happen like that after Ramsey got out of prison.

What did happen was Officer Jonathan Caskey found new and unique ways to torture my entire family.

The day Thea and I had picked Ramsey up from prison was a dream come true. Sure, it had been hard for him to adapt to his new life of freedom—well, at least partial freedom since he was still on parole for the next three years. He and Thea… Well, that was a challenge to say the least. But, eventually, everyone got on the same page.

It only took a week before Jonathan Caskey showed up at our door, claiming he had information about Ramsey selling drugs out of the back of Thea’s father’s barbershop.

A fucking week. Of course, the cops found nothing, but that didn’t mean Jonathan didn’t get off on fucking with us.

We decided right then and there Ramsey would never be safe to finish his parole that close to the Caskey family. He requested a transfer from his parole officer and he and Thea moved upstate to Dahlonega. It sucked on epic levels. I’d just gotten my brother back, and thanks to the fucking Caskeys, I’d lost him again. But it was okay. He was happy and safe with the woman he loved. That was all I’d ever wanted for him.

Thea sold our place in Thomaston so she and Ramsey could buy a little cabin