Where Winter Finds You (Black Dagger Brotherhood #18)- J.R Ward Page 0,81

the grunt as a good sign. Okay… maybe it was more of a not-so-bad sign. Not-as-bad-as-it-could-be sign. “Mind if I join you two?”

Trez took out his phone and checked the time. “Listen, I was going to quickly go and check in with things at work—”

“Oh, of course.” She lowered herself down next to him. “I don’t mean to trap you here. But if you talk to iAm, can you please tell him I won’t be in for a couple of nights? I’m not leaving until…”

As she let the sentence drift, her brother looked over at her. And kept looking.

“Absolutely.” Trez took her hand. “What can I bring you?”

“Food, maybe?”

“Sure. What kind?’

“Gareth?” She glanced across. “Anything in particular?”

Her brother took a drag off his cigarette and then exhaled while shaking his head. “I’ll eat anything. Dad’s the same.”

“Roger that.”

When Trez hesitated, she answered the is-it-appropriate by making the move to kiss him.

“See you in a little bit,” she said as their lips met briefly.

“Yup, you will.” He ditched his cigarette butt in a soda bottle, then got to his feet. “Later, Gareth.”

“Later.”

Therese watched her male go—and was aware that the vibe changed immediately. But at least her brother didn’t seem overtly hostile.

“How long you been seeing him?” Gareth asked as he dropped his own butt into that bottle. Before the hissing had even faded, he was lighting another.

“They let you smoke out here?”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m not. Honest.” She sighed. “So how you been? And not long. To answer your question about the dating thing.”

“So he’s not why you picked Caldwell.”

“No, I met him here. His brother is the chef at the restaurant where I work.”

“Seems like a nice guy.”

“He is.”

Before the pause became a silence that grew long and awkward, she took a deep breath and jumped into it all.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Her brother’s yellow eyes twitched, and she braced herself for an argument. Instead, he just shook his head. For a while.

Sitting beside him, she gave him the space and time he needed to sort his emotions out. And she appreciated that he didn’t do a rant-and-rave that would accomplish nothing and exhaust them both.

“I just really…” He started and didn’t finish. Started again. “I just couldn’t believe you would abandon us. You didn’t just leave them… you left me, and whatever, I know you’re my sister, but you’re a friend, too. My roommate. You know. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re only saying that because it does.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” He took another drag. “I need to stop smoking. Thank God vampires don’t get cancer—and no, I absolutely do not do it anywhere around Mom.”

“I never even considered for a moment that you would.”

“I’m glad you came now, even though I wanted to scream at you when you walked in.”

“I got that impression.”

“That’s why I left the room back there. I didn’t want to make things worse. It’s been so damned hard.”

“Thank you for calling. I honestly didn’t get the messages.”

“I know. He said so.”

As tears came to Therese’s eyes, she glanced left and right, up and down—like she was giving herself an eye exam—so that none fell. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed them.”

“We’ve been empty since you left, too.” He tapped the tip of his cigarette on the bottle’s open neck. “Some people are the heart of a family.”

“That’s Mom.”

“No.” Gareth looked over at her. “That’s you. That’s always been you. You keep us going, keep us organized. You’re…”

Clearing his throat sharply, he shifted his eyes down and then rubbed them hard, one by one, with the knuckles of his free hand. “Look, I can’t talk about this. It’s killing me, and I gotta pull it together for them—”

“Oh, Gareth,” she whispered as she reached for him.

Except as she went to give him a hug, he put a hand up and leaned out of range. “Nope. None of that. I’ve got to get a hold of myself.”

“I’m going to hug you later.”

“Fine. Just not now.”

Therese took her first full breath since the moment she’d marched out of her parents’ house. Gareth, on the other hand, seemed to still be struggling with his emotions.

Trying to change the subject, she murmured, “So you’ve been lifting a lot, huh.”

“I have.”

“How’s that female you were dating?”

He shook his head and kept his eyes on his cigarette. “She moved in right after you left, all ready to get mated. Like, are you kidding me? My family is imploding and you want to talk about the color theme of some reception out of the human tradition? It was