Page 110 of Please Open Me
“I know she wants Cameron.” A bark of wry laughter punctuated my words. “But he’s asleep in the truck and too fucking drunk to stand. Don’t you understand how fucking crazy this whole thing is?”
I started down the steps, and Atticus moved back, maintaining a professional distance between us. Like I was some fucking stranger. Like I hadn’t tutored his oldest son when he was too fucking stupid to pass classes that I'd aced at age eight. Like I wasn’t the one Leona called to watch him when they had their second kid.
Like he hadn’t been the one I called when I needed to know literally anything about being a man.
“No, I do. But you need to calm down,” he warned.
“Calm down?” I pointed at myself. “I just lost my girlfriend and children over a misunderstanding, and now I have you acting like I’m a fucking stranger.”
I took another step toward him, fists curling, the mist in the air doing nothing to cool the boil under my skin. My chest heaved like I’d sprinted a mile, every nerve buzzing with the urge to do something. Fix it. Fight it. Tear it all down if I had to.
“This whole thing is fucking ridiculous,” I snapped. “And I’ve had enough.”
Atticus didn’t flinch, didn’t move. Just squared his shoulders and looked me dead in the eye. “Sebastian, if you keep pushing like this, you’re going to make it impossible for her to come back. Do you understand me? You want Mason and the kids? Then stop acting like the guy she’safraidof.”
The words cut me to my core, and I stopped in my tracks.
“She’s afraid… of me?” My voice came out far too small.
And Atticus nodded.
“Like I said, I don’t know what happened, and I don’t want to know what happened. I just—” He heaved out a breath before pushing the envelope into my hands.
It was stiff. Weightier than I expected.
“Atticus, what is this?” I asked, now sounding like a scared child whose nightlight had just shut off.
Atticus didn’t answer. He just pressed his lips into a hard line, then turned and jogged to his car, his shoes splashing through the puddles. A moment later, the slick black vehicle vanished into the grey, swallowed by the mist.
And I was left standing alone, the envelope burning in my hands like it held the end of my life. Which, to be fair, it kind of did.
I wanted to rip it open, or throw it in the gutter, or chase Atticus down and demand he take it back. But my legs wouldn’t move, and my fingers wouldn’t let go.
So I just stood there in the rain, clutching the weight of Mason’s decision, too scared to look and too broken not to. My mind ran in wonky, lopsided circles, and I started to shake.
What the fuck was I going to do?
Chapter 27
Sebastian
It took the combined strength of Lucian and me to haul Cameron’s gargantuan ass into the house. He was half drunk, completely passed out, and close to four hundred pounds of dead weight. By the time we dragged him to the couch, my arms were screaming, my bad leg wanted to buckle, and sweat caused my shirt to stick to my skin.
But, for as bad as I physically felt, Lucian looked a million times worse.
The second Cameron was safely on the couch, Lucian collapsed into a nearby armchair. His hands trembled so violently I thought they might hurt. Sweat plastered his curls to his forehead, but he was shivering, too, like his body couldn’t decide if it was hot or freezing.
I’d been around the last time Lucian got clean, so I recognized some of the signs, but I generally tried to avoid my brother. That meant that while I knew about the seizures, paranoia, panic attacks, and everything else that came with opioid withdrawal, I never really sat with him through it.
His hands twitched as if they hurt to keep still. Even though I didn’t like my brother, seeing him like this made me uncomfortable.
“Hey… Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked, watching him as if he were a half-mangled kitten I’d pulled off the side of the road.
Lucian shook his head. “No, I’m good.”
“You don’t lookgood.”
Actually, he looked like he just might die in my house. If that happened after last night, Mason might think I killed him, too.
