Page 34 of Fight For Me

If I had any doubts that was a low blow, the expression on his face proves it. “Will—”

“Fuck you, man,” he says, his voice cold. Shit.

He shifts, like he’s about to stand, and my stomach sinks, knowing I screwed up. To my surprise, he leans closer to me instead, his eyes fierce as he stares at me. “I don’t know what’s been going on with you,” he says, and I can tell he’s making an effort to control his voice. “But I do know it’s more than this surgery. Not coming home, acting like you can’t wait to get away when we’re all together—that’s not you, Wyatt.”

It’s everything I can do not to let my gaze drift to the group dancing in the middle of the room.

“I get it,” he continues. “You know how much I shut down after Skye. How I closed myself off. You think I don’t recognize that you’re doing the same thing?” He shakes his head. “A least everyone knew why I was struggling. But you—you don’t tell us shit, man. No one knows what’s up with you.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

He rolls his eyes. “And you came home so willingly.” He waits until I meet his eyes. “You can talk to me, Wyatt. You know that, right?” His lips tilt up a little. “I might be the younger brother, but I’ve dealt with some shit.”

Guilt courses through me. He’s right—Will has dealt with way worse than anyone his age ever should. Skye’s death had wrecked him. He blamed himself for being the one to discover her, for pushing our dad and uncles to sign her to their record label. The music scene was the worst place for Skye, who got into drugs at her very first industry party. Will blamed himself for everything, and the weight of that guilt nearly destroyed him.

In comparison to that, my problems seem laughable. I have feelings for a woman I can’t be with. Big fucking deal.

I push away the voice that whispers it’s so much more than that, and straighten my shoulders before turning to my brother. “I know I can talk to you,” I say, layering my voice with every bit of sincerity I can muster. “I really do—I trust the hell out of you, Will. Even if you are mylittlebrother.” I manage a smile. “And you’re right about the surgery—I’ve been freaking out.”

He nods, seemingly satisfied by my partial truth. “I really think it’s going to be fine,” he says. “Dad has the best specialists lined up to rehab your hand after the surgery. And God knows you’re going to work your ass off to get back into playing shape.”

I nod, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. “Yeah,” I lie. “I’m sure it will be just fine.”

We shift into silence, our attention drifting to the dancers in the center of the room. Alex is laughing while River spins her. I find myself mesmerized by the long line of her neck, by the way her eyes sparkle when—

Stop, I tell myself, forcing my gaze away.You have to stop.

This crush, or whatever it is, has done enough damage already. It’s kept me away from my family, made my parents and Will worry about me when that’s the last thing they should be doing. I need to put an end to it. No matter what.

Alex

“You’re going down, loser.”

My brother snorts in derision, his fingers flying over the buttons of his video game controller. “You wish.”

“You forget I have years of experience on you.” I tap at my own controller, pleased at the explosion that takes up his half of the screen.

“Yeah,” Nix says, jabbing at a key to cause a rain of bullets to sail towards my shooters. “Because you’re old and decrepit. You have fragile bones. Nowhere near the dexterity of my much younger fingers.”

I gasp in mock outrage. “I’ll show you fragile bones.”

A few seconds later, I land the final blow—a grenade perfectly tossed to inflict the maximum damage on his shooter. Just like that, the game is over and I’ve won. “Ha!” I yell into his face, throwing my arms up. “I kicked your ass.”

He pushes me away, rolling his eyes, but I can tell he’s trying not to laugh. “I was wrong—you’re not old, you’re completely immature.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re just mad you lost.”

I toss the controller away and lean back into the couch cushions, pushing some hair off my sweaty forehead—Nix and I tend to get a little competitive when we play video games. “You hungry? Should we eat?”

My sixteen-year-old brother raises an eyebrow and I bite back a laugh. As much as people are always telling me I look like our mom, I’ve got nothing on Nix. He’s her total twin, right down to his facial expressions. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen that exact sardonic eyebrow arch on her face. “You’ve already been here for three hours,” he says. “Don’t you have better things to do on a Friday night?”

I sigh. I came back over to the house on the guise of spending time with Nix while Mom and Dad are out on a date, but that was just an excuse. The truth is, the cameras at the condo are starting to get to me.

I hadn’t realized how controlled the whole thing would be. I guess I thought that the cameras would just be in the background, capturing footage of us while we went about our day. Instead, we constantly have Scott or Monica, the associate producer, setting up scenes for us. Even when they leave us to our own devices, they still stop us a bunch of times. Pretty much any time we say or do something they think is interesting they’ll step in to make us repeat it so they can get more footage. And then there’s the interviews, which feel invasive and pointless at the same time. It’s exhausting.

There’s also the little matter of Wyatt Warner being everywhere I look in that condo. I’d expected him to mostly keep to himself, to hang out in his room and avoid the cameras at all cost. Instead, he seems to insist on being present, hovering in the background, anytime they’re actively filming. So much for his insistence that he isn’t there to babysit us.

If I’m honest with myself, it’s not the babysitting that bothers me. It’s the fact that Ilikehaving him there. After all these years of him being away, I like being able to look at him whenever I want. I like that I’ll occasionally hear the deep rumble of his laughter when he’s talking to Fox or Everly.