Page 83 of Blitz

Even if she’s keeping secrets. Even if she’s lying to me. Even if our entire relationship is a lie. I still love her. I’m always going to love her, whether I want to or not.

“I want what you guys have,” another girl says, wrapping her arm around the girl beside her. “They’re adorable.”

I don’t tell them that relationships are hard work. I don’t tell them that sometimes I hate myself for how much control she has over me. I don’t tell them about the struggles we’re having, in and out of the bedroom. I don’t tell them anything.

“Thank you,” I say instead, and I kiss Mason’s forehead. She curls into me and rests her head on my chest.

“Oh, gross,” Micah says loudly. “I forgot how much you two are always all over each other.”

“Fuck off,” I tell him again, and the bastard laughs.

I won’t tolerate any big brother bravado. He lost that right when he stopped being my friend. Mason and I see each other nearly every day; he lives all the way in South Carolina. He’s not part of our everyday lives. He knows nothing about our situation. Right now he’s being a dick just because he can, and that doesn’t sit right with me.

She rolls her eyes and tightens her grip around me. “Don’t fight. You know I hate when the two most important men in my life fight over me. I’m not a doll. You can share me.”

“Gross, Mase,” Micah says. “We’re not going to share you.”

She gags. “Don’t make an innocent statement into something that it isn’t. I love you both in very different ways.”

“I’ll say,” he mutters. He takes a hefty gulp of his beer. “Your cup empty?”

She nods, handing it to him.

“Your boyfriend is failing in his duties to get you drunk,” he says accusingly.

“She has a meet tomorrow,” I remind him. Besides, I don’t want her to get drunk. I keep that little fact to myself.

“So only one more, and then I’m done,” she says patiently, ever the mediator. “Thanks, Mic.”

“Anything you need, sunshine,” he says, chucking her chin.

Mason growls and bares her teeth. He laughs.

“You’re a riot,” Micah says, shaking his head. “Let me get you that beer.”

Chapter thirty-four

Mason

Micah lasted half an hour on the floor before he crawled into my bed. It’s not weird to share a bed with my little brother. Those seventeen minutes I was an only child were the best seventeen minutes of my life. We shared a womb for nine months; we took baths together as children and shared a room until we were seven and a half. We can spend one night in the same bed. It’s a double bed: there’s plenty of space for both of us.

Other people have never really understood our bond. We have a half dozen half-siblings and step-siblings, but he’s my only full blood sibling. He’s the other half of my heart, whether I want him to be or not. I know the way he thinks. He knows me nearly as well as I know myself. It doesn’t matter that we’ve spent the last two and a half years in separate states: he’s still my brother, my twin, my rock.

That’s not to say we don’t fight. We do. All the fucking time, like cats and dogs. At the end of the day, I know he has my back, and I have his. Whether he’s right or wrong, I’m on his side, and he’s on mine.

There’s some kind of tension between him and Tucker, and I think I’m the cause of it. I don’t like it. They are the two most important men in my life. I’d love it if they got along. I’d love it if they were friends again. I’m not sure why their friendship dissolved. Neither of them have said a word about it. It’s like they’re content to pretend nothing has ever happened, even though they’re both clearly upset by it.

I can’t fix them. I can’t lock them in a room and force them to kiss and make up. As much as I’d like to, I think it will only make it worse. Neither of them have ever responded well to forceful manipulation. I’ll have to be more discreet.

Meet day with Micah visiting starts the same as any other meet day. I roll out with a foam roller, getting at my tight hips. I do a little yoga and stretching routine to get my body limber.

My brother wakes up around eight. His eyes go wide at the sight of me in my sports bra and running shorts. “Jesus! What are you wearing?”

“Oh, shut up.” It’s not like he’s never seen me in a bikini before. If anything, my sports bra covers more skin than a bathing suit does. I covered up this morning solely for his benefit. “Go take a shower. We need to leave in twenty minutes.”

Grumbling under his breath, still half-asleep, he pads to the bathroom. He opens the door and lets out a girlish shriek.

I sit up in a hurry. “What’s wrong?”