Page 26 of The Spare
Their house felt like an actual home. Their mom loved to garden. Every spring, the entire yard smelled of peonies, which wafted into the house. It felt like a fairytale. I leaned back into my seat and listened to the gentle hum of the engine.
“Xander and I would call it the country house.” I smiled at the memory.
A small, sad smile tugged at the side of his face. “We used to go up there a lot.”
“I loved it. You and Henry always ended up getting Xander in trouble.” I was always spared because their father adored me, and I was usually left out of their shenanigans.
“We got in so much trouble when we left you out of things.” His voice lightened. The boys tended to be awful, especially when Xander was goaded into ditching me. “Mostly Xander, though.”
“You were bullies.”
A laugh almost made its way out of him. “You were fine.”
Those visits were only fun for me when I got to hang out with Xander. “I was sixteen and dragged away from my friends. Xander was all I had, and you two tried to take him.”
Something about that statement made him pause. His softness was lost, his features closed up again.
It was quiet for a few minutes after that.
“Yeah, but look at how tough you are now. You're welcome.” His voice broke the mounting tension.
I smiled and spent the rest of the ride trying to convince Marcus to visit his old house with Xander one day. He was surprisingly receptive.
CHAPTER13
Marcus
After Thanksgiving, I realized how many problems had cropped up while I was busy getting assaulted by my little brother. And other holiday activities.
I needed to focus on work, but I had a quickly healing black eye reminding me that I had amends to make.
“The eye looks back to normal,” Henry said as he took a seat beside me at a bar at the Augustus, a high society club in Manhattan that the Amaris belonged to for two generations. Xander and I gained access a few years ago.
The bartender delivered our drinks. “I invited Xander, but he declined,” I told him. Xander said he was busy with work, but we all knew he wasn’t. There wasn’t much when it came to mental pursuits that he wasn’t good at. His work didn’t take up much of his time or hold his attention very long.
“He’s still angry.”
I took a sip of the whiskey and relished the smooth burn. “You’re not?”
He shrugged. “I don't know, probably. I don’t think I have the time to be angry with you.”
“It’s not going well?” I asked. His grandfather was always kinder to me than he was Henry. That had more to do with the impossibly high bar he set and expected Henry to surpass.
Henry shrugged and ran a hand along his jaw. “How the hell did you do it?”
It sounded half like an actual question and half like an accusation. Sutton Industries expanded exponentially over the last few years; it was a feat. Still, it was primarily due to constant work and the acceptance of all I’d probably lost because of it.
“Talent?” It was meant to be a joke, but he wasn’t amused, and I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. I had help. The same help he had, but sometimes his father and grandfather tortured him by withholding that aid. I think they thought it made him stronger. It just made him resent them. “And a comfort with bending the rules.”
He shrugged. “I guess. You know, my grandfather will still like you even if you have the occasional misfire.”
My smile faded. He’d hit a nerve, and he knew it. I never had the level of comfort with the Amaris that Xander did, constantly feeling as though I had to prove myself. Maybe it was always going head-to-head with Henry that started it, or maybe because I felt indebted for my first real opportunity. Either way, a part of me thought I had to be perfect to prove I was worth the investment.
I tried to shield Xander from it, made sure he knew his success was his own. I told myself that was why he fit so well with them while I always felt like a guest. I tried not to give the more painful reason any credence—that he was just someone people could love while I was someone who could achieve, and my place in their lives wouldn’t outlive my usefulness.
Henry shifted in his seat uncomfortably in the long silence. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“Don’t worry about it. Did you come here solely to piss me off?”
