“What’re you doing here?” I couldn’t help but gasp in amazement.
“You called. I came.” He shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
Climbing to my knees, I fell back onto my haunches and blew out a relieved breath.
“So you really did do all that stupid shit, like cutting the wire to my bike’s fuel line and the cord to the club’s sound system?”
My dad snarled at me, but couldn’t really answer since my brother was kind of crushing his vocal chords at the moment.
I only shook my head. “And you thought I was lame. You could’ve really gotten to me, old man. Yet you went this stupid route. Now you’re going to lose your parole and go back to prison...without all that work you put into a revenge against me paying off at all. That’s sad...just sad.”
“I should’ve let your mama finish aborting you the day I walked into the bathroom and found her all bloody,” he garbled up at me, his eyes full of hate. “Neither of us had any use for you. You never amounted to anything. Your poor mother died still despising the very sight of you.”
Swallowing, I turned away only to catch Pick watching me with worried eyes. Nodding to him, I rasped, “I’m done here.”
He nodded just as a pair of nurses came around the corner and skidded to a stop when they saw the tattooed, pierced guy pinning an older man to the ground with a boot to his throat.
But my brother...all he did was flash the women a pleasant smile. “Hey there, ladies. Do you think you could do me a favor and call security or maybe the police? This man here just admitted to trying to kill my brother’s girlfriend.”
They nodded and hurried away.
I looked up at Pick. He looked back. And we both grinned. “Thanks for coming,” I finally said.
I was sitting alone in the waiting room when Pick found me again. The doctor had come and gone, letting us know Remy was better, the swelling was down and her airways cleared again. She was resting peacefully.
As her family, and Jodi, and the rest of the band filed back to check on her, I just kept sitting there, staring at the wall, trying not to think about how close I’d come to losing her, just because my own father had hated me that much.
Was there really something so wrong with me that my own blood loathed me to this extreme? Maybe becoming involved with Remy was a bad idea. I’d just nearly gotten her killed. Falling in love wasn’t worth it if I could only put the woman’s life in peril.
“The police just took your dad away.”
I jumped, jerking upright at the sound of my brother’s voice. When he approached slowly and sat beside me, I nodded. “Good. Maybe they won’t release him early this time.”
“That would be nice.” Rubbing his hands together, he gazed around the waiting room before he turned to me. “So what’re you doing in here by yourself? I thought I saw the doctor come with an update and then everyone head down the hall to see Remy.”
“You did. She’s going to be okay. Her family’s with her now.”
“But you didn’t go back with them?” he asked the obvious, staring at me as if to say, why didn’t you go back?
I shrugged.
“You forgave her, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
He sighed. “Then I don’t see what the issue is here.”
Grinding my teeth, I grabbed the vinyl cushions under me. “He went after her because of me. She almost died tonight, Pick. She—”
“But she didn’t.”
His calm words earned a glare from me. “But she could’ve,” I bit out. Then I fell back in my seat and clutched my head, hard. “Jesus, what the hell am I still even doing here? I should be a hundred miles away from here, so she’ll at least be safe. I don’t know why I’m even trying. I know shit about love and relationships. My own fucking parents couldn’t even like me, let alone love me. Why did I hope—”
“Hey.” Pick squeezed the back of my neck and then forced me to lean toward him and press our foreheads together. “Don’t let that shit your dad said get into your head like this.”
“What?” I asked, my voice going hoarse. “The abortion part? Hell, that wasn’t news to me. My mother told me about how she tried to kill me plenty of times. She hated me. Hated that I was his son, hated that I wasn’t you, the baby she always regretted leaving, hated me just because I was there. And you want to know the real kicker?” I glanced up into Pick’s brown eyes. “I really loved her. I’d listen to her talk about you and your dad with such devotion and awe, and I always wanted her to talk to me that way, to look at me and just—”
“You want to know what I think,” Pick cut in. “I think our mother was a disturbed young woman who never really learned the true meaning of love, and that she had no reason bringing children into this world. But here we are, anyway, and I’m so glad and honored to have found you and learned you are my brother.”