Priceless (Forbidden Men 8)

Sarah stayed with us for almost two weeks after her mom overdosed. I took the couch so she could settle in my room, and she slept in my bed every night. She ate in my kitchen when I told her she needed to eat. She rode in our car with us to the funeral home and cemetery when it came time to bury her mother. And when Noel and Mason’s boss got married a week after the funeral to Reese’s cousin, she attended the wedding with my family.

Both Mason and Reese visited every day, but whenever they showed up, Sarah shut down. She couldn’t look her brother in the eye, and I could see how much that hurt him.

I think it hurt her too, though she didn’t say it. And I didn’t ask. I figured she’d talk when she was ready.

I stuck by her side pretty much all day long, every day. Aspen even let me take off school to stay with Sarah. Then at night when everyone else fell asleep, I snuck into my room that had been Caroline’s before she’d moved out and married Ten, and I crawled into bed with Sarah to console her.

She was always awake and would always clutch my shirt with the tightest grip as if I were some kind of lifeline.

By the twelfth night, I couldn’t take it any longer. She was fading away in front of me, and poor Reese had been crying when she and Mason had left earlier that evening. Something had to change. Sarah had to talk, and since I was the only person she seemed to be speaking to, I guessed this shit was up to me.

She said nothing as I entered the darkened room, but I knew she was awake. I’d spent enough nights with her now to know she didn’t spasm in her sleep, and she was shifting restlessly under the covers as I lifted one corner and slid into the bed next to her. So she had to be up.

I didn’t curl against her as I had the past few nights. Instead, I stayed on my back and stared up at the dark ceiling while she shook, her back facing me.

It struck me just how important she’d become lately, because nothing in the past so many days seemed as essential to me as fixing her. A happy Sarah seemed as integral to me as my own well-being. And she was suffering, so I was suffering.

Needing to stop the pain, I drew in a deep breath and asked, “What did Mason do to you?”

She sniffed as if she were crying. But she answered, “Nothing.”

My return snort told her I didn’t buy that. “If he didn’t do anything wrong, then why are you mad at him?”

“I’m not mad at him.”

When she whimpered, I rolled onto my side and touched her back. “Sarah, you can tell me. It’s okay.”

She curled into herself away from me. “There’s nothing to tell. Mason didn’t do anything wrong.” But then she started crying harder. “He would never hurt me.”

“Bullshit,” I whispered fiercely before taking her arms and pulling her gently against me. I combed her hair with my fingers. “If he didn’t do anything, then why won’t you talk to him? Why are you too scared to live with him? Why—”

“I’m not scared,” she hissed before turning toward me and bowing her head into my chest. “I...I’m ashamed.”

I squinted. Ashamed? That was so not what I thought she’d say. “Ashamed of what?”

“He’d hate me if he found out,” she went on. “He’d never want to see me again. I don’t know where I’d live, or what I’d do. He’d send me away to—”

“Sarah!” I gripped her face in my hands, forcing her to look up. “Shh.”

When she finally calmed down enough to stare back at me, her chest heaving from her anxious breaths, I shook my head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I killed her,” she croaked, and more tears spilled down her cheeks. “I killed my mom.”

Not expecting her to say that either, I blinked a moment, gaping badly, before a frown overcame me. “Say what?”

No way could Sarah kill anyone.

It took her a minute to quell her emotions enough to talk. But once she did, everything spilled out. “I told you my mom used to do drugs, right? Well, a few months ago, I noticed my bottle of antispasmodic medicine kept going empty before I should be finished with it, so I started hiding it, but...”

She went on, telling me how she hadn’t gone to Mason with her worries or confronted her mom about stealing the medicine. Convinced it was her fault her mother had overdosed, she kept going, confessing more from years past.

What she told me about her brother shocked the shit out of me. But, really? Mason had been a male prostitute? That shit was just crazy. I’d known him for over two years, and I never would’ve guessed that. But the fact that Sarah thought it was her fault that he’d become one was even more ludicrous.

As I listened to her tell me all her deepest, darkest secrets, I wondered why she’d never told me any of this before. But then I realized, I’d never told her my most humiliating secret either. Holding her close when she finally fell silent, spent from all her talking, I kissed her hair and closed my eyes.

“Do you hate me?” she asked into the dark room, and I almost laughed.

“I could never hate you.”