“No one expects you to. But could you at least stop lumping the rest of us in with those miserable parts of your past. I loved you. You’re still my big brother. We used to play together and laugh and help each other whenever things got bad.”
“I know I’m still your brother.” His voice strained around whatever was clogging his throat. And what the hell did she think he was doing here if not helping her?
She removed the foil covering from the crumb cake and pulled a stack of napkins out of her bag.
“We get to choose, Harrison. We get to choose what parts of our past we keep alive and which parts die with him.”
She was delusional if she thought to mend their family with a crumb cake. How many casserole dishes had he seen shatter over the years?
“Get that cake out of here.”
She opened the bag of coffee grounds and spooned out a heaping scoop, filling the trap of the coffee pot where she fit a ruffled filter. “The cake will be gone in a matter of hours, because the people love it. They love us, Harrison.”
He shook his head. The residents of Jasper Falls didn’t give two shits about them. They loved Ward.
“You wouldn’t believe how kind they’ve been to me since he’s passed away.” She lifted the glass pot, carrying it toward the back sink. “I was terrible to them because defensiveness was my default setting. But then I realized they weren’t out to hurt me and a sort of trust formed. That urge to get away faded, and I actually like it here now. Believe it or not, I was homesick while we were on tour.”
“I’m happy for you.”
Her lips formed a thin line. “Don’t be a prick. I’m trying to help you.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Right. You don’t need anything or anyone. You’re doing just fine on your own. That must be why you’re so damn pleasant to be around.”
His stare dropped to the floor, his gaze tripping over a magic marker that had rolled under the lip of the bottom shelf. An image of Mariella making the signs for the front window flooded his memory. He missed her.
“You’re literally scowling.”
“Huh?” He cleared his expression. “I wasn’t scowling.”
“You were. You always are. Don’t you get tired of being pissed off all the time?”
Yes! He wanted to scream but couldn’t seem to work the word through his fury. “What do you want me to say, Erin?”
“I don’t want you to say anything. But I want you to try. We’re it, Harrison. As far as family goes, we’re all we’ve got. I’m sick of watching you leave, and I’m tired of hoping you’ll call. And it’s not okay that you and Giovanni don’t get along.”
“Hey, that’s on him. I don’t know what his problem is with me—”
“His problem is that you hurt me, Harrison!”
She shoved past him, the echo of her words ringing through the air like cannon fire. He staggered as a sharp ache formed in his chest. If her target was to hit his heart, she nailed it.
The faucet ran and she took her time filling the coffee pot. Her anger emanated from the back, but he somehow could sense her tears.
He followed her into the storeroom. “Erin…”
The water shut off, and she shook her head. “I just don’t get it. Don’t you love me, Harrison?”
Pressure rushed through him, painful and too big for his bones to hold. “Yes, I love you,” he rasped, the words awkward and clumsy in his mouth.
She turned to face him, the sight of her tears triggering his own. “Then act like you do. Otherwise, you’re no better than him.”
That was his greatest fear. What if he wasn’t any better than Ward? What if all he ever did was hurt the people he was meant to protect?
“I don’t know how to be better.”
“You start by simply being present, and from there we’ll figure the rest out.”
It sounded simple yet grueling. He wasn’t good with open ended expectations. He liked clear cut objectives and goals. Deadlines and end dates.
It had been so long since he acted like any sort of brother, he didn’t have a clue what she might expect. They were kids when he left, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t looking for a ManHunt buddy at this age.
He thought about Mariella and Giovanni. She’d been so relieved when her brother arrived at the hospital. Harrison wanted to be that sort of comfort for Erin, but he wasn’t sure he had it in him.
He could close a million-dollar deal, even sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, but he only ever disappointed his family. He doubted his integrity to such a degree, he truly believed he’d only let his sister down if she depended on him for too much.