Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

“Levi did hit his head on a tree branch once,” I admit.

“That explains a lot,” she says.

“And Caleb broke his arm.”

“Next you’re gonna tell me that actually, there were six of you and the sliding rocks is the reason there’s five now,” she teases.

“I think five was plenty for my parents,” I say. “I think they kept going because Mom wanted a girl, but after a while she decided a sixth wasn’t worth risking another one of us.”

“She’s a wise woman.”

“I’m sitting right here, Violet. I can hear you.”

“I should hope so,” she teases, and we lapse into silence for a moment, the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, speckling the car as I drive. I turn off of the main road onto an unlined pavement, then off the pavement and onto a dirt road. After a while it ends in a big dirt patch, and I park.

“All right,” I say. “You brave enough for this?”

Violet’s not looking at me. She’s looking through the windshield, at the bright green foliage in the hard sunlight, the forest so dense it looks like a wall. We had the windows open, so the dust from the road filters into the car, making the air around her shimmer.

Suddenly she turns and those eyes settle on me.

“I’m sorry I called you a moron the day after he died,” she says.

I’m literally speechless. Even though I’d carried that with me for ten years, even though when I saw her washing dishes it was one of the first things that popped into my mind, I’d forgotten about it in the past month.

Or, at least, I’d forgiven it. Ten years is a long time and despite her numerous faults, Violet’s not that girl any more.

“Thanks,” I say.

“I didn’t know he’d died,” she says, still wide-eyed in the passenger seat. “I like to think I would have been nicer if I’d known.”

I don’t point out that calling someone a moron isn’t nice ever.

“I only went to the geography bee because I didn’t want you to win by default,” I admit.

“There were other people competing.”

I half-smile at her, and she half-smiles back.

“What, like Dwayne Carson and Mabel Lean? Those morons didn’t stand a chance,” I say. “Someone had to stop you and it sure wasn’t going to be them. Until I got Trinidad and Togo backward, at least.”

“And then, none of it mattered,” Violet says, looking through the windshield again, grabbing her left arm with her right hand like she’s cold. “You flunked out of college. I got into Yale but had to go to the state school instead, and now we’re both here.”

“I’m sorry about your mom,” I tell her. It feels like the right thing to say in this sun-dappled, quiet, raw moment.

“Thanks,” she says. “You know how sometimes you hear about parents whose kids died, and they keep their rooms exactly the same for years and years, like they’re gonna come back?”

I don’t answer her, I just wait.

“I did that with her room,” Violet says. She sounds far away, strange. “I took all the medical equipment out because I had to give it back, but everything else I just… kept. It’s that door by the kitchen. I never go in there.”

“I know the door,” I tell her.

“It’s not that I think she’s coming back,” Violet says. “I know she’s not. I’ve got her ashes. It’s that…”

“You don’t have to explain it,” I say. “I know.”

She’s frozen, staring forward. Without thinking I unbuckle, slide across the center console, and then she’s in my arms. I press my lips to the top of her head and she leans into my chest, her seatbelt still on.

This is dangerous. It’s dangerous the way drugs are dangerous, because it feels too good. It feels warm and right, soothing, like there’s a deeply tangled piece of me coming untwisted in this moment. It feels like the world outside my Bronco has stopped so that we can be here, together, warm and safe.

But getting drunk feels good. Cocaine feels good. Heroin feels good, and everyone knows those are dangerous.

I ignore the danger and don’t move. We stay that way for a while, until finally Violet takes a deep breath, pulls away, gives me a quick kiss on the lips and the moment is over.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go slide down some rocks or whatever.”Chapter Twenty-NineViolet“Where are you?” the bride demands, stomping away from us, one finger held out in our direction.

Lydia puts her clipboard down, holding it in front of her with both hands folded over each other, her lips thin. I glare daggers at this woman’s back as she walks away, having just answered her phone in the middle of Lydia’s sentence.

“She didn’t even say excuse me, I need to take this,” Lydia mutters to me. “She just stuck her finger in my damn face.”