A Sticky Situation (Awkward Love 7)

Most of them are of me and Brix, through various stages of our childhood, plus a few with our parents. I study one photo, taken outside the zoo when we were twelve. Even Brix looks happy in this one. We look like a normal, happy family. Every other photo, there’s a sadness in his eyes. I’d always put it down to the shit we’d been through, but what if it was more than that? Everything Brix does is over the top and extreme, but that’s how it’s always been. It’s so hard to work out how much of his behavior is Brix, my brother and how much is Brix, the world-famous rock star, idolized by millions of women.

“Brix?”

Startled, I shove my phone under the blankets and pick up one of the magazines Clarice tossed on the nightstand for me. I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone right now, because reminiscing about my childhood depresses the hell out of me.

“Yeah?” I call out, flicking the magazine open.

The sight of Hannah’s pretty little face poking through the door does wonders for my mood. I’ve been looking forward to her little text messages, more than I even realized myself. It doesn’t hurt that she’s really easy to wind up and that’s my only source of entertainment around here.

“Hey,” I say.

“You look tired,” she teases. “Getting into fights must wear you out.”

“You heard about that?” I wince.

She laughs and sits down in the armchair. “Everyone heard about it.”

“There’s nothing like being the talking point of everyone’s gossip,” I murmur. It’s an innocent comment that earns me a frown. Must be a sore point of conversation for her. “What?” I ask.

“There you go again, with the double meaning comments. Why not just say it?”

I laugh again, not really sure what I’m supposed to be saying.

“Country Women’s Cooking?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.

I flick back the pages to examine the cover. Fucking Clarice. She couldn’t have given me something more masculine, like Quilting for Beginners?

“What can I say? I like getting in touch with my feminine side,” I smirk at the expression on her face. “Besides, it beats sitting around here, ‘reflecting’ on my feelings, like I’m supposed to be doing.”

She rolls her eyes. “Mock it all you want, but reflecting helps a lot of people.”

“You mean like the ninety-five-year-old I met who’s been in here for three years?”

Hannah laughs. “Do you mean Clarice? She's been here for like three days. She got here a few hours before you did.”

Well, shit.

“Are you serious?” I say, scratching the back of my head. “You can’t trust anyone these days. Is she even an actress?”

Hannah laughs even harder, clutching hold of her stomach. When she’s recovered enough, she shakes her head, her green eyes sparkling. She’s even sexier when her face lights up like that.

“God, no,” she finally replies. “She's just a lonely grandmother with Dementia, who got hooked on prescription painkillers.”

“Well that’s kind of depressing,” I say, much preferring Clarice’s version. “But it also explains why we’ve had the same conversation three times. Why is she here, then? Surely all the rehab in the world isn’t going to help if she’s got Dementia?”

“It won’t, but try telling her family that. They want to believe that the Dementia is a symptom of her abuse that will get better if the abuse is controlled.”

That’s really fucking sad. In a strange way, she reminds me of my own grandmother. That’s not necessarily a good thing, because old gramma had very few redeeming qualities, but there were good points to her too.

“So, what brings you here?” I ask.

“Work?”

“I meant in my room,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Or have they moved me up to twenty-four hour, one-on-one care?”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

I shrug. “I was more thinking it would save you the effort of having to hide in here.”

She gives me a death stare, so I put my hands up in surrender. It would probably be more convincing if I wasn’t laughing my ass off.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I assure her.

“Funny, I’m not feeling your apology,” she grumbles.

“Maybe we should talk about why you’re so hostile toward me?” I suggest, hoping she’ll let it spill what actually went down.

With any luck, it won’t have been my brother.

“Can you stop with the backhanded comments about what happened?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She stares me down. “It’s getting really old. Whether you believe it or not, I wasn’t putting on a show for you. I had no idea that was your room. The hotel gave me the wrong key.”

That was her?

Holy fuck. I choke back a laugh, because I’ve imagined Hannah doing many things, but knocking one out on my brother’s bed isn’t one of them.

“And when you let yourself into the room, you didn’t notice my shit everywhere?” I ask, when it dawns on me what she’s admitting to.