Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
And I felt like the biggest piece of shit for keeping this secret from her.
She let go of Milo’s hand and all but skipped over to me. “Where do you want me?” And then, her eyes playfully hooded, she threw her arms around my neck as she went up on tiptoes and whispered in my ear, “Or maybe I should ask, how do you want me, Daddy?”
Chapter 25
JANUS
I held Hope to my chest even as I looked over her head to Leander. Someone needed to go after our brother. Milo had fucked up, big time. And if Hope couldn’t forgive him, I could understand. What he’d done was unforgivable.
But after all we’d been through, he was still family. He might need to stay at a distance for awhile, maybe forever. That didn’t mean he stopped being family to me and Leander, though.
“It’s time to get all the secrets out,” Leander said. “You’ve always wanted to know about our past. What happened with the car wreck.” He came near. “You need to hear everything.”
Hope wrapped her arms around her waist as she looked uncertainly between Leander and me. I hated that she had any reason to feel like she couldn’t trust us. And I hated my brother for just a second for not telling her before now. Then hated myself for the thought.
All this shit from the past always twisted my guts up. It wasn’t exactly as if I liked stirring up these fucking ghosts either. Things had just gotten so fucked sideways back then…
Hope nodded and we all walked back into the living room. She sat down on the center of the couch by the long window and gestured at the lounge chairs on either side.
“Talk,” she whispered. “Quietly, so you don’t wake the babies.”
“You always asked why I took Leander’s prison stint for him,” I prompted as I sat down to her right. Then we both looked towards Leander.
Leander took a deep breath and stepped forward, not taking a seat. “There was this producer on one of those dumb teen movies I did when they were trying to figure out how to transition me from child actor to teen heartthrob. Except she was a really big-time producer, just doing this movie as a favor to a film-school friend. Mom got all excited about her because she was sure this lady could do all sorts of things for my long-term career. She’d helped other young actors make it in Hollywood.”
Hope’s body had already gone ramrod straight, her face deathly pale. “Her name,” she demanded.
Leander just looked at the floor. “Do you want me to get the story out or not?”
“Fine,” Hope breathed out hard.
“About midway through shooting the movie, she comes up to me and says I’ve really got talent.” The words came out caustically. “And she can do great things for my career. So why don’t I come by her office for what she called private acting lessons?”
Hope’s face twisted in horror and empathy. And she looked pissed too. I knew she was close to this issue, having spent so much of her career around child stars.
“I tried to pretend I was in control,” Leander continued, his voice strained. “That I was living out every guy’s fantasy. Fucking an older woman. Going to parties. Doing coke. Partying way harder than I ever had before.”
“I knew something was wrong but he wouldn’t tell me what,” I spoke up. “He was getting more acting jobs and I thought well, maybe the fame really is just getting to his head and turning him into an asshole. I didn’t know how that could make him suddenly be not the brother I’d known and loved my whole life. Especially when he’d get randomly rage-y. Exploding and busting up a trailer. Being an asshole to friends we’d had our whole life. That kind of thing.”
“How old were you?” Hope got up and walked over to Leander. “When it started?”
He actually glanced up at her but his gaze went right back to the floor. She grabbed his hands. His voice was quiet when he finally answered, “Fourteen.”
She threw her arms around his neck. His immediately grabbed back around her waist.
I watched him hug her back, clutching her like she was a damn lifeline. And for the first time in a long time—and that after a life-time of jealousy encouraged by everyone around us from our adoptive mother to our agents to our fans—I wasn’t jealous.
Hope let both of us be ourselves. Completely. She brought up so much shit for us, digging at every old wound and bringing it to the surface. But maybe some wounds couldn’t heal and scar over until you cleaned them out first. This was the first time Leander and I had talked about it since I’d offered myself in my brother’s place to naively enter seven months of hell.