“I’ll replace it,” I said, staring out the kitchen window at the dark back courtyard. The moon hung low in the sky like a giant grapefruit.
“You don’t have to keep cleaning up that guy’s mess,” Carter muttered.
“Dad being found with the gem is going to cause problems for you, isn’t it?” I asked.
Carter’s face was dark. “You have no idea.”
The glass of the greenhouse gleamed silver in places, obsidian in others, and it was so beautiful, suddenly there was nowhere I would rather be than in Margot’s greenhouse.
I opened the back door and crossed the dark courtyard. The grass under my feet, the air around me—everything seemed more alive than I felt.
I’m empty. Half-dead.
The greenhouse door opened with a slight push and inside the smell of earth and flowers was somehow both comforting and suffocating.
I could go, I thought. It’s what people expected of me. Savannah. Juliette, hell, probably even Priscilla.
I turned on the hose, trickling water into the hanging pots that were beginning to sprout.
Carter stood in the doorway, the moon spreading his long shadow across my face and over my hands.
“You’ve been taking care of them?” he asked, handing me a jam-jar glass of Scotch and taking a sip from his own.
“Someone needed to.”
“You always did spend a lot of time in here when you were a kid.”
“It was quiet,” I said.
Carter laughed. “You gonna pretend you weren’t hiding those dirty magazines behind the bags of soil?”
“Nope.” I smiled as I took a sip from my jam glass. “Not going to pretend.”
The silence between us soon turned uncomfortable and it raked over my already raw emotions.
Carter was right—we were brothers, and that should count for something. But we stood there little better than strangers.
“How come you haven’t been back?” I asked, drinking half my Scotch down in one go. The urge to fight was still bubbling through me.
“I was back a month ago.”
“For what? A few hours?”
“You’re hardly one to talk, Tyler.”
“I had Dad on me like a leech, Carter. You think I’m about to bring him back here?” That was only part of the reason. The least of my many. And frankly, the only noble one. “We agreed that we’d try to protect Savannah.”
“Didn’t matter, did it? He still found his way in.”
“Yeah, well, he should be out of the picture for good now.”
Carter chuckled, staring down at his Scotch as if it was tea leaves divining his fortune. “Don’t be so sure,” he said. “If I had a nickel for every time I thought that about Mom…”
“You’ve been in touch with her?” I asked, stunned. Angry. “And you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“It was my business, Tyler.” Carter’s jaw was made out of stone and it made me want to break it. “Not yours.”
“Ah, the O’Neill family motto. It’s no wonder we haven’t all been together in years.”
“That’s not my fault,” Carter said, putting his glass down with a thunk as if he was ready to throw a punch.
Finally, I thought with glee, cranking off the hose and tossing my own glass down on the table. The fight I’d been waiting for. I’d hate to bust up Margot’s greenhouse, but some things just couldn’t be helped.
“You know what else isn’t my fault?” Carter asked. “You screwing it up with Juliette, again. That’s what you’re really mad about. You don’t care about me or the family, you’re just pissed that you couldn’t keep your shit together and now she’s gone. Again.”
It was a wild low blow. Terrible. It made me regret even mentioning her name on the way back to The Manor, but the truth of what Carter said rippled through me like a shock wave.
There was nothing for me to do but laugh. It was laugh or scream.
The sound crawled up from my gut, scraped through my throat.
“What’s so funny?” Carter asked, advancing around the center table, his eyes alight.
“I feel bad for you, Carter. I do.”
“Really? You feel bad for me? The man who left a third date that was no doubt going to end in sex to drive you home from jail? Again?”
“You should get arrested once, Carter. It would do you good. Make you stop caring so goddamned much what people think of you. What are you hiding behind that perfect coat, that perfect hair?”
The punch came out of nowhere, catching me right across the jaw and snapping my head back.
I charged Carter, grabbing him by the shirt and pushing him out the door into the night. We tripped and Carter spilled backward, I followed and landed hard on my brother.
“It’s hard being an O’Neill, isn’t it?” I asked, pressing Carter’s face into the dirt. “But it’s gotta be harder pretending you’re not one.”
Carter got a knee up under my ribcage and I rolled backward. Carter might look prissy, but the guy was strong. Luckily, I fought dirty, but soon it didn’t matter.