21. Wyatt

Chapter Twenty-One

Wyatt

The door in the hallway swung open with a few people filtering out of a conference room. I stepped back. I happened to be in the basement over at our headquarters. We used some of the rooms down here for storage for the brewery. I was checking out some of the old equipment that my grandmother used for the wines. She didn't get out much these days, but she'd stopped by to see how things were going and had given me a few pointers on the production for the meads.

I was in a storage room across from one of the conference rooms. For years, we allowed these rooms to be available for AA and NA meetings. As bad luck would have it, I looked up just as Rosie's younger brother walked out of a meeting. His eyes met mine instantly.

I prepared to pretend I didn't even see him, but he barreled through that. He crossed the hallway and entered the room where I was. I was trying to give the people leaving some privacy as they came out of what was supposed to be an anonymous meeting.

"Hey," I offered, striving to keep my tone nonchalant.

"Hey. No sense in sneaking around. I go to NA meetings, but I've been clean and sober for a year and a half. Kenan knows. I went to an actual rehab program for sixty days after I dropped out of college. I moved home after that. Seeing as you're married to Rosie, I'm not gonna ask you to keep it a secret, but she'll probably freak right the hell out if she finds out."

I must've looked as flat-footed as I felt because Brent grinned a little. "Too heavy for you."

"Oh, I can handle it," I finally said. "I'm sure you know our family history, so dealing with heavy stuff isn't new to me. I guess I just wasn't expecting it in an instant dose like that from you. Does Rosie know anything about this at all?"

Her brother sort of shook his head and shrugged at the same time. "No, but maybe. The other day, Kenan and I had to take a trip to Juneau early. I went to an early morning meeting so I didn't miss it for the day. That's the kind of thing that would make her worry and wonder what was up. To be clear, I'm not bitching about her. My mom died right after I was born, so Rosie's the closest thing I have to a mom."

His tone was serious. The love in his voice scraped over my heart because I knew what it might mean for Rosie to hear that from him.

"Rosie worries about me. All the time." He continued. "She thought I made a mistake when I dropped out of college. If she knew I'd dropped out to go to rehab, she would lose her fucking mind."

"I understand," I finally said. "I know she doesn't like secrets." I hadn't forgotten how much it had bothered her to try to keep the secret that we were married. She flat-out said she hated secrets. And holy hell, this wasn't a secret I wanted to keep. But it wasn't my secret, and I knew it was Brent's to keep or tell.

I eyed him for a few beats. "I don't want to keep this from her," I finally said.

"And I understand that." He leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling. The hallway had fallen quiet since the rest of the people in the meeting had filtered out and gone upstairs. "I'd like to tell her myself. Can you give me a week or so?"

I could live with that. "I can handle that. For what it's worth, it's not like I want to tell on you. I just know that it would hurt Rosie if she knew that I knew?—"

Her brother cut in. "It would break her heart. She would be really hurt, and I don't want to keep this from her forever. I'll tell her." He paused, bouncing his heel on the floor. "If, for some insane reason, it comes up some other way, I will make sure she knows that I asked you to give me time to tell her myself."

Brent turned to go, but I reached out, catching him lightly by the elbow.

"Yeah?" He spun back.

"I know it can't be easy for you. You sure as hell don't have to give me all the details, but for what it's worth, I'm impressed by and proud of anyone who goes into recovery. It's not easy. We lost our oldest brother to alcohol poisoning."

Rosie's brother blinked before he nodded. "I know. I will never pretend it's easy, but I appreciate that. I hope I've gotten through the worst of it. Just one day at a time now. To start, it was one minute at a time. I just gotta remember that I can never get too relaxed about it."

I pulled him into a quick hug because it seemed like the thing to do. When we broke apart, he grinned at me. "Wow, I'm hug-worthy."

"Absolutely. You're family."

He chuckled, and I watched as he walked away. It wasn't my secret to tell, but I sure as hell hoped I didn't have to keep it for him for too long.

After Brent jogged up the stairs, my thoughts circled his situation. I knew well what it meant for someone to face addiction. Our oldest brother had for years. To this day, I wrestled with a jumble of emotions about him. They were constantly bouncing into each other. Jake had borne the worst of what our grandfather had doled out. Yet he turned that anger outward toward our sister. As a result, I'd hated part of him for much of my life while also experiencing a messy mix of loving him and wishing things had been different.

Jake had been the person who taught me that nobody was all one thing or another. Good people make bad choices sometimes and hurt others, and the reverse could also be true. My mind detoured back to a well-worn path. I'd been in high school, and he'd been home for a visit. McKenna was in middle school at the time. She'd argued with him about something small, and he'd slapped her so hard, that the force of it whipped her head to the side and left a bright red imprint on her cheek for over an hour.

The next day, I'd approached him. "You're a fucking asshole."

He'd spun around and glanced over his shoulder. Because I was past the age he'd been now, I knew how young he was then even though he'd seemed all grown up to me. He'd been just old enough to call himself a man but wounded and damaged. I could picture him so clearly. He'd never gotten past that age where the contours of his face became sharper. He'd been lanky and thin.

"Yeah, I know I'm an asshole. Tell me something I don't know," he'd sneered.

"Don't ever fucking hit her again," I'd said. I was the tallest in our family, taller than him by then even though I was just a freshman in high school.

He'd stared back at me. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You bullying McKenna. Just fuck off. You're just like our grandfather." I knew now what I hadn't known then. Our grandfather had raped Jake. None of us would ever know if it was more than once because Jake was dead. We didn't find out until after he died. Our cousin had walked into the wrong room at the wrong time once and later shared it with the rest of us after years of experiencing panic attacks.

Now, when I pictured Jake's face, the guilt was even worse than it had been before. Because I understood how much pain he was in and what it meant for me to say he was just like our grandfather.

"Fuck you all," he'd muttered before turning and walking away.

That was the extent of my confrontation with him. He never bullied McKenna again because he died the next day.

I heard footsteps approaching and took a slow breath, willing the adrenaline coursing through my body to ease up.

"There you are." Rhys's voice reached me from the doorway.

Glancing over my shoulder, I tried to keep my tone casual. "Looking for me?"

He studied me for a moment before asking, "You okay?"

Maybe it was my conversation with Rosie's brother, but I couldn't keep the truth from bubbling up. "I confronted Jake the day before he drank himself to death. It was about the way he treated McKenna."

Rhys's hand had been resting on the inside of the doorframe, and it fell away as he stared at me. "Oh," he said

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault Jake drank himself to death. He partied hard in college." Rhys took another step into the room. "Is this why you've kept your distance all this time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just that. I understand you had reasons that have nothing to do with that, but I always felt like I was missing something."

I took a quick breath, turning and resting my hips against the table cluttered with supplies. "I guess so." I shrugged one shoulder. "I always felt bad. I know how close you and Jake were."

"We were, but I knew he had a temper. I didn't know about the way he treated McKenna until that all came out. I'm glad you confronted him. If I'd known then, I would've too."

"It wasn't like I was planning to fight him. I just wanted him to know I knew and to back the fuck off. I didn't know he would die the next day. I also told him he was like our grandfather, and I hate that I said that."

Rhys took a quick breath, his tongue pressing into his cheek as he considered my words. "Look, it happened. You can't blame yourself for his drinking problem. We can't change the past. I hope to God you haven't blamed yourself all this time."

"I can intellectualize it, but it's always been there in the back of my thoughts. It was only the next night that he died."

My brother's cheeks puffed out when he let out a big sigh. "Jake was responsible for his own choices. I think life was a fucking mess for him. We all understand better now why he drank so hard and partied so hard. He just wanted to forget, I think." Rhys took another step, placing his hands on my shoulders as I straightened and pushed away from the table. "It wasn't your fault. It's a miracle he didn't drink himself to death before that. There was more than one night when I had to help him back to his dorm and make sure he was okay. Blackout drunk was a fairly common state for him in those days."

I swallowed through the tight pain in my throat. "Maybe so, but I just wanted you to know."

"Are you gonna tell Mom?"

I pondered it for a moment before I shrugged. "I don't know. It felt more important to make sure you knew. I'm not sure how she would take it."

Rhys tipped his head to the side. "I don't know either. It was enough for her to accept how Jake treated McKenna. I don't think her knowing this is going to be any more hurtful than what she already knows. She's had to come to terms with the reality that she couldn't protect us from our grandfather when we were younger. She couldn't protect Jake and everything that happened set in motion a chain of events. The way Jake treated McKenna wasn't okay. At all. I think it's good that you confronted him. I honestly—and I really mean this—do not believe that's the reason he drank himself to death. He made partying a lifestyle, and it wasn't just alcohol. The amount of substances in his system that night was so significant they couldn't even say they knew which one killed him. He met the level for alcohol poisoning, but he had opiates and more thrown in the mix. He was running inside, trying to forget everything."

The tight place I'd held inside my chest for so many years loosened slightly. Maybe Rhys couldn't give me absolution, but it was a relief to talk to him and to hear him point out the obvious truth of Jake's life.

"Thank you," I said gruffly.

"For what?"

I cleared my throat. "For this. For letting me tell you and for not being angry."

He pulled me into a quick hug, squeezing me fiercely before he stepped back. "It's just the truth."

We walked upstairs together. After that, I left to talk to our mom because I was in the mind frame to handle it and buoyed a little by Rhys's assurances.