30. Callum

It'd been a week since rumors about the old Soiled Senator's Son had gone semi-viral across social media. The gossip never reached major news outlets, thank fuck, but the emotional damage had broken him down.

Landon was forlorn, and I failed to boost his spirits.

I questioned what I'd done in forcing his and Zack's confrontation, and we both ended up suffering even worse than before that damned vacation. Not that I could actually regret the choice. He and I had found fulfillment there. Unrequited love had been returned. Understanding we'd lacked before now resonated between us and brought us closer together.

We'd been shut up in the condo for seven days, waiting for an explosion of negative media exposure, but that didn't keep us from sating our need for each other often and passionately.

The entire affair never amounted to more than a two-day eruption that quickly fizzled out though.

The shit show that image had stirred on different social sites died down as gossip from real celebrities took precedence, overshadowing Landon's supposed continuance of poor choices.

Good thing, since it kept his father off his back too.

I wondered if Zack had seen any of the chatter. Without having his number, I couldn't check in on him to make sure he was doing all right.

But I knew someone who could.

Stomach in a knot, I pulled up Elite's website on my laptop browser, intending to only retrieve the contact information for Sean Fox. But the longing in my chest controlled the hand on my mouse, and I scrolled through EEMM's menu, hungry for just a peek of his face.

Zack wasn't listed.

My breath left in a rush, and I stared where he used to be in the alphabetical lineup of available escorts. I clicked through the site in search of his name.

He'd been removed entirely. His page. All of the rave reviews that promised satisfaction.

I'd been sick imagining him pleasing other clients, finding release beneath men who paid for the use of his body in ways he hadn't allowed with me. Possessiveness wasn't something I was new to. I felt it daily with Landon. But having Zack thrown into the mix inside my head and heart had only intensified the feelings.

Insecurity, perhaps?

Definitely a desperation I didn't know how to deal with. Landon looked up to me to be the sturdy one, and I struggled on a deep level, same as he did. I just managed to hide my heartache while he owned it. Lounged in it as though unwilling to move on.

Not that I was either.

Fuck, no.

But I tried to lighten Landon's shit mood, hoping Zack would come to his senses and get in touch with us somehow.

Was his no longer being on Elite's website evidence that he was taking some time to figure his heart out?

I jotted down Sean's number, expecting calling him would only lead to a dead end. What employer would give out personal information about their workers?

Needing a glass of wine before attempting to get what I wanted, I ambled into the kitchen.

Landon lay where I'd left him an hour earlier, curled on the couch again and focused on the muted TV. He'd been stuck in waiting mode, sure that his "wild lifestyle" would once more make it onto the major new outlets.

It wasn't Landon's face on screen that pulled me up short and stole my breath with a loud wheeze.

I recognized the blonde woman, even though over a decade had passed since I'd last seen her sitting on the opposite side of a courtroom, bracketed by her haughty, rich parents.

Shannon Taylor.

The young woman my brother had sexually assaulted had overdosed, according to the story's banner beneath the newscaster.

"Turn it up," I rasped, barely recognizing my voice as I perched on the edge of the couch beside Landon's feet.

He clicked the remote, filling the room with what remained of the story.

It was suggested that the news of my brother's early release in the next couple of weeks had reached her, prompting her to take her own life rather than dealing with the truth he would once more be walking the streets. According to her parents, she'd never fully recovered from the attack and had been in and out of mental institutions.

She'd not only been hurt by my brother but by me for not speaking up. For not better holding control over his waywardness. And for not reaching out to the authorities when he had become more than I could handle on my own.

And now two parents suffered the loss of their only child.

Nausea stirred in my stomach.

"Jesus," I choked, leaning forward onto my knees, hands clasped between them to keep from shaking.

"Cal?" Landon stirred, sitting up to wrap his arms around my waist.

I didn't move except for a harsh swallow against the thickening in my throat.

"What's going on? Who was she?"

"A casualty of my greatest mistake," I muttered, my heart breaking.

"You told me not keeping your brother in line was your deepest regret."

"Yeah, this is about him." I heaved an exhale. "I was so ashamed—needed to atone for my mistakes with him. And now this…" I waved a hand at the TV, swallowing hard.

Landon glanced at the screen, his shoulders wilting as though he'd already connected the dots. "Let me be the one to offer comfort for a change."

"The full story's not pretty," I warned in a choked whisper.

"Wrong choices rarely are."

I spilled. Every agonizing word about my mom's death two years after our dad's that had left me responsible for my younger brother when I'd not yet been twenty-one. With every admission, my guilt lessened, Landon listening without a hint of judgment in his eyes.

"He was ten times the handful you claim to have been," I murmured.

"Gay?" Landon asked.

"Bi, I believe. He brought home guys on occasion, but it was mostly girls. I attempted to ban the influx of his fuck buddies, but he never listened. He lashed out at me in his grief over losing first Dad to a heart attack then Mom to breast cancer, and I had to hide my own sorrow. Be the strong, sturdy parental figure I hoped he would eventually cling to.

"He started doing drugs to escape reality rather than letting me help. He drank to excess too. I returned from work a couple nights to find him passed out on the floor, but rather than putting him in some sort of detox, I strove to save him on my own. Prove myself worthy of Mom's trust in me to care for him, exactly as I'd promised to do when she lay on her deathbed. Getting the authorities involved would have been a better choice." I admitted aloud the truth that had haunted me for over a decade.

"What happened?" Landon asked quietly when I'd gone silent for a few long moments.

"He lost his license for driving under the influence. At twenty, he'd escaped sexual assault charges because the supposed victim was known for crying wolf and had lied to the authorities before. But a year later when a second young woman accused him of the same, he wasn't as lucky. My brother's world was reduced to a jail cell, a place he would never have ended up in had I done my job of being a better caretaker. He blamed me. Refused to see me when I attempted to visit him. We wrote each other off, which was for the best."

Landon had been aware my brother was in prison, but I'd just never gone into the full details of how he'd landed there.

"It wasn't your fault," Landon argued from where he'd landed on my lap, straddling my thighs, his hands on my face. "That idiot made his own choices, same as me. We can blame others all we want, cook up excuses for what we did, but the truth is that we're the ones who decide what we do."

"But had I?—"

Landon pressed his fingers to my lips. "No, Cal."

I kept silent, swallowing down how I felt, same as always.

"That woman on the news just now—she was the one he took advantage of, right?"

"Yes."

"You aren't accountable for her death any more than you were your brother's actions," Landon insisted.

Nodding, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him against my chest, accepting his emotional support.

But I needed more.

Zack. His physical strength that allowed me a different level of vulnerability and comfort. I longed to crawl into his embrace, submit to his ability to empty my mind. Not that he could heal my wounds, but he sure as hell could make me forget them for a while.

I didn't speak about the man we both missed though. Didn't want to have Landon thinking he wasn't enough for me, same as I wasn't for him.

We needed our man.

"We should get out of here. Take another vacation to escape the shit that seems to constantly surround us," Landon murmured, his lips brushing over the skin of my neck where he'd shoved his face.

I glanced around the living room while my hands roamed down his back in soothing assurance. Outside the house, we didn't have much of a life, and while our situation had changed for the better since our five days on the island, it still lacked. We were nothing more than codependent hermits who hid from the world and fucked like rabbits when not missing our third.

"I've always wanted to see Italy." I suggested the one place both Landon and Zack had mentioned they hoped to see someday.

"Let's do it." Landon sat back, a hint of life on his face, the first stir of anything resembling excitement since Zack had left us.

I opened my mouth to agree, but my cell buzzed in my pocket.

Landon climbed off me, allowing me to fish it free.

No name was listed on my screen, but I recognized the number.

"Hello?" I answered cautiously, staring at Landon.

While I didn't know the man's voice, I was very familiar with his name. My eyes widened as he stated the reason for his call, my face splitting into a grin at the offer he extended.

It was exactly what Landon and I needed.