Stand By Me by Megan Linden

Author:Megan Linden [Linden, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

It took over an hour for him to annoy Ben into sleep.

Which, technically, shouldn't be possible, but whoever got to decide that, clearly underestimated Ben's range of anger and resentment towards Clay. After the silent treatment for the rest of the car ride, he tried to block Clay from going after him into the house. When that failed, he shut himself off in the bedroom in response to Clay's suggestion of another glass of water.

Thankfully, when Clay went to check if Ben hadn't fallen asleep on the toilet or brained himself on the tiles, he found his brother sleeping soundly in his bed. His clothes were lying haphazardly on the floor, so Clay picked them up and put them in the hamper before pulling the blanket from the foot of the bed to cover Ben to his middle.

Ever since Ben was maybe four or five years old, he'd never wanted his covers up to his chin for some reason. "The middle and no further," he'd repeated every night, summer or winter. Clay would sometimes pull them up once Ben had been asleep, to make sure his brother wasn't too cold, but Ben would inevitably push them down to the acceptable level, seemingly without waking up.

Clay smiled at the memory of that little kid, reminding himself that there had been a time when his brother hadn't hated him so much.

Now, Ben had this entire different life—the demanding job he clearly loved, people who cared about him, a woman whom he might be dating—and Clay knew nothing about it, outside of whatever their mother shared with him.

That's what you get for leaving for so long, Ben would have most likely told him. And sure, yes, Clay got the point. But he'd tried to keep in contact, tried to call, and text, and email. Ben had refused any and all of his offers. He'd even opted out from travelling to Switzerland with their mom each of the few times she'd come to visit.

Clay rubbed the base of his nose and left the room. Maybe it would be better to stop trying. Maybe there was a line he had to finally draw in the sand, tell Ben enough was enough. He could go on hating Clay if he wanted to, but Clay was done.

Yeah, right. He couldn't imagine throwing the towel now.

It was tempting, sure. And maybe a break from sticking his head out only to take another hit to the jaw was a good idea for a bit.

But he was not quitting on his brother. His family.

No matter what.

A text message signal beeped in his pocket and he pulled out his phone, expecting it to be Mario. Clay had let him know earlier what was going on and they'd exchanged a few texts, but it had been a while, so he figured Mario had fallen asleep. But maybe he—

The text was from Troy.

I need to talk to you about Jake.

Clay sat up and called Troy right away, the ideas running amok in his head.

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