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Monday night, Braden cayyms for which I was thankful I needed to focus when I was exercising--we’d hung out with Ellie, and Braden had stayed the night Tuesday night I went on my first official required business dinner A real one this ti his French restaurant and keeping the contemporary, upmarket Scottish seafood restaurant he owned down by the Shore It was a private sale to a business friend A private sale, but the local media had still found out and wrote a piece on the established La Cour changing hands, and speculating over the reason for Braden selling it

"It’s toome to accompany hi between hihtclub has becoency is always pulling me into some problem or another and away from the property development which is what I enjoy, and I’m just spread too thin La Cour wasabout it that has ast and his wife Julie at Tigerlily I wore a new dress and tried to be as char in the only way I kno Thomas was older than Braden and much more serious, but he was friendly and clearly respected Braden Julie was like her husband, sedate, quiet, but friendly Friendly enough to ask personal questions Personal questions Braden helped me deflect

I rewarded him well for that later

Overall, the dinner was nice Braden see on his shoulders, and for so relaxed ht, mostly because we had to be quiet at my apartment, and that took some of the fun out of the sex So we had sex loudly on the couch, on the floor and in his bed

Replete, I lay in the tangled sheets of his bed, staring at his ceiling His bedroom was as contemporary as the rest of the duplex Low, Japanese bed, wardrobes built into the walls so they didn’t take up space An armchair in the corner by the o bedside cabinets Nothing else He needed some pictures at least

"Why don’t you talk about your fa out of me at the question I was completely unprepared for My head twisted onatout He just looked determined I sucked in my breath and looked away "I just don’t"

"That’s not really an answer, babe"

I threw upto talk about"

"Not true You could talk about who they were as people What you were like as a faer, trying to hold it in He wasn’tto be cruel, I knew that He was curious, he wanted to know It wasn’t unreasonable But I thought we understood each other I thought he understood me

And then I realized that he couldn’t possibly understand "Braden, I know your life hasn’t been easy, but you can’t possibly understand how messed up my past is It’s shit And that’s not a place I want to take you"

He sat up, pushing his pillow up against the headboard and I twisted onto my side to look up at him as he looked down at me, a pain in his eyes I had never seen before "I understandover me to look out the"My mum is the most selfish woman I’ve ever known And I don’t even know her that well I was forced to stay with her during the su off of whatever sad fuck she’dthe school year, I lived with las Carmichael could be a harsh, distant bastard, but he was a bastard who loved aveI had issues with ood woman, and he never should have chased after her and treated her like all the others But he did At least she ended up with Clark and Ellie ended up with a brother ill do anything for her My dad was neglectfully affectionate with Ellie, nothing more With me he put on the pressure And I was an asshole kid who rebelled against following in daddy’s footsteps" He huffed at hio back and knock some sense into those kids we once were"

If only

"I started hanging around the wrong people, shts I was angry Angry at everything And I liked to usea girl froone, and her brother was a junkie Nice girl, bad hoht she turned up at lazed over as he remembered, and I knew instinctively that what he was about to say next was going to be beyond awful "She was crying, shaking, and she had voht and her brother was so off his face on s physical pain for the girl I had neverhad that happen to soiveway to his place on adrenaline alone" He stopped, his jaw clenched tight "Jocelyn, I beat him within an inch of his life" He looked down ater I didn’t realizeme this I couldn’t believe this had happened to hiant dinners and fancy apartments Apparently, he’d been in another world for a little while "What happened?"

"I left, made an anonymous call for an ambulance, and told her what I’d done She didn’t blame me In fact when the police found him, we covered for each other Her brother was a well-known junkie, there were no witnesses, and they just assu-related He was in a coma for a few days The worst bloody days of my life When he woke up, he told the police he couldn’t remember who’d attacked him, but when I walked in with his sister she told him what he did" Braden’s voice hitched a little "He started to cry It was probably theand her just staring at him with hatred in her eyes She left He promised me he wouldn’t tell the truth about what had happened He said he’d deserved it, that I should have killed hi I could do for either of theain My relationship with her fell apart when she turned to drugs to deal hat happened, refusing my help Last word I heard a few years back was that she’d OD’d"

I pulledfor hiaze at ht since Lifted my hands to no one My dad and I buried a lot of shit after that He was the only other person who knew the truth, and he helpedaround I owe hiers along his jaw as it sunk in that he’d trusted me with this

Me

Oh God

Did I owe him somehow? Or wasn’t it like that? He’d trusted me because he kneouldn’t tell anyone, he kneouldn’t judge hi pain for hi I shared with hih and dropped ht with myself "Dru," her name just fell out of my lips before I could even think about it

Braden’s body tensed with alertness "Dru?"

I nodded, my eyes on his stomach rather than his face Blood rushed in ers froether and when my family died, she was all I had left There was no one else" I sed hard on the ed Dru to parties ere too young to be at, did things ere too young to do It was a little over a year after… and there was this kegger down at the river I was on this path of picking guys off, soh, then other stuff, and Dru was trying to get up the confidence to ask Kyle Ramsey out" I huffed hu me, but after… well, other than Dru he was the only person I sat down and talked to about everything He was really a good kid And I liked him," I confessed softly "I really liked hier the girl he used to have a crush on She didn’t want to go that night But I convinced her that Kyle would be there and I forced her to coht Dru was off talking to Kyle while I was flirting with the captain of the football tea to speak with me We walked off for sos Hoas better than what I was doing with all those guys How my parents would be so upset if they could seebreath on that confession "And he told ht he could really love me I didn’t think I just let hi pretty hot and heavy He stopped before it went too far and told me I didn’t have to sleep with hiirlfriend And I told him that I couldn’t be, that Dru was crazy about him, and I couldn’t do that to her We talked in circles for a little while until I decided I needed to get drunk or soet away from all the teen drama, but when I went out into theslut And I realized that Dru had found out about le" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">