SafetyInNumbers-Final (16 page)

“That’s...I’m gonna need to process that.” Chris forced his feet forward, counting the steps between the two counters until his thoughts were unjumbled. “The answer is yes and no, I guess. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but there never seemed to be an appropriate time. That must sound ridiculous, like I needed some perfect time to open my mouth. But after being silent for so long, I felt like my first words had to mean something to someone.”

Bull took a breath like he was going to speak, then paused. It was only then that Chris realized what he admitted. After a few tries, Bull said, “Okay.”

Chris wasn’t sure what that meant. Bull flat out said that he considered Chris family, as equally important as Owen or Maddie or Bella. His response? To admit that he hadn’t felt like he mattered to anyone. He didn’t want Bull to feel guilty because he hadn’t trusted what was right in front of his face. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Bull agreed. “Luckily, the guy who’s to blame is dead. It’s okay, Chris. Now we both know.”

“Okay.” Whatever that meant. “My silence served a purpose. It was necessary, and then it wasn’t. Lately I’ve been thinking that it was holding me back and, yeah, it was holding Liam back. I hear what you’re saying, that it has to be for me, but it’s all connected. You get that, right?” Of course they had to understand. They had been helping each other since the moment they met. “It all came to a head last week when Owen deliberately hurt himself in the gym. I heard him screaming and couldn’t stay away.”

“I thought you two were getting closer. Why were you staying away?”

“We are, sort of. It’s complicated.” Which was the understatement of the year. “You see, I thought that refusal to ask for or accept help was just Owen being stubborn and difficult. I don’t believe that’s true anymore.” After last night’s episode, Chris knew it went far deeper than that. He couldn’t even begin to guess what would make someone get violently sick because they had to ask for help and, after witnessing it, there was no way he could keep his distance. “Anyway, one second he’s wailing away on the bag, the next he’s in a full slump. When he came to, he thought he was going crazy and I couldn’t let him believe that.”

Red and Bull just stared at him in shock. He didn’t blame them. After all, he’d just told them that Owen practically had a nervous breakdown. If they were worried before, this was only making it worse. “The thing is, I think my talking to him helped.”

“I can believe that,” Bull said thoughtfully. “He’s got strong feelings for you, even if he doesn’t know how to show them. Having you trust him with your first words would make him feel like he mattered to you. Something you’ve been trying to show him for a while and he’s been too confused to recognize or too stubborn to believe.”

“He does matter to me.” Owen’s well-being had quickly moved to the top of the list of things that mattered to him. “I couldn’t go back to silence after that and, like I said, it’s all connected. Liam and I had a long overdue conversation, one I really believe we were both ready for.” He came back to the table and straddled his vacated chair. “Then Billy and I came to an understanding. The way those two dove right in makes me believe that my silence was holding them back.”

“Wait.” Red held up a hand. “Are Billy and Liam together?”

“Yeah.” Chris felt a smile tug at his mouth. Billy and Liam had jumped in with both feet, and he couldn’t be happier for them. They’d face their hurdles like any other couple, but he was confident that they would be just fine.

“Wow.” Red looked incredulously at Bull and asked, “We were only gone ten days, right?”

“I’m not even sure.” Bull rubbed his bald head and Chris was reminded of the differences between the brothers. Where Bull was a powerhouse, Owen’s strength was more understated. Owen was softer, with waves of dark hair, gentler features, and a less imposing presence. Not feminine by any means, just softer, if that made any sense. Even their facial expressions were polar opposites. Bull’s thinking frown would be imposing to anyone who didn’t know him, and Chris could see him trying to process it all. It was a lot to take in one sitting. Hell, it had been a lot to live in one week. “Wow, okay, first tell me how badly Owen was hurt.”

“He tore up his knuckles pretty good, but nothing that needed stitching.” Chris saw some of the tension leave Bull’s body and rushed to apologize. “Sorry, I should have said that before.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m just trying to organize it all,” Bull said. “Do you think it’s helped you?”

“What do you mean?” Hadn’t he just said it helped everyone?

“You said it helped Owen, Billy, and Liam.” Bull didn’t look as happy as Chris expected him to be. Neither did Red, and Chris couldn’t figure what he said, or didn’t say, that bothered them. “Three men who have been putting a lot of pressure on you. Guess they were right in thinking you’d give them what they need.”

Chris was more confused than ever. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“I’m asking what they gave you in return,” Bull demanded. “Relationships,
all relationships
, have to be two-sided or they fail.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.” There were things he wanted, but he would never have asked and his help wasn’t contingent on getting his needs met. Agitation had him pushing away from the table again. “I didn’t do it with the expectation of getting something back. You didn’t help us because you wanted something in return, did you?”

“Of course I did!” Bull eased Red off his lap and stood. “And you gave it to me.”

“What did I give you?” Chris couldn’t think of one thing that equaled the things Bull gave him.

“Oh, Chris.” Bull came closer and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping his restless pacing. “Before I met Ian, I was drifting, always looking for a purpose. I was carrying a lot of survivor’s guilt and needed to know that I was still alive for a reason. Helping you and the others gave me that purpose, that reason. It wasn’t selfless, it was really quite selfish.”

“No, that’s not right.” Chris twisted away and paced across the room. “Look at how many men go through the halfway house. You don’t expect anything from them.”

“Not true. I expect them to take the second chance we’ve given them and do amazing things with their futures.” Bull shook his head sadly. “It’s very similar to hero syndrome. Though I wasn’t creating problems to fix, I was just putting myself in the right place to fix existing problems. A shrink would have a field day in my head.”

“I don’t even know what to do with that.” Chris hated being this confused about the first person he trusted since he was fifteen. “A few minutes ago you said I was family, as important as your real siblings, now you’re saying it was all some self-serving bullshit?”

“Like you pointed out, there are many men who go through the halfway house and move on. I give them a place to live and a support system as they acclimate into society. At that point, we are both in a self-serving, one-sided relationship. I want to give help, they want to take it, and we part ways when it’s over.” Bull took a step closer and Chris took two back. He was sorry it hurt Bull’s feelings, but he needed to keep space between them until he understood. “Then there was a small handful of guys who actually cared to know me. I wasn’t just the name on the bottom of your release forms or the owner of the halfway house, I was Bull. We became friends and then family, and together built a world that was comforting to all of us. I didn’t do that for you, we did that for each other.”

Chris felt like his whole world had been shaken upside down and now that the ground was settling, it seemed to be more secure than ever. “Because we have a two-sided relationship.”

“Exactly.” Bull closed the distance and grabbed both his shoulders, pulling him close. “These aren’t strangers you’re helping and sending on their way, Chris. It’s not unreasonable to expect a two-sided relationship with your brother, his partner, and—most especially—the man you love. You can only sacrifice so much of yourself before there’s nothing left and I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

“I don’t want it to happen to me either!” He hadn’t intended to yell, but once he started he couldn’t stop. “How can I have these grand expectations? My brother saw me kill his father. Because of me, his entire family has disowned him. Aunts, uncles, cousins—not one of them stood by him. That’s why he stood by me, because he had no one else. Now he has Billy and a future. He’ll go to college, they’ll get married, and they’ll move on. He won’t mean to, I know he cares about me, but what other choice is there? If it were you, Bull, would you want the six foot reminder of everything you lost following you as you try to rebuild your life? ”

“Chris…”

“No! Don’t you dare lie to me!” Chris knocked Bull’s arms out of the way, grabbed his shoulders, and shook the truth into him. “My father was only dead six months when my mother met that bastard. I didn’t understand the rush, but she seemed happy again and I hated seeing her sad, you know? And I’d always wanted a brother. It’s so childish, but that’s what I told Liam at their wedding. Then he was saying it too and I thought maybe it was going to be as great as Mom said it would be. But it wasn’t. He said...the first time he hit me...David said he needed a mother for Liam. Said he saw her with me and it reminded him of his first wife. He planned it, the accidental meeting in the grocery store, everything. Originally he was just going to get rid of me, but he couldn’t risk getting caught and leaving Liam without a father. So he was stuck with another mouth to feed, another body to dress, and how dare I expect him to take care of my needs when his sole focus was his son. How dare I expect anything?”

Bull wrestled him into a hug that he didn’t have the strength to fight. “Liam isn’t his father.”

“No, he’s not.” Chris meant to pull away and instead found himself clutching Bull desperately. “Did you know he was valedictorian of his class? Star quarterback, crazy smart, scholarships, career goals...it would have been intimidating if he wasn’t so kind. I would have hated him if he wasn’t so kind.” He didn’t mean to cry, didn’t even know he was still feeling this way until Bull pulled it out of him. “I told him everything and I keep waiting for him to hate me. That’s what I expect.”

“It’s not gonna happen,” Bull whispered. “Do you believe Red deserved what happened to him?”

“What?” Chris reared back and looked at where Red was still sitting. “No, what the fuck? He was a child, helpless...he was the victim.”

“How can you see that so clearly and still not see that you were a helpless child who was abused by an animal who deserved exactly what he got?” Bull clutched him tighter, as if willing the message to sink in. “Because I promise you, your crazy smart brother sees it exactly like that.”

He didn’t have an answer. He understood and even agreed that he was the victim. So why did he always allow that other voice to convince him otherwise? Was he really going to let David rule his life forever? Ty had said it wasn’t a process, just a conscious decision. If he consciously chose to believe Bull right now, would that be enough? “Do you really believe that Liam won’t come to hate me?”

“I would bet my life on it,” Bull swore.

Chris asked, he listened to the answer, now he had to act. Maybe then he’d learn how to expect something better than hate.

Chapter 14

Billy

“Custom Tricks, this is Billy speaking.” Billy rolled his eyes at Ty who chuckled every time they answered the phone. It had sounded like a really cool name for a bike building shop right up until he had to say it over the phone. Though they hadn’t fully transferred over yet, Ty and Saul had been content to let him and Chris go back and forth as needed. It was fine for now because Ty was only taking on a maximum of two builds at a time and still preferred to do most of the work himself. As the business grew, decisions would have to be made. It just wasn’t something any of them had to think about now.

“Uh, Billy? Mason?” The male voice on the other end of the phone wasn’t familiar. Young and timid, and definitely one he didn’t know. “Is this Billy Mason?”

He didn’t have the first clue who would be calling him here, but he wasn’t going to make it easy on them. “Well, now that depends on who I’m talking to.”

“Really, man? I know you’re Billy Mason and even if I didn’t, that shitty answer would have given you away.” Now the voice sounded familiar or at least the attitude did. “Guess it’s been so damn long you don’t remember your own brother’s voice.”

Billy pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number, but there was only one brat who would talk to him like that. Question was, how did his brother Robbie know to call him at the bike shop? Billy talked to his mother twice a year—her birthday and Christmas—and both lasted about sixty seconds combined. She had his numbers in case of emergency or if she ever decided to forgive him, but this arrangement with Ty was too new for her to know.

“Shit, I think he hung up,” Robbie whispered, and Billy heard another voice in the background urging him to call back.

“I didn’t hang up,” Billy assured before his brother disconnected. “What’s going on, Robbie?”

“It’s
Robert
,” his brother corrected sharply.

“Oh, excuse me. What’s going on,
RoberT?
” Billy propped his feet up on Ty’s desk and dropped his head back. The name thing was only the beginning of a shit conversation, he could feel it.