Page 41 of It Hurts Me
“How many times do I have to say it?” I barked. “It’s not serious.”
He cocked his head. “The last woman you took to dinner was?—”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Axel.” I could tolerate the jokes and the grins, but there was one thing I couldn’t tolerate and that was her fucking name. She haunted me every day, had haunted me for a decade. Time may have passed, but her memory had never faded.
That was the only line Axel didn’t cross—and he didn’t cross it again.
We sat like that for a long time, the silence slowly suffocating us both.
Axel finally sucked on his cigar and let the smoke escape his mouth. “Scarlett wants me to quit.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t smoke at home or around the kids, just when I’m out.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
“I want to honor her requests, but fuck, there’s nothing like a cigar in your mouth after a shit day.”
Every day felt like a shit day lately—except when I was with her.
Axel stared at my cold fireplace before he looked at me again. “You like her, right?”
“We aren’t in sixth grade, Axel.”
“You want more than sex, Theo.”
I hadn’t gotten sex. “Like I said many times, it’s not serious.”
“Why not?—”
“Because she’s married.”
He was about to bring the cigar to his lips again when he stopped. His eyes hardened on my face. “Why are you taking a married woman out to dinner? Shouldn’t affairs take place in beautiful hotels room and shit like that?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t sound complicated to me. Sounds like you want to get caught.” He sucked on his cigar and let another puff of smoke leave his mouth.
“It’s an open marriage.”
“An open marriage?” he repeated with disdain. “Then why be married at all?”
“I don’t know.” It didn’t make sense to me either. “We don’t talk about it much, so I don’t understand it.”
“If you don’t talk about it, then what do you talk about?”
“That’s my business.”
He straightened in his chair as he stared me down. “Why are you being so defensive right now?”
“I’m not being defensive?—”
“I’m your brother. I’m not coming to you to gossip or talk shit. I haven’t seen you with a woman in years. Unless it’s a girl on your lap at the strip club or some shit like that. We tell each other everything, but now you’ve shut me out and I don’t know why.”
“I’m not being defensive,” I said calmly. “I told you it’s not serious how many fucking times, but you don’t believe me. So, yes, I’m getting a bit annoyed with the redundancy.”
“Well, you’re lying.”