Riley, who’d been quiet up until now, leaned forward and simply asked in a low tone, “And whose fault was that?”
Gabriela reached for her husband’s hand. “Riley...”
Fitz’s eyes met his brother’s, and tension thick enough to cut with a knife seemed to seize the movements of everyone at the dining room table. Zuly stopped talking to the boys about Little League. Maria stopped coloring. Cael and Sullivan stopped piling food. Everything just stopped.
The pure resentment staring back at Fitz caused his breath to leave in a shallow puff of air. He’d felt this before. With Donelly. Across enemy lines. The slow rise of contempt.
The longer they stared at one another, the thicker the tension became. Zuly reached for Fitz’s hand. “Hey...how about you and I go take a walk? Work off some of that food so–”
“No,” Fitz interrupted, moving forward until his elbows were on the table. “You have something you want to say to me, Riley?”
His brother mirrored his moves. “Yes. You’re selfish.”
“Riley–” Miriam started but her oldest boy held up a hand.
“We worried about you. We prayed for you. We sat and we waited for a phone call or for someone to come knocking on that door”--Riley jabbed a finger toward their parents’ front door--”to tell us you’d been blown to hell, and yet the first thing you do when you’re finally home,
finally free,
is hole up like you don’t give a damn about what Mom and Dad went through while you were gone--what
we all
went through?”
Fitz rubbed his temples. “You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me, then.” Riley slapped a hand to his own chest. “Explain to me how I’m supposed to feel when the kid who I taught how to ride a
bike,
how to swim, how to fish, how to
fight,
won’t even answer one goddamned phone call.”
“Riley, that’s enough,” Dolan snapped. “He’s here now. That’s what matters.”
“Is it, Dad?” Riley looked from Fitz to his father. “Is that all that matters? That the precious baby boy is appeased? Tended to? His boo-boos patched up while the rest of us are left to feel like we don’t mean shit?”
“You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do,” Fitz retorted softly, as calm as possible.
“I know you’re an inconsiderate prick,” Riley replied.
Tucking in his lips, Fitz nodded as he got to his feet. “And I’ll be that.” He looked to his mother, whose eyes were wide and watery and to his father who looked at a loss for what to say. “I’ll call you later.” He started from the dining room. When he heard a chair scraping backwards he thought it might be Zuly coming to stop him.
“No,” Riley snarled from just behind him. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to stroll in an out of our lives when we sat around crying for your sorry ass.”
Fitz sucked in a huge breath. “I’m leaving. Let it go, Ry.”
“Fuck that. Stop running and face me like a goddamned man. Own up to the fact that you’ve been a coward!”
Still walking, Fitz found himself just a few feet away from the door.
Just a few more steps. One, two, three...
A hand came crashing down on his shoulder. “I said turn around!”
Instinct propelled Fitz into action. He let go of his cane and grabbed that same hand, twisting it. His body readjusted as he spun on his good leg and flipped the owner of that hand over his shoulder, sending him through the coffee table in the living room. The crash that sounded snapped him out of his haze of rage, and he froze as his family came rushing into the doorway. Riley lay dazed on the floor, pieces of wood and glass everywhere.
Heart in his throat, Fitz looked to the people who were silently staring in abject horror. “I...I didn’t mean to... I’m so sorry...” Shame made his steps out of the house and down the porch quicker. He could hear voices calling his name but he refused to answer. Just kept walking. Past the driveway. Past his truck. He just kept walking.
***
“Fitz!” Zuly’s throat was raw from calling his name, windows and sunroof down so her voice would carry farther than the confines of her SUV.
She’d been searching for him for more than twenty minutes now, eyes scanning the surrounding woods and roads as she pulled away from the Carrigan household, flashes of the look in Fitz’s eyes causing her vision to blur.
Zuly sped up once she saw a dark figure up ahead, moving down the graveled pathway at a steady but awkward pace. Coming to a stop, she barely put the car in park before she hopped out and shot toward him.
“Fitz!”
Despite the darkness, she could see him when he turned toward her. “Go back, Zuly.”
Catching up with him, she halted directly in front of him. “No.
You
need to go back and–”
“Don’t,” he barked. “Don’t tell me what I need to do. Everyone is always telling me what I fucking need to do! Just stop!”
“It’s
my
fault that you won’t open your goddamn mouth and ask for the help you so obviously need?” She stood toe to toe with him, gesturing back toward the house. “What was that shit? Since when can’t you face your brothers?”
“I
told
you this shit was a bad idea. I
told
you.”
“No, you gave me a bunch of excuses as to why you shouldn’t go sit down with your own family like an adult and have dinner.”
“Because I knew
this
would happen.” His arms went up. “Did you not sit and witness that? My own brother
hates
me.”
Zuly shoved him. “You’re so stupid! You think Riley would be that goddamn angry if he hated you? No, Fitz. He loves your pigheaded ass. He’s hurt because you’re hiding from him. From
all of us.”
“Don’t do that,” Fitz said softly. “Don’t push me.”
She shoved him again, hands pressing into his chest with enough force to send him stumbling back a step this time. “Or what? You gonna flip me too?” She pushed him again. “Or are you gonna keep walking away from me like you don’t give a damn about me?”
He caught her by the shoulders, shaking her a bit. “Do not
ever
fucking tell me I don’t care about you.”
Zuly hit him in the chest. “Then act like it!” Fisting his T-shirt, she tried to keep tears from clogging her throat. “Fucking act like it and stop shutting me out.”
Fitz let her go, shaking his head. “I’m not doing this with you.” He picked up his cane and started around her.
“Yeah, that’s right,” she mocked with a glibness she didn’t really feel. “Walk right past Zuly because she’s your favorite toy. Because she’ll always be there for you to fall back on. Because you don’t really give a fuck how she feels. Because you’ll never love her the way she loves you...”
Zuly could sense the moment it happened; the moment she pushed too far.
He stopped in his tracks, shoulders tense as his cane once again hit the ground, fists clenching at his sides. Fitz turned slowly and grabbed her to him with a quickness that took the breath from her lungs. She had a second to search his face. “Fitz?”
Staring down at her, shadows playing against his features, Fitzgerald Donahue Carrigan leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t light. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t romantic. There was a deliberate roughness in the way he pressed his mouth to her own; in the way he pried her lips apart with his tongue and swept it inside.
Zuly’s hands fisted in his shirt once again then went lax as she melted against him, his arms caging around her as he pulled her body just that much closer. One huge hand let go of her biceps to reach up and run through her hair, gripping the strands firmly and pulling her head back for his assault as he nipped her lips, sucking the bottom rim into his mouth then releasing it with a wet pop. The slight sting at her scalp failed to even register as he licked and nibbled his way up the side of her neck, gently gripped where her pulse hammered between his teeth. His other hand swept down her back and to her ass, squeezing in a firm caress that had Zuly panting with the exertion it took not to fall at his feet.
He kissed her like he
owned
her. Like he knew every secret valley and plane her body possessed. Like she’d been fantasizing about from the time she had her first self-produced orgasm while calling his name. Like he’d been waiting to do this for
years.
Fitz kissed her like she was his. And Zuly would acknowledge that, in this moment, she very much was. That right now she could never imagine the feel of another’s touch.
Then suddenly he stopped and she whimpered.
Pressing the same mouth that had stolen her ability to process what just happened to her ear, he whispered, “I love you more than you’ll ever be able to grasp. So much so that it’s almost biblical in its proportions. So much so that it could make God jealous. I smile for you. I laugh for you. I
breathe
for you. You hold me in the palm of your hand, Zuly. And there is no place else I’d rather be. But you need to go back.
Now.”
Fitz gently but firmly pushed her away from him and walked away.
This time, she let him.
When was the last time she felt this helpless? Zuly hadn’t seen or heard from Fitz in days. She’d gone by his cabin but he was nowhere to be found. None of his brothers had heard from him, and his parents were worried out of their minds. She wasn’t sleeping or eating, and concern had her mind occupied. That and the memory of his kiss.
Where had
that
come from?
“
I love you more than you’ll ever be able to grasp…”
Either she was really, incredibly oblivious or
Fitz was incredibly good at concealing his feelings because she would have never thought...
“You have to eat.” Kamilah, who’d been parked out at her place since Zuly called her blubbering a few nights ago, set a sandwich and a bag of chips down in front of her.
She pushed it away. “I can’t.” Her stomach was in knots. Anything she forced down now would make a reappearance later.
Her sister took the seat across from her. “I want you to know that what I’m about to tell you is coming from a place of love,” Kamilah started.
“Oh, God, no...” The last time one of their conversations started like this, Kamilah told her the intricacies of sex. For an early child development professor, Zuly’s sister had
no
finesse.
“You’re an idiot,” the other woman deadpanned.
Zuly blinked at her. “Don’t ever become a counselor for the suicide hotline, ’kay?”
“I’m serious!”
“Which really makes this conversation worse!”
“You’re an idiot because you’re just now realizing what I have been trying to tell you for
years.”
She quirked a brow. “That the man I’m in love with would go around throwing his siblings through furniture and sporadically kissing me like it’s his last day on Earth?”
Calmly, Kamilah stared back at her then reached across the table, gripped Zuly’s nose between her pointer and middle fingers and slapped her own hand off.
“Jesus Christ, Kammie!”
“Stop sassin’ me!”
Rubbing her face, Zuly sat back and questioned, “Are you gonna tell me that I have a
purty mouf
next, Obidiah?” She tucked her lips in when it looked as though Kamilah was going to slap her.