Jordin shifted beside me, pressing her face against my chest, sighing softly in her sleep. She was everything to me. My light. My peace.
She didn’t know.
I hadn’t told her. Not about the meds. Not about the real reason I don’t want marriage, about why the thought of kids makes my chest tighten. I’m scared they’d end up fucked up like me. This is why she needed Oak. I just didn’t trust myself to be everything she needed. I was man enough to admit that.
She deserved stability. She deserved someone who didn’t have to check a fucking prescription bottle to make sure he wouldn’t wake up one day too high, too low, too fucked up to be what she needed.
I wanted to tell her. I’d eventually tell her. My fear wasn’t that she’d leave. I just didn’t know if I could handle the look on her face when I did. The look that said she’d rearrange her whole life just to make sure I was okay. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want someone giving up their world to make sure I didn’t slip. I didn’t want her staying up at night wondering if I’d taken my meds or if I was about to spin out. If the next time I disappeared into my own head, she’d have to pull me back. I didn’t want her watching me out the corner of her eye. Like she was bracing for the day I’d stop being me.
The sound of Oak moving around in the kitchen was the excuse I needed to not take the pills and get out of my head. I was fine. Just restless. I pushed the thought away and slid out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Jordin. She mumbled something in her sleep but didn’t wake up.
Downstairs, Oak was struggling.
I could hear him before I even stepped into the kitchen. I found him with a carton of eggs in one hand, his grip shaky as he reached for a pan with the other. He wasn’t moving right, and he damn sure wasn’t balanced enough to be standing this long, not without the cane he’d left sitting by the fridge.
I sighed, stepping in. "You really about to bust your ass over some eggs, old man?"
Oak’s head snapped up, his jaw already tight, his glare sharp enough to cut. "Fuck off," he muttered, turning his back to me like he wasn’t seconds away from dropping everything.
I shook my head. "Jordin tried to feed you. You were being pissy. Now you're hungry?"
He didn’t answer, just kept fumbling around like he had something to prove.
I rolled my shoulders and stepped past him, pulling the eggs from his hand before he cracked them all over the counter. Oak’s nostrils flared, but I didn’t give him the chance to argue. I set the eggs down, grabbed a pan, and turned on the stove like I belonged here. Because maybe, in this fucked-up way, I did.
"You want a drink while I fix you these steaks and eggs?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder.
"You drinking with me?"
I turned back to the stove, grabbing a steak from the fridge. "Nah, I don’t indulge often," I said, dropping butter in the pan. Not when my brain chemistry is already a gamble.
Oak exhaled through his nose but didn’t argue, finally easing into a chair at the island. He sat back, watching me like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
I grabbed him a glass and poured him a drink from the good bottle of whiskey, placing it next to him. The kitchen filled with the sound of the steak sizzling, the smell of butter and seasoning cutting through the tension.
"You know," he muttered out of nowhere. "You never would be here if I hadn’t fucked up."
I flipped the steak, didn’t look at him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he said, his jaw tight. "She told me about you. About you flirting."
"You’re absolutely right, I did. I flirted with her, I didn’t give a fuck about you. Jordin's special. But she was always loyal. You fucked up, Oak. But I won’t. Not like you."
His jaw clenched. I could feel the heat of his anger from across the island.
I slid the plate in front of him, pouring him another glass of whiskey. "I don’t want to fight with you. You’re her husband. That’s why you should be open to whatever she suggests when she does get ready to talk to you. If you want to stay that way."
He didn’t say anything, just stared at the plate in front of him like it held all the answers.
I clapped him on the back, grabbing a water bottle before heading back upstairs. "Eat your food, old man."
“Jordin’s the same fucking age as me. Is she old too?” he yelled behind me.
I laughed and kept walking. Oak was going to have to learn to lighten up if we were going to be brother husbands.
thirty Seven-Oak
Why the fuck was I still here?
