Give Me Grace(168)

Then he began patting me dry, his touch so gentle and careful I wanted to cry. “I’m not going to break,” I snapped, my tone undeservedly harsh from battling emotion and exhaustion.

He exhaled deeply and stopped his ministrations to look at me. “This is all I know how to do, Grace. The doctors can do whatever it is they do, but taking care of you, being there for you through all of it, that’s the only way I know how to fight this. So humour me, okay?”

Cancer made people feel helpless. I knew this because my dad went crazy trying to do everything he could to fix something that couldn’t be fixed. When something was wrong, men would do whatever was necessary to put their world back in balance, and then they would move on. Maybe I wouldn’t break, but I would humour Casey. Not just because it was a man thing, but because I loved him and he, more than anyone I knew, needed his world in balance.

“Okay,” I agreed.

He nodded once and went back to drying me off. My eyes fell on his bruised and swollen knuckles. Today I had learned that Casey could hold his own in a fight. But so could his brother.

“Do you think you and Kelly will find your way back to being brothers one day?”

Casey paused as though the question was difficult to answer. “I hope so,” he answered eventually.

I opened my mouth to speak and hesitated.

“What?” he prompted.

“I was going to say that maybe a therapist might help the two of you get through everything, but I’m not sure I can see Kelly agreeing to something like that. He seems so … hard.”

“He is hard. And you’re right. I don’t think he’d agree to anything like that. He found his family and I found mine, and I’m not sure how we’ll meet in middle. Or if he even wants to.”

“But you have to try.”

“Of course. He’s my little brother.” Casey swallowed and shook his head. “He’s carrying around so much hurt and anger from everything that’s happened. I can’t blame him for that and part of it is my fault.”

“Casey—”

“No. It is, because he needed me. I should’ve found another way. It was selfish of me to think I could try and make a life for myself at the same time as getting them both out.”

My brows drew together. I didn’t like that Casey would carry this weight on his shoulders. “That life you made has saved a lot of people.”

“But it didn’t save the two people who mattered the most,” he pointed out as he wrapped the towel around me, tucking it in at the front.

“It saved you, and after all these years, you have your brother back. I think he’s a lot more like you than you realise.”

“Really?” Casey looked me with an expression I could almost believe was hope. I knew then he hadn’t seen in Kelly what I had. Not yet. He was too busy being angry at his brother, and then heartbroken, and now at an utter loss. I wasn’t. They would work it out. Kelly would always be a Sentinel. He would always live in that area somewhere between black and white. That was something Casey would have to accept, but deep down, Kelly had a big heart he hid from the world.

“Kelly saved my life.” He might’ve set Casey up because he was angry and wanted him to hurt, but it seemed he was at war with himself because he also wanted his big brother happy. “He just went about it in a really shitty way. He grew up with bikers,” I pointed out.

It was almost the equivalent of being brought up by wolves, wasn’t it? I didn’t know. All I knew was that Bingo, who’d been released from custody, didn’t seem so bad after all. He honestly seemed to think I’d saved his life when all I’d really done was put out his burning beard. Perhaps his mind was hazy on the events of that night because he was drunk. Bingo’s sister was another story. She remained in custody after her efforts today, and Gabriella had assured us she was also under investigation for a lot more than what she’d done today.

“He did, in his own misguided way, attempt to save your life,” Casey conceded, “but he should’ve just come to me first.”

“You’re going to have to let that one go,” I advised as Casey took another towel from the rack and dried himself half-heartedly. “You both just need time.”

“Yeah?” Casey tucked the towel around his hips. “He could use that time to learn he can’t go putting his hands all over you like he seemed so eager to do. Or call you babe. Or be anywhere near you really.”

I let the topic go when he opened the bathroom door, steam trailing out behind us in a big wave. They had nothing but time on their side to build a new relationship together.