Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
The family resemblance between all of us brothers was uncanny in our bone structure. But Zeno’s dark hair was long enough to brush his shoulders—though he had it pulled back in a bun. His eyes were the same dark brown as Cosimo’s and Leondro’s, not the dark blue that Gav and I got from our mom. Like Cesare, he was a fan of body modification and had a piercing in his brow and one in his tongue.
“Christ, Zen, how’d it get so messy in three days?” I asked, looking around his place: the stacked energy drink cans, the scattered coffee cups, the overflowing sink and garbage.
“Hey, nothing’s on the floor this time! Well, just don’t go in the bedroom. Or bathroom. What’s that old saying? Progress, not perfection.”
“Why is there a dog bed here?” I asked, internally cringing at the idea of him getting another living thing he would need to take care of. There was an incident with a fucking air plant that made us all decide he couldn’t be trusted to keep things alive.
“Saylor had me dog-sit last night,” he said, shrugging as he made his way to the coffee pot. When he found no clean ceramic mugs, he located a pack of paper ones and poured a cup. “Ant almost fell out the window,” he said, nodding toward the hastily patched-up spot in the glass. “He’s gonna have his crew come by and fix it. Coffee’s new.”
Lord knew I could use a cup after the day I’d had.
I made my way over, grabbing my own paper cup and pouring some coffee. That I quickly spat into the sink.
“Zen, this is burnt to shit. When did you make it?”
“Huh?” he asked, sipping his cup. “Oh, I dunno. At two?”
“That was almost eight hours ago,” I told him, pouring the rest of the pot down the drain.
I’d already lost my brother to something on one of his many monitors, so I went ahead and shrugged off my jacket and got to work cleaning his place. Again.
It was a labor of love I’d been doing since Zeno was old enough to start making his own messes. Messes that he, apparently, just couldn’t see, even when they were right in front of him. His mind was just in another place. Inattentional blindness, the shrink had called it the one and only time I got Zen to go see one. It was like his brain just filtered out the mess because it got too overwhelmed and wanted to focus on something else.
It wasn’t his fault. So, it was hard to get annoyed that I was always the one who picked up after him when we were growing up.
Though I made a mental note to see about hiring a cleaner to come in and handle his place once or twice a week. He was going to get roaches or rats if the trash wasn’t taken out regularly.
When I was finished scrubbing the burnt shit off the bottom of the coffee pot, I put a fresh one on and made sure the auto shut-off was turned on.
It helped.
To have tasks to do.
To keep my mind from wandering.
Not to Matt’s death, where it belonged, but to his widow.
And the way her hot tears soaked through my shirt as I held her. How her arms went from pressed against my chest to wrapped tightly around me as she purged all the pain she’d been hiding during the service.
Then how she’d watched me with pinched brows, like there was something confusing about being taken care of as I put a blanket over her, as I pulled off her shoes.
I mean, it probably was new to her.
I’d known Matt a long time. I’d seen him with women. I knew how good he was at complimenting and showering affection. For about a week or two, a month max, before he got bored.
No one had been more shocked than me when he’d said he was getting married. Matt? With one woman forever? It didn’t compute.
I could see how he could get a woman to agree to marry him in those early days. How she would think she’d hit the lottery. But it couldn’t have been long after the wedding before he lost interest in the love bombing. And his other side would have been more openly on display.
The constant get-rich-quick schemes. The selfishness. The inability to take responsibility. The way he let his family sway his decisions and behavior.
I knew from Matt that Blair had been going to therapy, had been dogging him to go with her to couples counseling. She’d clearly been trying. It must have taken a lot for her to decide she was finally done.
The reality was, she’d likely been in a relationship with a grown child instead of a partner. She’d probably not only been handling all her own usual shit, but his on top of it all.