“Sweetheart,” he emphasized.  “No one can help a person in that condition.  Sometimes, if we’re really lucky, we come out of it, and we help ourselves, and we do this because of the people we love.  You were not responsible for making me worse.  But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s a fact that you were responsible for making me better.  I’d resigned myself to dying.  That I could have handled.  But when I saw what I’d done to you—”

“That wasn’t on you.”

“That may be your reality.  You’re entitled to see it how you need to, but I can only see it one way.  What happened to you was on me, is on me, and when I realized that I wasn’t only hurting myself, was in fact hurting you even more than I was my own numb mind, I found the motivation I needed to stop using, to stop trying to check out of my life.  That’s on you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I was just finishing up at work the next day when he called.

“Let’s go out tonight.  I want to take you someplace special,” Tristan’s deep voice started purring into my ear before I’d even managed to get a ‘hello’ out.

I took a deep breath.  “I can’t tonight.”  After the fit he’d thrown about a lunch with Andrew, I knew to brace myself for the worst.

There was a long pause on the other end.  “Why not?”

He’d never been a shy one.

“I’m going out to dinner with a friend of mine.”

“Is this a private dinner, or can I come along?”

I thought about that dynamic.  I didn’t think Dermot would like him.  I couldn’t see the two men getting along well enough for a quiet meal.  They were both too overprotective of me in completely different ways.  “It’s just kind of a monthly thing.  It’s complicated, but I don’t think you’d get along with my friend.  I’ll tell him about you.  Maybe next time, after I’ve given him fair warning.”

Of course, he only heard one part of my statement.

“Him?”

“Yes.  We’ve been over this.  I have male friends.”

“Are you going on a date tonight?”

I sighed.  Caveman post therapy was still caveman.  “No.  I am going out to dinner with a friend.”  I debated telling him that Dermot was my brother, but decided to ask Dermot about that.  His father was still married to his poor mother, and I didn’t want to cause any problems in his family, so I kept it under wraps.  Tristan could keep a secret, so I knew I’d be telling him about it, but I wanted Dermot’s go ahead first.  It didn’t feel like my secret to tell.

“A male friend.  That’s a date.  What’s his name?  Where does he live?  I bet I can take him.”

I giggled, though he was only half joking.  “It would only be a date if we were romantically involved, which we’re not.  Listen, it’s complicated, but I promise to explain it to you, after I talk to my friend about it.”

He was so distraught after that I almost canceled.

He wasn’t yelling, or screaming, or even trying to talk me out of it.

He just became so quiet and withdrawn on the other end that I could barely stand it.

“Okay, you know what?  You need to knock it the hell off.  Do you see me telling you that you can’t be friends with Mona anymore?  No.  And you’ve slept with her.  I have never slept with Dermot.”

“His name is Dermot,” he interrupted dully.

“Yes, Dermot, who I would never sleep with, not in a million years.  Not even if we were characters in Game of Thrones.”

That drew him out of it, or confused him out of it.  “What the hell does that damn show have to do with anything?”

I’d recently started making him watch it, and he went from grudgingly liking it to hating it from one episode to the next.  He was only on the first season though.  If I just got him through the one, I knew he’d be as hooked as I was.

I smirked.  “You’ll figure it out, eventually.”

I tried to tell him goodbye.

“I want to come with you,” he growled into my ear.

I took a deep breath.  Why on earth did I still have such a hard time telling him no?

“Boundaries, Tristan.”

He let me off the line, but I knew he wasn’t happy.

Dermot and I never told anyone that we were related.  We never had to.  Neither of us were answerable to anyone, so the world just thought we were close friends, or so I’d assumed.

It hadn’t occurred to me that my meet-ups with Dermot looked like dates.  I’d never had to worry about it before.

Andrew had been the kind of boyfriend that was understanding to a fault.  He’d never even questioned that I often liked to go out to dinner with another man.

“I’m seeing someone,” I told Dermot, after we’d ordered our food.

He looked surprised but not displeased.  “Well, that’s great.  Is it serious?”

My mouth twisted.  “Like a heart attack.  Whether we have a shot at anything lasting is another matter entirely.  I’ll keep you posted.”

“Have you known him long?”

It was the strangest thing.  I’d been raised with Dahlia, but Dermot was so much easier for me to open up to.  It’d been like that with us from the start.