He looked up then, facing Blake, who had returned to his normal color. All the fight seemed to have left him. He wasn’t even scowling anymore. “Except for Ruby,” Drew added. “But I won’t come between the two of you. You’re her brother, and she adores you. So I’m going to go. Tell her I’m sorry. I won’t bother her again.”
Drew turned and began walking toward the parking garage, just wanting to put some distance between him and every Davis on the planet.
“I always thought you two would be good together,” Blake said.
Shocked to his core, Drew pivoted, wondering if he’d heard right. “What?”
One corner of Blake’s mouth turned upward. “You heard me.” He turned and walked into the hospital.
The door opened, and Ruby glanced up from reading her magazine, expecting to see the nurse who had gone to get her a Popsicle to cheer her up. After Drew left, she couldn’t stop crying. She’d made the right decision saying no to him, she knew that, but it didn’t stop the hurt. Instead of the nurse, though, Blake stood there rubbing his knuckles, which looked red and bruised.
“What happened?” She hoped he hadn’t been hitting the wall again. Something he’d done on a regular basis the past twelve months.
“Nothing.” His sharp tone took Ruby by surprise. She’d hoped they’d gotten beyond their conflict. He’d been so kind to her yesterday at the accident.
“Sorry, I only asked because of your hand.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I’ve just had a run-in with Drew.”
Ruby’s good hand flew up to her mouth, her eyes wide. “Is he hurt?” She couldn’t bear it if Blake had injured Drew. For all Drew’s hard exterior and his stupid idea that he deserved all the bad karma life could throw at him, Ruby knew that he probably stood there like some idiot martyr and let Blake punch him in the face.
“No.” Blake walked over and sat down on the chair beside the bed, lifting his legs and resting them on the lower bed rail.
Not counting the immediate problem with his hand, Ruby sensed something different about him. She didn’t know whether it was the way he sat there so relaxed, even after his fight with Drew. Or the fact that his face didn’t have its usual tightness about it, or what. Just something.
“Thank goodness.” She sighed and couldn’t help allowing a tiny laugh of relief to escape her lips.
“Good to see whose side you’re on.” Blake leaned back in the chair and lifted his hands behind his head.
“I still care about him, you know,” she said, biting on her bottom lip to stop the urge to cry which had suddenly taken hold again.
“Even though he dumped you?”
“And asked me back out,” she pointed out. “But I said no.”
“Ah. So that’s what he meant,” Blake said, his voice quiet and thoughtful.
“What?”
“He said to tell you he wouldn’t bother you again.”
“Oh.”
“He also said he’s in love with you.”
“Oh!” Ruby’s heartbeat quickened. He loved her. Why hadn’t he told her? Then again would it have made a difference? No. Because the situation was still the same. “I love him, too,” she admitted. “But that’s not enough. It would never work between us.” She let out a long sigh, wishing that everything could be different.
“Says who?” Blake looked across at her, and she looked right back.
“Says me. Until he can learn to forgive himself for what happened to Reese and to you, then there’s no point.” She wanted to fold her arms and glare at her brother, but her stupid cast wouldn’t let her, so she settled for the glare. “And you not forgiving him doesn’t help matters.”
“I did.”
“What?!” She sat up, then immediately regretted the rapid movement. “Owwww.”
Looking helpless, he grabbed her water glass and offered it to her. She took it, if only to make him feel like he’d helped. She took a sip and handed it back to him. “You did?”
He hitched a shoulder in a half shrug. “Well, I stopped trying to hit him, and I told him I didn’t mind you two together.”
Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. It had been a huge step for her brother, and she was so grateful. “Blake—” She reached for him with her good hand, and he leaned forward, took it, and squeezed it, before putting it back on the sheet and patting it awkwardly into place. Which, for Blake, was a momentous declaration of brotherly affection.
She wiped the tears as they started to fall. “That’s not completely forgiving him, you know.”
He ignored that. “Maybe you can help him. He…needs somebody,” he said.
She couldn’t believe she was sitting there having a conversation like that with Blake. She thought he would’ve done what he could to stop her being with Drew but now it seemed like he was trying to persuade her to give him a chance. She didn’t get it. “No. He has to help himself. Because if he doesn’t, he’ll only end up half a man. Like Dad.”
She hated to think of her father in those terms. And she hated that down the road, Drew could be in the exact same position.
“And if he does help himself, will you go back with him then?” Blake pressed.
“What’s with you trying to push me toward him?” she demanded. She waved her arm and then wished she hadn’t because of the pain.
He swung his legs down from the bed and leaned forward in the chair, looking intently at her. He cleared his throat. “I’m not. Well. Look, it’s gonna take a long time for me to get over what he did. But Reese’s death wasn’t…it wasn’t his fault.” He shuffled in his seat and looked very uncomfortable.
Ruby placed her hand on his knee and gave it a squeeze. “He hates himself for what happened, more than you’ll ever hate him. And I agree it wasn’t his fault. Maybe, in time, you’ll be able to forgive him for being with her in the first place.”
She believed that if Drew and Blake could even begin to repair their relationship, it would help both of them more than either could have imagined. They had too much history for them to let it all go.
“Maybe. If I’m being honest with myself, I think that Reese and I wouldn’t have gotten back together. It was probably our last breakup,” he said thoughtfully. Then he scrubbed a hand across his face. “You still haven’t answered my question about whether you would get back together with him if he straightens himself out.”
She took a moment before answering. Would she get back together with him? She didn’t want to think about it, because she wasn’t convinced he would change sufficiently for everything to work out. She gave a resigned shrug. “Let’s wait and see what happens.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What the…” Drew muttered as he drove up to the big gate at the bottom of the drive to his house.
His mom’s Mercedes-Benz was parked across the driveway, which meant Drew wouldn’t be able to get through the gate and park in one of their garages. He pulled into the side of the road and then got out of his car and went to the gate, where he keyed in the number on the keypad to open it.
As he walked up the long driveway, his thoughts about Ruby and the awful situation he was in were momentarily diverted while he wondered what state his mom was going to be in. It beat him how she’d only ever gotten one DUI in her life because she had to be over the limit more often than not when driving. He tried not to think about it too much because her behavior disgusted him. He’d talked to her several times about not getting behind the wheel when she’d had a few and to call him or a cab, but she’d just dismissed him and said she knew what she was doing.
He glanced at his phone to check the time. It wasn’t even seven, and she was already wasted, judging by her spectacular parking job. He braced himself for what was waiting for him inside. As he opened the front door, his nostrils were immediately assaulted by the smell of liquor.
“Mom,” he called out, poking his head around the door to the lounge.