The Weight of Perfection: Grand Harbor - Book Three Read online

  “Really? What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure there’s any other way. I think I have to turn him in.”

  Chapter 24

  “What do you mean? You’re going to send your brother to jail?” Luke and I stood up, making our way back to the truck now that the sun was fully set and it was pitch black out. We climbed up in his tailgate and he flicked on a small lantern, grabbing some blankets out from a box he had in the back.

  “I have to. It’s the only way.”

  “He was cleared for the robbery, Lex. Yeah, he moved the car, but they let him go for that in exchange for some information on the guy who asked him to do it. You can’t pin the robbery on him. If you mention he went into your bank that day to case it right behind me, then that involves me. There has to be another way.”

  “I’m not going to turn him in for the robbery,” I explained. “That would do more damage than good. I know that.” I thought of Casey in that moment. I was fairly certain, even without the repercussion of him harming my brother, that it still wouldn’t end well. “What would you do? If your brother was in trouble, would you send him to jail if it would keep him safe? If it were the only way to keep him out of harm’s way?”

  It was a loaded question. Would he do that to his own brother?

  “I don’t know,” he said solemnly. “I feel like my brother would never forgive me for that. I would have to know there were no other options.”

  “Maybe my brother would hate me forever if I did that to him. Maybe he would never forgive me for it either. I hate this.” I paused for a moment. “Do you think Casey was involved in the robbery?” It was a direct question, but I had to know what he thought.

  “No,” he replied, shaking his head. “He knows better than that. I only agreed to take part in it originally so he wouldn’t. If he was involved, I would kill him. I made him swear he would stay far away from all of that. It’s the last thing he needs. He already has a record of his own. He’s trying to rebuild his own life from all of his screw-ups. I’d like to think he’s smarter than that.”

  But he wasn’t smarter than that, and I knew it.

  “How do you know which secrets to tell and which to keep?” I stared back him, still wracking my brain over what to do.

  “I don’t have the answer to that,” he said honestly. “I felt awful for keeping that secret from you, but I felt like it was better if you didn’t know. In my mind I was protecting you from something. I guess that’s what we do, right? We justify the lie until it no longer feels like a lie? It seems like there’s a fine line between loyalty and truth.”

  “Yes there is,” I said quietly, squeezing his hand.

  “Listen to me.” He leaned in closer, reaching up a hand to touch my face. “You make me want to be a good person, Lexi. I spend my days thinking of a million reasons why I’m not good enough for you, but when I’m with you, I can think of a million reasons why you are good for me, and I can’t let go of you. You’ve said you want this to be us together, right? Midnight skies, lying out underneath the stars, like nothing else is happening around us… Let’s get that back. Tell me what I have to do to get all of that back.”

  “You’re relentless,” I said with a smirk. “You don’t give up easily. I pushed you away and you didn’t leave.”

  “How could I give up on you? How could I give up on this? Tell me it isn’t true,” he whispered. “When you said you no longer felt anything for me, tell me that was your lie.”

  “It was a lie,” I admitted. “And I felt awful about it, but I was trying to protect myself. I knew you had a secret, and I hated that. I felt betrayed. I’ve had my share of heartache, Luke, and I felt like I couldn’t take any more. I thought that was an easy way out.”

  “There was nothing easy about you walking away from me,” he said sincerely, touching my hair. “I’d never felt like that before. It felt like all of the air was sucked out of me.”

  “Me too,” I admitted. “That’s how I knew I’d made a mistake. Walking away from someone should never hurt that much. I had to believe that feeling that much for you meant there had to be a way to fix it. I just didn’t know how.”

  “I promise you, I will do whatever it takes to never be the reason you hurt, Lex. Maybe I don’t have a lot of offer you. I know that. But we have all this.” He motioned to our surroundings, and once again, the simplicity of the night sky from the back of his truck was everything I needed. Every time it was just us, I felt like we were invincible – like we could get through anything. Olivia was right – this would just be a story to tell down the road about that one time I fell in love with a bank robber. Although instead of looking back on it like a distant memory, instead I wanted it to be a redemption story about how he couldn’t go through with it because I was more important to him, and how that lead to forgiveness and a long happily-ever-after, as convoluted and weird as that sounded.

  “Promise me one thing,” I whispered. “No more secrets.”

  “Those are all of mine,” he replied, tracing my jaw line with his thumb. “I will give you all my truth, Lexi. And I promise I will do whatever it takes to keep you from any more heartache. Just give me another chance.”

  “I realized I can’t walk away from you,” I said softly.

  “Then I’m keeping you forever.”

  *****

  We spent another night wrapped up in blankets in the back of his truck, and once again, it was perfection. The feel of his arms wrapped tightly around my body – the tenderness of his fingers as they grazed along my skin – it made the entire world feel all right.

  I called in sick to work. That was very uncharacteristic of me, but I knew I’d never get back in time – not to mention, I couldn’t rush this. Maybe I did need more time to process the robbery, especially now that I knew so much more. Rhonda completely understood and told me as long as I went to the counseling appointment, I would have additional time off to recuperate from all of this. If only she knew how much it had personally affected me. I was nervous about the appointment with some corporate doctor – afraid I would say the wrong thing – but maybe there was healing there somewhere. I had to cope with all of this somehow.

  “Good morning,” Luke said softly, pulling me into his embrace. The crisp morning air hit my face, the only exposed part of my body from the blankets.

  “It’s colder out here away from town.”

  “That’s what I like about it. I want to move somewhere like this – away from cars and city noises. Somewhere peaceful, with a view like this. A view like you.”

  “You can wake up to me any time you want,” I said bashfully.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m yours. That’s how this works.”

  He leaned in and kissed me, and the world felt right. Once again I felt safe, despite the heaviness of my circumstances, and there was something to be said about the weight of a feeling like that. Feeling invincible – protected, and loved, knowing that person would never let you go – I felt sad thinking about people who made it through their day to day without knowing what that felt like. It gave me a kind of power I never knew I was missing.

  “Can I tell you something?” I was so nervous to bring it up, but the thoughts in my head had been plaguing me all night, even wrapped up in Luke’s arms.

  “You already said I get to keep you. I don’t need anything else.”

  “About last night,” I began. I knew my voice sounded a little apprehensive starting this conversation with him, but I knew it had to happen. “No more secrets, right?”

  “I promise you, Lex. I’ve told you everything.”

  “I know. I believe you…”

  “Then what’s still bothering you?”

  “Well…” I paused, afraid to say it – but I had to. “You aren’t the only one with a secret.”

  He shifted his body so that he was propped up on one elbow, looking down at me, trying to gauge the seriousness of the expression on my face.

  “Whatever it is, you c
an tell me,” he said sincerely.

  “It’s your brother, Luke. I think there’s more to the story. I think there are some things you don’t know.”

  “What does Kyle have to do with this?”

  “Not Kyle. The other one.”

  “Casey? What does he have to do with any of this? He wasn’t involved. I’m certain about that. He has nothing to do with it.”

  “Dammit,” I muttered, feeling sick all over again. “This is why I hate secrets. I should’ve told you last night, but I was afraid.”

  “What aren’t you saying, Lexi?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you. He made me swear I wouldn’t.”

  He sat straight up, his entire demeanor changing.

  “Lexi, what’s going on? You know something I don’t? You have to tell me.”

  I wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was anymore. I didn’t want my brother to get hurt. I loved him, and would do anything to protect him. But right now Luke was the only person on my side. I had to tell him everything. I couldn’t keep it inside forever, even at the expense of my brother.

  “Casey is the one who robbed me, Luke. Twice, actually. He robbed the bank. He was the one who put a gun to my side, ordering me to dump the cash from the drawers into his bag. And my apartment…that was him too.”

  “Impossible,” Luke said defensively, “he wouldn’t do that to me. He knew how much I cared about you right from the beginning.”

  “He left a note in my apartment. He was the one I was talking to at the park. It was absolutely, without a doubt, him. He’s not as innocent as you think.”

  “I never said he was innocent. He has a long list of crimes, trust me, but I sacrificed myself on this one to keep him out of it.”

  “I think he made another choice.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, looking more frustrated by the second. “Why didn’t you tell me all of that from the beginning?”

  “Because after I figured it out, I still thought you were part of the robbery too. I couldn’t make sense of everything. I thought that’s why you were seeing me, because I was just a target in all of this, like maybe you were just using me for information or something. After my apartment was robbed, and once I figured out my brother was involved too, I didn’t know who to trust anymore.”

  “I’m going to kill him.” He clenched his fists. “That son of a…”

  “There’s more,” I cut him off. “You can’t say anything to him about it.”

  “Like hell, of course I am. He’s not getting away with this. He held a gun up to you? Lexi, he doesn’t get to walk away from that scot free. And your apartment? I’m seriously going to kill him.” Luke reached for his shirt, still crumpled up into a pile by our feet from the night before. He jumped off the back of the tailgate, reaching out a hand to help me down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We need to head back,” he said, his face still serious. “I’m going to kill him.”

  “You can’t. He made me swear I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “And you considered that? Where is your loyalty?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Obviously my loyalty is to you, Luke. Isn’t that apparent by now? But he had a point. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. He said it could make things worse, and given how mad you look right now, maybe he was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you so this would all go away. You’re really questioning my loyalty right now because I had to make that decision? This affects my brother too, not just you. I’m only trying to find the best option here. Cut me some slack. The only reason I’m caught up in this mess in the first place is because of you.”

  “Well maybe you shouldn’t be,” he said with a harsh tone.

  “What? What are you saying?”

  “You’re right, you’re in this mess because of me. Maybe you were right to leave me,” he said, pacing back in forth behind the tailgate. “I knew he would do this again.”

  “What?”

  “Ruin another one of my relationships, Lex. That’s what he does. I told you about Jen, right? Him knocking her up? There was another girl after that too. That’s one of the reasons why I stopped bothering trying to date anyone, because he always interfered, like he couldn’t stand me being happy. All this time, I’m always standing up for him, but I can’t do that anymore. He’s really involved in all of this? If that’s true, then he deserves what’s coming to him.”

  “You can’t, Luke.”

  “You don’t get a say in that.”

  “But I do. You can’t tell him you know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you do, he said Cade is done. He said he’ll overdose and no one will call for help. He made it sound like it wouldn’t be an accident either. You can’t turn on him for this, Luke. You can’t do that to my brother.”

  “He threatened you? He gave you an ultimatum that if you told me, he would harm Cade?”

  “Yes. That’s why I didn’t tell you right away.”

  “He robbed you after I made him swear he’d stay away from you. He won’t get away with this.”

  “Luke, stop. You’re scaring me.”

  He threw all of the blankets back into the enclosure he’d pulled them out from the night before, slamming down the lid.

  “He’s going to wish he’d listened to me,” Luke said angrily, firing up the truck’s engine.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make him wish he never got involved.” He pulled out away from the lake, heading up the gravel road we’d traveled down last night.

  “Luke, there has to be another way. Maybe we can just let all of this go? We can move on from it completely.”

  “Do you forgive your brother for getting you involved in all of this?” It was a direct question, and his eyes burned through mine, waiting for a response.

  “I…I don’t know,” I said genuinely. “The fact that he lured all of you guys to me in the first place – that’s messed up. I know that. It’s wrong on so many levels. But in some screwed up way, it’s what led you to me. I don’t regret that. Our paths may not have crossed again if he didn’t. Would you risk that? Would you replace meeting me if that meant our brothers weren’t involved? I can’t imagine trading what happened, only because it brought us together, as screwed up as that sounds.”

  “Lexi, dammit,” he said in frustration, hitting the steering wheel. “This is what you do, right? These people do you wrong – and I mean really, really wrong – and you’re displeased, right? You’re a little upset, but you can just get over it and forgive them? Just like that? That’s not normal.”

  “Well I don’t see the point in blowing it all back up,” I tried to explain. “It pisses me off, Luke. Don’t be disillusioned by what I’m saying. I’m not just brushing it all off. But if we continue letting it get to us – if you want to retaliate in some way – then where will it end? Maybe it’s better in the long run if we just let this go. Let your brother move on with his life, whatever choices he decides to make, and my brother remains unharmed to go on making all of his own crappy choices as well.”

  “How is that fixing any of this?”

  “Because it fixes us. It’s the only solution, the way I see it. They are who they are, Luke. We can fight and try and pray and scream into the wind for them to change, but maybe they never will? Maybe in spite of our efforts, they’ll still be those same broken people. Why do we have to keep letting that affect us?”

  “Because, Lexi, people like that – they shouldn’t get away with it. They don’t get to treat people like that and expect everyone to turn their cheek. It’s wrong. They’ll continue it if they’re not called out for it.”

  “Won’t they continue anyway? Look, I don’t know Casey. Maybe he’s a decent guy, or maybe he isn’t. Does it really matter? Cade – he isn’t a decent guy. No matter how many stars I wish on, it will never make that true. But you know what I’ve realized? I can choose how it affects me, and I don’t want to hurt o
ver him anymore. It’s exhausting. If he can live with himself after putting me in harm’s way, then that’s on him.”

  Luke remained quiet, not responding to me. I could see his mind working in overdrive, and I so badly wanted inside his head. I didn’t know his past with Casey. No doubt he’d screwed him over multiple times before, that was evident. But at what point would he be able to let it all go?

  “Luke,” I said softly, “this has to stop. We can’t let this interfere with our lives forever. They are who they are. They can sort it out themselves. Let this blow over, and everybody wins.”

  “Everybody doesn’t win, Lexi. This is so much bigger than that.” He turned out on the main highway, still moody and frustrated. “It’s a bigger story. You know why I’m doing all of this work for my grandfather? Because my brothers stole from him. They took advantage of him, drained his accounts, and left him for broke, assuming he’d be gone in no time so it didn’t matter.”

  “That’s also not on you, Luke.”

  “It happened right under me, all while I was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, and I had no idea. I was too caught up in my own life to even notice. My mom would be absolutely crushed if she found out. She’d be devastated.”

  “So you’re saving their asses all for her? That’s what this is all about?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Story of my life. That’s always the role I get to play.”

  “Why? Why you?”

  “Because there’s no one else to do it.” He still clenched the steering wheel in anger as he spoke. “My mom has been through enough. She already lived the wrong kind of life, being abused by the wrong guy. If she found out she’d raised two men who were no different than him? She couldn’t handle that. Sometimes it’s better to hide the truth, Lexi. The same way I didn’t tell you what I knew in the beginning – sometimes the truth causes more pain than one small, simple lie. That’s why people do it. That’s how we all get through.”