Great. She just loved being reminded that she was his job. “Still, it’s the holidays. Maybe you should go home and visit your family for a few days? I’m probably just going to hole up and watch Christmas movies for a few days.” She certainly wouldn’t be heading out for any more parties. Not after tonight.
Wesley was silent. That was all right. Sometimes he was quiet. Daphne took another sip of her tea and then dug a spoon into her soup. It was thick and delicious and spicy. After tonight it felt more comforting than pancakes, and she took several bites of it before she realized Wesley was still silent, and still gazing out the window. “Wes?”
He looked over at her, and for some reason his eyes seemed darker than usual, full of shadows. “I’m not going to visit family.”
“No? Too much work to do?” she teased, knowing full well that she was his work. “Because you know, I’m sure I’ll be fine if you want to fly out for a day.”
The lines of his mouth thinned and he looked out the window again, and then back at her. “Did I ever tell you how I got into this line of work, Daphne?”
She frowned, stirring her soup with her spoon idly. “I thought you just liked working out and fitness and all that boring crap.”
“Heh.” He laughed, but there was no pleasure behind it. “No. That started afterward. When I was seventeen, I killed my brother.”
She froze in place. Silence fell. Daphne stared at him, not sure she’d heard him correctly. “You . . .”
He nodded slowly. “Killed my brother. Drunk driving. I was underage and a heavy drinker. My father was an alcoholic. Had been all his life. I learned to steal his beer, and then his whiskey. My older brother did, too. We’d ditch school to go drinking. That day, we stole a car from the school parking lot and went joyriding. I was driving and ran off the road into a lake at ninety miles an hour. The car flipped over and I got out because I didn’t buckle up. My brother did.” He stared out the window again. “Broke my leg in three places and my arm, but I lived. The court documents said that my blood alcohol was three times the legal limit. And it wasn’t even a heavy drinking day for me.”
She blinked, unsure what to do or say. “I . . . I’m sorry, Wesley.” God. That made her problems seem small in comparison. She mostly drank and got high because she was lonely or had self-esteem issues. She’d never . . . killed someone. She thought about Gretchen and Audrey, and mentally recoiled.
He nodded slowly and gazed down at his food. His spoon moved through his soup, but he wasn’t eating. “I was too old for juvy so I pleaded no contest and went to prison for two years. Manslaughter. I sobered up and learned about exercise. When I got out of that controlled environment, though, I immediately fell back into bad habits. It took another year and another car wreck”—He tapped at a faint scar on his brow that she’d noticed but had never asked about—“before it got through my head that I was going to die. So I went to rehab and embraced a strict lifestyle, because I owed my brother that much. My parents have never forgiven me for his death, though.”
Her mouth felt dry. She took another sip of tea. “I . . . I don’t know what to say, Wesley.”
“I’m not telling you so you can feel sorry for me, Daphne.” His mouth pulled up in one corner and he shrugged his big shoulders. “I’m telling you so you realize that I understand what you’re going through. If I seem hard on you, it’s because I’ve been there. If I seem unfair or unforgiving? It’s because I know what it’s like. So when I tell you that I know you’re not ready?” He reached out and tapped her hand. “I know you’re not ready. It’s not slagging on you. It’s me knowing you better than you know yourself.”
“I see. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Daph.” Wesley gave her another exasperated look. “If I wanted pity, I’d wear a sign asking for pity. We all make choices. Not all of them are good. It’s how you recover that shows what kind of person you are. My life was in the toilet, so I chose a different path. My parents can’t forgive me—that’s the way they’ve chosen to handle things. I can’t blame them. I chose the original path, and now I’m choosing a different one. And that’s why I want to help you. Because I’ve been there and I understand.”
She understood him a bit more now. It was why he always seemed so focused, so very driven. He had a past full of demons driving him. Daphne felt a surge of sympathy and affection for him. “Here I thought you were pushing greens on me all the time because you were a sadist.”
He snorted. “They’re good for you and they don’t lead you toward poor choices. It’s definitely not because I just like watching you eat carrots all day long.”
“No, you’d rather watch me eat bananas,” she said, taking the conversation back to a lighter note. “I have an amazing technique.”
And she was pleased when his ears pinked with a hint of a blush.
The conversation died as they tucked into their soup, but for some reason, hearing his terrible story made Daphne feel less alone, less like a failure. It was nice to know that no matter how much of a fuckup she was, Wesley understood her.
And maybe he wasn’t so perfect after all.
***
Gretchen: Oh my god. I am the worst sister ever.
Daphne: Good morning . . . ?
Gretchen: I only vaguely remember last night. There was a lot of alcohol, way too much baby oil, and a vague memory of you leaving and not coming back.