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“Thad, what are you—“
“Shut up,” he says, the words sharp enough to pierce skin as he shoves me toward the stairs.
We go up, Thad angling toward my old room in the dark.
He forces me through the door and closes it behind us. “What’s going on, Max?” he asks, his body blocking the exit.
“Nothing,” I say, taking a second to absorb my surroundings. My childhood bedroom. Been a while. So many things that just… don’t matter anymore.
“Bullshit,” Thad says. “You’re hesitating with Keith when you should be burning this house to the ground.”
“Should I?” I ask. “I mean, maybe I should stay here. It’s what you want, right? Get me out of the way?”
His frown deepens. “The fuck does that mean?”
“Nothing.” I try to move around him. “We should get ba—”
Thad grabs me by the lapel and pushes me deeper into the room. I bump against my bed and right myself, but another push sends me onto the mattress.
“Thad—!”
He mounts me, snatching my wrists and forcing them above my head. “Shut up,” he says again, pinning me down. “Start talking.”
“Do you want me to shut up or start talking?”
“Talk to me, Max,” he says, the hard edge in his voice gone, replaced with love and care. “Something’s wrong. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve been off all morning, and now this? Talk.”
“Thad—“
“Talk.”
“I found the ring!”
He squints. “What ring?”
“The engagement ring. The one hidden in your sock drawer.”
Thad softens his grip on my wrists. “What were you doing in my sock drawer?”
“Does it matter?” I snap. “Why would you do this to us? Why would you make a decision like that without talking to me first?”
“Max, I’m not—“
“We’re supposed to be a team!” I struggle against his weight, but he’s too strong. “Not boyfriend one and boyfriend two. Co-boyfriends! Remember? You have no right to—”
“It’s my mother’s!”
I stop struggling. “What?”
“I’m not proposing to Phoebe,” Thad says, swallowing hard. “That ring was my mom’s.”
He releases me and sits back on his knees. I balance on my elbows, too weak to do much else.
“Dad—” Thad stops, exhaling. “Rutger gave it to me last month. At the hotel. He found it, remembered she wanted me to have it. That’s why he tried to contact me, why he wanted to see me.”
I don’t move, the pain in my chest almost too much. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Hard to fit hey, check out my dead mom’s ring into a conversation. And…” He pauses, his expression full of words. “When I asked him why he didn’t give it to me sooner, he said he moved on. He forgot about it. I was so angry with him, you know? How could he say that about her? But then…” Thad takes a breath. “Then I realized I don’t remember the last time I even thought about her. I can hardly recall what she looked like unless I really think about it. He might have been a shitty husband, but I’m not a much better son.”
