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He inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth. “It seems we’re at an impasse. No other choice.”
She nodded sagely. “On three?”
“On three.”
Lily went into fighting position. He mirrored her pose.
“One,” he said.
“Two…”
“Three.”
They both struck at the same time. His outstretched hand, palm down, against Lily’s hand, curled to a fist.
“Yes!” He pumped his fist, then pointed at his sister. “Paper beats rock.”
She rolled her eyes. “All right, all right. I’ll go first and do the talking. But there’s gonna be hell to pay if you don’t back me up, mister.”
“Right here behind you,” he muttered.
Lily took a deep breath, and for a second she looked like she wanted to bolt. He flung open the door and shoved her in the kitchen.
“Ouch, Baz!” She shut her mouth and stopped slapping at him when Hazel turned around. “Oh, hi, Mom. Um, do you have a minute? Baz and I want to talk to you.”
Hazel’s chocolate-colored eyes took them both in, her face ever so radiant, so full of warmth and love and all things cozy that made up a home. Where Aunt Isabel had often been stern, unyielding—a general determined to steel you through the use of rough handling—Hazel had never been anything but the soft comfort of unconditional, maternal love. Even during the years when Father was still alive—which brought Basil back to the present.
He cleared his throat. “Yes. Let’s sit down.”
Hazel frowned a little but nodded. “Sure.”
They settled at the small table in the breakfast nook, in front of the bay window overlooking the expansive backyard of the Murray mansion.
“What do you want to talk about?” Hazel asked.
“Umm…” Lily fidgeted in her seat. “It’s just that recently, I’ve gotten to thinking. After I mated with Alek. There were some things I’d never realized, stuff in my past…in our past… I mean, our family—” She shifted her weight. “Um. Baz?”
He sighed, sent his twin a sideways glance, which of course she understood as if he’d said it out loud, and shot him back a look that clearly said, Nu-uh, I did my part. I did talk first. Now you go. And knowing her, he also knew he had to pick up the convo now.
“What Lil’s trying to say, rather ineloquently—ouch!” He glared at Lily, and rubbed his shin where she had kicked him, hard. “She’s kind of had commitment issues that go back to her childhood. She realized the problem when Alek was courting her, and we talked about it, and we think it’s from seeing…your relationship with our father.”
Hazel went very still.
Basil pushed forward before he lost the nerve. “Thing is, we—that is, you, and both of us—never actually discussed it. But it’s always been this huge, taboo subject hanging over our heads, and we think it’s time we tackle it. Talk it through. So we can let it go.”
He’d grabbed an apple from the crystal fruit bowl, and was peeling off the sticker label on it, his attention meticulously on the tangible, practical task that was easy to accomplish, not on the mess of emotions so difficult to untangle.
Hazel cleared her throat. Her voice was measured when she spoke. “What, exactly, do you want to talk about?”
Lily was fidgeting again. “The way Dad treated you…”
Dad. Yeah, Robert had been a dad to Lily, all right. To Basil, though… And that was part of it, wasn’t it?
“He was an abusive asshole to you, Mom.” He couldn’t suppress the gruff edge to his voice, from the too-long-buried hurt and anger now rising to the surface. If his father hadn’t died when Baz was still a meager, weak fifteen-year-old who was only slowly growing into his gangly long limbs…if Basil had been stronger, or had more power…all that hurt and anger and righteous protectiveness would have erupted one day, and his father might have died by Basil’s hand instead of Aunt Isabel’s.
“Language,” Hazel snapped.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “But it’s true. He had control issues, and was a jealous freak who treated you like shi—like garbage. Did you think we didn’t notice? He didn’t even try to be subtle about it.”
