The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 271: Chapter 271 - Come Back

Nathan continued carefully. "They’re willing to let this go."

"Let what go?"

"You know what I mean."

"No. Explain it."

Nathan’s jaw tightened. "If you agree to follow the plan and stop fighting them on everything, you can come home."

"The academy. Roxie? Every fucking thing in my life?"

Nathan hesitated long enough to give him the answer.

Zac nodded slowly. "So, nothing changed."

"That isn’t what I said."

"It’s exactly what you said."

"Jesus Christ, Zac."

"What? Coming home still means Dad gets to decide my future. That’s the same fucking deal I walked away from."

"You make everything sound like some prison sentence."

"Because apparently I only get a family if I do exactly what he wants."

"It’s one academy."

"It’s my fucking future."

Nathan rubbed both hands over his face. "You are impossible."

"And yet you came looking for me."

Nathan looked away, and for the first time Zac really looked at him. His hair was messier than usual, there were dark shadows beneath his eyes and he looked tired in a way Nathan usually made an effort to hide before leaving the house.

Zac frowned. "What happened to you?"

Nathan stayed quiet for a moment before finally answering.

"Holly’s gone."

Zac stared at him. "What?"

"I ended it."

That actually surprised him. He started to laugh low. "What? Is she not the saint you made her out to be?"

Nathan’s face changed immediately. "Are you fucking serious?"

"What do you want, a cake?"

"I finally listened to you."

"After believing her first."

"I made a mistake."

"Yeah."

Nathan stepped closer. "So did you."

Zac’s eyebrows lifted. "There it is. Typical Nathan."

"What?"

"You couldn’t make it five fucking minutes without turning this back on me."

"Because you act like you’re the only person in this family who’s ever been treated badly."

Zac laughed. "Here we fucking go."

"No. You want to talk about Dad deciding your life? Fine. Let’s talk about it. I had my entire fucking life decided before I was old enough to understand what any of it meant. School, academy, career, how I was supposed to act, who I was supposed to know. Every time I did something right, it became the new minimum. Every fucking thing I achieved just turned into something else I had to live up to."

Zac stared at him because this was the last direction he expected the conversation to take.

Nathan gave a bitter laugh. "And then there was you."

"What about me?"

"You did whatever the fuck you wanted. Football, parties, girls, talking back to Dad, Tennessee. You picked a school across the fucking country because you wanted it and somehow expected everyone else to deal with it."

Zac looked at him in disbelief. "That’s your problem with me?"

"You don’t know how fucking free you are."

For several seconds, Zac genuinely had no response.

Nathan shook his head and continued. "Do you know how fucking annoying that was? I spent my whole life doing exactly what they wanted while you broke every rule you could find and somehow kept going."

Zac felt his anger climbing again. "You think I got freedom?"

Nathan looked at him.

"Dad just stopped giving a shit unless I embarrassed him."

"That’s bullshit."

"No, that’s what you saw from your side. You saw me getting away with things. I saw Dad caring enough about you to actually have expectations."

Nathan stared at him. "You think that was caring?"

"You think being ignored was freedom?"

The question stopped both of them.

Zac breathed slowly through his nose because, as fucked as it was, he finally understood something about Nathan that he never had before. His brother had spent years looking at Zac and seeing someone who got to choose his own life. Zac had spent those same years looking at Nathan and seeing the son Arthur actually considered worth planning a future for.

Neither of them had wanted what the other one had.

Nathan looked away first.

Zac continued before he lost whatever courage had gotten him this far. "You were the one he trusted. You were the one Mom protected. You were the successful son they could fucking show people."

"You think I wanted that?"

"And you think I wanted them to stop caring?"

Nathan’s jaw tightened.

"You think football meant I was free?" Zac asked. "Dad barely came to my games unless somebody important was going to be there. He missed awards. He missed half the shit I did, and when I actually embarrassed him enough to notice me, he fucking hit me."

Nathan went still.

Zac laughed bitterly. "But yeah. Super fucking free."

"I didn’t know."

"Exactly."

Nathan looked like he wanted to answer, but Zac was already tired of talking about which one of them had suffered correctly. There was another question sitting underneath everything, and it mattered more.

"Why now?"

Nathan frowned. "What?"

"Why are you suddenly here trying to bring me home?"

"Because you’re my brother."

Zac shook his head. "That sounds good."

"It’s the truth."

"Is it?"

Nathan’s expression hardened again.

Zac stepped closer. "You want me home because you actually miss me, or because now everybody can see how fucked up this family is?"

"Fuck you."

"You didn’t believe me about Holly until everything blew up in your face, and now suddenly you’re here trying to fix me too."

"I’m trying to bring my brother home."

"If I go back, agree to the academy and shut my mouth, everything looks normal again, right? Dad gets control, Mom gets both sons back and you get to tell yourself you fixed something."

"That isn’t why I’m here."

"Then why?"

"I fucking told you."

Zac held his stare. "Do you actually want me back, or do you just want everything looking normal again?"

Nathan went quiet, and that silence hurt more than Zac wanted it to. A second later Nathan’s expression changed, and Zac knew immediately the conversation was about to get uglier.

"You always do this."

"Do what?"

"Run toward whatever gives you an escape."

Zac laughed. "What the fuck does that even mean?"

"Football. Tennessee. Roxie. Now Dylan’s house. The second something gets hard, you find somewhere else to disappear."

"I got thrown out."

"You were already halfway gone before that."

"Fuck you."

Nathan stepped closer. "You blew up your whole life for her and you aren’t even together anymore."

Zac’s hands curled at his sides.

For a second, hitting Nathan felt so easy that Zac could already picture it. He was close enough; Zac knew how to fight and every bit of anger he had been trying to control all week suddenly had somewhere obvious to go.

Then Roxie flashed through his head.

The scratches on his arm.

His hands around her wrists while they both screamed at each other.

The look on her face afterward when they finally realized how far they had gone.

Zac slowly loosened his fist.

"Go away, Nathan."

Nathan stared at him. "What?"

"Go home."

"You’re seriously walking away?"

"I’m working."

"That’s your excuse?"

Zac turned toward the door.

Nathan shoved him.

The force sent Zac sideways into the large garbage bin hard enough to rattle the lid. His anger surged immediately, but when he straightened, he kept his hands at his sides.

"Go home."

Nathan shoved him again, but Zac was ready this time and barely moved.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Nathan demanded.

Zac laughed once because the question was ridiculous coming from the guy who had followed him to work and was now trying to start a fight behind the building. "You came here."

"You think you’re better than everybody now because you got a fucking coffee job and moved into your friend’s basement?"

Zac’s jaw tightened. "Go home."

Nathan grabbed the front of his hoodie.

Zac caught his wrist immediately.

"Get off me."

"Fight back."

Zac stared at him.

Nathan was breathing hard, his face twisted with anger, and there was something underneath it that Zac could not figure out. Maybe Nathan wanted permission to hit him. Maybe he wanted Zac to turn into the brother he had spent years expecting him to be.

"Fight back."

"No."

That seemed to make Nathan even angrier.

He shoved Zac backward until his shoulders hit the wall beside the garbage bins. His hand moved higher, pressing against Zac’s chest before his forearm pressed against Zac’s throat.

Zac’s entire body reacted.

He could hit Nathan from here. He could drive his fist into his ribs, shove him off and finish the fight Nathan clearly wanted. Instead, Zac wrapped one hand around Nathan’s wrist and squeezed hard enough to make the muscles in his forearm tighten.

"Get your fucking hand off me."

Nathan kept yelling, something about Zac acting like he was the only one who had ever been hurt, but Zac barely heard the words anymore. His focus stayed on Nathan’s wrist and the pressure against his throat while every instinct in him screamed to swing.

He still did not.

"Get off."

The side door flew open.

"Hey! Get the fuck off him."

Nathan released Zac immediately.

The owner stood in the doorway staring at them, and his expression hardened when he saw Zac rubbing his throat.

"What the hell is going on?"

Nathan opened his mouth, but Zac cut him off before he could start another explanation.

"He was leaving."

Nathan looked at him. "Zac."

"Leave."

"I’m trying to..."

"Leave."

Nathan stared at him for several seconds. His eyes dropped toward Zac’s neck before lifting again, and for half a second he looked like he wanted to say something else.

Whatever it was, he kept it to himself and walked away.

Zac watched until Nathan disappeared around the corner, then looked down and realized his hands were shaking. That pissed him off more than anything else.

He flexed his fingers and rubbed his neck while trying to get his breathing under control. He had wanted to hit Nathan. For a few seconds he had wanted it badly enough that the only thing stopping him was the memory of what happened with Roxie.

A week ago, that probably would have ended differently. Nathan would have shoved him, Zac would have swung back and both of them would have ended up bloody behind the coffee shop while his new boss decided hiring a Prescott had been a terrible fucking idea.

This time Zac had stopped.

It had nothing to do with Nathan deserving restraint. Zac simply knew what happened when anger made the decision for him now. He had already watched Roxie hit a wall because neither of them knew when to stop, and he had already looked at scratches on his skin and marks on hers while still trying to convince himself love somehow made all of it survivable.

Breaking up with her had hurt like hell.

Apparently, it had scared him enough to change something too.

The owner was still standing beside the open door. "You okay?"

Zac looked at him and nodded. "Yeah."

The owner glanced toward the alley where Nathan had disappeared. "Family?"

"Unfortunately."

That got the smallest laugh out of him before his attention returned to Zac’s neck.

"You need to go home?"

The word caught Zac again.

Home.

He had spent the afternoon waiting in a cemetery because Roxie’s bungalow still felt like home. Nathan had spent the last twenty minutes trying to drag him back to the Prescott house because apparently that was supposed to still be home too. In another few hours, Zac would finish his shift and walk back to Dylan’s basement, where Helen had started keeping food for him and clean towels appeared without him asking.

He had three places he could connect to the word and somehow none of them were actually his anymore.

The owner nodded toward the door. "Can you finish the shift?"

Zac looked past him toward the coffee shop, where he could hear the espresso machine running and customers talking like nothing had happened outside.

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

Zac dropped his hand from his neck and walked toward the door.

"Yeah. I can finish."

The owner held it open, and Zac went back inside.

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