Siblings with Benefits Ch. 39

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lovecraft68
lovecraft68
21,836 Followers

“Calm down, I’m…”

“I’m one-of-a-kind, and he knows it. If he doesn’t want me, then someone else will.” I paused, and, as Royce remained silent, I asked. “So, you calling him, or am I?”

Royce sighed. “You’re really going to do this to yourself? Miss out on the chance of a lifetime?”

“No, Royce, I’m canceling it so I don’t miss out on the chance of a lifetime. So, who calls?”

“I will, I’ll just...” he grunted disgustedly. “I’ll call you later, that is, if you even care what he says.” With that, he sighed and hung up.

“Drama queen,” I muttered, tossing the phone back into my purse.

There was no traffic, and I reached Mark’s office by five-thirty. Most of the offices in the building closed at five, so there were plenty of spots in the garage. I drove around and spotted both Mark’s Firebird and his Lexus that I had left there. Pulling alongside them, I hoped that it was okay to leave cars overnight. Crossing the street, I entered the first floor and was relieved to see that the security guard sitting behind the desk was Roger, who had walked me down last night. I wanted to catch my brother by surprise and, after saying hello, was thrilled that Roger remembered me. I asked if he could let me upstairs without buzzing my brother, and he smiled and waved at the elevators.

I exited on Mark’s floor and, as I made my way towards Mark’s suite, saw Jim heading towards me, his briefcase in his hand.

“Hey, Megan, just in time. I was just going to lock the door to the lobby.”

“Is Mark in his office?”

“Yeah, I think he’s still in there.” He paused and gestured towards the other end of the hall. “Good luck, because he’s been in a mood-and-a-half tonight.”

“I think maybe I can cheer him up,” I said. Hopefully anyway.

I made my way quietly down the hallway that led to Mark’s office. As I entered the small waiting area, I saw that his door was open and, as I drew closer, I could hear music playing. Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera. I stopped in the doorway and peered in.

Mark was sitting on the floor near the wall and was in the process of wrapping his karate trophies in bubble wrap. He had changed out of his suit and was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt. I couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate how good the shirt looked stretched across his broad shoulders, as well as the contrast of the white against his deep tan and the dark colors of his tattoos.

I pushed those thoughts to the side, however, as my eyes reached his face. He looked sad and was moving listlessly. As he finished one trophy, he pushed it to the side with a sigh and picked up another. His lips were moving as he absently sang along to the music of the night. He didn’t notice me walk into the office and stop only a few steps away. Knowing from past experience that my brother was not someone you wanted to sneak up on, I said softly, “Hey, little brother.”

He looked up, and as soon as he saw me, his eyes dropped to the black Movado watch I had bought him for his thirty-fifth birthday. The one I had bought to replace the one he had pawned for me in New York.

“What are you doing here?” he asked sounding irritated. “Thought you had a plane to catch”

Not the start I’d hoped for, but what did I expect?

“Forget about that,” I said, walking over to him. “Mark, I…”

“Forget it? What, are you crazy? Get going Meg. We’ve said what we needed to. Go home and take what you want.”

“What I want is right here,” I said softly.

He looked at me and shook his head. “Look, I’m glad you came by, because I’m sorry about being so rough on you earlier, but you need to take care of…”As he spoke he made to stand up.

Dropping to my knees in front of him so he wouldn’t get up, I put my hand on his arm.“That was my fault, Mark,” I told him. “I pushed you to tell me a lot, and then I… you were right. You deserve better than how I treated you with all this.”

“Megan, forget it, really. We can talk another time.” He pointed at the door. “Now let’s go. Call and say you’re running late, and I’ll get you to…”

He stopped as I shook my head. “I cancelled the plane Mark. We need to talk, and I’m not going to put my career in front of you.”

“Cancelled?” He sighed. “Look, I appreciate that, sis, I really do, but I’ve been thinking, and you know what? Maybe I as wrong.”

“No …”

“Let me finish. I was convinced, Megan. Convinced that you loved me and was just afraid, but I guess I was wrong, and I acted like an asshole because…” He looked away. “I just so wanted to be right.”

“You…”

“So get on the phone and get the plane back, or we’ll book you another one.”

“Mark…” I tried again, but he went on.

“I’ll take the L.A. job, and next weekend I’ll come see you and we can talk and….well, we can have a little fun, if you want, and…”

He stopped as I put my finger to his lips. Leaning forward, I put my arms around his shoulders, looked into his eyes and said softly, “Mark, I love you.”

His eyes widened. “You…”

I placed my lips to his ear and repeated it, “I love you, Mark.” I smiled after I said it; it felt so natural, as if I’d been saying it for years.

I pulled my head back, and as Mark looked at me, a slow smile spread across his face.“Really?” he asked. “I mean, not like your brother, like…”

“I love you the way you love me,” I gently kissed his lips. “In every way.”

I looked up and laughed as my badass brother started to blush.

“I love you, too, I…” he stopped.

“What?” I asked.

“But…?” Mark raised his eyebrows.

I laughed. “No buts, Mark. I played that game for years.” I drew him into my arms, and, as he hugged me back, I said quietly, “No buts, baby. Only love.”

Mark squeezed me tightly to him, and I sighed as I returned his embrace. My heart was pounding in my chest as I realized that I had finally said it! There was still a lot to talk about, but at least now…

“Meg,” Mark said, leaning away from me, “you sure you don’t want to try to call Walsh and…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You and I have a lot to talk about, and that comes first.”

Mark started to stand up.“Well, come on. We’ll get out of here, and go grab some dinner.”

I grabbed his arm, holding him down. “You know what? Let’s just stay right here. It’s nice and quiet and…” I shrugged. “Besides, I don’t want to go out. I’m not wearing any makeup, and my hair’s in a ponytail, and I’m…”

“The Megan I fell in love with,” he said. “Megan Decosta’s hot, but I always liked Megan Hanson better,” he winked. “That girl-next-door look always did it for me.”

“Oh, please, stop trying to be smooth,” I laughed. “Breathing does it for you, you dog.”

Mark laughed loudly and I smiled, enjoying seeing him happy.

“Anyway, what do you want to talk about?” he asked. “I’ll call the firm in Chicago and…”

I cut him off with a wave of my hand. I didn’t want to talk about that yet. There were still things I was unsure of. Shifting so that I was sitting cross-legged on the floor as he had been, I took his hands in mine.“Well I…” I shrugged. “When did you know you loved me? I mean, was it way back when we were younger, or was it Samantha?”

Mark looked down at my hands over his and thought for a moment.

“Well, when we were younger, I really thought that we would, I don’t know, run off together or something, but you didn’t seem to want to.” It was his turn to shrug. “But then you started having problems, and I was sick then, too, the Voice was running me, and then…” He shook his head. “You got really bad, and at that point, even though we were fooling around, I really loved you like a sister, one that I was always worried about. Then, after you got yourself together, I think those feelings started to grow again.”

“So there wasn’t one moment?” I asked.

“You know, now that you bring it up, there was. It was…”

“The night we had sex for the first time after Samantha?” I asked.

“Close,” Mark said, nodding. “But it was a couple of nights after that. We had gone out to dinner, then, of course, come back and messed around. I woke up and had to use the bathroom. I came back and was going to get back into bed when I found myself looking at you.” He smiled and looked past me; his eyes had a distant look to them, as if he were envisioning what he was saying.“The black sheet was pulled up to your shoulder and the candles were lit.” Reaching out, he touched my shoulder. “Your skin looked amazing and your long, black hair was fanned across the pillow.” He shook his head. “But your face, you looked so peaceful,” he sighed. “So beautiful.”

“And not just beautiful, but you were happy, healthy and successful. The real Megan, the one I always knew was there.’

“Well, while I was watching you, I noticed that you push your lips out when you sleep, like you’re pouting.” He laughed softly. “I never could resist that pout.”

“So I leaned forward and I gave you just a little kiss.” With a grin, he leaned forward and kissed me lightly, his lips barely grazing mine. “And you opened those gorgeous eyes of yours.” He smiled again at the memory. “Only part-way though, and you whispered, ‘Little brother, are you looking for more?”

“Well, you always were!” I laughed.

“Can you blame me? Anyway, you were more asleep then awake, and you looked adorable. I told you no, and you asked what I wanted, and I just smiled and said, ‘You.’” He once again got that faraway look in his eyes as he continued. “And you just gave me this huge smile; you know that classic kind of lopsided smile of yours. And you put your arms out to me.’

“I slid onto the bed next to you, and I took you into my arms and pulled you close.” He smiled at the memory. “You nestled your face into my chest, and when I started playing with your hair, you sighed and just relaxed into me. I laid there, holding you, and I just…” he sighed. “Megan, nothing ever felt more right, and I knew that it was where we belonged, and I decided that I was going to tell you the next time I saw you. That didn’t work out the way it was supposed to, but that was when I knew for sure.”

“I…I love it!” I exclaimed. Shaking my head, I sighed. “Well, I’d like to tell you when I…well, it’s not when I knew for sure, because, honestly, I think part of me knew all those years ago. For me, it wasn’t knowing I loved you, but getting to the point that, like you, I was ready to admit it to myself and be able to tell you.”Reaching into my purse I pulled out the envelope I had brought from Mom’s.“Of course, you know with me, nothing’s easy, and,,,”

“Do tell,” Mark said, grinning.

I rolled my eyes and continued. “Well, when I went to stay at Mom’s, she said she had some old books, and one of them was my black journal.”

“Journal,” Mark frowned. “Damn, I thought you burned that thing.”

“Nope, I never did, and I’m glad I didn’t. So, anyway, I’ve been reading it.” I smiled ruefully. “All of it.”

“Oh, Megan.” Mark said softly.

“I had just finished reading how you found me in New York and all that you went through.” I took his hands again in mine. “You saved my life.”

“And you saved mine, at the group home and after Max,” Mark replied. “We’ve always helped each other. Always.”

“Well, when I was done, I found this.” As I spoke I unfolded the letter.

“What’s that?”

“This is the letter I wrote to say goodbye to you. The one you would have gotten if Tommy hadn’t called you.”

“Megan, don’t read that,” Mark shook his head. “You don’t need to relive that…”

“Just let me read it, okay? It’s important to me.”

He nodded, so, holding up the letter, I began.

“My beautiful little brother,

I’m sorry to have to say goodbye like this, and I hate that the last time I saw you ended so badly. Please try to understand that it had to be that way. I figured that if you hated me, you wouldn’t hunt me down, and that you would forget about me.

I know you think you hurt me the last time we were together. Please know that I never blamed you for that, I brought it on myself.

Please forgive me for leaving you. You always deserved better than me and the things that I put you through. Even though you may not believe me, I did try. I did the best I could for as long as I could, but just wasn’t strong enough. Never blame yourself, as you did everything that you could for me. Please don’t be sad, for me, this is not the end, but a new beginning. I have been dreaming of my forest. It’s waiting for me, and I can’t wait to get there. No more pain, little brother! Only peace!

This letter is not just a goodbye, but my last chance to say something that I was never able to.

Mark, I love you! I love you in every way, you were truly my everything! I fell in love with you on those amazing Saturday mornings in my bedroom, and I have been in love ever since. The night at Donatello’s was the best of my life, and in a perfect world, that would have been the beginning of our life together. But even back then, I was falling and did not want to bring you down with me. Seeing how successful you have been tells me that I did the right thing. You could have never achieved as much as you have with your disgrace of a sister weighing you down.

I have to go, Mark, but before I do, I want to ask one thing of you. Even though at the end I did everything I possibly could to get you to hate me, I hope that somehow you can find it within your heart to not hate me, but to remember me with love.

Goodbye, my brother, always know that your big sister loved you.”

I put the letter down, proud of myself for not breaking down as I read it. I looked up to see my brother had not fared as well. He had his head in his hands and was shaking his head.

“It’s okay, Mark,” I told him, reaching out and pulling his hands from his face. “It’s a good thing!”

“Nothing about that time was good,” he answered as he wiped his eyes.

“Well, no,” I agreed, “but reading that an hour ago, and knowing what I was ready to do after I wrote it, made me realize that I’d always loved you, and you deserve to hear me say it. Besides, reading the end of the journal brought back something else I’d forgotten.”

“Which was?”

“Well, when I was in rehab, I started another journal and I remember at the end writing in it that I loved you and maybe now that I was better, something could come of it.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

“The same reason I didn’t before, I mean, you had made junior partner. You were making great money, and as for women?” I laughed. “Hell, Mark, you had a nineteen-year-old psychology student living with you!”

“Yeah, but that was just a game. She meant…”

“It was more than that. Thing was, here I was just out of rehab, living with the folks and back to working at Sears. I was totally starting over, and you had already accomplished so much.” I put my hands out. “I was back to thinking I just wasn’t your equal.”

“You have never not been my equal,” Mark said. “Things like money and jobs don’t…”

“They didn’t matter to you because you were the successful one. It mattered to me because I had nothing. I ended up playing a game with myself. I said I would give it a year, prove I could stay clean, get a better job and start painting again.” I sighed. “Then I figured we could talk after I proved that I could be a true partner.”

“Then what happened?” Mark asked. “I mean, you did those things and…” he trailed off.

“Well, in the interim, we would play, but you were into others, and that whole bad boy attorney image was coming out. You had the press eating up every wild thing you did, and I started to think, what would happen if we got caught? You had more to lose than ever.”

As Mark shook his head, I continued.

“Once, I thought about talking to you, and I went over to surprise you. You were in the shower, and some gorgeous redhead answers, not one of your little tweens, but, I mean, high class and built like a brick shithouse. I ended up leaving. Couple of days later, Betty comes by and brings up Chicago.” I paused as it began to dawn on me how full-circle some of this was becoming.

“I didn’t like the idea at first, and then I ran into those guys outside the store I told you about, and I just decided it was time for a new start.” Leaning forward, I took Mark’s hand in mine again. “Thing was, Mark, I told myself I was running from painful memories like that. Rhode Island’s a small state, and God only knew how many guys would remember me, and…” I shook my head to clear those unwanted thoughts.“But besides that, what I was running from was us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it used to kill me to know I couldn’t have you, well, for more than a little while at a time anyway. In fact, some of that pain was the reason I would drink. Now, here we were again, and I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I ran. I figured distance would help me forget about how I wanted us to be together. You would flourish, I could start over, and we could still have fun when we visited. Once I got down there, I got so caught up in everything that I really started to believe my past was all I was escaping from.” I sighed.

“Then, Saturday came, and you said what I’d always wanted to hear, and somewhere in the back of my head, I guess I had convinced myself that I had forgotten that I had always felt the same way.”Squeezing his hand, I looked at him and said, “I…I know it all sounds stupid Mark, but it’s how I felt, and then I just started pushing a lot from my mind and…”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Mark said, smiling. “Things happen as they were meant to. We wouldn’t have worked as kids, and I think that maybe I still saw you as my sister that I needed to watch out for when you first got clean.”

“So you think I…I did the right thing?” I asked. “You were so upset earlier, saying I left you and…”

“I was upset earlier, and I did miss you, but it came out wrong.” He put his other hand over mine. “But over the last five years, you’ve grown into a hell of a woman, your own life, a great career, you wouldn’t have done that here.” Looking into my eyes, he added, “Seriously Megan, we needed that time to see how much we needed each other. It all happened, not as we wanted it, but how it was meant to.”

Leaning forward, he kissed me, then he sat back and smiled softly.

“So tell you what, no more of the past for either of us. Like Milton said, ‘Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.’” Nodding, Mark kissed me again, then continued. “You’re my light, Megan, and I’m yours. Time to think about the future. From now on, only forward, never backwards.”

“I like that.”

“Good,” Mark nodded. “And speaking of the future, I’ll call Bloch and Price tomorrow and tell them that they just hired the best attorney on the east coast.”

“If you do say so yourself,” I told him.

“Well, somebody has to,” he said, shrugging. “Anyway, I already told Jim I was out in a couple of weeks, and I figure I can be down to Chicago by the end of next week.” He gave me a huge smile.

Letting his hand go, I took a deep breath as I felt those same nagging doubts creep in. I loved Mark, of that, there was now no doubt. Yet nothing else had changed, there was still so much for him to lose and…

“What’s the matter Meg?” Mark asked as he saw me thinking.

“Nothing I…” I paused, not wanting to ruin the moment.

“Please tell me, after that big ‘I love you,’ that you’re not going to start ‘butting’ me to death again.”

“No, baby,” I began quietly. “I…I want us to be together, it’s…” I sighed. “There are things to worry about, that’s all. I mean, I know we’re the most important thing, but still.”

“Look, Megan,” he began. “I know there are things you’re worried about, and I know some of them. I didn’t want to say much, because if you didn’t love me, then there was no point in arguing.” He put his hand up. “So let’s go over this.”

Putting one finger up, he began.

“Our careers. Face it Meg, your paintings would sell for more. “Those sick bastards would pay more, knowing the queen of the night is involved in a forbidden relationship. It makes you even more of the real deal in their eyes.”

lovecraft68
lovecraft68
21,836 Followers