Chapter 5: Brotherly love
The drive to Brad’s felt longer than it was. Julie gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white, rehearsing speeches in her head that now sounded hollow and stupid. You’re killing her, Brad. You have to try. What about counseling? Remember how you used to look at her?
His house, when she pulled up, was a monument to success and solitude. All sharp angles and glass, reflecting the overcast sky. It looked like a museum after hours.
He answered the door holding a highball glass, already dressed in that uniform of soft sweatpants and a tight Henley that did nothing to hide his athlete’s frame. He looked surprised, then wary. “Julie. This is a first.”
“Can I come in?”
He stepped back with a shrug. “Sure. Sanctuary is open.”
The interior was all cool tones and expansive space. It was impeccably clean and utterly lifeless. No throw blankets, no stray books, no half-empty coffee mugs. Just a stark, beautiful shell.
“Drink?” he asked, already moving towards the open-plan kitchen and its sleek bar.
“It’s ten-thirty, Brad.”
“And it’s Saturday somewhere,” he said, the cliché rolling off his tongue with practiced ease. He poured two fingers of an amber whisky into a fresh glass, pushed it toward her on the marble counter. “You’re here about Meg.”
She took the glass, the weight of it solid in her hand. “I’m here about both of you.”
He laughed, a short, dry sound. “Let me guess. I’m the villain. Distant. Neglectful. Married to my work. She’s sent you as her envoy.”
“She didn’t send me. I came because I love her, and I’m watching her fade away.” Julie took a sip, the whisky burning a trail down her throat. “And because, for some stupid reason, I still give a shit about you, too.”
That gave him pause. He studied his glass. “She’s not fading. She’s fine. We’re in a rut. It happens.”
“A rut?” Julie set her glass down too hard. “Brad, she’s sad. All the time. You barely look at her. When was the last time you two… connected?”
His eyes flicked to hers, a flash of something—irritation, maybe shame—before going flat again. “We’re adults. Life isn’t a romance novel, Jules. There are bills. There’s the business. There’s silence. It’s comfortable.”
“It’s empty.”
“What do you want me to do?” The question wasn’t a plea; it was a challenge.
“Talk to her! Fight for her! Take her on a goddamn date! Remember what it was like before all… this.” She gestured around the sterile room.
He drained his glass, refilled it. The bottle was a quarter gone already. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why?”
He was quiet for a long time, just swirling the liquid, watching it coat the sides of the glass. “Because I don’t know what to say anymore. Every word feels like a potential landmine. So I say nothing. It’s easier.”
The raw, quiet admission deflated her anger. This wasn’t a monster. This was her brother, a man who’d built a fortress around himself and forgotten where the door was. She moved to the living room, sinking into a massive, uncomfortable-looking sofa. He followed, sitting at the opposite end, a full cushion between them.
They talked. Or, he talked, loosened by the third drink. He spoke about work pressures, about the alien landscape of his own marriage, about the confusing inertia that had settled over his life. He didn’t cry—Brad never cried—but his voice grew thick, his confessions punctuated by long swallows of whisky.
Julie matched him drink for drink, the alcohol blurring the sharp edges of her mission, softening him from a problem to be solved into a person who was just… lost. The sky outside darkened prematurely with impending rain.
“I should go,” she said eventually, the words slurring slightly. She made no move to stand.
“Don’t drive,” he said, his head lolling back against the cushions. “Storm’s coming. Guest room’s made up. Always is.” He barked another humorless laugh. “Just in case.”
The rain arrived, a sudden torrent hammering the floor-to-ceiling windows, sheeting the world into a blurry, blue-grey painting. It sealed them in.
“Movie?” he suggested, fumbling for the remote. “Drown out the weather.”
She just nodded, curling her legs up under her, feeling unmoored and heavy. He found some vintage action film, all machismo and explosions. The meaningless noise filled the room. The whisky bottle, now half-empty, sat on the coffee table between them like a shared accomplice.
Somewhere in the second act, her head grew too heavy to hold up. She slid down, resting it on a throw pillow. Then, without thinking, she shifted, laying her head on his lap. It was a sisterly gesture, born of alcohol and a decade of familiarity. He stiffened for a second, then relaxed, his hand coming to rest awkwardly on her shoulder.
On screen, cars chased each other. Rain lashed the glass.
“Brad?” she murmured, her eyes closed.
“Hmm?”
“When was the last time? With Meg?”
His hand went still on her shoulder. The question hung in the dark room, more intimate than her head in his lap. The false camaraderie of the booze evaporated, leaving something naked and dangerous.
He didn’t answer for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep or ignored her.
“Fourteen months,” he finally said, the words quiet and stark against the movie’s soundtrack. “Maybe fifteen. I stopped counting.”
The number was a physical thing in the room. A presence. Julie felt a pang of profound sorrow, for Meg, for him, for the sheer, lonely waste of it.
She adjusted her head, turning her face slightly. And then she felt it.
Through the soft fabric of his sweatpants, against her cheek, the firm, unmistakable swell of an erection.
Her breath caught. His hand on her shoulder tightened, then snatched away as if burned.
“Sorry,” he grunted, shifting his hips back, a flush of shame radiating from him. “That’s… ignore that. The whisky. Doesn’t mean anything.”
But it did. In the silence of this empty house, with fourteen months of confession hanging in the air, it meant everything. It was a basic, animal response to proximity, to touch, to a woman’s voice in the stillness. It was a sign of life in a man who claimed to be comfortable with emptiness.
Julie didn’t move. The rain drummed. The blue light from the television played over their frozen forms. She could hear his heart pounding where her ear pressed against his thigh. The heat of him was immense.
Her own pulse was a frantic echo. A chaotic spiral of thoughts: This is your brother. This is wrong. He’s hurting. Meg is with Chris. Everyone is so lonely.
She didn’t lift her head. Instead, slowly, deliberately, she turned her face back, pressing her cheek fully against the hard ridge in his sweats. A direct, silent acknowledgment.
He sucked in a sharp, shaky breath.
His hand returned, not to her shoulder, but to her hair. His fingers tangled in it, tentative at first, then grasping. Not pushing, not pulling. Just holding on, as if she were the only solid thing in a spinning room.
They stayed like that for the rest of the movie, not moving, not speaking, while on screen, the world exploded in meaningless, spectacular fire.
The credits rolled, casting shifting white light across their stillness. The only sounds were the rain’s relentless whisper and the low hum of the electronics.
Brad’s hand remained knotted in her hair, his breathing shallow. Julie listened to the ragged rhythm of it. Fourteen months. The number echoed, a tombstone in a silent field. She thought of Meg at dawn, wearing Chris’s t-shirt, the unspoken thing that had hung in that kitchen air now making a terrible, twisted sense.
“The movie’s over,” she said, her voice muffled against his thigh.
“I know.” He didn’t move. His other hand came to rest on the crown of her head, a weight that was neither an invitation nor a dismissal. It was a confession all its own.
Julie shifted, pushing herself up on one elbow. The room tilted gently, a soft whiskey spin. She looked up at him. In the erratic light, his face was all harsh angles and deep shadows, his eyes black pools. He looked like a man staring down a cliff edge.
“Brad…” It wasn’t a protest. It was just a name, filled with too many things—a decade of family barbecues, his neglect of her sister, this profound, stupid loneliness they were suddenly sharing.
He cupped her cheek. His thumb stroked the arch of her cheekbone, a gesture so unexpectedly tender it made her throat tighten. “You should go to bed, Jules. The guest room.”
She turned her face into his palm. Her lips brushed the calloused skin of his lifeline. “I don’t want to go to bed.”
A shudder went through him. The conflict in his eyes was a physical war. “This is a Category Five bad idea.”
“Probably.” She didn’t look away. “Tell me to stop.”
He didn’t. He just watched her, his chest rising and falling, the hard line of his jaw clenched tight.
Julie moved. It was neither graceful nor slow. It was the clumsy, decisive action of a drunk person committing to a leap. She swung a leg over his lap, straddling him, sinking down until they were eye to eye in the eerie blue glow. The faded softness of his sweatpants was between them, and the firm heat of his erection pressed against her. He groaned, a raw, torn sound from deep in his chest, and his hands flew to her hips, fingers digging in.
“Julie.” Her name was a warning and a prayer.
“Shut up, Brad.”
She kissed him. It wasn't sweet. It was a collision of whiskey and salt and thirteen years of being in-laws. His lips were chapped. He tasted like regret and single malt. For a second, he was rigid, frozen in some final allegiance to a failing marriage. Then he broke. His mouth opened under hers, hungry and desperate, and one hand speared into her hair, holding her fast.
He kissed like a drowning man. Like he was trying to consume her, to pull her into himself and block out the world. It was all tongue and teeth and a low, continuous groan vibrating through his body into hers. She matched his desperation, her fingers scrabbling at the hem of his Henley, rucking it up over the hard planes of his stomach.
He broke the kiss, gasping. “We can’t. Meg. Chris. God, what are we doing?”
“Something real,” she breathed against his mouth, her hands sliding up his bare sides, feeling the muscle corded tight with tension. “For once. Just something that isn’t dead.”
His resolve shattered. He yanked her shirt over her head in one rough motion. The cool air raised goosebumps on her skin. He just stared, his gaze hot and wrecked, tracing the lines of her bra, the slope of her shoulders. “You’re beautiful,” he said, the words awed and miserable.
“Don’t.” She didn’t want poetry. She wanted the obliterating noise of this. She reached between them.
SHE TOUCHES HIM.
Her palm pressed over the thick outline of him through the fabric. He jerked against her hand, a sharp, involuntary thrust, and cried out, burying his face in the crook of her neck. His breath was scalding. She stroked him, learning his shape, her own pulse hammering in her ears, louder than the rain.
“Please,” he gasped into her skin, the word mangled.
She fumbled with the drawstring of his sweats, her fingers clumsy. He helped, shoving the fabric down just enough. He sprang free, hot and heavy in her hand. The feel of him, solid and velvet-soft, made her dizzy. This was her brother. This was Brad. And in this dark, rain-locked moment, he was just a man, and she was the first touch he’d felt in over a year.
His whole body trembled. He was muttering into her neck, a stream of broken words. “Oh, god… Julie… I can’t believe… don’t stop.”
She didn’t. She moved her hand, a slow, firm stroke that pulled a ragged moan from deep in his lungs. His hips pistoned, meeting her rhythm. He was already close, tension coiling tight in the muscles of his thighs beneath her. The precipitous edge of his need was terrifying and exhilarating.
The precipitous edge of his need was terrifying and exhilarating. She could feel the control shredding off him, a decade of strained politeness and brotherly distance vaporizing under her palm.
“Stop,” he choked out, but his hips arched up, betraying him.
“You don’t mean that.” Her voice was low, almost calm, a contrast to the storm in the room and the one in his pants. She tightened her grip, a slow, punishing stroke that made his eyes roll back.
“Julie, god, I’m gonna—” His warning was a raw scrape in his throat.
“Then do it.” She didn’t let go. She watched his face, watched the agony of pleasure twist his features, watched him come completely apart beneath her. He shattered with a muted cry, his body bowing off the couch, his fingers leaving bruises on her hips as he spilled hot over her hand and his own stomach.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the rain. He went boneless, his head lolling back, eyes shut tight. A flush bloomed across his chest. Shame, or satisfaction, or both, settled over him like ash.
She looked at the mess on her hand, glistening in the TV’s light. The reality of it, the stark biology, cut through the whiskey haze. She wiped her hand slowly on the thigh of his discarded sweats, the gesture intimate and crude.
“Fuck,” he whispered, not looking at her. A statement, not an invitation.
“Yeah.” She shifted, meaning to get off his lap, but his hands clamped back on her hips, holding her in place. His eyes opened. They were dark, clearer now, and full of something dangerous that the quick release hadn’t purged.
“That’s not how this ends,” he said. His voice had changed, shedding its shattered quality for something harder, more focused.
“Brad—”
“You asked when the last time was.” He moved then, a sudden eruption of motion, flipping her off his lap and onto her back on the wide cushions. He loomed over her, bracing himself on one arm, his body a cage. “You wanted to know what was missing. You wanted something real.”
She stared up at him, heart hammering against her ribs. This wasn’t the lost man from ten minutes ago. This was someone else, someone she’d only glimpsed in his boardroom stories.
“You’re drunk,” she said, but it was a weak protest.
“I’m sobering up fast.” He hooked a finger in the waistband of her jeans, popping the button. “And you’re still here.”
He yanked her jeans and underwear down in one rough pull. The cold air hit her skin, then the heat of his calloused hands on her thighs, pushing them apart. There was no romance in it, no tender exploration. It was an assessment.
“Please,” she heard herself say, and she didn’t know what she was asking for.
He didn’t either. Or he chose to interpret it his way. He rolled off her, stood up in a fluid motion, and dragged her to the edge of the couch by her ankles. Her shoulder blades hit the floor. The world was upside down—the rain-streaked windows, the high ceiling, his face above her, grim and determined.
“Turn over.” It wasn’t a request.
Her body complied before her mind could formulate a refusal. She pushed herself up, knees sinking into the plush rug, and bent over the low, firm arm of the sofa. The leather was cool against her cheek. She heard the rustle of his sweats being kicked away completely.
He didn’t touch her with anything resembling gentleness. His hand smoothed over the curve of her ass, once, almost thoughtful. Then he positioned himself.
There was no more preamble. He pushed into her, hard and without ceremony. She cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the room. She was tight, unprepared, and the stretch was a bright, shocking pain. He didn’t pause, didn’t check in. He buried himself to the hilt with a guttural groan that seemed torn from his core.
“Fourteen months,” he hissed, the words hot against her ear as he leaned over her, his chest damp against her back. He pulled out almost all the way and slammed back in. The force drove her forward, her ribs compressing against the couch arm. “You feel that? That’s fourteen months.”
He set a brutal, driving rhythm. This wasn’t making love. It was an exorcism. Every thrust was a punishment—for Meg’s distance, for his own silence, for the pristine, empty prison of this house. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity that erased everything else.
She gasped, clawing at the leather. Pain melted into a deep, radiating friction, a fulcrum of sensation that tipped her own body into a startling, unwelcome response. Her own pleasure rose, a traitorous wave building against the current of his anger.
“You wanted real?” he grunted, his breath coming in harsh gusts. “This is what’s real. This is what was in my head every fucking time we sat at your kitchen table for Sunday dinner.”
The admission was more invasive than his body. She saw it then, the fantasy he’d nursed, a secret corrosion beneath all those years of casual hugs and sibling rivalry. It fueled him, this long-buried wrongness, and he poured all of it into her.
Her body tightened, coiling toward a climax that felt like a violation in itself. He felt it, his rhythm faltering for a second.
“Yeah,” he snarled, gripping her hips harder, his fingers sure to leave marks. “Go on, Jules. Since we’re being real.”
The permission, voiced like a curse, broke her. She came with a choked sob, her body convulsing around him, the pleasure sharp and guilty. It triggered his own end. With three final, shuddering thrusts, he stilled, collapsing his weight onto her back as he emptied into her with a long, broken sigh.
The rain had softened to a drizzle. The only sounds were their struggling lungs and the low hum of the muted television. He stayed inside her, his weight pinning her to the couch arm, his face buried in her hair.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The taste of whiskey had gone sour in her mouth. The cool leather against her cheek. The aching throb between her legs.
He pulled out, the separation visceral and cold. He didn’t look at her as he stepped back. She heard him pad away, then the sound of running water from the kitchen sink.
Julie pushed herself up, her limbs shaky. She pulled her jeans up over her sticky skin, the denim abrasive. She couldn’t find her shirt. She just stood there, in the middle of his perfect living room, feeling the physical evidence of him trickle down her thigh.
Brad returned, a towel in his hands. He’d put his sweats back on. He didn’t offer her the towel. He just held it out, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere over her shoulder. His face was a closed door again.
She took it.
“Guest room’s down the hall,” he said, his voice flat, emptied of everything. “Lock the door if you want.”
He turned and walked up the stairs, leaving her alone in the blue glow, the ghost of his weight still pressing her into the leather.