I couldn’t go any farther, and I was cracked wide open again. I couldn’t keep the sobs to myself anymore.

Reese sat beside me, his feet coming around both sides of me. His arms slipped under me and he scooped me up, pulling me onto his lap. So simple a movement, but it meant so much to me. He cradled me, his hand smoothing back some of my hair.

“Was he a good guy?”

I grabbed his shirt, fisting it. “He was the best kind of guy there was.”

He got it. A small weight lifted. He understood. The dementia wasn’t Damian. The disease didn’t define who he was. So many didn’t see that. They just saw the disease. And if they couldn’t see the disease, they didn’t think it existed.

Reese’s arms closed around me, his forehead resting on my shoulder for a moment. “I wish my brother—I get you. I get what you went through, but Damian didn’t want to suffocate you.”

“No.” I sniffled. “He did at the end. He couldn’t help it. He was too far gone, too much in denial of what was happening to him.”

“My brother thinks I owe him. My lifestyle should be his. Hell. He kinda looks like me, so he tells people he is me, and he gets all this treatment because of it. Penthouse suites. Comped meals at restaurants. He tries to get free shit. Women. I’ve had so many women claim I got them pregnant; then they realize it was my brother who fucked them, and suddenly, it was a false positive.” His voice was laced with disdain. “He was using my name at a club, and a girl thought she was going to sleep with me. She found out during the act that he wasn’t me. She tried to say no. He didn’t stop. He just…” His arms tightened around me. His voice was anguished. “Didn’t stop.”

I felt hollow at times. I recognized the same in him.

I felt it, and I understood.

Letting go of my sleeves, I slid my hands over his arms, moving to face him. I twisted around, my forehead pressed into his shoulder as I tried to grip him back.

I wanted to soothe his pain, to shield him from the harm his brother could do, to take away the damage his brother had already done. I knew in that instant that these were the same feelings I’d had for Damian, all over again.

But this was different, because Reese didn’t need me to breathe for him.

I just needed to sit alongside him.

He could breathe on his own.

After a beat, I lifted my head. “I know why we’re friends.”

He grunted, sliding his hand up my back, curling it around my shoulder. “Please, enlighten me. This should be good.”