Page 33 of Keeping Secrets

"He’s going to be okay, I think."

"What happened?"

"I’m not sure. I guess he cracked his head on the kitchen counter, but I don’t know how. Travis found him. He’s a wreck." He slumped onto the couch near Chloe, and she ran a hand through his hair.

Keely hovered nervously in the doorway of the living room, wanting to support her brother but not wanting to intrude. Neither of them seemed to notice her standing here, so after a moment she turned and walked into the kitchen. Her three ice cream cakes were stacked precariously in the freezer, and she carefully took them out and set them on the counter.

She knew now why Travis hadn’t shown.

She wondered if the entirety of his strangeness lately could be traced back to his worry for Scot. The owner of the Bottlenose had become a father figure to Travis. Here she had been so self-focused that she had wondered time and again why Travis was ignoring her, when really he was worried about Scot’s deteriorating health. She felt like a heel.

"I feel like I let him down," Nick said in the next room.

"Scot?" Chloe asked. "Or Travis?"

"Both."

They continued speaking, their voices too low for Keely to make out their words. She shook herself out of her daze. She shouldn’t even be trying to eavesdrop. She was just worried. But she had other things to think about. She lifted the cakes and carried them through the living room.

"I can take these up," she said in passing. "You guys don’t have to come back if you don’t want to."

"No," Nick said, standing up. "I should at least stop by." He looked down at Chloe. "Do you want to come, or would you rather rest?"

"I want to try all three of those ice cream cakes," she said in a transparent effort to bring some levity back into the room. She held her hands out to Nick, who helped her up off of the couch. "We can go for a bit longer, and then we’ll come home and rest."

"Sounds good."

"I just need to pee. For the umpteenth time today. Somebody is tap dancing on my bladder." She hurried down the hall, and Nick turned to his sister with a tired smile.

"How are you holding up?"

She waved the question away. "I’m fine. Are you okay?"

His smile fell, and the lines of worry around his eyes etched themselves a bit deeper. "I think I really let Travis down. He needed me, but…" He glanced down the hall and continued quietly, "I’ve been so caught up in my new relationship that I’ve let everyone else fall to the wayside."

"Not me."

"You don’t feel abandoned?"

"Me?" She laughed. "You found me a house two blocks away."

"I guess I did, huh?" He smiled weakly.

"Travis has been going through it lately, but he’s going to be okay." The words were as much for her benefit as his.

“I just feel like I should’ve checked in more often. Things must’ve been worsening with Scot for a while. Travis has obviously been in a funk.”

“He started seeming kind of distant, almost out of nowhere, and I was wondering what happened, but this makes sense of it.”

“It did start kind of suddenly,” Nick said, nodding slowly. “I wonder if there was some incident with Scot before this that he never told me about. Or-” He cut off, eyes widening for a brief moment before he turned away.

“What?” Keely asked, cocking her head as he turned back.

“Nothing. I guess I’ll have to ask him about it,” Nick said, but his expression was distant now, like his mind was elsewhere.

Chloe reappeared before she could press, and they loaded into the car to drive the short distance back to the fundraiser.

When they got there, Chloe consolidated the remaining hors d’oeuvres onto a couple of platters, cleared the empty platters away, and dedicated one end of the table to the three cakes that she had made. Each one was covered with a glossy glaze that caught the light and shone. Beneath the glaze was soft frosting, decadent sponge cake, and local ice cream.