Alone Together

01

TRIGGER WARNING: mention of domestic violence

Rowan Warner

I should have known the minute I stepped into the backyard it would be an interrogation.

I wasn't left with much of a choice. If I canceled on my mom's family cookout, she would've sent one of my brothers over to my apartment to drag me here. She didn't take last minute canceling lightly.

So either way, I would have ended up standing in front of my family with a bruised face as my mom shot questions at me and my niece and nephew tried climbing up my legs.

"Rowan!" Mom exclaimed, putting down a platter and rushing over to me as I bent down to be eye level with the kids. "What happened to your face? Where did you get that bruise? Have you iced it?"

I hugged my niece and nephew, who I hadn't seen for over a month. I hadn't seen most of my family in about a month. That was when things started getting really bad and I couldn't let any of them see me like that. Until now.

"Ma, I'm fine," I told her, standing up to my full height. She gripped my face and brought it level with hers, eyeing my bruise like she would be able to make it go away with just a glance.

"This looks bad, Rowan," she said, shaking her head. "What happened?"

"I was... hanging some stuff up at the apartment, smacked my face real good," I told her. A lie. And by the look on her face, she knew it.

"He's fine, Gem," Dad spoke up from where he stood at the grill. "We get bruises like that all the time at the shop. It's nothing."

"Rowan doesn't work at the shop, he works at a bank."

Dad rolled his eyes at that.

It wasn't like I could work at the family business even if I wanted to, which I didn't. The only ones who worked there at the moment where my older brothers Dean and Adam and the youngest, Cade. The oldest siblings, the twins, Charlie and Camilla, tried to work there for a while, but working for our father was hell.

Dad owned a small auto shop that everyone in town went to when they were having car trouble. He knew everybody in our town and that was good for business. As soon as Charlie and Camilla were old enough to work, he had them in the shop. Neither of them lasted long. Camilla hated working on cars and Charlie hated working for Dad.

Dad had to wait four more years until Dean was old enough to work for him and then another two for Adam. By the time it was my turn, I had shown such disinterest that Dad hadn't even bothered to teach me anything about cars and forced me to work in the office. It was hell and I got out of there as soon as possible.

My youngest brother, Cade, was only a senior in high school but he was already working for Dad, and from what I heard, he was planning on staying.

"Mom, seriously, I'm fine," I assured her, though she looked like she didn't believe me.

"Okay," she relented, taking her hands away from my face. "Where's Brendan? He's not coming?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that not only had Brendan been the one to put the bruise on my face, and every other bruise on my body, but I had broken up with him and now had no idea where I was going to live.

"He's busy. He can't make it," I told her with a strained smile before walking over to where the rest of my family, and Graham Beckett, sat.

Graham Beckett. My brother Adam's best friend and honorary member of the Warner family. My parents had practically adopted him when we were kids since he was over our house all the time. With his parents always fighting, and eventually his father leaving his mother to take care of their son all by herself, Graham spent a lot of time across the street at our house. He even got welcomed into the family business and worked for my dad along with Adam, Dean, and Cade.