Date: 2022-05-24 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Contemporary; Romance
Description: Eliza English has grown up in the shadow of her two brothers, Will and Charlie. Protective, pigheaded and overwhelmed with the day-to-day of their co-owned bar, they get in the way of every romantic relationship she’s ever attempted. She would do anything for them. And for the bar. But lately, she wants more than a life grinding through every day with only her brothers to share her burdens. Lately the crush she’s had on her big brother’s best friend is demanding more and more attention. Jonah Mason has known the English siblings almost his whole life. Will is his best friend, practically famil

secrets we whisper in the moonlight

RACHEL HIGGINSON

contents

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Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Coming Next

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Teaser

1

2

Copyright@ Rachel Higginson 2022

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To Brittany, for your kind and generous

Belief in me. And for your friendship,

Which I treasure.

And to SJ, for giving me Tomorrow Sarah.

Little did you know, Too-Much-Wine Sarah

Would inspire a whole book.

one

I needed a manicure. And probably a pedicure if the way my socks caught against my heels was any indication of their state. I also needed to get back to the gym. It had been a long holiday season filled with parties and drinking and family, which led to emotional baking and more drinking, which somehow led to more eating, more drinking . . . And now that we were in the middle of January, I needed to get back into some semblance of a fitness routine.

I also needed a lobotomy.

Or maybe Charlie needed a lobotomy.

Maybe Ada and I could give him one together? Maybe we would be forced to give it to him if he didn’t stop talking.

“And that’s why I’m going off sugar,” Charlie said with a long-suffering sigh. “I think it’s . . .” He gestured toward his hair, which was longer than normal and more unwieldy. No Shave November had turned into a religion for him. He hadn’t had a haircut since October, and he looked one part adorable caveman, two parts terrifying Sasquatch. The sides of his head, which were usually shaved closely to the skin, had grown, and his hair was sticking straight out. And the top of his head, where he usually applied product in an effort to tame his unwieldy locks, was left to its own devices. “It’s messing with my brain waves.”

Ada looked up from where she was meticulously picking out the gunk that had built up under the bar pads and shot him a squinty glare. “Your brain waves?”

He managed to keep a straight face. Or, Lord help us, he actually believed what he was saying. “Have you ever noticed I have trouble concentrating? Or like . . . focusing on one thing at a time?”

Ada’s mouth dropped open slightly, but no sound came out. All sarcasm with a heavy dose of cynicism, she was a hard nut to crack. And even if you were one of the few allowed in her inner sanctum of trust, she still didn’t open up. Like ever.

She was like the most beautiful locked box on earth. A little shorter than I was, incredibly petite, and toned. She had not fallen off the workout wagon. She treated her Muay Thai classes like therapy, and her cut biceps and six-pack reflected this. Although you might not be able to immediately tell she was a badass by her delicate facial features. She tried to make up for how pretty she was with a pixie cut that she’d dyed peacock blue three months ago . . . but honestly, she looked more model-like and less of a killer than ever.

Still, as hard as it was to get her to share her feelings or thoughts or . . . anything but her very strong opinions, it was even harder to silence her completely. But Charlie had somehow managed to leave her speechless. There was no offhand remark. No cutting comeback. For Charlie to have said something that produced only a glassy-eyed stare of confusion was a real and true accomplishment.

I was less willing to hold my tongue. Because how could we have not noticed that he struggled to stay focused? Unfocused was his typical setting. “I’ve noticed,” I said. “We’ve all noticed.”

Charlie snapped aggressively in my direction. “Exactly.”

“And you think it’s because you eat refined sugars?” Ada asked slowly. Either she was surprised by his sudden self-awareness or as shocked at his seemingly researched hypothesis as I was. In short, this wasn’t a typical Charlie conversation. He’d managed to catch us both by surprise when he suddenly looked up from the stacks of glasses he was inventorying and launched into a three-point speech about New Year’s resolutions and life choices.

All we were missing was a poorly edited PowerPoint.

“I’m just saying it could be,” he said, a little cowed by her snarky tone. “I feel like it’s worth a shot at least.”

“Okay, wait,” I said, finally finding a way to ask questions without insulting him. “You’re going to cut out all refined sugars and see if it helps you focus better?”

“Essentially, yes. Like a cleanse,” he said happily.

“For how long?” Ada demanded.

His head wobbled back and forth while his cheeks puffed out with a big breath. Then suddenly, the breath whooshed out of him, and his entire body seemed to deflate. “At least six months,” he answered somberly. “But maybe forever. I mean, if it works, why would I ever go back?”

Ada leaned forward, resting her elbow on the now gleaming bar and her chin in her hand. “If this works, I will personally make sure you never have refined sugars again.”

Charlie narrowed his green eyes on her. “What are you saying?”

Sensing a fight, I tried to redirect them. “You know beer is made with sugar.”

He cleared his throat and tried to recover his unassuming nature, which wasn’t as real as he wanted it to be. “Well, I mean, I haven’t done a ton of research into what I can and cannot eat yet . . . but I assumed as much.”

“Are you really going to give up beer, Charlie?” My tone sounded harsher than I meant it to. I was just surprised. Charlie loved beer. And not just the light stuff. He wanted milk stouts and cloudy IPAs. He was obsessed with all sours and hard-to-find unicorn beers. He went on road trips by himself for certain releases. Once, he even flew to California and camped outside all night for a special release, only to have to buy it for triple the price secondhand.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. Which was such a typical Charlie response that my brain pulsed with an instant headache. “You underestimate me, sis. Besides, they make gluten-free beer. I’ll still be able to drink it. I’ll just have to step away from some of it.”

I knew for a fact they weren’t making special flavors of gluten-free beer that tasted like Bananas Foster or s’mores over a campfire. But he was right. I was majorly underestimating him. And that wasn’t fair.

Even if Ada and I knew how doomed to fail he was, we didn’t have to make him feel like shit about it. At the very least, we could save our “I told you so’s” for when he inevitably gave up on this crazy idea and went back to his regular life of expensive but good beer, forgetting what he was doing while he was in the middle of doing it, and being as unreliable as we knew—and loved him for it anyway—him to be.

Ada seemed to have twin thoughts. “It sounds hard, Charlie. But I think it’s cool you’re willing to try.”

“You got this, Charlie,” I echoed. “And if you need me to store all your good beer so it won’t be a temptation, I can. And I probably won’t drink more than . . . half of it.”

He grinned at my offer. “How about this, Eliza? We can swap whiskey for beer? You give me all your good whiskey because I can actually drink it. And I’ll give you all my beer. We’ll call it an even trade.”

It was my turn to narrow my eyes into slits. “First of all, dollar for dollar, that is a terrible trade. My whiskey collection is worth at least four times what all your beer cost.” That was true not only because my bottles of whiskey way outpriced his cans and crowlers of beer, but because he barely had a collection. It was hard to build a vault when you drank it almost as soon as you got it. “Second of all, hell no. Never. You won’t even get it after I’m dead. I’m going to be buried with it. In a giant mausoleum. Like an Egyptian goddess with all her jewels.”

Ada snorted. “You’re insane.”

Charlie turned to face her. “She’s dead serious.”

The front door opened, letting in a cold gust of January air. It was well before opening, but it wasn’t a customer. Jonah Mason walked in with a bottle in his hands and a smile on his lips.

“Who’s dead serious?” he asked, wasting no time jumping into our conversation. Which was so Jonah.

A flush of embarrassment heated my cheeks. It was so stupid and so out of place. I’d known Jonah my entire life, and he was well acquainted with my whiskey obsession. Still, it took everything in me not to throw my hand over Charlie’s mouth the second he started filling Jonah in.

“Eliza with her million-dollar whiskey collection.”

“It’s not worth a million dollars,” I added sternly. Everyone who knew me and took home similar salaries from our thriving but small bar knew that.

“Not yet,” Ada teased with a wink.

Her comment made me smile and forget the temporary insanity I always experienced whenever Jonah walked into the room. In my defense, he was unfairly handsome with dark, longish hair that had just enough body to make it curl in spots. And he constantly and very annoyingly pushed it behind his ears in this bashful way that made most women’s knees weak. Like he knew he had great hair but was also embarrassed by just how great his hair was. See? Obnoxious.

The humble arrogance was somehow endearing and adorable all at once. And no matter how annoyed I seemed to get with him, I was also always equally bewitched.

And then there was his face. His freaking face. His nose was slightly curved from where my eldest brother, Will, had slammed his elbow into it and broken it during a middle school pickup basketball game. And a scar through his left eyebrow from when Charlie had chucked a throwing star at him in high school. A joke gone very wrong. And then there was that crooked incisor he’d never gotten fixed because his mom had never been able to afford dental care. He hid it behind close-lipped smiles and his tongue in a sort of nervous tic. But it was all just a part of his charm. The crooked tooth was the furthest thing from an imperfection. If anything, it only highlighted just how perfect the rest of his face was. And then there were his eyes. A murky blue-gray that was sometimes more gray-blue, sometimes all steely gray, and sometimes nothing but blue-blue. The kind of blue that hinted at thunderstorms and bad weather. A blue sky obscured by hazy fog. They were as mercurial as he could be, a constantly changing temperature that kept me mesmerized and guessing at what he was thinking.

And then there was his style. Currently, it was thirty-eight degrees outside, and he was wearing a long-sleeved brewery T-shirt, gray skater shorts, and leather flip-flops. He was a grown man who still hated to have his toes covered by shoes. He claimed shoes made him claustrophobic.

Irritating, right?

Or completely charming . . . depending on my mood.

He walked straight over to where I was sitting and thrust the bottle into my hands. “Brought you another one to add to your collection.”

I looked at the label. I already had it. I’d gotten up stupid early this morning to be the first one at my fav hole-in-the-wall liquor store that was all of ten feet by ten feet. The ancient proprietor knew everything there was to know about alcohol and always got the best shipments. He was even willing to sell it to you if he liked you.

We had gotten a couple bottles for the bar too, but I had wanted one just for me. Plus, I loved the hunt. And I didn’t mind paying retail when I knew I was supporting a worthy cause. The worthy cause being good, well-made whiskey.

But Jonah was so proud of himself, and I couldn’t let him down. “Are you serious?” I gushed. If for no other reason than I could now save one bottle and drink the other without feeling remorse. “Where did you find it?”

He waggled his eyebrows at me. “I have my ways.”

I stomped down the urge to throw my arms around his neck and give him a kiss on the cheek. It would have been totally platonic, but we weren’t those kinds of friends. Close friends, yes. But friends with clear boundaries, thanks to my obnoxious brothers and their constant running commentary on my personal life. And professional life, for that matter. They felt completely comfortable sharing their opinions on anything ranging from my style preferences to my dating choices. While my outfit of the day only seemed to bother them when I wore something too fashion-forward for their taste, their disapproval of my type of men appeared to be all-encompassing. They tolerated my friendship with Jonah. I could only imagine what a spontaneous kiss on the cheek would do to them. Or Jonah. They’d probably all keel over dead.

Adorable little sister, Eliza, was only okay as long as she was anything but feminine.

“Thank you,” I told him sincerely. “I’m so excited to try this one. It’s gotten the best reviews.”

“You mean JoeSchmo gave it a good review?” He couldn’t hide his scorn for my favorite local Instagram influencer. JoeSchmo always had access to the best whiskey and beer, for that matter, and had an impeccable palate. I almost always agreed with him to the very last detail. I’d come to rely on him for guidance on all things whiskey.

I shrugged. “He said it’s the best batch Coopers’ Craft has ever produced.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat.

I dug my elbow into his side. “You really are the best. Thank you.”

He rubbed his side but smiled anyway. “Hey, gotta keep my clients happy.”

“Wait a second,” Charlie protested. “How come I never get any of these client gifts?”

Jonah turned around and laughed. “That reminds me. I do actually have a six-pack for you. I got really lucky the other day. Beer and Spirits had it stashed in the wrong place, totally underpriced. But those superstore minimum-wage cashiers don’t know anything about anything, so I grabbed it. I’ll bring it by this weekend.”

“He’s off beer,” Ada announced from across the bar. “So he doesn’t want it.”

I held back a smile while Charlie floundered for something to say as Jonah began asking questions. It was one of many, many tests Charlie would face given his occupation—if he was serious about his sugar detox. And if this was any indication of his self-control, it wouldn’t be long before this was a well-intentioned but quickly forgotten whim. Like so many other things Charlie had attempted.

Not that I wanted Charlie to fail. I just couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to give up sugar completely. Least of all Charlie, the brother who literally indulged in every single temptation and desire. And if we were being honest—a sugar cleanse might help his focus, but it wouldn’t suddenly turn him into a rocket scientist. Or even a competent bartender.

Will walked onto the main floor before Jonah could get a serious answer out of Charlie. “I didn’t know you were stopping by today,” my eldest brother said by way of greeting his best friend.

Jonah shrugged. “I knew you were doing inventory today, so I thought I’d swing over and see if you needed anything before I put my orders in for the week.”

I gave him a funny look. That was usually done via an email between the two of us. Sure, sometimes he happened to stop by the bar, and we’d talk things through. And sometimes, he’d stop by with a list of new stuff he wanted us to try. But if it was just a simple refill, I texted or emailed.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Will said with a smile. “I was just about to text you.”

Jonah slid a sideways glance in my direction. “Lola must be back in Chicago. I never get texts anymore.”

Will’s smile wobbled. “That’s not true.”

There was a pregnant pause. I took the opportunity to fill it. “She is in Chicago. She stayed after Christmas to help her dad with another one of their franchises.”

Jonah snapped his fingers. “I knew it. I only see this guy when Lola is out of town now.” His voice took on the tone of a whiny toddler, but I didn’t think he’d noticed.

Poor Jonah. He and Will had been nearly inseparable since kindergarten. I could count the weekends on one hand that they hadn’t hung out at least once since then—well . . . before Lola. Growing up, Jonah was a staple at our house. Back then, it had felt like I had three brothers instead of two.

I shivered involuntarily. I tried not to ever think about Jonah like a brother. But for Will, their friendship was closer than even that. Some weird foundation of similar childhood trauma, personalities, and interests. They were each other’s longest and most trusted confidants. They were constant fixtures in each other’s lives. And until Lola, I was pretty sure they both intended to keep it that way forever.

Not that it would have been a healthy brotherhood as they rode out their single lives miserable and crotchety. They were just a decade or two from long afternoons of drinking cheap beers on the porch and yelling at the paperboys and dog-walking neighbors to get off their lawn. Lola saved Will from himself. She rescued him from an unhealthy relationship with the bar and willful isolation. They were both still workaholics . . . but somehow, they were workaholics together. So that made it okay. And also sweet.

“She travels a lot,” Will muttered, a pathetic explanation of his terrible loyalty to his best friend. “When she’s here . . . we just . . . get a little lost.”

I was so happy for my brother. And my new friend, Lola. I had never seen anyone make Will this happy, and I had a suspicion the same was true for Lola. He deserved this honeymoon happiness. This . . . wholeness in his soul he’d never had before. But the way he talked about her, the way his cheeks flushed red with simultaneous embarrassment and joy, the way he surreptitiously checked his phone as if he couldn’t help but make sure she hadn’t texted him in the last two minutes . . . stole my breath.

It whooshed out of me in a sharp sensation of loss and ache. Gosh, I wanted what he had. More than I’d realized until this moment.

A girl could only take so much of dating apps and casual drinks that led to nothing. Where were the men who took control? Who swept women off their feet like in the movies? Who were willing to make things last long enough to meet each other’s families and get involved in each other’s lives?

It wasn’t just that I seemed to have a type. Or that I was apparently bored of that type to the point of wanting to swear off men altogether. It was that nobody excited me. Nobody I’d met recently gave me butterflies. Or made me want to check my phone obsessively for missed text messages like Will did with Lola. Nobody even gave me lukewarm fuzzies.

And at this point, I was willing to settle for lukewarm fuzzies.

Or even ice-cold fuzzies. Any kind of fuzzies.

Fuzzies were my favorite part of getting to know someone.

“I get it, man. I mean, I don’t,” Jonah told Will. “But I’m happy for you.”

My lips curved into a smile, and I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of me. “You are such a liar, Jonah Mason.”

He hit me with the full force of his brooding smolder—the one that got him out of detention all junior year because the science teacher both hated and loved him. The same smolder that used to star in my high school fantasies. The same smolder that could still convince me to do anything he wanted. The dreamy bastard. “Are you trying to get me into trouble, Liza?” he demanded.

“Listen,” I said with a sigh, “we’re all happy for the lovebirds. But we can also be annoyed that their stupid happiness highlights how lonely the rest of us are.”

Something flashed across his face, sobering the lost puppy look and making him seem too alert, too focused. “Are you really lonely?”

It was the second time I had forgotten how to breathe in five minutes. Didn’t he know I was joking? And even if I wasn’t, why would he call me out like that in front of my brothers? I forced an overly bright laugh and tipped my head back as if he’d said something truly hilarious. “I’m just kidding, Mason. When did you get so serious?”

“Anyway,” Will cut in, “back to why I was going to text you. I heard about this estate sale that’s supposed to have some crazy-old and rare whiskey bottles. Like pre-World War I. The guy on that Facebook whiskey group claims there’s maybe one from before the Great Depression. I don’t know. I thought it would be cool to check out.”

Jonah’s eyes bugged. “And you’re thinking about buying one?”

Will laughed. “I doubt I can afford anything on my beer budget. I just thought it would be cool to check it out. Window-shop or whatever.”

“When is it?” Jonah asked. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He had one of those minds that couldn’t think quietly. Everything he did was projected onto his face, through his eyes and in the way his mouth quirked.

“Right now,” Will said. “I was going to see if you wanted to meet me there, but I could drive us.”

Jonah looked at his watch. Then at me. “You going, Liza? You love whiskey.”

Better than I would ever love a man. But I had a shit-ton of work to do today. Our business taxes were due soon, and while we had a fantastic accountant, the tediousness of gathering the essential documents for the bar was left to me, since both of my brothers were entirely inept at handling small details. “I have too much to do today. Otherwise, I would.”

“Oh, come on,” Jonah goaded. “We won’t be gone that long.”

Will gave him a funny look but agreed. “Charlie and Ada are here. We’ll be back before we open.”

A part of me leaped at the chance to tag along with my big brother. That he’d offered to include me made my heart dance. For most of my life, I’d been the annoying little sister who tagged along with her brothers. Another part of me genuinely liked hanging out with Jonah and Will. They’d stopped trying to ditch me a long time ago, and Jonah had become one of my best friends too. Not just Will’s.

But I really did have work to do. Phone calls that had to be made during normal business hours. Orders that needed placing. Events that needed details worked out and dates set. I didn’t mind keeping odd hours alongside my brothers. But the majority of my work had to be done during daylight.

“Really wish I could,” I told them sincerely. “But work calls. Enjoy browsing all the bottles you’ll never be able to afford.”

Will grinned at me. “You never know. My girlfriend is filthy rich.”

A laugh burst out of all of us. We all knew Will would never use Lola for her money, but it was nice to address the awkwardness of it—even as a joke. The bar might sometimes struggle, and the three of us might not be raking in the cash because we split the profits after we took care of the building, the inventory, the advertising, the employees, the small business taxes, and everything else required to keep the doors open. But if Will and Lola got any more serious, he would be living in a different tax bracket than Charlie and I did. It was an uncomfortable and cool thing that none of us knew how to talk about.

“I’ll make sure to let Lola know you want a Civil War-era Old Crow for your birthday then,” I teased.

“Thanks.” He grinned back.

“Probably can’t drink that, though,” Jonah added thoughtfully. “Spend all that money just to stare at something you can never enjoy. Seems like a waste.”

Will dug out his car keys from his pocket and shrugged. “Hey, there’s not a cap on how many bottles of whiskey you guys get me for my birthday. Lola and Eliza can be in charge of the fancy shit. You can gift me the rest.”

Will’s birthday wasn’t until April, so none of us took him seriously.

“You ready?” he asked Jonah.

“I probably can’t today, actually.” He tucked a long strand of hair behind his ear and shuffled his feet. “I need to finish this up with Eliza, and then I promised a few other clients I’d drop by. Sorry, man.” Will looked as confused as I was sure I did. Hadn’t he already agreed to go with Will? And try to rope me into the outing too? He pushed right past our perplexed looks and said, “How long is Lola gone for? We should hang out before she gets back.”

Will nodded, still looking befuddled. “Yeah, we should. She doesn’t get back until next week. What’s your Sunday look like?”

“Free per usual.” Jonah shrugged. “Text me.”

“Yeah, okay. See you later, man.” Will moved toward the door.

Charlie perked up as he walked by. “I’ll go, Will.”

Will shrugged again. “Sure.” He seemed to think better of it and added, “Don’t touch anything, though. We genuinely can’t afford any of it.”

Charlie grabbed his coat off the hook by the front door. “I’m good, dude. I’m off sugar.”

The door opened, bells chimed, and all of Will’s WTF questions were lost to the outside. I let a smile slip. I would rather die than let my brothers know how cute they could be. But sometimes, when they weren’t looking, I couldn’t help myself.

I turned my attention to Jonah. “I’m heading back to my office if you want to talk.” Maybe the polite thing would have been to wait for his answer, but I had known Jonah for as long as my working memory could go back. He wasn’t my brother, but he wasn’t a stranger either. I saved my manners for people who needed them.

But as I turned around, Jonah put his hand on the small of my back, nudging me in the right direction. For a strong, almost hypnotic moment, I fought the urge to lean back into his massive palm and let my weight settle fully into him.

The urge came out of nowhere, and I instantly had a flashback to my sixteen-year-old self pining after my big brother’s best friend, who only sometimes noticed I was even alive. The memory shamed me from my head to the tips of my toes. And I fought back a fierce blush with all the forced composure I’d learned to manipulate over the years.

Stalking forward, I gained some space between Jonah’s hand and my back. And felt marginally better.

Except for those damn warm fuzzies I had just been mourning. It was one touch. One hand. One Jonah to my lonely, neglected body. And I could feel it slipping—the hard-won indifference I’d spent decades building.

So what if I’d spent seventy-five percent of my life head over heels in love with this guy? We finally had a great, fantastic, ultra-platonic friendship that gave me actual joy. I wasn’t going to ruin it by confessing my undying love for him.

Again.

two

Jonah followed me through the kitchen, past our genius chef, Case, and his tiny prep station, and into my office. It was quieter in here. The whirring and whooshing sounds of the kitchen were far away. And the constant clatter of the main floor felt especially distant.

When Jonah shut the door behind him, the silence seemed to ring between us. I sat down in my desk chair, keenly aware of all the squeaks it made as my weight depressed the seat. My breathing suddenly felt too loud. Why had I turned off my streaming music when I left earlier? That would have at least masked the piercing throat clear I couldn’t hold back.

“How can I help you?” I asked Jonah, desperate to shut off my inner monologue. “Is this really about inventory?”

He all but collapsed into the chair on the other side of the desk. “Yes. But first, can we talk about Will? For real, what is going on with him?”

With the holidays, it had been a while since the two of us could just sit and talk. He always came to our family’s events, but it was never just the two of us. And we never talked much when my brothers were around.

It wasn’t that we had a secret friendship or anything. Will and Charlie knew how close Jonah and I had grown over the past several years. Especially since we worked so closely together. But it was always weird when my brothers were around. They added this extra layer of complicated awkwardness that both Jonah and I preferred to avoid.

Early on in our friendship, they made constant comments and suggestions about the two of us. It wasn’t that we didn’t have tough skin. It was just easier when they didn’t have anything to go on and on and on about.

Honestly, Will and Charlie were like that with any guy I brought home. But a different level of annoyance existed with Jonah. Mostly because he had never liked me as more than anything but a friend.

And also because I couldn’t just dump him and cut ties with a simple text. Jonah would be in my life for as long as my brothers were. For as long as any of my family was. He wasn’t just Will’s best friend. Or my close friend. He was family.

That would never change.

A part of me was comforted by the fact that I could count on him as solidly as my brothers and my mom. He would always be there for me. He would never abandon us nor we him. But the other part, less pronounced and hidden away in my locked box of uncomfortable emotions I didn’t know how to process . . . struggled with disappointment. Maybe because while my brothers and Mom thought of him as a close family member, I couldn’t. This friendship was as good as it got for us. And like it or not, I had to figure out how to be okay with that.

I relaxed back into my lumbar support and laughed. “What do you mean?”

“This whole serious girlfriend thing is so annoying,” Jonah complained. “It was fine at first. I’ve never seen him this into anyone, so I’m happy for him. But honestly . . .”

I wasn’t sure what he was complaining about. Not that I hadn’t also felt the teeth-grinding irritation of being around two people who were so in love, birds seemed to sing in their wake, and their eyes were always shaped like hearts. But I also lived with a perpetual low hum of aggravation for Will. And for Charlie, for that matter. So Jonah’s exasperation wasn’t exactly obvious.

“You don’t like Lola?” I guessed, surprised.

“No, Lola is great. She’s somehow sweet yet perfectly matched for Will’s assholery. It’s everything else. He’s love-sick, and it’s making me actually sick.”

“Ooooh.” I smiled, genuinely amused. “You hate people who are happy.”

His glare would have made a lesser woman tremble. “I’m happy he’s happy.”

“Which is why you’re snarling right now.”

“I’m not snarling,” he snarled.

I bit back a smile. “He’ll level out, Mason. He just needs time to . . . adjust. This is all new for him. And for Lola, I think. Eventually, they’ll recalibrate to being normal people who need normal amounts of space and time apart. Your wingman won’t abandon you forever.”

He threaded his hands together and propped them behind his head, then stretched out his long legs so they reached beneath my desk, just inches from my own feet. He would have been the perfect picture of relaxed and reposed if it wasn’t for his narrowed eyes. “You think I’m jealous.”

I leaned forward on my desk, blinking innocently and resting my chin in my folded hands. “I know you’re jealous. And it’s adorable.”

His glare eased as if he was surprised. “I’m not jealous. And I’m not adorable, English. Sometimes, I don’t think you know me at all.”

My smile escaped. It couldn’t be helped. Something was one hundred percent wrong with me . . . but grumpy Jonah was my favorite Jonah. “Okay, fine. You’re not adorable. You’re hideous. And I hate looking at you.” I paused long enough to enjoy the twitch of his full lips. “But you’re going to have to explain more about why you’re annoyed with Will for me to understand why this isn’t jealousy.”

He shrugged. It was all masculine energy and too much testosterone. He really was right. Nothing about Jonah Mason was adorable. Adorable should be saved for babies and kittens. Virile was a much better word. Aggressively sexy—another accurate phrase that could be used.

“I’m coming to terms with her being the one,” he said carefully, slowly. It wasn’t as though he didn’t think I could understand him. It was more like . . . he was testing the words out for himself to see if these were the ones he really felt. I knew Jonah well enough to know he was a man true to his word—almost to a fault. There was no wiggle room with him. He said what he believed and believed what he said. And God save you if you tried to argue with him. “I knew it would happen at some point. He’s been trying to force girls into being ‘the one’ since high school. But at least this one seems to measure up to what he deserves.”

“Please stop talking about Lola like she’s a bottle of whiskey he’s been hunting for. She’s my friend.”

He rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s your friend, Liza.” I gave him a look. What was that supposed to mean? He sighed. “Fine, he got lucky. Really lucky. He could have ended up with the—” He didn’t finish his thought. We both knew he meant the one who slept with Charlie. “I just don’t know why he has to flaunt it. Like, we get it, dude, you’re happy. No need to rub it in the rest of our faces.”

Ah.

There it was.

Jonah was jealous, but not because Lola had unseated him from the person Will loved most in this world. It was because Will had found someone. Found the someone. And was genuinely happy and in love.

Jonah didn’t only feel left behind. He felt left out.

The realization that Jonah wanted what Will had hit me like an actual punch in the gut. I lost my breath again. It expressed out of me in a push of air and common sense. Did I have asthma? What was wrong with me?

In my defense, I had somehow never imagined this moment. I’d never pictured Will settled down. Or Jonah. Or Charlie. For as long as I could remember, it had been the four of us. We did everything together. We lived life together. And drank together. And ran a business together.

It was supposed to be us forever. The end.

But that wasn’t reality. These men of mine would eventually settle down. Should want to settle down. Of course they would.

Of course Jonah would.

Of course he would find someone and fall in love with them and move in together and start a family and . . .

I felt faint. The color drained from my face and pooled somewhere around the vicinity of my toes, making them hot and twitchy . . . and why were my toes even hot? That was a weird reaction . . .

But the worst part of all of this was not that Jonah, Will, and Charlie would find someone. It was that I wasn’t so sure I would.

The pangs of loneliness from earlier intensified until they seemed to cut whole gashes straight through my gut.

I was alone.

I might always be alone.

And the people I was counting on to be alone with me were suddenly not such a sure deal.

“Are you okay?” Jonah asked from the other side of the desk.

A ringing sounded in my ears, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis right in front of my eyes.

“It’s weird,” I managed weakly, trying to cover my existential crisis by agreeing with him. “I mean, mostly, it’s fine. I’m happy Will is happy too. And Lola is way out of his league, so he would be absolutely moronic not to marry her. But . . . yeah, I never thought this day would come.” My practiced sarcasm helped me shake off the fear of being a lonely old spinster for the rest of my life, and I was able to smile and hold Jonah’s gaze when I said, “Our little Will is all grown up.”

Jonah crossed his arms sullenly. “I don’t like it, Eliza. It’s the end of an era.”

His depressed tone and pouty scowl were more entertaining than any show I was currently watching. I leaned forward and held his gaze. “You still have me, Mason. I don’t know what there is to complain about.”

He stared back. His gray-blue eyes twinkled, and he worked hard to suppress a smile threatening to poke out at the corners. “Well, I guess that’s something.”

I winked at him. “More than something. You only lost Will, and he’s second place at best.” Lifting one hand, I tossed my long, dark hair over my shoulder and said, “Everybody knows I’m the real English prize.”

“That’s true,” he said, finally giving in to a rumbly laugh. “Everybody knows that.”

I smiled wider, happy he didn’t shoot down my obvious jokes. “Thank you.”

“So do I get to take the number one English to lunch today?” He shrugged casually. “Street tacos and liquor lists?”

My eyebrows crinkled together over my nose. Hadn’t he just turned Will down because of his busy day? I could joke all I wanted about being the first-place English sibling, but I knew better than that. He’d walked in here moping about losing his friendship with Will. I wasn’t first place. Not really. I was a consolation prize.

“I thought you had a busy day? Didn’t you just turn down Will for his weird estate sale adventure?”

Some light faded from his face, and his eyes narrowed in thought. “Well, yeah, but I didn’t want to rifle through some dead guy’s booze. Tacos are different. They’re delicious. And not musty.”

“At least you hope so,” I teased. “Nobody wants a musty taco.”

We both realized what I’d said at the same time. It was impossible to grow up with brothers and not constantly hear words and phrases in the most perverted way possible.

Jonah’s head tipped back as a burst of laughter rolled out of him. His whole body joined in, shaking from head to toe. His hair hung over his shoulders. And his eyes closed and crinkled at the corners.

God, he was so good-looking. How had he not found his Lola first?

My cheeks felt as though they were bright red, and I could hardly meet his amused gaze when he finally stopped laughing at me.

“I don’t think truer words have ever been spoken, Liza. Nobody wants to eat a musty taco.”

I pointed a finger at him. “I didn’t say anything about eating. That was all you.”

He waggled his eyebrows and shrugged again, but it was good-natured and relaxed this time. He was such a cad.

Well, okay, I wasn’t sure if cads still existed in this day and age. But if they did, he was their leader. The king cad. Probably breaking hearts and embarrassing women every day.

He lifted his arms over his head, stretching. His shirt pulled up, revealing a thin sliver of his hard stomach. I allowed myself a peek, but just a quick one. “So no lunch?” he asked.

“Not today, Mason. I don’t want to be stuck here all night, so I have to actually work today.”

He stood and walked to the edge of my desk, straightening one of my picture frames. It had a snapshot Mom had taken of Charlie, Will, and me when we were kids at the park. I was sitting on a swing, my long dark hair a tangled mess around my shoulders. Charlie had somehow wedged his feet into the swing under my butt and stood behind me, tongue sticking out and nose wrinkled. And Will was standing on the swing next to us. He had been swinging it side to side, and my mom had caught the moment when his swing had sidled directly next to ours. We looked so happy.

And I supposed at that moment we were. My dad had been in a dark mood that day, and my mom had taken us to the park to escape his cutting words and booming rage. She was probably as tired of walking on eggshells and defusing mood bombs as we had been. The picture didn’t show how we’d all cried the whole way there. Or that I had forgotten my jacket in our rush to leave the house and I was freezing.

It was one of my favorite pictures because it perfectly summed up our childhood. Simultaneously painful and beautiful.

The three of us together.

“You okay, Eliza? You’re kind of quiet today.” He tapped the desk with a long finger, snapping me out of my childhood memories.

I looked up at him, a small smile tugging at my lips. “Just thinking. You put me in a weird headspace with all your talk about Will getting serious with Lola. Now I feel like I’m losing my brother, and my whole world’s ending. That’s all your fault.”

He smiled at my blatant teasing and leaned over me, resting his weight on his hands. “Chin up, English. You still got me.”

Holding his gaze, I wondered if that was true. But I liked that he’d echoed my sentiment from a couple of minutes ago, making our friendship feel solid. Important. “Good.”

We stood there a second longer, searching for the truth in the other person’s face. His eyes were a deep, dark blue that twinkled when he was happy and clouded when he was upset or mad. His driver’s license claimed gray eyes, but that was because Jonah hadn’t taken the time to thoroughly examine their nuanced color.

Not like I had.

I used to be mildly obsessed with his shifting eye color. Okay, probably more than mildly. But those days were long behind me. Back when I would wear short shorts to get his attention and pretend to love college basketball just so he would notice me.

Now I actually enjoyed college basketball, but it was only after countless hours of pretending that I appreciated the sport.

“Good,” he repeated, pulling back into himself and releasing me from his hypnotic charm.

“Come back tomorrow if you want,” I told him when he stepped toward the door. “I’ll go to lunch with you then.”

“I have a new account meeting tomorrow. But I’ll take you to dinner if you ask nicely.”

I batted my eyelashes at him playfully, “Please?”

“God, I’m a sucker for those green eyes,” he said smoothly.

I didn’t think that was true, but I had been pulling the puppy-dog eyes and please on him since I wore a training bra.

“You pick the place,” I told him, ignoring his comment. He wasn’t serious. At least not in the way an average woman would hope that he was. “And you can drive too. I’ll be ready to go around seven. Just in case you want to make reservations.”

“You’re so bossy, English. Why do I put up with any of this?”

“Because you love me, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he muttered before he abruptly left my office, tapping the doorframe on his way out. I stared after the place he’d occupied just seconds earlier, wondering what all that was about. Jonah had been cool and confident for as long as I could remember. He never worried about anything.

Least of all, his friendship with Will.

But I had been where he was more times than I wanted to count. Okay, maybe not with my ride-or-die BFF because that top spot was reserved for my brothers and Jonah. But I had girlfriends once upon a time. A lot of them, especially in my early twenties. Yet, one by one, they’d all disappeared into the mysterious abyss of love and matrimony. Girlfriends from my pre-Craft days, old high school friends, even my close friend Daria, who I’d randomly met at a speeding ticket forgiveness class when I was twenty-one. We’d been so perfectly matched as friends and had enjoyed two solid years of inseparable hilarity. Then she’d met the one, fallen hard and fast, and slowly but surely disappeared from my life.

I thought it was the Curse of the Bridesmaid. The urban legend turned reality in my own life where once you stood up with someone at their wedding, the friendship was doomed to die. I’d lived out that scenario too many times. Apparently, I made an excellent bridesmaid but not a great long-term friend.

It had given me a sort of standoffish approach to women in general. But thankfully, I had Will, Charlie, and Jonah to fall back on.

Although now I worried Jonah and I would experience that with Will too. It hurt to even think about. If Will fell into the marriage black hole, it wouldn’t be quite so easy to bounce back from.

I let out a slow, stabilizing breath and was determined to get back to work. I had a lot of routine work to do today, but I had also made a New Year’s resolution about building a stronger social media presence for the bar. It wasn’t something I felt particularly qualified to manage, but it technically fell under my umbrella of responsibility.

We were pulling in great numbers, and we seemed to have a good mix of new clientele every weekend. But this part of me couldn’t help but fear the day we opened, and nobody came in. Every other bar in Durham seemed to have this successful and creative online presence. I knew that was exaggerated insecurity. But currently, our Instagram account only had three pictures, and they were all from opening day. It was a little embarrassing.

I opened my phone to scroll through my different social media accounts, hoping for inspiration, when Ada knocked on my door. I looked up, thankful for a distraction. I was three seconds into my social media research and already defeated.

“Jonah wasn’t here very long,” she said by way of greeting.

A shrug pushed my shoulders up, but I halted halfway through my indifference. Ada was never casual about anything, but least of all Jonah.

“Yeah, I don’t know. He was in a weird mood,” I said, keeping my voice purposely flat. She leaned against the doorframe, folding her arms over her cropped sweater. This was a move she pulled on everyone—where she just waited it out, still and stoic, until the other person cracked. It worked one hundred percent of the time. “He was all bummed about Will being in a serious relationship.” I stared at my computer screen, pretending to click through only God knew what.

I hated that it was that easy to get me to crack. But truthfully, Ada was some kind of Jedi mind manipulation master. She was all serious and comfortable with silence. Where the rest of the normal population, or at least me, preferred to fill any kind of pause in a conversation with rambling nonsense.

She reacted differently than I expected, though. Blowing a puff of air from her lips, she kicked her toe against the recently mopped tile floor and said, “Yeah, it’s new for all of us.”

My fingers hovered over my keyboard. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be weird about it too. You like Lola.”

She waved a hand in front of her face. “Obviously, I like Lola. Everybody likes Lola. She’s unfairly endearing.”

I bugged my eyes at her. “So what is it then?”

She shrugged, her shoulders bunching up around her chin and staying there. “I don’t know. It kind of feels like everything is changing all at once, doesn’t it? Like we had this great thing going . . . and now . . .” She huffed another breath out. “I overheard them talking about opening a second location before Christmas.”

My eyes narrowed. “You heard who talking?”

She swallowed, and I could tell it took some effort. “Lola and Will. He was picking her brain about opening another bar and what it would entail. He mentioned a spot near one of Ezra Baptiste’s new restaurants that just went up for sale. He seemed anxious to talk to a real estate agent. I need to know, Eliza. Are y’all talking about breaking up the bar?”

three

My stomach hollowed out at the very thought of us splitting up the bar. “Will hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

Her chin dipped knowingly. She had known she was going to get that confirmation from me but needed it anyway. “Or Charlie.”

Well, Ada was the only one who was surprised by that. But how could Will not have said anything to me? Before Lola, I had been the person he talked to about everything. And if not me, then Jonah. And Jonah would have said something to me.

Anger and betrayal simmered in my chest. I tried to hold them at bay until I had the full story, but they spit and hissed like hot grease in a pan.

Ada noticed my clenched jaw and balled fists. Or maybe it was the way I was practically vibrating with restrained rage . . . Either way, she held up a hand between us like a stop sign. “I didn’t say anything until now because I knew you would overreact.”

“Overreact?” I asked slowly.

She went on like I hadn’t said anything. “And I was hoping he was going to say something to you. But obviously, he hasn’t and—”

“And?”

Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to figure out how to talk me off this ledge. Usually, Ada was the fiercest fighter for peace between my brothers and me. She treated mediation like a second job. It didn’t take a whole lot to get us at each other’s throats, so it probably was for her own peace and quiet. But this was beyond our normal scuffles.

So far beyond.

“I’m sure he can explain,” she finally said. “And I’m sure he was only using his girlfriend’s wealth of knowledge about these things to just . . . get a bigger picture before he brought it up to you. He wouldn’t do anything without you, Eliza. Especially not that.”

I wanted her to be right. The words sounded right as they hovered in the air over our heads. They sounded like exactly what I needed to hear.

But something in them rang false.

This bar, Craft, was owned by Will, Charlie, and me. It had been Will’s idea when we’d been given my dad’s surprise inheritance. Once we’d conceptualized the idea, we’d all immediately agreed that it was the best thing ever and we should do it.

But going about it had been slower than we’d expected. And getting the three of us to agree on anything had been nearly impossible. The location. The style. The name. The list of things we disagreed on went on and on.

There had been one pivotal night at the end of a very long day. Will and Charlie had been ready to rip each other apart for weeks. Finally, Charlie had had enough of Will lording his more responsible track record over Charlie’s less-than-blameless head, and he’d stormed out in a huff. Charlie had sworn he’d never go into business with either of us, and he would keep his third of the money and move to Bali and “screw Dad!” or some nonsense like that. Will had finally pushed him over the just-go-live-on-the-beach-somewhere-and-go-fishing-and-surfing-every-day edge.

Will and I had started drinking the second he was gone. Both of us were exhausted with the process of opening a business that required a liquor license with our dad’s money and learning how to tolerate each other in a professional environment on a daily basis.

We were working on our third sheet in three sheets to the wind when he confided that he had a backup plan if this all went south. If Charlie and I didn’t want to do things Will’s way, he was going to do it on his own. He’d been approved for a business loan to supplement mine and Charlie’s third. He had the name, the philosophy, and even the location.

After another beer, he even admitted that he might do it alone anyway. He would make a whole lot more money if he didn’t have to split it with us. Life would be a whole lot simpler if he didn’t have to run everything by us. He would be a whole lot happier on his own without us.

I’d played it off so he would keep spilling his guts, but I’d been heartbroken. Will didn’t usually get that drunk . . . but it had been a stressful time in our lives, and the strange pain of losing our dad, even though we mostly hated him, had left us raw and prickly.

By morning, Charlie had calmed down and showed up with bagels and coffees as his way of an apology. Will had gotten over the brunt of his anger too. We decided later that day on the name Craft and on this location.

Will never mentioned his solo plans again.

And I never mentioned that I knew Craft was his original idea, and this was the location he’d planned to use with or without us.

Back then, I couldn’t see the point of fighting about something that would never happen.

But now, Ada’s revelation brought it back into the light. Will was better at saving than Charlie and I were. He always had been. But he also lived above the bar, so he didn’t have the expenses that Charlie and I did, living on our own. His rent and utilities were included with the main expenses of the bar. We deducted a portion of his salary to cover his personal costs. Still, we also let him get away with whatever he wanted because he was basically on call twenty-four seven since he lived here.

Meaning he just might have the capital to open a bar on his own. And if he was serious about Lola—who came from her own level of success and money—he might want a more stable situation. Aka a bigger paycheck.

Or maybe it was something they wanted to do together. With Will’s experience in the bar scene, Lola’s extensive business résumé, and her family’s financial backing . . . they could do whatever they wanted without Charlie and me.

I thought about Will’s friends—other than Jonah—who were all restaurateurs with popular restaurants and national acclaim. Was he worried about stuff like that? Keeping up with the Joneses?

But they weren’t really the Joneses, were they? They all had their own stories of meager beginnings and hardship. It was more like a survival club than a group of douchebags trying to one-up each other with new restaurants and fancy cars. Although someone always did seem to have a brand-new, shiny one or the other.

Dang.

“Eliza?” Ada asked in a tone that signified this wasn’t her first attempt to get my attention.

I jumped off the spinning carnival ride of my mind and stepped back into the here and now. “Sorry?”

“You can’t kill him,” she said slowly. “He’s your brother, and you love him.”

I smiled softly at her reminder. But the thing about brothers was that they were some of the few people you could hate just as much as you loved them. “I’m not going to kill him, Ada. Maim, maybe. Assault, probably. Stab, definitely. But I won’t actually kill him.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t totally genuine. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I’m glad you did.” At the absolute panic in her eyes, I added, “Listen, I’m pissed. But I’m not going to say anything.” At least not yet. I was definitely going to save this for a future moment when I could drop it like an atom bomb and make sure there were multiple casualties. Maybe that was sadistic. But I thought of it more sisterly than anything else.

Her shoulders relaxed a little. “Okay.”

When she took a step back, I threw out a quick but stern, “Don’t say anything to Charlie though. He would definitely murder Will. He wouldn’t even hesitate. And I don’t have time to deal with that drama.” After a beat of silence, I added, “Or a prison sentence as an accessory.”

This time when she smiled, it was genuine. “Duh, I’m not a total idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot at all.” I held her gaze. “Especially when it comes to Charlie.”

She turned around and started to walk off, but not before she threw out an oh-so casual, “Wrong. I’m a special brand of idiot when it comes to Charlie.”

Her tone was just sharp enough for her meaning to remain a mystery. I was reasonably confident they used to hook up. But these days, she could hardly tolerate looking at him. Which was the way it went with most of Charlie’s exes.

Whatever she meant by being a special kind of idiot when it came to Charlie, I knew this secret was safe with her.

Meanwhile, what was I supposed to do with it?

I pulled out my phone and clicked the contact before I figured out what I was going to say. Jonah was my closest friend in the whole world. But he wasn’t always my closest confidant. There were some things a girl couldn’t share with a man who was also best friends with her brother.

Claire Swift answered on the third ring. Per usual, she didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Do you know what drives me absolutely nuts?” She didn’t wait for my reply or hello. “Grown adults who don’t know how to operate a four-way stop. It’s not a hard concept. But I swear, either they sit there and sit there and sit there and confuse every single car or they think they’re God’s gift to driving, and no matter whose turn it is, they just gun it. My kindergartners could figure this out better than most adults.”

My mood instantly shifted from panicked fury to mildly amused. Claire had that power with everyone. She was serious and focused almost all of the time. Still, she also had this angry chipmunk mode that was highly entertaining. “I’ve found that kindergartners are almost always better at the things adults should know by now. Sharing, empathy, compassion, taking a nap when needed.”

“You know, you’re not wrong.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Sometimes I miss it so much it hurts. What am I doing with my life, Eliza?”

She’d switched from four-way-stop rage to her current career fear as abruptly as usual. I raced to catch up, but this was a well-trodden conversation, and I knew exactly what to say. “You’re following your dreams, Claire-bear. You’re taking control of your future.”

Her pause was silent. I pictured her on the other end of the phone, hair pulled up into a high ponytail, cheeks flushed red and puffed out as she held her breath. She was just finishing school for the day, so she probably wore a dirty chef’s coat covered in flour and smudged with frosting. My friend was fierce and beautiful but going through a lot. We had this conversation at least once a day. Sometimes as many times as it took to convince her to stay the course.

Claire and I had met through our mutual circle of chef friends. Claire’s sister, Kaya, ran one of Ezra Baptiste’s restaurants, Sarita. Kaya and Will were friends, and on one of our Sunday nights out, Claire tagged along with Kaya. I’d happened to sit by her during a Korean/Soul Food fusion meal where our friends ordered nearly everything on the menu. We passed plates family-style until we were stuffed to the gills and the last people in the restaurant.

Claire had just moved to Durham to live with her sister. She’d fled her small hometown to escape a bad engagement, a job she hated, and a life that felt prefabbed. We’d bonded over being the least food-educated people in the room, annoying siblings, and our love of true crime podcasts. Our friendship had grown exponentially in the past three years as we both stepped into uncertain careers—me into a fledgling bar and small business ownership, and Claire as she enrolled in pastry school and learned to live on her own for the first time in her entire life.

Our friendship gave me life. And joy.

All at once, she pushed her breath out. “Okay. You’re right. Okay.”

“Also, you hate children.”

She laughed. “I don’t hate them. I just . . . don’t really like them. But anyway, you didn’t call to deal with all my problems.”

“I love dealing with your problems,” I told her sincerely. “They’re so much worse than mine.”

This time her laughter burst out of her like a shotgun. “You bitch!”

“You know it’s true.”

“All right then.” She snickered. “Tell me your lesser problems.”

It was my turn to sigh. And it was a heavy one. Long and drawn-out and with a direct line to my bones. “Ada was just in here. She said she overheard Will asking Lola advice about opening a second bar and wanting to talk to a real estate agent.”

“A second bar? That could be a good thing.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’m just not sure if he’ll include Charlie and me. This feels like something he wants to do on his own.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

Her levelheaded question made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t want logic and reason. I wanted wrath and vengeance. “I feel like I should do some recon first. Get all my ducks in a row. It might be a bar rumor, nothing else.”

“Well, there are a lot of those flying around.” I could hear the smile in her voice. She knew all about our longstanding drama with half-baked rumors. For such a small staff, miscommunication was a serious problem.

“It came from Ada, though. She’s ultra-reliable.”

Claire hummed. “Ada is the best.”

“Ugh, what am I supposed to do with this, Claire? I can handle Will being an asshole daily. But this seems excessive even for him.”

“Okay, but why? What are you afraid of? Will moving on in his life without you? Or Will not asking your permission first?”

Her questions were hard to answer, and I frankly didn’t want to think them through. “Gosh, Claire, why you gotta do that?” I whined, sounding much like the kindergartners she left behind. “It’s not like that. I’m pissed because he’s going behind my back and taking something that is ours and ruining it.”

Her tone was gentle. “Allegedly.”

“Allegedly,” I snarled.

“You don’t know anything for sure yet. I’m just saying, you might want to examine this from all angles before you start fires you can’t put out.”

This was why I called her. I knew she could talk me off the edge. While my mind whirled and spun and came up with all kinds of far-fetched scenarios that were too impossible to ever come true, she reminded me of rational reality. Just because I had strong feelings didn’t mean I was always right. “I know you love this whole pastry gig, but have you ever thought of becoming a therapist?”

She laughed again. “Yeah, not sure I’m loving this pastry gig anyway. Maybe third time’s a charm.”

“You’ll get it,” I encouraged gently. “You’re the smartest person I know. If you can master croissants and puff pastry, I’m positive you can handle cake design.”

She growled. “I’m not so sure.”

It was my turn to laugh. “Says the woman who showed up with fruit tartlets that literally changed my life last week.” Having a pastry chef best friend who needed people to taste test her recipes had its benefits.

“You’re exaggerating,” she said with her usual self-deprecation. “I still don’t have the pastry exactly right, and I shouldn’t have used the apricots.”

“Stop,” I ordered, an uncharacteristic snap in my voice. But honestly, a girl could only take so much of her best girl not seeing herself properly. “The apricot was epic. And the pastry literally melted in my mouth. When can we do it again?”

She gave in to my boss-girl vibes. “I have cakes coming out the wazoo. How about I bring one over tomorrow night, and we get sugared up and drunk while we figure out what it would take for you to open your own bar?”

I smiled at her belief in me. “Let’s open one together. Half bar. Half bakery. We could share our affinity for cake and whiskey with the world.”

She gasped. “That’s genius! Bakeries are always aligned with coffee shops. Which is fine, but a bar and bakery? Revolutionary.”

Now I was really smiling. The day's stress had faded into the bliss of knowing this girl had my back. “That’s right. A whiskey and cake revolution. But I can’t tomorrow night. Jonah’s taking me to dinner.”

“Ah.”

“Do you want to come? He’s buying.”

She made a sound in the back of her throat. “And be a third wheel? No thanks.”

“You know we’re just friends.”

She made the sound again. “I know he thinks his friendship with you is superior to my friendship with you. He’s not into me hanging around, Eliza. He’s very territorial.”

Not wanting to get into it with Claire again over Jonah’s moodiness, I said, “What about Sunday?”

“Sunday’s good,” she agreed quickly. “It will give me time to perfect my sponge and get the currant cream just right.”

She was speaking another language now. “It’s a date then.”

“It’s a date,” she agreed. “Have fun with Jonah.”

“You know, one day, you guys are going to love each other.”

She snorted. “Oh, Eliza. You’re delusional.”

I laughed and said, “Bye, babe.”

She clicked off without saying goodbye back. Which was so Claire. She answered without hellos. And hung up without goodbyes. And also had it out for Jonah. Argh.

There really was tension between Jonah and Claire. But sometimes, Claire was too straightforward for her own good. She was all honest confrontation when Jonah wanted chill and laid-back.

Why were the people in my life so complicated?

Why did Will want to open a bar without me?

Why did I still feel so uncomfortably lonely after my conversation with Jonah?

I had plans this week. I got to work with my favorite people. I was busy. Yet a nagging sense in the corners of my heart said it could be better than this. That my life was missing some key element.

And shortly on the heels of that loneliness . . . was a mystery anticipation for tomorrow night. Half anxious worry, half excited elation.

The best part of my friendships with Claire and Ada was that they were free of these warring, complicated, stupid emotions.

So why was my dinner date with Jonah the thing I was most looking forward to?

four

The bar was busy when I finally emerged from the office after a long day. I stepped into the kitchen stretching, only to retreat inside my office when Case spun by me, hands full of plates covered in bits of food and smeared sauces.

“I need help in here,” he snarled at me on his way to the dishwasher.

I pushed up the sleeves of my fuchsia button-up blouse and scanned the nooks and crannies for an apron. “Sure, what can I do?”

Plates clattered, and food debris flew as he shoved his armful on a counter next to the industrial dishwasher. He pinned me with a glare from across the tiny kitchen. “Not you, Eliza. Not tonight. I mean, I need permanent help.” He wiped his glistening forehead with a black bandana he pulled from his back pocket, then tied it around his cleanly shaven head. “Listen, when I took this job, Will promised my one-man-circus would be temporary. But here we are, four years later, and I’m still running this shit show solo.”

I tugged my sleeves down and switched gears into HR manager mode. “It’s a compliment,” I said genuinely, hoping he understood the sincere sentiment. “People are just as likely to come here to eat as they are to drink. That says a lot about you, Case.”

He wasn’t charmed by my managerial skills. Or lack thereof. “You’ve got to find someone to help me, Eliza. Or I’m walking out. I like it here. I like you and your brothers. You gave me a job when nobody else would. But I have offers.”

He put his head down to scrape the food off the plates into the trash, and I realized how humbling that was. I had no doubt he had other offers. For starters, the restaurant industry was fucking cutthroat, and good chefs were snatched up and moved around every day.

But also, Case really was something special. We’d gotten lucky because Killian Quinn, one of Will’s friends, had passed his name along. Case had been new to town, looking for a job, didn’t have a reputation, and didn’t have great references from the last kitchen where he’d worked. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten along with the head chef. Eventually, Case fled his hometown and ended up here.

From what Will had said, his old boss had nothing good to say about him. But we’d been desperate. And the kitchen had always been his alone to run.

“Have you talked to Will about it?” I asked, my voice strained with tension from the secret Ada had spilled yesterday.

“No,” Case said simply.

Will wasn’t the easiest to pin down once he was in work mode, so I wasn’t surprised to hear that Case hadn’t managed to corner him.

I’d showed up early to work today, thinking I would have a better chance of confronting Will alone before anyone got here. But then he’d been accepting deliveries, and I still hadn’t worked out my approach. I purposed to try again after lunch . . . but then I’d eaten late, and everyone else had arrived by then.

Also, he wasn’t always the easiest guy to spring things on. And by “wasn’t always,” I mean he was never, ever the guy to surprise attack. He lashed out first, waged a full-fledged attack, then once everyone was bloody and bruised, finally considered reason.

At least he was that way with Charlie and me.

He managed at least some composure when other people were involved. And with Lola, he was a downright pacifist.

But to be fair, Charlie and I were just as bad. It was the only way to do business with family.

Case abandoned the plates to grab something off the grill. His arms and hands moved at super-speed while he plated with absolute precision. After he’d wiped the edge of the dish clean and made its perfect twin on a separate plate, he thumbed through instructions on the computer, letting the front of the house know there was an order up, then turned around to level me with his surprising ferocity. “I’m telling you, Eliza. Isn’t that the same thing?”

I glanced away, unable to answer that question. Was it the same thing? Shouldn’t it be? I was a co-owner, same as Will, same as Charlie. So why did I need Will’s permission to hire a position all of us knew we needed.

“Let me talk to our accountant. But it should be fine. We’re short a few waitresses now anyway.”

His lips twitched into the shadow of a smile. “I want the final say.”

It was easier to glare at him now that the tension had broken. “Don’t push your luck, Cason. You can’t remind me I’m the boss to get your way, only to try to then be the boss.”

His smile turned sheepish. “I don’t play well with others.”

So the rumors were true. Well, damn. This was going to fall on me when it went badly. I shouldn’t have let him bait me into a fast answer. It wouldn’t have hurt to think about his request. Or talk to my brothers first—even if I was still fuming at Will. “You’re going to have to learn.” I picked up my leather jacket and crossbody purse from the hook next to my door and slipped them on. “Or you’re going to have to look into those other offers.”

His sheepishness turned into something else, something that was surprised I was calling him on his bullshit. “I’m just saying, just because you know your way around a kitchen doesn’t mean you know who should be in it.”

Ada flew through the door, interrupting our conversation to grab the two plates under the heat lamp. Case spouted off a warning about how hot they were. Ada spouted off something about not caring. I slipped through the door while they were both distracted.

Will and Miles, our weekend bartender who had been bumped up to almost full time lately, were behind the bar. I checked my phone before walking to the corner of the long mahogany bar, the only bare spot on the whole counter. Charlie was on the floor taking orders, along with a new girl who I could tell wasn’t going to last a week. Which was too bad because she seemed nice. Although I had thought the same thing about Lola when she first showed up at the bar, all green and flighty. She’d been a terrible server at first. But in the end, she’d managed to figure it out. So it was possible this girl could too.

Except her eyes were suspiciously glossy like she was trying to hold back tears.

Maybe that was the problem. We needed to stop hiring nice people and stack our shifts with sassy assholes who could survive the absolute cesspool that was food service. Humanity was all nice and fine until Karen didn’t get the drink she ordered. Or Dave’s salad dressing was put on his salad after he specifically asked for it on the side. Heaven forbid Samantha had to deal with fucking gluten when she was mildly gluten intolerant.

It wasn’t that I had an issue with people not eating gluten. I applauded them. It took a lot of self-control—that I didn’t possess incidentally—not to eat gluten. But it was how people went about it that truly killed someone’s soul.

After almost four years in this business, I knew two things. One, the lower-than-minimum-wage server bringing food to your table didn’t have malicious intentions to kill you with an overdressed salad or vodka when you asked for gin in your martini. Two, whatever mistakes were made in my bar were seldom life or death. Unless that gluten-intolerant person was actually anaphylactic. Then okay, fine, maybe then, and only then, the consequences were dire. But still accidental death at best.

Most people were trying to do the right thing. And most people were not intentionally going around fucking up random strangers’ lives on purpose.

Maybe sadistic assholes out there took their revenge on the unsuspecting food service people. And obviously, serial killers walked among us or whatever. But we tried really, really hard not to hire any of those people.

“You look tired,” Will said by way of greeting when he stopped over to see what I wanted.

I smoothed my expression and put the many problems with society, and our humble little piece of it, out of my mind. That was the kind of thought train that deserved alcohol and chocolate. And I had neither right now.

“I’m going to run out with Jonah and grab supper. Want anything?”

It was like we’d swapped expressions. Now he looked tired and depressed. “Must be nice,” he grumbled. “How’d you get Jonah to want to do something?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He offered.”

His dull eyes narrowed sharply. “Why didn’t he ask me? I’m his friend. Not you.”

His question was a rusty knife to my kidneys. I wanted to scream. And a buried, younger version of me wanted to cry. “Don’t be an idiot. It’s just supper. I’m hungry. And I’ve been working all day.”

My answer did not appease him. “Me too.” The difference was that he was still working. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. I told him to pick. But knowing Jonah, probably someplace new and trendy.” He continued to pout, but I didn’t have patience for him right now. “What’s with the scowl?”

“I just don’t know when you and Jonah became better friends than him and me.”

The eye roll following his woe-is-me comment practically pushed my eyeballs out of my head. He was being needy and annoying, and he knew it. But I probably still shouldn’t have said, “Well, you have a girlfriend now. What did you expect?”

His eyes almost bugged out of his head while he processed my low-key burn. It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize to him, but then my phone dinged with a text from Jonah. He was pulling up front.

He would have waited for me to sort this out with Will. But I was so pissed at my brother and this possible second bar. So pissed.

So instead of acting like a mature grown-up and smoothing things over right then and there, I said, “I’ll probably have him drop me at home afterward. So I won’t be coming back here. I’ll Uber to work or bum a ride with Charlie tomorrow. Case can make you something if you’re hungry.” Then I tapped the bar and stalked out. He called after me, but the bar was too crowded and loud for me to make out what he said.

The wind was chilly outside the stifling heat of the packed bar. I tugged my leather jacket closed in front of me and shuffled in my two-inch black pumps to Jonah’s sleek navy blue Mercedes. Although it was a couple years old, it was new to him this year. Jonah was a responsible adult and didn’t buy brand-new cars. But it was so fancy on the inside and looked pristine because he was anal-retentive when taking care of his things.

This thing especially. Everything seemed to light up at my touch. And the seats were butter soft. I’d only been in it a handful of times, but every time he gave me a ride, I felt like I was in something that belonged in the future.

He was waiting with a friendly smile as I slid in and closed the door carefully behind me. I wanted to slam it. And then slam it again. But for Jonah’s sake, I was gentle.

I tried to match his warm optimism, but the weight of dealing all wrong with Will was crushing me.

His brow furrowed, and he frowned. “What’s the matter?”

At his question, hot tears pushed at the corners of my eyes. I forced them back, refusing to let them fall. This wasn’t something to cry over.

It was just that . . . his kindness was so unexpected. Between Case and Will, I had been wound tight, and I was ready to fight someone. I wanted snappy words and sharp claws. But here was Jonah, soft and sweet and ready to catch my mess.

I ignored the familiar fluttering in my gut. It belonged to a long-buried butterfly that had been with me as long as Jonah had been in my life. It used to demand a whole lot more attention. But that was years and years ago. A different life, practically.

A different me, definitely.

“Will can be really annoying,” I told him with a tired sigh. “I know he’s like your . . . ride or die or whatever. But he bugs the bejeezus out of me.”

His lips twitched on one side. “I don’t know what you mean by ride or die, but I know he can be a total asshole when he wants to be.”

I bounced back against the seat in a huff, releasing a whoosh of breath. “Has he told you he’s thinking about opening a second bar?”

His eyes about fell out of his head, and his mouth opened in a way that was so dramatic for him and so un-staged that I knew my answer. “I had no idea. A second bar? Are you serious? Did he tell you this?”

I already regretted opening my mouth. Because Will hadn’t actually told me this. And while the information had come from a very reliable source, it wasn’t the source. So that made this gossip. And maybe totally needless and unnecessary gossip. But I had been stewing on it for twenty-four hours, and despite Claire’s encouragement that I talk to Will, I hadn’t. And Jonah knew Will better than anybody.

“Ada overheard him and Lola talking about it. I guess he was picking her brain and figuring out logistics.”

He bounced back against his seat too, staring ahead through the windshield. “I told you she was no good.”

I slid him a sideways glance and watched his lips do that twitchy thing again. “I doubt it was her.” That fateful drunken night when Will confessed all his secret pre-bar plans to me played through my head like a record stuck on repeat.

It was his turn to shoot me an unbelieving look. “You really think Will would go behind your brother’s and your backs and open a bar with his girlfriend? Whom he has known for a total of three months?”

It was much more than three months, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. At least not tonight when I wanted it to sound as improbable as possible.

He added, “Will would never do you dirty like that. He’s spent his entire life looking out for you and Charlie. He’s not going to quit now even if he’s dating an evil witch.”

I shouldn’t have laughed. I really did like Lola. And, apart from this new thing, I was really happy for Will. She softened him. She gave him a broader purpose than simply living and breathing Craft, something he’d been lacking in his life. And she seemed to genuinely love him. And Will had not had enough love in his life.

But that said, Jonah’s total dislike for her was so surprising it was hard not to be entertained by it.

So I laughed, and I felt lighter and less agitated afterward.

“You’re probably right. Next time I see her, I’ll throw a bucket of water her way and solve that problem real quick.”

His gaze narrowed on the road. “You make jokes, but when she flies away with your brother tied to the back of her broom, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The stress and tension I’d been drowning in melted into something soft and squishy, warming my entire body. I took a deep, relaxed breath and settled deeper into the car seat and this happier mood. “Where are you taking me for supper?”

He took a series of turns before answering. “Well, my original plan was sushi. But I feel like we need comfort food after Will’s mutiny.”

I hummed my approval. Jonah had a lot of things going for him and had won my loyalty in about a hundred different ways. Still, his ability to feed my food mood was his best quality. It was a knack he’d always had. And I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it from.

His mother was far from maternal, and he wasn’t exactly a chef—at least not like his other friends. But he had this instinct with food that was close to a spiritual gift level of miraculous. When I was in high school, I would come home after a bad day, and he would quietly get up from playing video games or working on homework with Will and make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After a really hard, long day, they are still the thing I make.

When my dad died, while we were planning the funeral and Charlie and Will were fighting about everything, he snuck me out of my mom’s house and took me to get waffles at this shitty little diner my dad used to love. Two years ago, after I’d gotten dumped for the third time that year—it had been a mix of bad taste in men and being too dedicated to the bar to make any of the relationships serious—he’d brought chocolate milkshakes and my favorite chicken fingers and french fries with a big side of gravy to the bar and locked us in my office until I was three hundred pounds heavier and no longer depressed.

He was equally intuitive about what drinks I liked.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d read my mood and figured out the perfect meal to appease it. But how could anyone get used to that?

“Vera Quinn has her food truck parked downtown tonight. Foodie is all about the classic comfort food. Does that work?”

“I love that truck,” I told him, ignoring the way my misty eyes blurred.

He smiled, and I turned the radio up; we small-talked and mumbled lyrics for the rest of the ride. By the time he finally found parking down the street from Foodie, I had been able to shake off the last of my bad mood and misgivings about Will’s intentions.

“It’s kind of cold out,” Jonah said with the car idling. “Do you want me to order and bring it back?”

“I’ll be okay,” I assured him. “I’m tough.”

He didn’t argue, but he also didn’t look convinced. He shut his car off, zipped his jacket up, and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

We bolted out of his car and shuffle-ran down the block to the food truck. The bike shop behind it was aglow with lights and crammed with people. There must be an event tonight, and the food truck was there for it.

“Are you sure it’s open to the public?” I asked, my breath turning the air white, thanks to the cold. “Or is it here for some event?”

“I follow them on Insta,” Jonah said smoothly. “They said they’d be here tonight. Their specials are curry chicken potpies and shepherd’s pie with ground lamb.”

I started salivating immediately. “I’m going to get one of everything.”

He chuckled and then slowed as we approached the short line in front of the truck. People stood around waiting for food and to order, stomping their feet and rubbing their hands together to survive the cold. Durham certainly wasn’t the coldest place on earth, and we hardly got snow, but anything below sixty degrees felt icy to me.

Jonah’s phone pinged while we were standing there, and he pulled it out to check it. I watched his expression while he read the text, trying to interpret how his lips pressed together in a frown.

I didn’t try to even hide my nosiness most of the time. For as long as I could remember, I had been tagging along with Will, Charlie, and Jonah. If I didn’t demand to know what they were talking about, they’d never have included me in a single conversation. Especially when we were younger, but even nowadays too.

But when it came to texts and phone calls, I at least made a minimal effort to mind my own business.

Well, sometimes anyway.

“Is it Will?” I asked when he tucked his phone back into his pocket without replying.

He blinked, looking down at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Is what Will?”

I jutted my chin toward the general direction of his chest. My hands were preoccupied with being shoved into my pockets. “The text. I told him I wasn’t going to bring him back food, so he was pissed.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t Will. It was one of my dating apps.”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. “One of your dating apps?”

A sheepish grin twisted his lips. “I mean . . . whatever, you know what I mean. You’re the one who keeps sending me new accounts to sign up for.”

I took a step closer to him, trying to get him to block some of the wind. The line slowly moved, and I needed Jonah to shield me from the cold. Compared to the whipping wind and frigid air, his body was warm and cozy.

I stepped even closer to him, leaning my shoulder against his bicep. “Keep me warm,” I murmured.

He stretched out his arm, wrapping it around my back and pulling me into him. “We’re almost there.”

Tipping my head back to keep an eye on his expressions and mouth tilts, I said, “So are they working?”

He stared straight ahead, his gaze fixed on the food truck cashier. I knew he was being purposely vague when he asked, “Are what working?”

“The dating apps.”

He made that frowny face again. “I don’t know. Yes. But also no? There are girls . . . but I don’t know . . . it’s hard to find someone I have stuff in common with.”

It was my turn to frown. Hard to find someone he has stuff in common with? This was Jonah Mason. He was so easygoing and chill. He liked almost everything. Food and alcohol were obviously on the top of his list. But he also ran every day, went hiking, played golf, liked competitive poker and card games, regularly beat me in Scrabble or checkers or whatever other board game I could coerce him into playing, read actual books, watched the news way more than was healthy, and had recently started teaching himself how to infuse his own alcohol. It had been hit-or-miss so far. But his hits had been really great. It was only that time he tried coriander and anise that was really terrible and should never be repeated as a flavor profile as long as mankind walked the earth.

“What do you mean? What kind of girls don’t have anything in common with you?”

He looked down at me, startled and maybe a little offended. “What does that mean?”

“I’m just saying, you like normal stuff. How hard is it to find a girl who likes trying new restaurants and watching twelve hours of old episodes of Survivor Man in a row?” I shrugged.

He chuckled, his mood settling. “I don’t watch twelve hours of Survivor Man at a time.”

I chose not to respond. He definitely did. Well, he’d put it on and then do other stuff around his apartment. But it was literally always on. He loved Les Stroud with an unnatural obsession.

“Be that as it may,” I said, “you’re easy to talk to, easy to look at, and from what I hear, easy to sleep with. You think you’d be the perfect guy on a dating app.”

“Hey, I’m not—”

“Can I help you?” a perky brunette with aqua tips on her bobbed haircut asked from the window. I knew Vera enough to know this wasn’t her. Had she hired staff to run her food truck? I knew she and her husband, Killian, were either planning to open a second restaurant or they just had. I was impressed that they had hired staff for the food truck too. Business was either really great or really desperate. Only time, and my chicken potpie, would tell.

“I’ll take a chicken potpie,” I told her decisively. She started to ring in my order. “And the shepherd’s pie,” I added quickly. Jonah made a snorting noise, so I looked up and glared at him. “What? I like leftovers.”

“I know,” was all he said in response to me. The cashier looked up expectantly. “I’ll have the same,” he told her. He was already pulling out his credit card before I could talk him out of paying for both of us.

The cashier looked down the line and stepped back to talk to the chef before she finished our order. “We only have enough for one of the shepherd’s pies. I’m sorry, we were busier than we thought.”

I felt Jonah sulk behind me at the same time I made a pouty face. “You can have it,” I told him. “Since you’re buying.”

“You want to share it? We might not have leftovers, but I can’t eat it all myself.”

“Sure.”

He smiled at me, secretly laughing at how easily I was swayed by food. He handed over his card to the cashier, and we moved down the line to wait by the pickup window. My body had started to shiver all over, and my hands were officially numb.

“We’ll have to eat in your car,” I told him through chattering teeth. “I can’t stay out here for much longer.”

“I told you to wait in the car,” he tsked.

“I mean, I’m totally fine.” My frozen body jerked in protest, but I didn’t acknowledge it. “I’m just saying, our food will get cold.”

“Right,” he said with an eye roll. “How about we just take it back to your place? We can watch Survivor Man and analyze my online dating profiles.”

I couldn’t help the big smile that stretched my ice-cold cheeks. I briefly thought about Will’s words that Jonah was his friend but didn’t let it dilute my joy. Because even after being close to Jonah for years, something was so sweetly satisfying every time he chose to spend time with me. Sometimes, he chose only me.

It probably had something to do with a latent inferiority complex after being the tagalong little sister my entire childhood. But I couldn’t help feeling like I won something every time he picked me.

Before I could answer, he pulled me against his solid chest and wrapped me up in his warm arms. He furiously rubbed my back, using the friction to help me survive until our food was ready. I inhaled deeply, letting him fill my senses. He smelled like the same Old Spice deodorant he’d always worn. And the new cologne he’d picked out around Christmas—the one I’d helped him decide on. And the crisp chill of winter. He smelled like a thousand childhood memories, a hundred adolescent fantasies, and home.

Once upon a time, I thought I loved Jonah Mason. I still flushed with shame and embarrassment over how that debacle ended. But even though those days were long behind me, and we’d settled into this mature, grown-up friendship, I still had to fight latent butterflies when he pulled moves like this. When he stepped too close, and I only could see and smell him, all I wanted was to wrap my arms around his waist and hold on for the rest of eternity.

His name was called out from the pickup window, and he stepped away from me to grab our food. The little warmth I’d found in him blasted away with a new rush of cold winter air. It was the slap in my face I needed. The frigid wake-up call that brought me back to my senses.

I didn’t love Jonah Mason. Not anymore. He was a good friend. And a good person. But that was it.

He held up the brown grocery bag filled with our orders triumphantly. “I started my car. It should be nice and toasty for you.”

One last butterfly soared through my belly, dipping and tumbling and making it hard to breathe.

Those unrequited days of pining over him were over. Way, way, way over. If only my lonely, neglected heart was better at remembering.

five

My apartment was only five minutes from Craft. Well, if I drove like a maniac to get there. But by the time we parked in the attached lot, walked up the three flights of stairs, and stripped out of our coats and winter wear, our food was cold.

I walked over to the oven and punched the right buttons for it to heat. I loved to bake, but I hardly ever had time for it. So this was the most action my oven had seen recently—reheating the takeout that didn’t survive the drive.

Jonah handed over the bag of food wordlessly. I started pulling out the containers and moving things to oven-safe dishes while he dug through my alcohol cabinet and pulled glasses from the right floating shelf. “Old-fashioned?” he asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.

“Yes, please,” I told him. “That blackberry simple syrup you made last week is in the door of my fridge if you want to get fancy with it.”

“Do you have blackberries?” he asked, sounding especially snobbish about his drinks.

I rolled my eyes at the spoonful of shepherd’s pie I was moving to a hand-me-down Pyrex from my mom. “No, but I have those dirty cherries if you want to mix things up. You know, a little modern, a little traditional. I have regular bitters or those black walnut bitters you gave me for Christmas in the liquor cabinet.”

He made a noncommittal sound and rummaged through my fridge and freezer. “You’re out of big ice cubes.”

“Yet somehow, we’ll survive.”

He threw a regular-sized ice cube at me from across the kitchen. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a smart-ass?”

He told me that all the time. “Once or twice,” I said, shrugging one shoulder and not turning around.

Something was settling—easy—about Jonah moving around my kitchen while I made dinner. Well, I wasn’t exactly making dinner. But I was preparing it, so that counted. After a whole day of feeling upended by Will’s secret scheme and the general sprinter’s pace of trying to get ahead on my work at the bar—and failing miserably daily—I liked that Jonah was here now, planning to eat dinner with me, making me a drink.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my independence. It was probably why I wasn’t very good at dating. At least not long-term. I excelled at first dates and the early stages of relationships—when expectations were few, and the conversation was all get-to-know-you questions and discovering favorites. It was when they wanted to introduce me to their friends or parents or set up future plans that I faltered.

It was easier to avoid relationships altogether than try to manage my work, my family, and a boyfriend. And honestly, who had the energy to invest in all those things at once? Owning Craft took everything out of me, and I was still perpetually behind. Plus, add in my crazy brothers . . . I just didn’t have an unending well of energy—the kind that a serious relationship would require.

Still, this was nice. Having someone to sit with during supper. Having another presence in my apartment after a long dry spell of isolation. Having someone else make me a drink for a change.

I smiled at the inside of the oven as I popped the casserole dishes inside. When I stood and turned around, I tried to smother the contented expression, but Jonah was waiting with a fresh drink. He handed it to me, then settled back against the counter, taking a sip from his tumbler.

My apartment was the cutest. It was ultra-feminine with rosy pink lower cabinets and white floating shelves. I’d filled it with mismatched but colorful appliances that made me feel like I belonged in a French cottage along the beach or something. A plum blender for the protein shakes I made whenever I freaked out about my health. A floral toaster for when I remembered to get groceries and splurged on bagels and cream cheese. A buttery yellow mixer my brothers had gotten me for Christmas a couple years ago. And the pièce de résistance—a retro-style teal fridge that gave me life. The ice machine hardly worked, and sometimes late at night, it would make a growling noise that would wake me from a dead sleep . . . but it was beautiful.

The rest of my apartment followed the same colorful theme. A U-shaped floral sectional I’d had custom-made when the bar first started making real money. White farmhouse-style everything else—coffee table, TV stand, bookshelves—filled with bright vases and floral knickknacks. The furniture was too big for the tight space, but I loved how it felt full and cozy.

I didn’t remember having many pretty things in my childhood. My mother was as practical as they came, and my dad was always covered in grease from his hobby of restoring old cars. It wasn’t that my family didn’t appreciate beauty . . . it just wasn’t celebrated.

When I was in high school, I promised myself that my adult life would be filled with beautiful things. That I would spend my whole life collecting a home and wardrobe and people who made me feel deeply. That made me feel lovely.

And so far, I had. Even if a lot of it was a mix of thrift stores, gifts I might have sent specific links for, and a few expensive investments. I had an old Vespa from my dad I was slowly fixing up. It was almost running. And then I wanted to paint it bubble-gum pink. I had no idea where I would drive it, but I couldn’t wait to get it going.

It wasn’t that I refused to be practical. But when you could have a toaster in Dalmatian print with baby-pink roses and curling green stems, why would anyone pick a plain stainless-steel one?

I took a sip of my drink. The ice hadn’t melted yet, so the whiskey was strong. I loved the burn of it. The woodfire taste of it. In high school, I’d been all vodka and sugar. But somewhere in my early twenties, I’d developed a taste for whiskey, and it was like discovering my whole purpose in life.

It didn’t fit with my soft, feminine, flashy style. Whiskey was best when it was understated and solid. It was like closing your eyes after a long day and taking your first deep breath. Or sinking into a hot tub after a killer workout, when all your muscles hurt, and your bones feel like breaking. It was slow and smooth and Matthew McConaughey’s low, drawling voice in a car commercial.

I could be extra in a lot of ways. But whiskey kept me grounded.

Or at least that was what I told myself.

“What?” Jonah asked. “Why are you smiling?”

“It’s good,” I told him. “Even with my disappointing ice cubes.”

He shook his head at me. “Don’t worry, I filled up the good trays for you.”

“Aw, thanks.” There was this awkward moment between us. It sometimes happened when we were quiet. And just looking at each other. Like the air between us flexed. Or froze or something. It didn’t happen all the time, but sometimes I would look at him, and my breath would stall. There would be something I wanted to say but didn’t know what it was. And it felt like he was trapped in the same moment of awkward-almost-something. His gray-blue eyes darkened, and he held my gaze until I had to gasp for breath and look anywhere but at him. “What do you want to watch?”

He shook his head as if forcing himself away from the weirdness too. “Yeah, whatever you want. I’m not picky.”

I pulled open the oven door to check on the reheating progress. “Great. I’ve been dying to check out this new dating reality show. I think season two just came out, so we can binge for hours. The couples don’t get to see each other at first. They have to talk through a wall or something. And I—”

A yelp ripped out of my throat when the towel hit my ass. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it scared the living daylights out of me.

“Smart-ass,” Jonah murmured.

I whirled on him. “How dare you?”

He was grinning ear to ear. “You’re such an easy target.”

“And you’re a giant bully.”

“Only to you,” he said, as charming as ever. “But that’s probably because you make it so easy.”

“Only a bully would blame the victim they’re bullying for being a bully.” I pulled the food out and lined it up on the stove. Spinning around, I threw out a smug, “That’s what we call gaslighting.”

He twisted the kitchen towel in his hand like he wanted to snap me with it again. In an effort to literally save my poor ass, I pounced on him, capturing his wrists in my hands. My fingers couldn’t even touch. His bones were too big. And the muscles flexed beneath my hands, reminding me it would take almost nothing for him to break my makeshift handcuffs.

He laughed at my effort to restrain him. Somehow, the momentum of me moving and him trying to avoid me brought us together. My hands still wrapped around his wrists at my hips. My chest against his. His chin brushed the top of my head. And there I was, just staring at the hollow of his throat, watching his pulse thump.

“Do you honestly think you can stop me?” he threatened, his voice all low and rumbly.

“Easily.” I was going for bravado. But my voice came out stupidly breathy.

He tugged lightly at my grip, and I was powerless to stop both his hands from escaping. In one fluid motion, he wrapped one arm around my lower back, caging me against him. And with his other, he pulled back his hand and slapped my ass. No towel this time. Just his hand on my butt.

I let out another outraged yelp and glared at him. He grinned down at me, all sex and forgotten crushes. And he didn’t push me away. His arm stayed wrapped around my back. I could feel the imprint of his hand along my side. The other one splayed where it had landed on my ass. His laughter gentled. And his eyes did that softening thing again.

For a second, I let it happen. I let myself fall into the fantasy I’d had more times than I wanted to admit. I licked my lips and held his gaze and imagined what it would be like to rise on my toes and kiss him.

And in that same hypnotic second, I knew he did the same to me. His head dipped toward mine. His breathing stuttered in his chest. He wanted to kiss me.

Could hardly stand not kissing me.

“You’re an irreverent flirt,” I accused, stomping on the breathless moment with the heel of my Mary Jane. “Honestly, it’s amazing someone hasn’t filed a lawsuit against you.”

I patted his cheek with more force than was necessary and stepped back. Disappointment clouded his expression so dark and stormy I wondered if he’d even bother to stay and hang out. “What?” he gasped, struggling to recover. And keep the darkness out of his voice. “Most girls aren’t mad at me, Liza. They’re all into that. Just because you’re the one female on the planet seemingly immune to my charm doesn’t mean you need to blame me. Now, who’s gaslighting who?”

I snorted and reached for the plates on the other side of the kitchen. “I hope you’re not going around smacking girls’ asses and calling it charm.”

“Sometimes they like it.”

I threw a raised eyebrow look over my shoulder. “Sometimes? That’s hardly a pristine résumé.” After dividing equal portions of all the food, I moved to grab forks only to find he’d already gotten them.

He held one wrapped in a paper towel out to me. “You do know I don’t go around sexually harassing women, right?”

“My experience tells me that isn’t true.”

“You don’t count. You’re not a woman.”

His words landed like a punch in the gut. I wasn’t a woman in Jonah’s mind because I was just the kid sister still begging to tag along. I took the fork and makeshift napkin and headed for the living room.

My heart felt the blow as acutely as my guts. I might not think of Jonah like a brother, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think of me like a little sister. And since we were just friends, I should be okay with that. But then why did it hurt so much?

“Don’t be mad,” he called after me, instantly realizing his mistake. “That’s not what I meant. Obviously, you’re a woman, Eliza. A fucking sexy woman. I just meant . . .”

“I know what you meant.” My voice was calm, collected, carefully masking the hurt simmering where he couldn’t see it.

He sat down next to me, placing his food on a stack of magazines dating back at least four years. When I could finally afford my own place, I’d naïvely decided I needed magazines on hand for my guests like a real grown-up. So I’d taken my first paycheck from the bar, paid my bills, bought enough ramen to last me through a nuclear holocaust, and spent seventy-five dollars on magazines covering every topic and genre. Basically everything except Playboy.

Then I’d artfully arranged them in communal sitting spots around my house. Where they remained today, unopened. I’d never even read them. If I wanted to know something about fashion or houseplants, I used the Internet. Meanwhile, they still looked cute, so I kept them. I even dusted them when I cleaned.

So if Jonah accidentally spilled his supper on them . . . I wasn’t going to be mad about it.

“I’m just teasing you, Eliza. You know that, right?”

I took exactly one second to pull my shit together. He would know something was up if I took longer, even an additional second. But I needed the short pause to bury the offended teenager who was madly in love with him and resurrect the strong, confident, happily single twenty-seven-year-old woman he knew as his best friend.

“Yep.”

It wasn’t that I was wearing a mask or pretending or lying or anything else that wasn’t the whole truth. This was who I was. I was a successful, badass, independent female that was growing her business, taking care of her skin like it was a side hustle, drinking enough water—at least once or twice a week—working out semi-regularly, and occasionally investing in her retirement, however minimally and inconsistently that might be.

I didn’t need Jonah’s pity. Or his random attempts at hooking up when he’d been single for a stretch and was particularly horny. Had I wondered what it would be like to have sex with Jonah? Obviously. How could I not? He was everything I found attractive in the opposite sex. Not just because he was unfairly handsome, but because he really did have a great personality too. He was kind, generous, and so funny. He took the time to check on me after I had a bad day. He noticed the smallest details about me. He listened to my opinions and remembered them and then took them into account when appropriate.

And more than all that, he was comfortable. Like a security blanket in the form of a human being. It would be so easy to fall into something quick and easy with him.

But then what?

How would we recover afterward? How would he go back to being my security blanket? How would we reestablish boundaries and friendship and our easy familiarity? We couldn’t. It would destroy us. Permanently.

And I wanted to be friends more than I wanted one great night and then a lifetime of awkward regret.

So upon remembering all the reasons I was awesome and would eventually find a real, living, breathing, not-childhood-crush boyfriend, I rolled my eyes at him and added, “Listen, if you can’t keep it in your pants tonight, I’m kicking you out.”

“I shouldn’t have poked the bear. I realize that now.” He actually sounded repentant, but I enjoyed making him suffer.

Brandishing my fork at him, I reminded him, “I’m not your fuck buddy, Mason. If you can’t hang out and be cool, I’m sending you home.” I eyed his plate. “And I’m keeping your leftovers as reparations for the emotional trauma of being your friend.”

He stabbed his fork into a big bite of potpie. “I get it, Liza. Geez. I said I was sorry.”

Now I felt bad for making him feel bad. Which was the stupid power he and my brothers had over me. Ugh, I wanted to stab my fork into my forehead just like Jonah had his food. Why was I like this?

I reached for the remote instead, hoping we could just move on and forget any of this had happened . . . ignoring how good it felt to flirt with him. And how off the charts our chemistry was. Why? Because none of that mattered. We’d known each other way too long and seen way too much stupidity for anything romantic to happen between us.

He’d been the first to come to that conclusion. And I’d agreed with him shortly thereafter.

“The second season of The Witcher is on.” It was my peace offering. Either he was going to take it or we’d spend the next hour flipping through shows and being miserable with each other before he made up an excuse to go home.

“You hate The Witcher.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t understand The Witcher. But I don’t hate Henry Cavill. So I’m just saying . . . if your secret nerd heart wants to fill up on sex-driven fantasy to fill the fathomless void in your soul, you have my support.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. “The Witcher is not sex-driven.”

Despite the weirdness between the start of the evening and now, I had to press my lips together to suppress a smile. “Then why did Yennifer get the glow up, Jonah? Why do they have Henry Cavill strutting around shirtless everywhere? Sex, baby. Let’s talk about it.” I cleared my throat. “Not that I’m complaining.”

He stabbed another bite of food while I pulled up the right streaming app and hunted for his favorite non-survivor show. “There are elements of sex,” he clarified. “But the show is story-driven. Those character arcs, I mean . . . it’s genius.”

“The show’s story walks in drunken circles. The only thing making sense in that show is sex.” I shot him another look. “Kind of like your life.”

His lips twitched. “Now she’s got sex jokes.”

I laughed out loud, dispelling whatever tension was left between us. “Oh, I always got jokes about you, Mason. Always.”

He grabbed the remote from me and turned the volume way up. “Yeah, yeah. If you want to talk about sexual harassment. I’m fairly confident this is the definition.”

I finally tried my food—which was rich, flavorful, and ridiculously delicious—but didn’t push him on the sore subject anymore. It took fifteen minutes into the episode before we were totally back to normal. He kept pausing to explain what was going on since I hadn’t grown up playing the video game or reading the book as he had, and we fell back into that safe, cozy spot where we spent most of our time as friends.

Well, for at least the next three episodes.

six

I dozed off somewhere during episode three, just when Jonah was as obsessed with something as humanly possible. The food had been so good. And so filling. And I was curled up on my cozy couch under my comfiest blanket. I was on drink number three as well.

For someone whose job generally consisted of only nightlife, I was notoriously terrible at staying up past ten.

I woke up cradled in something more solid than my couch. The TV had the “are you still watching” popup on display, and my apartment was still but not as quiet as it usually was in the middle of the night.

It took me a couple minutes to figure out it was because of Jonah’s heavy sleep-breathing in my ear. We’d somehow tangled together. We’d been sitting next to each other, but with at least a foot of separation. We’d tipped toward each other in our passed-out-ness. So he was somehow resting his head on the back of the couch and cradling me against his chest with our feet pointing in opposite directions. My cheek rested against his chest. His rhythmic breathing steadily rose and fell.

In another life, I would have gently scooted away from him and tried not to wake him or just closed my eyes and gone back to sleep. Honestly, he made a great pillow. And he was so warm. I slept cold. Which meant I usually woke up ten times during the night to add blankets and socks to my frozen appendages. But right now, I felt perfectly warm. Not too toasty. Not chilled at all. Just luxuriously snug from my head to my toes.

But this wasn’t a different life. This was my life. And I was bound and determined to make it the most awkward series of catastrophes possible when it came to Jonah. Also, I had drool pooling in the corner of my mouth, and I was fairly certain I’d left a splotch of wet on his T-shirt.

Which unfortunately meant that I was going to have to assume a new identity and move to Mexico. Those were the accidental drool rules. I didn’t make them.

I jumped up, taking the blanket with me and wrapping it around my shoulders like I was somehow dressed indecently. He startled awake. Full-on shot straight up and put his hands out like he was under attack.

“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, watching him shake off sleep and blink awake. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“Huh?”

Holding the blankets in a knot with one hand, I grabbed our plates and marched toward the kitchen. I was the one who had just gotten all over his case for being overly flirty with me. And then I literally threw myself on top of him.

Ugh.

It wasn’t that I was surprised we’d cuddled up unconsciously. Honestly, it wasn’t the first time. Nor would it probably be the last. But lately . . . lately, I was struggling more and more to turn down his casual plays for something physical. Not that it happened often. But tonight, for instance, that almost kiss. And now this, curled against his body like we were the last people on earth and needed each other’s body heat to survive the elements.

Normal, clear-headed Eliza could slot that incident into the friend zone easily. Lonely, heartsick Eliza watching her brother fall madly in love with his soul mate and wishing it was her wanted to throw the friend zone to the birds and just get laid, dammit.

Jonah was dangerous tonight. And even though I knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, I still wanted to blame him rather than take responsibility for my libido.

My blanket billowed out behind me like a royal robe. I heard it sweep the old magazines off the coffee table, but I would deal with them later.

“What time is it?” he mumbled from his spot on the couch. His voice was rough with sleep. He must have been deep in REM because I had never seen him this out of it before. Drowsy, of course. Too tired to keep his eyes open all the time. Just woken up, basically my entire childhood since he regularly slept over at our house.

But not so completely out of it that he was struggling to make sense. I couldn’t help the amused smile that lifted the corners of my mouth. But I did quickly smother it. So I should get some bonus points for that.

Glancing at my oven, I yelled back, “One thirty.”

It wasn’t even that late. Not for us anyway. The bar was still open—which seemed crazy given how deep in sleep I’d been too.

A grunting sound from the living room was followed by a suspicious silence. I assumed he was getting ready to leave while I rinsed the plates and set them in the bottom of the sink. The clean freak in me whispered that I’d be happier in the morning if I loaded them in the dishwasher right now. But honestly, that was Tomorrow Eliza’s problem. Late-Night Eliza just wanted to go back to bed.

Okay, fine. I did wipe down the counters and box up the leftovers. My refrigerator was embarrassingly empty, and I easily fit the to-go containers between the half gallon of orange juice and corked white wine from two weeks ago when Claire and I had decided we were going to find a Zinfandel we liked.

We’d failed.

Although we managed to drink almost everything. Except for that half bottle. Which I should probably throw away.

By the time I had turned off the kitchen lights and wandered back toward the living room, I fully expected Jonah to have left. But there he was, tipped over on his side, sleeping again.

I sat down on the coffee table and put my socked feet up on the couch in front of his chest. “Psst.” He didn’t even flinch. “Jonah!” I whisper-yelled. He swatted a hand in front of his face and squished his eyes tightly closed. When he put his hand down, it landed on the top of my feet. He didn’t try to move it away. I wiggled my toes. Still no response. Leaning forward, I got closer to his face. “Jonah, don’t you want to go home and sleep in your own comfy bed?”

He shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“You can’t sleep here,” I said more firmly. “You need to go home.”

“You go home,” he growled drowsily. “I’m tired.”

He was too cute like this. All curled up and grumpy. His face was so soft in sleep, so relaxed with his long, muscly body stretched out. I could see goose bumps on his arms. But apparently, he wasn’t concerned about being warm. Or sleeping in a bed. I poked his chest with my big toe. He just held it tighter in his sleepy grip.

I sighed in defeat. And then yawned. I was tired too. Too tired to deal with him right now.

Leaving him exactly as he was, I dropped my cozy, plush blanket on top of him so he wouldn’t freeze. Then I sprinted to my bedroom, where I closed the door and ripped off my work clothes and bra, only to replace them with some sweatpants and a tank. Then I faceplanted on my bed and burrowed beneath my covers.

Tomorrow Eliza would have to deal with Jonah too. Or maybe Tomorrow Jonah would wake up, realize he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and drag his big butt back home.

I fell asleep with him still wrapped around me. His scent. His touch. His warmth. And I thought, Tomorrow Eliza will be better at shaking him off. Tomorrow Eliza will remember that he didn’t give her butterflies. Or make her heart squeeze painfully. Or remind her of when she used words like “future” and “love” and “soul mate” whenever she thought of him.

The sun would come up, and sense would return to Tomorrow Eliza and Tomorrow Jonah. And life would click back into normal mode, just like all the times before. Easy peasy. Because no matter how many times he tells me I’m sexy, I’ll never be a woman in his eyes.

* * *

A chainsaw woke me up the following morning. I flopped over in bed and pressed my hands to my chest to keep my heart from leaping out of my body.

With a few seconds of wakefulness, I realized it wasn’t a chainsaw. It was my coffee grinder. And with that sense of clarity came a lot more confusion. Had I programmed it last night? I’d only remembered to program it the night before twice. So . . . doubtful. It took effort to clean out all the pieces and set them up for the morning. I was always too tired at night and promised myself I’d do a better job in the morning. Only to curse myself every morning because who wanted to clean the individual pieces of a high-tech coffee maker first thing in the morning?

If it was programmed, I definitely hadn’t added coffee to it. So was it going to brew yesterday’s coffee? Was that somehow going to eff up my stupidly expensive machine?

Now in a full-fledged panic, I threw the blankets off me and grabbed a throw from the end of my bed—because why was the morning always so damn cold?—then ran into the kitchen, planning to tackle my coffee machine—which had clearly come alive in a machine-versus-humanity-type scenario—and wrestle it unplugged.

I skidded to a stop as soon as the kitchen came into view and screamed something unintelligible and wildly profane. My coffee machine wasn’t possessed. A man was in my kitchen tending to it. A man I had forgotten fell asleep on my couch last night. A man I was not expecting to see until after my workout, shower, hair and makeup was done, and several hours of daylight.

He spun around and did a double take. “Morning,” he said, eyes bulging with shock. “Hope this was okay. I didn’t think I was safe to drive home without some caffeine.”

“You scared the living shit out of me, Jonah! I forgot you were here. I thought my coffee machine was alive!” And why was I yelling? It was way too early for yelling.

He cleared his throat and had the good sense to look embarrassed. “Yeah, uh, sorry, I had no idea it was going to be that loud. This thing is like industrial-strength.”

I sniffed, unsure if he was insulting me or not. “Coffee is very important to me.”

His lips twitched, but he remained serious. “To me as well.” After an awkward pause, he repeated, “I hope you don’t mind. I looked up the instructions online . . .”

“You can google coffee machine instructions, but you can’t drive yourself home?”

His embarrassed expression intensified. I was pretty sure his cheeks turned red. “Okay, the truth is I’m out. And I didn’t want to stop. And this thing looked . . . like it would make something good. Don’t be mad.”

I rolled my eyes. “It would take a lot more than making me coffee in the morning to get me mad at you.” A shiver rocked through me, and I realized how badly I had to pee. I gestured toward the kitchen. “Go ahead and help yourself to whatever. I think there’s oatmeal in the pantry. I’ll be right back.”

Safely back in my room, I realized several things at once. One, I wasn’t wearing a bra. I’d had the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, but had it been tightly? Two, my breath was rock-solidly awful. Shouldn’t have skipped brushing last night. Gross. And three . . . I looked like a clown from a circus that performed nightly in hell. Oh, my gosh, I hadn’t taken my makeup off last night. Or put my hair up!

Well, that explained his look of sheer terror.

I stumbled to the bathroom and gripped the edge of the sink, gaping at my appearance. My dark hair was absolutely wild, sticking up everywhere, and inhumanly frizzy. And my eyeliner and mascara from yesterday made raccoon circles around my eyes. My unwashed face was oily and so shiny it might be literally reflective. And then there was the breath. Which was somewhere between as bad as possible and worse than humanly possible.

Thankfully, I was about sixty percent sure Jonah and I had stayed far enough away that I was safe there.

Okay, forty percent sure.

Maybe a strong ten percent positive my breath hadn’t infiltrated the entire apartment by now, and he was currently passed out on the kitchen floor dying of asphyxiation.

Priorities—I peed first. Then made my teeth sparkle. And then got to work on the mess that was my face and hair. Fifteen minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom fresh-faced and with my hair on top of my head in a supersoft satin scrunchie. I’d also slipped a bralette and cardigan on to save Jonah from a peep show he didn’t ask for.

He dug around in the refrigerator while I lustfully eyed the full pot of coffee.

“You have nothing to eat here,” he said into the empty expanse of the fridge. “Is that why you’re so skinny?”

Admittedly, food was not my priority. I loved to eat well. And I loved good food. But I worked too much and was gone even more than that to make cooking and grocery shopping a regular event. I usually had takeout for too many of my meals. But I couldn’t bring myself to eat it more than once a day. Usually once every other day. So I subsisted on instant oatmeal and premade protein shakes.

Since I lived and worked in a pretty intense foodie culture, I tried to keep these facts about myself hidden. I knew how to order the good stuff at any given restaurant. And I could demand delicious drinks from happy hour to bottle service.

But secretly, I could hardly take care of myself.

Jonah already knew that about me. Which was why he was constantly trying to feed me. It was annoying. But also endearing. And without him shoveling delicious food truck potpies at me a couple times a week, I probably would have expired from hunger years ago, hit my head on the corner of my kitchen counter, and then bled out because I was all alone. My brothers wouldn’t have thought to check on me for at least a couple weeks.

Dark? Yes.

True? Also, yes.

But, all that aside, Jonah was still in my apartment a good twelve hours after we picked up takeout last night, and I was starting to get antsy. “Then maybe you should take your coffee to go and rummage through your own fridge.”

He turned around smiling and let the fridge door close on its own. “There’s no food over there either.”

“I told you I have oatmeal. And not just any oatmeal. I have all the good flavors. Peach, blueberry, brown sugar and cinnamon, apples and cinnamon, banana . . .”

He actually flinched when I said banana. He hated bananas more than anything on the planet.

“Did you want me to make you a bowl?” I only offered because I knew there was no way he’d take me up on it.

“I’ll starve. Thanks.”

He’d already set the creamer on the counter, so I got busy making my cup of coffee and pouring one for him. He didn’t drink his with creamer, but he knew I wouldn’t touch the stuff without it. It was thoughtful of him to get it out for me.

But I was annoyed he was still here. And that he’d seen me in a way that would definitely get back to my brothers, become an instant running joke, and never go away.

“You were out of it last night,” I said, wondering if he’d explain why he spent the night.

I wasn’t looking at him, but I sensed a shrug at my back. “Your couch is unfairly comfortable. I didn’t stand a chance.”

He apparently didn’t remember me lying directly on top of him. So at least there was that. “It really is. I had to lie on like fifty couches before I picked that one.”

“I remember.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot you went with me.”

“Then you made them upholster it for you with that flowery pattern. The sales guy was so pissed.”

I snorted before taking a sip of my perfect coffee. “He shouldn’t have been. That thing cost an arm and a leg. I know he got a fantastic commission from it. He was just one of those people who liked to complain. I could tell.”

“How could you tell?” His question sounded innocent, but I heard the amusement he was trying to hide in his tone.

“I just could. He also made a comment about maybe I would want a smaller size. And when I told him I wanted it delivered and assembled, he made a snotty noise.”

“Okay, I remember the smaller size comment. But I think that had to do with finishing it within your time frame. But there wasn’t a snotty noise about delivery. You made that up.”

I whirled around and planted my butt against the counter. “I heard it. He hated me.”

He shook his head but finally released a laugh. “You’re delusional. He didn’t hate you. Nobody hates you. You’re too . . . you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He held my gaze. “You know what it means.” When I pressed my lips together and shook my head, he added, “I don’t know, you’re . . . so nice. And funny. And . . . gorgeous. And you have that way of making everyone feel like they’re your instant best friend. The poor guy was probably just nervous.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes—despite the way his compliments made me feel all warm and squishy. “That’s such bullshit. You were there. He had it out for me.”

He took a long drink of his coffee. “I give up. I can’t win without at least three more cups of this.”

I nibbled on my lower lip, enjoying this early morning banter. I didn’t usually talk to anyone until I got to the office. Unless I had an errand or went to the gym with Ada or Claire instead of using my own treadmill.

“It’s good though, right?”

He took another sip and nodded. “Better than the Keurig shit I drink.”

I made a face. “What? Why?”

“It’s easy?” He shrugged. “This would drive me crazy every morning.”

I shrugged back, unwilling to admit it did drive me crazy most mornings. But it was also worth it. Sometimes the effort to do something good was hard. But that didn’t mean the thing was bad. Hard things could be good things.

In more ways than just coffee.

“This is weird,” I said instead. “That you’re still here.”

“You’re so damn pushy,” he scolded in a low rumble, tossing the last of his cup back. I thought that meant he would leave, but instead, he walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself another.

I eyed the remaining coffee to make sure there was enough to get me through my required two cups per day. Caffeine was something I liked to be careful about. But mostly because I absolutely loved it. I loved coffee and soda and chocolate and even, secretly, energy drinks.

It was my night owl life that got to me. I was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise person by nature. The bar had effed with my entire circadian rhythm. And even though I’d had four years to get used to the schedule change, I still struggled in the afternoon, when I needed to be my most productive self in the office. And then again late at night, when the main floor needed me to help out and I was trying not to doze off standing up.

If I gave in to my baser needs, I would spend every day sucking down a two-liter Coke and slamming Red Bulls. But I was bound and determined to stick to two creamer-rich cups of homemade coffee and let iced water and Big Red gum fill in the gaps.

Most days.

I was only human, after all. And some afternoons demanded caffeine overdoses. That was just the way of life.

“You don’t think it’s weird that you spent the night at my place?” I asked, truly perplexed by his nonchalance.

He screwed his face up in thought. “Mmm, I’m pretty sure you made it abundantly clear that nothing would happen between us, English. So I wasn’t exactly worried you were going to take advantage of me in my vulnerable sleep state.” Little did he know.

Reaching REM and drooling on his T-shirt didn’t exactly qualify as sexual misconduct, but when I closed my eyes and remembered what it felt like to be nestled against his chest, what he smelled like so close to me—even the damn cadence of his breathing—it was hard not to feel like I overstepped some boundaries. Boundaries I’d put in place. Not just because I didn’t want to be another notch on Jonah’s bedpost. Or worse . . . another one of his regrets. But because it was oh-so easy for me to forget who I was today and get swept up in who I used to be. Or rather who Jonah used to be to me. Not the best friend I loved and respected and thought the absolute world of. But the man of my dreams who I would have done anything just to get him to notice me.

Ugh, stop, Eliza. Get your shit together.

“That’s not what I mean,” I said coolly.

“Then what do you mean? I’ve spent the night at your house a thousand times before.”

Was he serious? “You’ve spent the night at my mom’s house a thousand times. With Will. This was so not the same thing.”

He shrugged for the three hundredth time. My eye twitched, and I had the briefest fantasy of punching him on his collarbone. Having company in the morning had lost its luster now that we were bickering.

“Semantics, Eliza. We both survived still virgins. All is good.”

I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly lodged behind my eyelids. Neither of us was virgins, and he knew it. But clearly, he needed to be reminded of the rules. “What if Will would have stopped by, Jonah? How would you have explained our sleeping arrangements then?”

I expected him to tense up and get serious. Or to panic and run out of my apartment screaming and waving his arms over his head because he just remembered that he’d promised my big brother he’d never lay a hand on me. Never even look my direction in a way that was anything but platonic and brotherly. I expected a lot of apologizing and pleading and reminding me I had just as much at stake as he did. We couldn’t anger Will because Will was the boss and sacrificed so much for all of us, and we owed this to him at least and blah blah freaking blah.

I felt queasy waiting for him to make last night the biggest mistake of our adult lives. Because I’d already lived through this scenario in my teens. And I could safely testify that it lived in infamy as the worst night of my teenage years by a landslide.

seven

It was actually eerily similar to these circumstances, now that I was thinking about it. Mentally reliving the nightmare that refused to give up and die already in my memory.

Jonah had been spending the weekend with us. His mom had checked herself into the hospital the day before. She did that sometimes. She had a lot of issues, but one of them was debilitating depression, where she regularly considered taking her own life.

Sometimes her hospital stay was a good thing. She was sick and needed help, and at least she was protecting her son.

But other times, she blamed Jonah for being the reason she was so depressed. Then she would leave her only child to pick up the pieces of her emotional terrorist attack and the physical destruction of their house while she got a state-paid weekend getaway. Even if it was in a psych ward.

That time was one of the latter. Jonah had shown up late the night before, looking like someone had run him over with their car. I had seen him cry when we were little, but I was seventeen, and he was almost twenty then . . . and it had been a while since he’d looked this . . . defeated.

My mom had welcomed him into our home immediately. Even my dad had been kind to him. They couldn’t do anything for him other than feed him and give him a place to stay. He was an adult. His mom wasn’t supposed to be able to crush him anymore.

But she had.

Oh, how she had.

Will had been home too. They’d stayed up late talking, drinking, and eventually passed out. I’d had to leave for school before they were awake, but I couldn’t wait to get home and hang out with Jonah. I had it so bad for him. But I’d also liked being his friend. At seventeen, Will had started to let me hang around more often. I hadn’t been as annoying to them as I’d used to be. I could even make them laugh and beat them at video games.

The night had been everything I’d hoped it would be. I’d helped my mom make dinner, and the boys had been ecstatic to have her homemade roast chicken and cheesy potatoes. Then Will, Charlie, Jonah, and I had started a movie marathon. Probably Austin Powers. But Charlie had abandoned us to play video games in his room. And at some point, Will had decided to go to bed too.

It’d ended up being just Jonah and me. And just like last night, we’d started on opposite ends of the couch and somehow had found our way to the middle. We’d laughed about the movie. And joked. And kept touching each other. Flirty at first, where you’d linger but pull your hands away. Then we’d stopped pulling our hands away. And just touched.

I’d looked at him when the credits were rolling. He’d looked back. Those gray-blue eyes darkening and softening and somehow also intensifying. I’d said the thing I’d wanted to say to him for years. “I’m sorry your mom doesn’t know how amazing you are.”

And then I wasn’t sure who’d moved first or kissed who, but we had suddenly been kissing.

I had only kissed two other boys before Jonah. The first, a kid who’d begged me to kiss him under the bleachers after school, had been a total disaster. And the second had been a couple of months before at a party. I’d been in love with Jonah even then, but Colin was a nice kid from my science class, and I’d felt like . . . I should at least have some idea of what I was doing if I’d ever hoped to impress Jonah—who had been in college at the time and had dated plenty of girls.

Honestly, I’d never really expected to get to that point though. Jonah was so out of my league. So beyond my hopes and dreams. So everything I’d obsessed over and everything I’d been afraid to try for.

But there we’d been . . . kissing . . . and kissing . . . and kissing . . . and I’d thought I would combust right then and there. His hands had cupped my face, rough and calloused, where my skin was smooth and soft. His tongue had been insistent and exploratory. He’d made a sound in the back of his throat that I knew meant he’d enjoyed this as much as I had. And just when I thought we would take things a step forward . . . he’d pushed me away.

“I can’t,” he’d mumbled. He’d sat up with a start and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry, Eliza. I can’t.”

I might have managed something like, “Huh?”

Jonah had thrown a hand back against the couch, punching the cushion. “He’s going to kill me.”

I’d reached some outer space dream world where I sat on clouds and felt wonderful all the time and had access to Jonah Mason’s lips, so when he’d pushed me away, I hadn’t come back to reality. I’d actually fell off my puffy, perky cloud, careened through time and space at lightning speed, and crash-landed back on earth with an ear-splitting thud. My body had actually hurt from the impact. Still, I’d managed to ask, “What?”

“Shit, Eliza, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what?” I’d asked like a total moron.

His face had been bright red, and he’d all but jumped to the other side of the couch to put as much space between us as possible. “That!” he’d said dramatically, gesturing toward me. “I promised Will I’d never touch you. Like that. I swore on my life I’d never, uh, get with you.”

The pieces to this puzzle had been there, but I’d been in slow motion trying to put them together. “Wait, you promised Will? You promised Will what?”

“You’re his sister,” he’d said plainly as if I’d somehow forgotten. “And he’s my best friend. And it’s not that I don’t think you’re awesome because I do. You’re amazing, Eliza. And so pretty. And nice. And . . .”

He’d said only good things, but for some reason, they’d felt like punches in the gut instead of compliments. I hadn’t wanted to hear how awesome he’d thought I was. Or how amazing. Or how pretty I was.

I’d wanted him to come sit by me again. To stop talking about Will and start talking about us. And for fuck’s sake, I’d needed him to kiss me again. Right then.

“I don’t understand,” I’d told him. My hands had started shaking, and I’d felt the embarrassing prick of tears building up. I wasn’t going to cry over this.

Okay, that was a lie. I was going to sob forever over this. But at least I wasn’t going to do it in front of Jonah.

I’d save it for later when I could lock myself in the bathroom, crawl into a scalding hot shower, and curl up on the floor. Then I’d cry. And cry. And cry.

But not yet.

“I like you, Eliza. Like for real, I like you. You’re so cool. You’re exactly the kind of girl I want to date. But . . .”

My heart had dropped to my toes, and the sick feeling in my stomach had intensified until I’d have sworn my skin actually turned green. Nobody had ever hated the word but more than I had at that moment.

Nobody.

“But . . .” he’d continued. “My friendship with Will is too important to fuck up. I’m sorry. He’s done so much for me. He’s basically saved my life. I owe him everything. And it would kill him if we . . . if I ever . . .” His vision had cleared, and he’d looked me dead in the eyes. Those eyes that had been so mercurial were solid, steely gray. “This can’t happen, Eliza. Ever.”

This can’t happen. Ever. He’d meant him and me. He’d meant our kiss. He’d meant that even though he liked me, he liked my brother more.

And could I even blame him?

God, I’d wanted to. I’d so wanted to. But Will was the best—at least to Jonah. And they had been friends for so long. Plus, Jonah was so much older than I was. He was in college, and I was still in high school. What had I expected?

The shame had borne down on me like a missile. Suddenly, I’d felt like I’d been the biggest idiot to initiate the entire thing. That I’d been flirty and too into him and desperate for something to happen between us.

That I’d somehow manifested that shit show by sheer desperation.

I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. Or be around him. Plus . . . I’d been about to be sick. Like for real. And under no circumstances I’d let that happen after he’d just rejected me for my brother.

My body had moved before my mind had fully caught up. But fight or flight had kicked in, and all I could do had been to play it cool and not sprint out of the room in a flurry of hysterical sobbing.

“I get that,” I’d heard myself say. “Obviously. It would be weird anyway.” My hands had moved in ways they’d never had before. I’d kept jerking them in front of my face and then forcing them to my side, and then they’d twisted together in front of me, only for me to yank them behind my back. I’d probably looked like a marionette on acid.

He hadn’t look at my hands, though. He’d held my gaze from across the room and lifted one arrogant eyebrow. “Why would it be weird?”

Hadn’t he just told me it was wrong? Weird had felt like a softer synonym for what he’d been saying. And hadn’t he been the one pushing me away?

So why had I suddenly felt like I had to justify my actions and words? Still, part of me wanted that to happen between us so badly that my body physically ached with longing for him. My heart had twisted itself into a knot, and the hope that had been stringing me along for years hadn’t figured out that this was the end. It’d still soared in my chest like a helium balloon, bumping against the ceiling barrier of my rib cage.

But that hadn’t been the part that spoke. The part that had said, “Because you’re like an older brother to me,” had been a pure survival instinct. When his jaw unhinged and he’d stared at me, mouth agape, I’d added, “I’ve known you for like . . . ever. You’re family, Jonah. We’re friends. Just friends.”

He’d blinked at me as if he couldn’t quite get my face in focus. His mouth had worked up and down, but he’d looked like he couldn’t figure out what to say. Probably because I’d said everything for him.

I’d stepped back, anxious to barricade myself in my room for the next forty-eight hours, possibly the next thirty-six years, and scream into my pillow. And then cry. And then scream a little bit more. And then cry a hell of a lot more. And then rewrite my mental future, extricating him entirely from it.

Which was too bad for him because we’d had a lovely future together in my head, dammit.

A two-story house. The picket fence. Three adorable kids with my hair and his eyes. We were perfect.

“Okay, sure. Yeah. If that’s what you want, Eliza. Friends. Of course. We’ll always be friends.”

I’d wanted to scream at him. That wasn’t what I’d wanted. That was what he’d wanted. He’d wanted to be friends. I’d wanted to recklessly throw my virginity at him and have all his babies.

Clearing my throat, I’d taken a step back and glanced at the door. “Um, thanks.” I didn’t know why I’d said that, but there it was. Survival. And some intense but stupid urge to be polite and not make waves.

“And about Will—”

Oh, no. I would not, under any circumstances, let him ruin this moment even further by bringing up my brother again. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I’d assured him. “I won’t tell Will what happened. My lips are sealed. I’ll take this one to the grave with me.” I’d made a lip-zipping motion. “Consider it buried. Decayed.” I’d taken another step back, trying to figure out why I was still talking. “Ashes to ashes,” I’d heard myself say. “Dust to dust.”

“Eliza!” Jonah had called after me, but I’d already escaped into the hallway, and not a single thing on heaven or earth could have dragged me back into that room.

I’d made it to my bedroom and managed to close the door quietly before bursting into sobs. Thankfully they were so strong, so severe, that they’d been utterly silent. I’d miraculously cranked up my radio and buried my face in my pillow before needing to gasp for air. And that was where I’d stayed for the next twelve hours. Weeping. Grieving. Saying goodbye to the childhood crush I had convinced myself was the love of my life.

When I’d finally surfaced sometime after lunch the next day, Will had taken Jonah out. They’d gone golfing or something stupid. And I had showered, washed my hair, and decided I would never again entertain romantic thoughts of Jonah Mason.

He’d be in my life probably forever. That was unavoidable. I’d have to see him. Interact with him. Hang out with him. And I would have to treat him like the brother I claimed he was.

By the time the guys had returned to the house, I was fresh-faced and as peppy as ever. He’d avoided my eyes and had been quieter than usual. But I’d been my old self, razzing my brothers and laughing loudly at their jokes.

A year later, I had stopped getting misty-eyed and flushing with shame every time I thought about that kiss.

Two years later, I was fully comfortable being around Jonah and not assuming the shameful kiss was all he ever thought about when I was around.

Five years later, we were as close as he was with Will. He called me as much as he called Will. We hung out without Will or Charlie around.

Ten years later, that night and that kiss was a distant, embarrassing, long-buried memory for both of us. It was almost like it had never happened.

Almost.

Except for moments like this one.

I’d brought up the big, fat elephant in the room. The reason for my ultimate humiliation all those years ago. So why wasn’t he freaking out? Why hadn’t the name Will English invoked pure, unadulterated panic from him?

“Who cares what Will thinks? We’re adults, Eliza. Your brother can go fuck himself if he has an opinion. He didn’t ask my advice about Lola. Did he ask yours?”

“No, obviously not. Will isn’t the guy who asks for permission.”

His expression twisted with outrage. “And you think I am?”

I could see—too late—I’d offended his sensitive masculinity. But I wasn’t quite sure how to walk back from what I’d said. He was the kind of guy who asked for permission. Okay, maybe not permission per se. But my experience in this exact situation was that anything dealing with Jonah and me was strictly off-limits.

But instead of dragging up the past, I boldly held his gaze and said, “I didn’t say that.”

He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t get it, Eliza. I slept here. I didn’t flash you or force you to watch UFC. Why are you acting so weird?”

Why was I acting so weird? Why was I dragging up all that nonsense from the past and projecting it on him now?

If I was brave enough to be vulnerable with myself, then obviously the night of our kiss and his subsequent rejection hurt me. Deeply. But I’d decided to get over it a billion years ago. So why was it coming after me like some deranged night of the living dead?

I covered my face with my hands and let out a slow, measured breath. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m about to start my period or something.”

The silence that followed my statement was exactly what I hoped it would be. For as modern and feminist as Jonah could be, period talk scared the living shit out of him.

And honestly, out of all the men I knew.

And I wasn’t above using it to get me out of whatever jam I didn’t want to be in. A couple months ago, I’d used the excuse every single week. Unless I had some sort of issue that should be checked out by a medical professional, it was literally impossible for me to be on my period four weeks in a row. But did any of the men in my life realize that? No. They didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

But in my defense, Charlie had started seeing someone he was “really” serious about. And I actually knew her from high school. She’d been the worst then. And she was still somehow the absolute worst. And I had just needed to wait out the storm.

I’d binged at least three full shows on Netflix and caught up on my favorite murder podcasts. Charlie had eventually been dumped—like I knew he would be. Will and Lola had been forced to double date through that nightmare. And eventually, life had returned to normal, and I’d come out of my period-induced exile.

“Eliza, seriously,” he finally hedged, “are we okay? You keep getting mad at me, and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. But if I have done something, please tell me.”

The sincerity in his voice was enough to pull my hands away from my face. One look at him had my heart balling up into a squeezed grape. He was clearly repentant. All sincere gaze and tight jaw. The tension between us had been wholly in my head. And the ghosts from our shared past were mine to slay. “You haven’t done anything, Jonah. I’m being stupid.”

His eyebrows furrowed together. “Are you sure? You’d for real tell me if I was a jackass to you?”

I slid my tongue over my top lip and shook my head at him. “You’re literally always a jackass to me. But no more than usual lately.”

“Thanks for letting me crash here last night. I was too out of it to drive home. Work has been kicking my ass lately.”

“I was an idiot this morning. But you’re always welcome here. You know that.”

He made a face like he wasn’t sure if he knew that or not. Which was fair after how insane I’d acted this morning. He dropped his empty mug in my sink and said, “Well, I think I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of an episode, so there’s probably a lot of sleepovers in your future.”

“You know, you’re allowed to watch it on your own. I’m not going to stop you.”

His eyes bugged out of his head when he spun around to face me. “And rob you of a proper high-fantasy education? I would never do that to you, English. I care about you too much.”

I snorted at his sarcasm. “Well, then maybe see if you can buy me some kind of study guide so I know what the hell is going on next time.”

He stepped closer and pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me in a crushing hug. The last of the awkward tension between us dissipated in his tight squeeze. I let my cheek rest against his chest, noticing how normal it felt in the light of day.

Last night’s memory was tangled up in an after-dark mystery and buried implications. But this morning, with the sun shining in through the tall windows and caffeine flowing through my veins, I realized nothing about this was weird. Jonah and I always hugged. Not always this close and for this long. But we hugged often. Just like this. A sweet old bear hug—the kind neither of us had gotten during childhood.

“Are you swinging by the bar later today?” I asked, my voice slightly muffled from my mouth being smooshed against his chest.

“Planning on it.”

“K, I’ll see you then.”

But still, he held me.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he agreed.

But still, he held me.

One hand was wrapped tightly around my lower back. The other splayed across the center of my back. In his protective embrace, I felt cared for, protected, seen, and loved. In his arms, I felt right.

And by the reluctant way he pulled away, I wondered if he did too. We might not be the future I had wanted when I was younger, but we were somehow something better. Even as friends.

As a teen, all I had pictured was marriage and a family and alllll the hot sex. Ahem.

But this connection we shared, this close friendship . . . this willingness to make up after we bickered, and hug each other tightly, and show up for each other day after day after day . . . was so much better than any childhood fantasy.

He was so much better than the 2D make-believe version I’d fallen head over heels for. He was here, in my life, in full, living color. Always showing up for me. Always taking care of me. Always a literal shoulder to lean on.

And even if it was hard to feel good about how our one kiss had ended, I felt good about our ride-or-die friendship. And the way I knew he would always show up for me. No matter what.

Eventually, he stepped back, and I was immediately cold and miserable. But that was the way of life. Good things, especially good hugs, couldn’t last forever.

His eyes searched until they caught mine in a tender gaze that made that abandoned butterfly flap rusty wings. “Sunday?”

His question made no rational sense, so my reply was an eloquent, “Huh?”

“For more Witcher?”

His eagerness to hang out again made me smile. “You made plans with Will, remember?”

His shoulders lifted with his sigh. “Not solid plans. Come on, I’m invested in the show. And your couch.”

I laughed. “You have an unhealthy obsession. With both.”

He shot me a crooked smile. “I feel like it’s a pretty healthy obsession. And I’m fine with both.”

Regret churned in my gut, but for no logical reason. We were besties, but Jonah and I didn’t need to spend every living moment together. “Sorry, I already made plans with Claire.”

“Claire?” he demanded, outraged. “Over me?”

“You have plans with Will!”

He snorted. “I can’t believe you’re ditching me for Claire.”

I laughed again. “I’m not ditching you for anyone. I heard you make plans with Will. And you know how sensitive he can be. If you abandon him now, he’ll never let you forget it.”

“Fine, but I still thought you were going to hang out with us. I didn’t know you would go behind our backs and make other plans.”

What was this? Since when did Jonah assume I would always hang out with my brother and him? Was this about Lola? She wasn’t going to be back by Sunday. “You’re crazy,” I told him lovingly. “Completely crazy.”

“Claire is so boring,” he whined playfully.

She was serious by nature. But once you dug beneath her OCD exterior, she was actually hilarious and adventurous. I mean, not many people could just up and abandon their job as a kindergarten teacher like she had and forge a new future as a pastry chef. That took some serious grit. She had a high standard of excellence and an even higher standard of perfection for herself. And Jonah truly didn't get her. “Well, it’s just one night. Somehow we’ll survive without each other.”

His look said he wasn’t so sure. My heart felt all warm and squishy again. “Fine, one night.” He walked over to the edge of my counter and picked up his keys. “Have fun with second place.”

If my heart was warm and squishy before, it was hot and completely melted now. If Claire was second place, did that make him first? Who was I kidding? We both already knew that he was. “You too. Will is a disappointing consolation prize compared to me.”

“Don’t I know it.” And he actually sounded serious.

“See you later, Mason,” I told him, stepping to the sink to take care of the few dishes I’d abandoned last night.

“Bye, Eliza,” he murmured on his way out.

And then finally . . . I was alone. Back to how my apartment should be. Only this time, after the door had snicked shut and silence reigned as queen once more, I didn’t relish the solitude. I didn’t drink in the first breath of being alone in more than twelve hours. And I wasn’t glad Jonah had finally gotten out of my hair.

I wanted his presence back. His jokes. His apologies. His secret nerdiness. I wanted his hugs and his long sighs and the way he filled up every inch of my apartment and made it feel brighter.

But I was pretty sure that was how everyone felt about their best friend. Life was always better when you were together. And Jonah was that for me.

I was sure of it.

The best friend part, I meant.

What we had was just the normal, easy way all best friends were together.

I was positive.

Well, almost.

eight

Sunday evening, I was alone at the bar. I’d swung by to take some pics for Instagram while nobody was there.

It wasn’t that I was embarrassed to take aesthetic pics of cocktails while other people were around . . . but I was one-hundred-percent embarrassed to take aesthetic pics of cocktails while other people were around. The influencer life was so not for me.

But in an effort to make Craft insta-famous, I had spent the afternoon making our signature cocktails, taking pictures of all of them, and then drinking one or two by myself. Hey, it wasn’t in me to let good drinks go to waste.

Will had been out all day, so it had just been me. And it had been great. I rarely had the bar all to myself. So I relished the quiet afternoon of working with uninterrupted time by myself.

Claire and I had plans to go to dinner and get drinks later, so I had brought clothes to change into. The sponge she’d promised earlier in the week had been an “epic fail,” and she refused to let me eat or even see her “abysmal catastrophe that was an embarrassment to baking.” Anyway, I’d suggested going out, hoping it would pull her out of her existential baking crisis over a cake I had a hunch was perfectly fine and would have tasted amazing. She’d immediately agreed. Anything to get her away from her kitchen—her words.

I knew she would be early, even though I’d specifically asked her not to be. But first, I needed to wash everything I’d used for my photo shoot and put it away. Meanwhile, I was sipping a whiskey sour and taking some cute shots of our main floor.

The bar phone rang suddenly, slicing through my peace and scaring the living daylights out of me. Holy cow, I wasn’t expecting that.

Heart pounding and drink in hand, I walked over to the side of the bar and reached for the cordless phone plugged in by the cash register. We kept it on hand for the bar, but I had almost forgotten how to use one of those things.

“Hello, this is Craft,” I said pleasantly into the phone.

“Hi there, I’m looking for Will English,” a perky female voice from the other end answered.

I thought it was weird someone would be calling the bar instead of his cell phone and half wondered if it was a creditor. I knew Will was way too responsible to have debt collectors hounding his place of work. Still, the sinister sister side of me loved the idea of him being taught a lesson. “He’s not here right now,” I told the woman even though he very well might be upstairs, and I was just too lazy to track him down. Also, I hadn’t heard footsteps upstairs for hours, and when the bar was this empty, usually I could. “But I’d be happy to take a message for him.”

“Thank you so much,” she said, all schmoozy and saleswomany. I instantly became more suspicious. “Could you tell him that Emily Hertzig from Hertzig Home and Business called him back? I got his message this morning, and I would be happy to set up a meeting with him.”

My good-natured interest soured into self-righteous fury. Hertzig Home and Business? A quick Google search pulled up a local real estate agency. Number one in the city. I tamped down an angry scream and said, “No problem.”

Except I did have a problem. I had a huge problem.

Hanging up the phone before she could say another word, I stared at the glasses, knives, and other things I’d gotten dirty this afternoon, restraining the urge to start throwing things on the ground.

A real estate agent could only mean one thing—he was moving forward with his plans to open a second location.

Without Charlie and me.

Before, I hadn’t wanted to believe he was that selfish. A part of me hoped he was just getting his ducks in a row before he pitched the idea to Charlie and me. But if a real estate agent was involved . . . then he obviously didn’t think he needed us.

The actual nerve of that man.

I was so glad I already had plans with Claire scheduled. She would know what to do.

Also, if I didn’t get my ass in gear now, I was going to be late, which would mean I would be really late since she would most definitely get to the restaurant fifteen minutes early.

Forty minutes later, I’d scrubbed the bar clean and changed into a slinky, black velvet dress that was low cut over my chest and high cut over my thighs. I’d paired it with fishnet stockings, combat boots, and my favorite leather jacket I’d painted big purple flowers on the back. It was edgy and sexy, and I loved the way I looked.

My hair was up for the night in a big messy bun of dark hair. And I’d done my eye makeup extra smoky. I had a real problem with dressing to fit my mood. When I was happy, I was all florals and pastels. When I was in full-on serious business mode, I went with sleek lines and jewel tones. And when I was pissed off or moody, it was all goth for me.

Thankfully, I’d packed in anticipation of being pissed off because my current frame of mind would not have suffered through anything but black on black on black.

Just as I predicted, Claire was already seated at the restaurant by the time I got there. We’d spent a lot of our Sunday nights recently trying out up-and-coming places. Tonight’s hot spot was a new tapas place close to Duke called Mimi’s. They were known for their pork belly banh mi and kung pao cauliflower, and I couldn’t wait to try everything. They also supposedly had great cocktails—but I was less enthusiastic they would live up to my standards.

Claire stood and squeezed me in a quick hug. “Hey, I just sat down.”

Which was code that she’d been waiting at least ten minutes but didn’t want me to feel bad. Everyone needed a Type A friend. They kept us organized and in line and reminded us about all the adult stuff we would naturally put off until it was too late—making a will, for example, paying our taxes, scheduling mammograms, etc. But those Type A’s needed us too. To remind them that being on time for everything did not win them any prizes and sometimes it was better to just say fuck it and do whatever we wanted.

It wasn’t just our personalities though. Our styles couldn’t be more different. I was a strange mix of boho and edgy where Claire was all buttoned-up ex-kindergarten teacher. Tonight, she’d made a valiant effort to look our age in a short yellow and black plaid skirt a la Clueless, black tights, leather mules, and a loose black off-the-shoulder sweater. Her auburn hair was straightened perfectly, and she wore a coordinating headband. She was absolutely stunning. But she was also very modest.

The truth was, Claire came from money, and it was obvious.

Next to her, I looked like the lead singer in a grunge band. We couldn’t be more opposite. But that was basically what made our friendship so dang special.

“You’re not going to believe this,” I huffed without acknowledging what she’d said. I was too worked up to feel bad for making her wait. “I was just at the bar taking some pics for socials this week, and the phone rang. Nobody else was there, so I answered it. And guess who it was?”

She sort of blinked at me. “Like on a real phone?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “On the cordless.”

She looked genuinely befuddled. “The cordless phone?”

“Yeah,” I repeated. “It’s our business phone. We keep it for the bar.”

“You pay for that?”

“Yeah,” I said for the third time. “It’s just so we don’t get constant calls to our cells.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, it was a real estate agent calling for Will. Can you believe that? A real estate agent!”

Finally, she looked appropriately scandalized. “No! You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

A server swung by the table to take our drink order. “Hi, my name is James, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Can I get you something to drink?”

Remembering we were here to actually eat and drink, I grabbed the cocktail menu and quickly scanned it, searching for the first whiskey drink I could find. “I’ll do the cinnamon, maple whiskey thing,” I told him, avoiding the name I couldn’t pronounce.

Claire said, “I’ll do the same thing.”

The server pressed buttons on his iPad and then said, “Do you need a couple more minutes before you want to order? Or I can put that in now if you know what you want.”

I looked at Claire. This was her job. I ordered the drinks, and she handled the food. Bartender and chef besties.

She smiled at James, and it had a sort of evil villain look to it. Yes, she knew what we wanted. Was James ready for this? She sucked in a quick breath and then launched into her assault on the menu. In thirty to forty-five minutes, we would be able to weigh Mimi’s worthiness as a new Durham hot spot to the nth degree. Knowing Claire, I already expected to find it sorely lacking. But it was going to be a fun judging process anyway.

“Yes, we’ll take the kung pao cauliflower, the Brussels sprouts, the short rib dumplings, the shishito peppers and curry, the hanger steak, and the charred octopus.”

James looked a little flustered as he hurried to keep up with Claire. “Okay, great choices.”

Claire looked annoyed at the compliment. “Oh, and the roasted bone marrow. Also, we will be having dessert. Thank you.”

James nodded at me instead of Claire. “Great, I’ll have it right out for you.”

I suppressed a smile. “You don’t always have to be so scary,” I told her.

She tilted her head. “I do though.”

We spent the incredible meal dissecting this problem with Will and our meal while drinking mediocre cocktails that were almost right but not quite there. Still, they were decent enough to drink.

Claire felt the exact opposite. The drinks were delicious, but the food was only passable.

We came up with lots of solutions to kick the food and drinks up a notch, but not so many for how to deal with Will.

“If he’s already talking to a real estate agent, do you think it’s too late?” Claire asked while she skimmed the dessert menu.

I was borderline sick from eating so much, but Claire couldn’t go anywhere without ordering dessert. It was one of the things I loved about her. She kept up with savory dishes to compete with her sister and phenomenal chef, Kaya, but desserts were her world. Not to mention her outrageous sweet tooth.

Her love of sugar could not be contained.

I let out a slow breath and thought through her question. Meanwhile, my phone buzzed. “Will is hard to talk out of anything once he’s made his mind up. To be honest, I’m not even mad about the business venture. I want him to be successful. It’s the secrecy that really hurts.”

“Siblings can be so stupid,” she said consolingly.

“Truth.”

I checked my phone and saw a text message from Jonah. The instant smile that transformed my misery into joy was annoying. But also, what could I do about it?

Jonah: Will and I are bored. Where are you and Claire? Want to meet up?

Something about his text was suspicious. First, I highly doubted Will wanted to meet up with Claire and me. He liked Claire—actually more than Jonah did—but he was never excited about hanging out with anyone outside his inner circle. And while Claire hovered nearby the circle, she had not gained entrance.

Second, wasn’t this Sunday supposed to be all about their bromance? Why were they trying to ruin the vibe by crashing our girls’ night?

Third, and most importantly, Jonah did not like Claire. So the fact that he wanted to hang out with her must mean they were having an awful time tonight. Oh, boys, why couldn’t they do anything on their own?

“Who is it?” Claire asked after I’d been staring at my phone for over a minute.

“Jonah,” I told her. Nothing out of the ordinary there because he texted me all the time. But then I added, “He wants to meet up with us. He’s with Will.”

Claire’s eyes bugged out of her porcelain face. “What? Why?”

I shrugged. “He says they’re bored.” I nibbled my bottom lip, trying to decide what was polite here. I didn’t want to ruin Claire’s night, but it might be fun for them to join us. Okay, it might be fun for Jonah to join us. I could take or leave Will at the moment.

Lifting my gaze to meet Claire’s, I asked, “What do you think?”

She shrugged. “Tell him sure. They could meet us at The Mission.”

“Are you sure? They don’t have to.”

She gave me a smile very similar to the one she’d scared James the server with. “No, it will be fun. We can do some investigative work on Will, and I can torture Jonah with my charm. It’s a win-win for me tonight.”

“This is why I love you,” I told her sincerely. “Someone has to keep the men in my life in line. It sure as hell isn’t going to be me.”

If possible, her smile turned even more villainous. “It’s a gift.”

We still ordered dessert. Duh. So it was another hour before we made it to The Mission—an upscale bar located in a repurposed old Baptist church. It was one of my favorite places to go. The stained glass on all the windows was original, but it looked especially stunning in the candlelight from the tables. The owners had turned the raised stage, where the pulpit used to be, into a dance floor, and it was a different experience to have couples dancing slightly above you. The bar was set in the middle of the space in an oval. And all along the walls, repurposed pews had been turned into private booths.

It was the sexiest space. And the drinks even met my high standards.

Jonah had texted to let us know he’d snagged one of the booths while he waited for us to get there, so once we were passed the bouncer, we headed his way. I was surprised to find him alone, though.

“Where’s Will?” I asked, sliding in next to him. He already had a drink in hand. And I could tell he had only been planning to hang out with Will tonight because he looked a little more casual than usual—jeans, a random bar T-shirt, and an olive-green hoodie. Flip-flops per usual.

“He decided not to come,” he said easily. “Said he was tired.”

Will not being here changed the whole dynamic of the night, and my brain struggled to catch up. “Oh really? You didn’t have to meet us then. You could have stayed with him.”

Jonah smiled at me. It was wide and comfortable and sweet. “I’m good.”

I turned to Claire in case she hadn’t heard over the thumping of the music. “Will went home, I guess. Said he was tired.”

She shot Jonah a narrowed look. “Really.”

Jonah kept his easy smile and shrugged. “He’s not as cool as us, I guess.”

I eyed his drink. “What’s that?”

“Manhattan. Want one?”

“Sure, if you’re buying.” I shot him my best pleading-puppy-eyes, wide smile look. He slid out of the booth on the other side. “Claire? Drink?”

“Please.” We settled in while Jonah fought his way to the bar. She turned to me as soon as he was out of earshot. “You don’t think it’s weird Will isn’t here?”

“No, Will is an old man. I’m not surprised at all.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jonah is just trying to crash our night out.”

I took a deep breath while deciding how to answer. I knew she was probably right. Jonah had already told me he wanted to hang out with me tonight. And that he was hoping I’d join his and Will’s plans. It didn’t bother me that he’d figured out how to finagle his way into our night. But then again . . . I could see how Claire might be annoyed. So I settled on, “Well, we can make him buy drinks all night.”

She didn’t look appeased.

A few minutes later, Jonah rejoined us with three fresh Manhattans. They weren’t my favorite whiskey drink, but I had a thing for the dirty cherries this place used. “Thank you,” I said when Jonah handed the glass over.

“I’m going to use the ladies’,” Claire announced as soon as Jonah sat down.

Jonah scooted over to me while Claire wandered off. He sat so close I could smell him—whiskey and cherries and something sweeter, something all him. “Claire is in a mood tonight,” he noted.

I turned to face him so I didn’t feel like I was sitting directly on his lap. “She thinks you tricked us into letting you hang out with us.”

His mouth lifted on one side. “You’re so much more fun than your brother.”

“Oh, I know.”

“He’s like an old man,” Jonah complained. “All he wanted to do was go back to his place and watch basketball.”

“I said the exact same thing to her,” I agreed animatedly. “I said he’s an old man.”

He scooted closer again, trying to get comfortable on the wooden booth. In his defense, the backs to the booths were straight up and down. But he ended up practically leaning against me, with his left arm resting on my thigh. “We’re so much cooler than he is.”

I giggled. “Obviously.”

Claire arrived back from the bathroom but didn’t sit down right away. After a few seconds of hovering awkwardly at the end of our table, she said, “I’m going to go. I have an early morning tomorrow, and I forgot I have to swing by Kaya’s before I go home.”

I sat up straighter, pushing Jonah away. She liked Jonah more than he liked her, but she did not like when the three of us hung out because she said we excluded her. I didn’t think that was true, but at this moment, while Jonah and I were practically cuddling, I could maybe see how this would be uncomfortable for her.

“Are you sure?” I asked, trying to be the neutral middle.

“Oh, yeah, it’s no problem. I’m really stuffed anyway,” she added. “And I’m getting a headache.”

Okay, she’d literally given every excuse possible. I was just about to call her on it when Jonah said, “Well, bye, Claire. See you round.”

She held my gaze for a long moment, seemingly trying to convey something with her gaze. But I couldn’t read her mind. Finally, she gave up and smiled. “I’ll text you later?”

“Yes, please. Drive safely.” I held up my hand in a little wave.

She nodded, then disappeared into the bar crowd. I took a deep breath and hoped she wasn’t mad at me. Two seconds later, my phone buzzed.

Claire: Just kiss him already and put me out of my misery.

My cheeks flushed bright red, and I tilted my phone out of Jonah’s eyeline as quickly as possible.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

I shook my head and tried to form words. Claire was crazy. Was that why she left? She thought Jonah and I were going to make out? She knew our whole story. What in the world?

“Fine,” I eventually croaked. “Everything is fine.”

Jonah slid close again, pressing his side against my side, and tapped the top of my phone. “You know, I’ve been thinking, actually.”

Pressing my glass to my cheek for a second, I set my phone facedown on the table and gave him my full attention. “Thinking about what?”

“We should delete our dating apps.”

If we were being honest, I hadn’t actually looked at a dating app on my phone in months. Maybe a year. But I knew he checked his, so I was more than a little confused. And what was more perplexing was why he was grouping us together as if we were the same. He used his to get laid. Or at least that was what I assumed he did. There was no actual confirmation that that was happening. Jonah was very kiss and don’t tell. But I was actually looking for a fulfilling, long-term relationship. Okay, not right this moment . . . or this year . . . but that was the ultimate goal. Find a husband.

“Why?” I asked, unable to hold back a small laugh. “Why would we do that?”

“Well, how much luck are you having via the Internet lately?”

That was an easy answer. “I haven’t really been looking to date lately, so none. But—”

“And how many couples do you know who’ve met online?”

“Well . . .”

“That’s my point. You want to get married someday, right?”

“Yes,” I answered definitively, hiding the strength of my answer behind a sip of my drink. “That is the plan. Marriage, a few babies, a house, the whole thing.”

“Same,” he agreed, but his voice had dropped to a low rumble. He stretched his arm out against my thigh and played with my fishnets over my knee. His long fingers felt especially warm against my cool skin. “The whole thing. Marriage.” He rubbed his pointer finger in a slow circle just above my kneecap. “Babies,” he said, adding a second finger. “A house.” He included his thumb, gently squeezing my thigh and moving his hand a little higher. I suddenly found it hard to breathe, and I certainly couldn’t look at anything other than his hand against my leg. Suddenly, he turned his head to gaze at my profile. “So we should definitely delete our dating apps.”

His sexy, seductive touch had basically rendered me brainless. So I was having trouble connecting the dots. “Okay, wait. If we want those things, why would we get rid of the one tool helping us get them?”

Now his hand was just full-out splayed across my mid thigh. The heel of his hand and his thumb were so high up on my leg that the hem of my dress actually obscured them. Swallowing was becoming very difficult.

“All the couples we know have met in real life. Face-to-face. Not online. We have to start looking at the people around us.”

Seriously, my rational thinking was hardly working. But I couldn’t help a breathy laugh. “You think my future husband is already in my life?”

He cleared his throat. “Maybe.” There was a slight pause before he added, “I’m just saying you’re going to have more luck finding him out here”—he squeezed my thigh again—“than on your phone.”

If I stared at his hand for a second longer, I was probably going to slide off this bench and land in a puddle of goo on the floor. So after a fortifying drink of my cocktail, I bravely lifted my gaze and met his warm, intense, on-fire eyes. “You might be right,” I heard myself say.

“I know I’m right.” And then he smiled. It was intimate and secret and so mysterious that I was very suddenly assaulted by warm fuzzies. No, not even warm fuzzies, scorching-hot fuzzies that tingled through my entire body—head to toe.

Jonah Mason was a dangerous, sensual, too-hot-for-his-own-good man, and if I didn’t know better, I would have dragged him to the bathroom right this second and had my way with him.

Instead, I sucked in a deep breath and raised an eyebrow. “You first.”

“I already did it,” he countered, surprising me. “Yesterday, actually.”

“But I thought—”

He shrugged. “There’s nothing there for me. What I want is right here.” Another thigh squeeze.

I scooted back on the bench, desperately needing some space. “So you think I should do the same thing? Delete my apps, and the universe will just produce a husband for me?”

“Are you that anxious to get married?” he asked, suddenly sounding offended.

“What? No. Not that. I’m not like desperate or whatever. I just . . . I just want to stop going on dates that lead to nothing. The constant disappointment and then start-from-the-beginning cycle that isn’t going anywhere. I’m not saying I want to get married tomorrow. But I would at the very least like to start working in that direction. I really am tired of first dates. But I’m also not sure I’m marriage material. I have too much going on at the bar and with my family and . . .” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. In my head? In my stubborn heart?

He held my gaze. “The right guy will be impressed by what you have going on, Eliza. Not deterred.”

His words were so sweet and felt so good. I so wanted to believe him. “How do you know?”

“Because I’m blown away by all you do. You don’t just run one of the best bar scenes in Durham. You somehow make it work with your idiot brothers. And you’re killing it. The right guy will see how hard you work, how much of yourself you put into your work, and how much your work means to you and stand in awe. You are smart, sexy, and successful. You’re a catch, Liza. Any guy would be lucky to call you his.”

Now my cheeks were flushed for an entirely different reason. How had Jonah not found someone yet? I was just his friend, and he’d somehow made me feel like the most amazing woman who ever lived. I laid my head down on his shoulder and finally allowed the space between us to disappear. “You’re the best. Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

His hand flexed against my leg again. But this time, it wasn’t so much a tender squeeze but a motion of restraint. “This is better,” he said in a low murmur.

“Better than what?”

“Everything else.”

Butterflies erupted in my stomach. God, this was the real reason my dating apps never worked out. It wasn’t because of the men on the Internet. It was because of this man in my real life.

How on earth was I supposed to find someone to fall in love with when I had a best friend like Jonah? He erased the need to find someone else entirely. And sure, I still had needs. Physical needs mostly. But he was this giant, wonderful presence in my life that made every other man on the planet seem small and less than.

But it was even more than that. At the basest level, I knew that at some point, if I ever got serious with another man, I would have to get less serious with Jonah. And that was something I was unwilling to do. That was why I knew he would have to find someone else first, and I would be the last single standing.

Because what other guy would be okay with his girlfriend like this? Head on Jonah’s shoulder, Jonah’s hand splayed across her thigh. We looked like a couple, even if we weren’t. And more than just our touching, we shared a soul-deep connection. We texted and called each other constantly. He was the person I was always in contact with and didn’t let a day go by without checking in.

How was I supposed to find someone else when my life revolved almost completely around Jonah?

More than that, how was I supposed to find someone else when I wanted my life to revolve entirely around Jonah?

We spent the rest of the night sipping Manhattans, laughing, and talking about everything. We had so much fun. And when the bar finally closed and we were forced to part ways, he walked me to my car and asked if I was okay to drive home.

“Yes,” I told him sincerely. “You?”

“Yes.” He hesitated a second and then said. “I can drive you though. It’s not a problem. I don’t mind.”

“Really, I’m fine. We had like one drink every hour. And I live three minutes from here.”

He lingered by my car. “You’re sure? I’m happy to take you home.”

I unlocked my door and pulled it open. Pushing him playfully on the shoulder, I said, “Go home and get some sleep. You have to work in the morning.”

“Oh, to have Mondays off,” he murmured, sounding a little sad.

I looked over at him, daring to meet his gaze. “Tonight was so much better with you in it. Thanks for crashing.”

He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Tell Claire I’m sorry. You’re just . . . too hard to stay away from.”

Butterflies. Fuzzies. All the Jonah-induced tingles. God, this man. Unable to stop, I lifted up on my toes and kissed his cheek. “You’re good for my ego, Mason. I’m going to keep you.”

He stood there and watched as I got in my driver’s seat and closed the door. He was still standing there as I drove away. Something in his expression made it hard to breathe and set my thoughts spinning. But I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t put my finger on it. So instead of hyper focusing on all things Jonah, I drove myself home, got ready for bed, and then deleted all my dating apps.

nine

Charlie poked his head into my office almost a week later, and said, “Lola’s back,” without any inflection in his voice.

I looked up from the website of a new up-and-coming brewery in Georgia, which had the loveliest social media presence, surprised to see him. Charlie was one of the most charming human beings on the planet—I was convinced of it. He was the kind of person who other people immediately loved. Will always said he’d be a fantastic cult leader. But I knew his attention was too short for that kind of long game. Even if he successfully gave up sugar for the rest of his life.

When we were kids, he had an uncanny knack for wrapping every single teacher around his finger. To this day, Will and I still didn’t know if Charlie could really read or if teachers had just passed him because they liked him.

Obviously, you couldn’t get to our age without knowing how to read . . . except this was Charlie. And there were several times I just wasn’t convinced he knew what all the letters in the alphabet meant. Sometimes I’d catch him staring at the menu like it held the secret to life. Or death. And I would ask him to read something on it just to test the waters.

So far, he’d managed to pass all my half-hearted tests. But there was one time when a drop of water had skewed part of the word “cornichon,” and he’d read “cornucopia” like he was totally confident we’d serve German pretzels with beer cheese sauce alongside homemade cornucopias. And he never read actual books. Only listened to audiobooks. Suspect, for sure. I mean, he could be dyslexic.

Ada told me I was crazy regularly.

Anyway, Charlie had two modes. One was on. When Charlie was on, he was warm, open hilarious, and inclusive. And when Charlie was off, he was different. Not that he wasn’t still magnetic and funny . . .

More like, he was reserved, reclused, more restrained than normal. And even though I was used to both sides of him, I still found him hard to read when he was off. I thought he liked Lola, but I couldn’t say for sure. I thought he liked owning the bar with Will and me . . . but I could be wrong about that too. I thought he was secretly and madly in love with Ada. But he was just as likely to be totally in love with the girl who made his Jimmy Johns sandwich every Friday afternoon.

Unlike Will, who always kept his cards so close to the vest and never shared his opinion that it was impossible to know what he liked or wanted, Charlie shared all his thoughts and what he wanted, yet I was still just as confused about what he really wanted.

Ugh, why were the men in my life so damn complicated?

“Oh, okay,” I said lamely. “Is she here now? Or . . .”

“No, Will went to pick her up from the airport.”

“Gotcha. So are you handling the main floor? Or do I need to go out there?” It was five o’clock on a Friday. Things were just starting to pick up. Miles was behind the bar, and Ada was waiting tables and training a new guy.

“Will wanted me to find you so you could go out there. Apparently, I’m too much of an idiot to manage for an hour.”

“Fuck Will.” The bold words were out of my mouth before I could think better of them, but after they were out in the air, I realized I meant them. Clearly, I should confront him about his second location plans soon before I ended up irrevocably angry with him. But I was going to get really bitter and resentful first and then ambush him during our busiest night of the year by making a very public scene or wait until next Christmas and do it in front of Mom, Lola, Charlie, Uncle Tim, and Granny, effectively ruining everyone’s holiday.

Which was the way with family in business together. We didn’t have strategy meetings or mediated disagreements. We just started screaming profanities at each other after the smallest things went wrong, swore never to speak to each other again, googled how to dissolve the business three ways after I vindictively picked it apart, and then got over it thirty minutes later.

I didn’t make the rules. I only followed them.

Honestly, what else was I supposed to do? I was in business with my brothers. This was the way.

But for some reason, it bothered me that Charlie might not like Lola. He should be happy Will finally found someone.

“You’re not an idiot,” I told him. “Will is a control freak. It’s not you. It’s him.”

Charlie rolled his eyes and jutted out his bottom lip, reminding me of the little boy he used to be. “You say that all the time. But meanwhile, he’s treating me like an idiot. And talking about me like an idiot. Given the evidence, there’s only one conclusion: I am an idiot.”

I bit the corners of my lip to keep from smiling. “So prove him wrong.”

He didn’t move, but something in the expression on his face intensified. “What?”

I shrugged. “I’m not going out there. I have too much work to do. Prove Will wrong. Just do the damn job. And do it well.”

For too long, I’d been mediating the delicate peace—read constant conflict—between Charlie and Will. But if I was honest with myself, I usually sided with Will. Charlie had made a ton of mistakes in the past, and I tended to default to babysitting him. Not only that, I tended to be the one who went out of my way to make sure he never failed. I mopped up his messes, swooped in to save him from himself, and protected the bar from his self-destructive ways twenty-four seven.

But with Will’s possible defection, a new fire had been lit within me. True, I had no grounds to assume Will was actually going to pull out and open up shop elsewhere. But even if things went on per usual, we had to start counting on Charlie to pull his weight. It wasn’t that Charlie wasn’t willing. It was that we’d taken away his option. His belief in himself.

Which meant Will and I had to shoulder our own work and divide up Charlie’s. And now that Will had a serious girlfriend and found purpose outside of this building, more and more shouldering fell on me.

The idea had started spontaneously, but now it had legs. And maybe wings.

“Come on,” I told him, jumping up from my desk.

“Where are we going?” He sounded quite dazed. As if I’d confused him so much that his brain couldn’t comprehend what I was asking him to do.

“We’re going to show Will you’re not a total idiot.”

He snorted. “Total idiot?”

I shot him a grin over my shoulder. “Well, you know what I mean.”

The main floor was still pretty slow as we worked our way toward Miles. It was the perfect opportunity to teach Charlie a thing or two.

“Hey, Miles,” I said, smiling at our longtime bartender. He was wiping down the counter with a bar towel and pretending he hadn’t been on his phone when I’d first come out of the kitchen.

“What’s happening, Eliza?” he asked. He had this rich, deep voice and was notoriously smooth with customers. We were lucky to have him, but sometimes I wondered how long he planned to stay. He was in a master’s program at Duke. Something about biochemistry. He had a real job too, as an actual scientist. Although he swore up and down it was unimportant, and he basically made people coffee. This was just to help him pay for his crippling student loan debt—his words. Barista by day, bartender by night, his life revolved around beverages. “You coming out of your cave to help me?”

I smiled hopefully at him. “Actually, I wonder if you could teach Charlie a thing or two about making some drinks.”

Miles didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Charlie? You want to learn how to make drinks?”

Charlie played it cool next to me, although I could sense how much he wanted to learn. Our original plan was that he’d be behind the bar as much as Will. But he’d not been great at mixing drinks in the beginning.

Actually, he’d been terrible. So he’d been quickly demoted to dishwashing duties. Which sucked for him—although he didn’t complain very often.

But that had been years ago. He was older now. We all were. And he’d had a taste of what he didn’t want. So maybe he’d work hard for what he did want.

Maybe.

This was Charlie, after all.

“Uh, yeah,” Charlie told Miles. “Figured it was time to learn how to help out behind the bar.”

Miles nodded thoughtfully like that made excellent sense, then tilted his head back, beckoning Charlie to join him. “All right, let’s go.”

Charlie shot me a grateful smile, and it was all the confirmation I needed to know I’d done a good thing. I waved at Ada and then ducked back into the kitchen lest I be tempted to micromanage Charlie’s bartending tutorial.

Charlie and I were close, but he always needed so much help. It was easy to mother him into doing what he should. If only he recognized how much my “mothering” helped him. I often tried to help him by telling him what to do, only for him to resent me butting in.

Ugh, brothers.

Case was back in the kitchen when I walked in. Unlike Miles, he didn’t even pretend he wasn’t on his phone. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have any orders right now, and the prep work was all done.

Our gazes clashed as the door closed behind me, and he jumped straight to what was on his mind. “Did you talk to Will about getting some help?”

I’d been waiting for him to ask me. It had been a couple of weeks, but I knew last weekend had been brutal for him. “I haven’t had a chance yet . . .” He immediately looked like a toddler on the verge of an epic tantrum, so I quickly added, “But I get that you need help.” Whether we could afford it or not didn’t really matter. If Case couldn’t do the job alone, Will, Charlie, and I had to figure out how to support him. Otherwise, we would lose him, and unlike Miles, who had a whole bright future ahead of him, this was exactly what Case wanted to do with his life. So if he couldn’t do a good job here, he’d go elsewhere, and we’d never find anyone as innovative and efficient as he was. I had too many friends in the food industry. I knew better than to lose Case.

I’d deal with Will later.

Maybe.

I talked a big game. But big brother syndrome was scary.

“I’ll tell you what, Case, if you write up exactly what you’re looking for—ability, available hours, experience, etc.—I’ll post an ad and start interviewing.”

The tension around his eyes eased a little. “You’re serious?”

I nodded, a sick feeling in my gut twisting into a ball of dread. Will might kill me. But, I might kill him too . . . so . . . even Stephen. Ahem. “Yes, I’m serious. But I need a list from you. I can put out a general idea of what we’re looking for, but if you want certain days or hours off or whatever, I can’t help you unless I know exactly what they are.”

“I know some people too. I have friends who are looking for spots.”

Oh, my gosh, if this was a ploy just to get one of his friends hired, I would kill him. But to him, I said, “Sure, they can apply. But I’d like to put a posting out there too, just in case.”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

“The sooner you get it to me, the faster I can get it out in the world.”

His gaze turned intent, determined. “Yeah, I’ll work on it right now.” The computer beeped with an incoming order. “Er, after this order.” The computer beeped again. He made an exasperated face. “I’ll have it to you before the night’s over.”

“Thanks, Case.”

“Thank you, Eliza. I super appreciate it!”

I stepped into my office and shut the door behind me. I couldn’t stop the huge smile from breaking out on my face. I’d just made progress on two huge things. All by myself. No help from Will. Or Charlie. I’d just like . . . done the damn thing.

I suppressed a squeal and all but fell into my desk chair. Sometimes I felt way too old not to have my shit together. But othertimes I felt like a boss bitch who didn’t just own her own business but fucking rocked it.

Admittedly, those latter feelings were very few and far between. But today had been a gigantic victory for my self-esteem, and I felt like celebrating.

I pulled out my phone, opening my text box to type out a message. The only problem was . . . to who? Who would celebrate this win with me? Not Will. I was hesitant to bring up both accomplishments. Lola would get where I was coming from, being a boss bitch herself. But . . . then she’d tell Will.

Ada was out on the floor, and she would absolutely be happy for me. And of course, Claire would love to celebrate this win with me. But my fingers were already tapping out a message to Jonah. As if I wanted to share my good news with anyone else more than him.

And I knew I could trust him not to go blabbing to Will.

Me: I don’t mean to brag, but I am killing it at work today.

His reply was almost instant.

Jonah: Don’t you kill it at work every day?

I smiled at his biased, good opinion of me. Well, obviously. But today’s been a really good day.

My phone rang. Jonah’s face popped up. Of course, he calls. “Hello?” I answered, unable to tamp down the smile that reached ear to ear. Not just because of all that I had to share with him, but because he was as excited to hear what I had to say as I was to say it. There weren't many men like him in the world.

“Tell me about your good day.”

I could hear background noise like I was on speakerphone. The rumble of the road and that distant sound of his voice not pressed against the speaker. He was probably between jobs, and this was safer than trying to read my messages and voice text back. His deep, gravelly voice was like an extra reward for the day. This was so much better than texting. “I got Miles to start training Charlie behind the bar. Like to make actual drinks. And I made the decision to hire someone to assist Case in the kitchen.”

When I said them out loud, they were less accomplish-y than I thought at first. Nothing had actually been handled. I’d just started two processes that would take a while to come to fruition. Some of the enthusiasm that had felt like soda bubbles fizzing throughout my body receded.

I could tell Jonah didn’t quite know how to respond. He floundered for a few silent seconds before landing on, “Those are huge. You’re amazing.”

The laugh that bubbled out of me was genuine. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t have to,” he assured me. “If you think they’re big deals, they are. I think Charlie learning to bartend is brilliant. He obviously wants to be more of an asset around the bar, and it would give him more purpose in life. Which is sorely lacking. And I don’t know really know Case, but I know your kitchen is starting to get some attention. What happens if he gets sick or has a family emergency or something?”

“We close the kitchen for the night,” I explained. It wasn’t our official policy, but it’s what we’d done in the past.

“Obviously, that’s not an ideal solution. Hiring help will be a long-term strength. But fair warning, it might be difficult. People are fleeing food service right now in droves. Most of my clients are looking for chefs, and they can’t find anyone who wants weekend and night shifts. People have options these days. And given a choice, apparently people choose regular nine-to-fives over working all hours of the night and day.”

“Hmm, what’s that like?” I teased, knowing he would understand the plight of an overworked small business owner.

“I have no idea.” He laughed darkly.

“Case says he might know some people,” I pointed out, my skeptical feelings flipping toward carefully optimistic. “But I’m hoping for more options. I guess we’ll see.”

“Do you want me to reach out to Killian or Ezra? They might know some people.”

My heart squeezed. His offer was so generous. I wasn’t close enough with that crowd to ask them myself, but surely they would know lots of people. And have top-notch recommendations.

“You’re the best, Jonah. Thank you.”

“You bet.”

A comfortable silence lingered for a few moments before I asked. “Whatchya doing?”

“I’m about to head to a vodka distillery called Galliger for a rep tasting. They’re throwing a rep party to show us their new line of infused vodkas.”

Galliger was a North Carolina–based spirits company that had popped up a couple of years ago and struggled to get its product in local bars. Mostly because it was terrible. Somehow, they’d hung on and survived. Recently they were rumored to have finally figured out how to make their stuff taste good. And a relaunch was in the works.

“That’s a drive.”

I could hear him shrug in his car. He didn’t make any sound, but I knew him well enough. “It’s a night of free drinking. And apparently, they’re opening a glamping spot, so they’re letting us stay on property.”

I barely contained my laugh. “You’re glamping?”

“Mmm, more like passing out in a bed after I drink myself stupid on shitty vodka.”

“Sounds like a whole vibe.”

“You should come.”

His invite was so fast that I felt like I probably heard him wrong. “What?”

“Can you take the rest of the night off? It starts at seven thirty. We can share the tent or cabin or plot of land or whatever it is, and I’ll have you back to Durham by midmorning tomorrow.”

“I can’t go with you.” I didn’t exactly sound convinced, but I was right. I couldn’t just drop everything and go with him to Wentworth. For the night. But . . . it did sound fun.

And it was free booze.

“Why not?” he pressed, clearly hearing how unresolved I was.

“Well, I wasn’t invited, for one.”

“They won’t mind a plus-one. I think it even asked if we wanted to bring one on the invite. It won’t be a thing.”

“Did you RSVP?”

“I’m telling you, they won’t care. It’s a party. The more, the merrier.”

“Jonah . . .”

“Hey, if it’s a problem, I’ll tell them you’re thinking about stocking their vodka. We can sell them a whole Galliger night. Happy hours with Galliger. Seasonal cocktails with Galliger. They’ll eat it up.”

“Are you leaving right now, though?” Wentworth was an hour and a half north. It was already past five, and I didn’t have anything with me. Plus, Will wasn’t back yet.

Although Ada and Charlie could easily manage for an hour or so. Probably. Or maybe not easily manage, but at least survive an hour alone.

“Are you at the bar?” he asked instead of answering my question.

“Yes.”

“I’ll swing by in five. We can stop by your apartment real fast and be on the road in thirty minutes.” Sensing my hesitation, he added, “Did I forget to mention the free booze?”

“Do I need to dress warm or whatever? How rustic is this glamping adventure?”

“You’ll be fine. They’re not sending us out to the tundra. Obviously, it will be heated.” When I still hadn’t committed, he softened his voice and coaxed, “Don’t make me go alone, Liza. I need someone to make sure I don’t make a fool out of myself. You know how I get around vodka.”

This time I did laugh. Honestly, I was surprised he was even going. Sure, it was part of his job and a fun perk of his business. But Jonah really could not handle vodka for some reason. Set him up with a bottle of whiskey, and he’d be perfectly fine. Gin was great for him. Tequila? He could sling it back with the best. He’d even eat the worm if it was available. Rum? He was basically a pirate. But just a few vodka drinks could usually put him under the table.

“All right, fine.” I sighed. “Come pick me up.”

We hung up, and I quickly shut down my computer and gathered my things. On the way out, I explained to Case that I was heading out but Will would be back soon. Things had definitely picked up for him, so he was too busy to offer anything other than a mumbled something that let me know he’d heard me.

“Text me your list,” I told him as I walked through the door, remembering I’d promised to make that my priority.

On the main floor, the tables were filling up, and seats around the bar were packed. Ada had her trainee hustling hard as they shared the responsibility of several new tables. Behind the bar, Miles had put Charlie to work pouring beers. I was impressed when he stepped away from the taps to pour a Captain and Coke and actually looked like he knew what he was doing. Not that it was a hard drink. Still, forward progress.

Why had we never thought to do this before?

I stopped by the bar walk-through to talk to him. “Hey!” He didn’t bother to glance at me while he very meticulously rubbed a lime wedge around the edge of the glass and then added a pretty one as a garnish. But I was loud enough that he had to have heard me. “Last minute, I decided to check out a spirits tasting event with Jonah tonight.” There was absolutely no reason to let Charlie know it was an overnight.

“Will’s not back yet,” he said with his attention still on the glass.

“Yeah, but he should be soon. You’re in charge till he gets here.” My phone buzzed in my hand. Jonah had just pulled up.

Charlie finally looked up at me, eyes bugging out of his cute head. He looked paler than usual, but I chalked it up to behind-the-bar nerves. “You’re leaving me in charge?”

“Dude, why not? You own this place with us. Besides, Ada is here, and she does most of the work for all of us.”

He looked over to where Ada was moving between tables, seeming to consider my response. “You’ve gone rogue, Eliza. Will’s gonna lose his shit.”

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “He won’t even notice. Seriously, you got this. You’re behind the bar. Everything is under control. And Will and Lola will be back before you know it.”

“What spirits event?”

His pivot caught me off guard, and it took me a second to reply. My phone buzzed in my hand again. “Galliger.”

He made a face. “Gross.”

“They revamped it, I guess. I don’t know. But I have to go. Jonah is waiting. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t burn this place to the ground while I’m gone.”

Sheer, raw panic flashed across his face. “Why would you speak that over me, Eliza? My God. Are you sick?”

I rolled my eyes for a second time and caught Ada at the other end of the bar. “I’m leaving for the night,” I rushed to tell her, stressed because I was keeping Jonah waiting, and he was probably double-parked out front. “Jonah and I are hitting up this vodka-tasting thing. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She slid me a knowing look. “Sounds fun.”

“What’s with the look?”

“What look?” She smoothed her expression into innocent, but the implication had been made.

“You know what look.”

She reached for the drinks Miles had just finished making. “No look. I just . . . you and Jonah have been spending a lot of time together lately. And this just sounds . . . date-ish.”

Third eye roll in the past two minutes. “Oh, my gosh, Ada, stop. It’s not like that. It’s never like that . . .” Except for last weekend, for like a second, but she didn’t need to know that. “I think he’s lonely. Will has Lola now, and he feels left out. I told you that already.”

“So if Lola wasn’t in the picture, you’re telling me he would have asked Will to go to the vodka tasting with him?”

Well, when she put it like that, she made it sound . . . weird. Why would Will ever go to a vodka tasting alone with Jonah? That wasn’t what their friendship was like. They were more drinking into the wee hours of the morning at our bar after closing while they watched old Adam Sandler movies together. They’d drunkenly solve geopolitical problems and come up with global warming solutions.

Maybe they’d take up some random sport together and go to a basketball league game or a running club event . . . and then end up back at the bar to drink the night away.

Jonah tagged along to our holiday gatherings and, in return, set aside rare bottles of beer and liquor for Will.

But they never have nor would ever go glamping together.

Ada leaned forward. “You know what I mean.”

I wished I didn’t. But her point was hard to miss. Especially since she’d been making it for the past four years.

“You’re delusional. But I love you anyway.” I grinned at her. “K, I need to go. See you tomorrow.”

We quickly maneuvered some kind of gentle hug while she was holding two full cocktails in her hands. “Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I deflected. “Oh, I put Charlie in charge until Will’s back. Good luck.”

I heard her squeaked protests as I rushed from the room, thankful she couldn’t chase me with two drinks in hand.

Outside, I saw that I’d been right. Jonah was double-parked right in front of the building. I slid into his passenger’s seat out of breath from my fast getaway and the cold air.

“There she is,” he said by way of greeting. “I started to think you bailed on me.”

“Um, free vodka, remember? It was just tricky getting out of there. Will is still at the airport picking up Lola, so I had to leave Charlie in charge.”

He made a surprised noise. “Wait, what? You left Charlie in charge?”

Shrugging like it was the most obvious outcome in the world, I said, “Well, Ada’s there too. He’s not entirely on his own.”

“Did you tell him not to burn the place to the ground?”

“Those were my literal instructions.”

He grinned at me. “Where’s all this renewed faith in Charlie coming from? Not too long ago, he was public enemy number one.”

He had been public enemy number one. Back before Lola was in the picture, he’d stolen Will’s wannabe girlfriend only to dump her a couple of hookups later.

I still suspected he’d done it out of spite. Not that he would ever admit it.

“Will’s on my latest shit list,” I told him honestly. “But, Will's life seems to be moving away from the bar more and more. And he doesn’t seem the least bit guilty about it. I can’t be the only one tied to it every second of every day. I have other stuff to do. So then there was Charlie.” I shrugged again. I was learning to nail this whole “look casual” thing with all this shrugging. Or he was starting to think I had an incurable tick. Either way. “Might as well use his salaried ass to pitch in every once in a while.”

“You make valid points.”

“I always do.”

He glanced over, smiling and full of energy tonight. It filled the car with an electrifying vibe. He was excited about this tasting for some reason. And it surprised me because all he’d done since Galliger opened was complain about them.

But it was free. And that was a big enough reason for me to get excited.

“Thanks for coming with me, English.”

My heart did that weird tightening thing again. “Thanks for inviting me, Mason.”

He pulled up to a stoplight and turned to smile at me again. Our gazes locked, and we just looked at each other. He was so good-looking. So damn gorgeous. His longish hair was pulled up into a loose topknot. It was somehow adorable and oh-so masculine. He wore a navy blue crewneck sweatshirt that looked simple but was definitely expensive. And trendy gray trousers that would no doubt fit him perfectly. Without looking at his feet, I knew he’d be in leather flip-flops. His toes were apparently impervious to the cold.

I couldn’t seem to catch my breath looking at him. Most of the time, he was just Jonah, my best friend, someone I had known forever, someone whose features were so familiar to me I hardly noticed how they made me stare and ogle and wonder at them. But there were other times when all I could see was his startling beauty. The bold, virile man he’d grown into. The cute dimples. Those expressive eyes. The perfectly tan skin that made my mouth go dry. Some days his attractiveness threatened to upend me completely. But sometimes, he seemed to struggle with the same battle.

It was the look in his eyes. The one I’d all but run from last Sunday. The one that appeared at the most surprising times and seemed to swallow me whole. He stared at me like he was trying to drink in as much of me as humanly possible. He stared like I was a mystery he was willing to spend his whole life solving.

He stared like he had that night. Like he was just about to kiss me.

Someone honked their horn behind us. The light had turned green, and neither of us had noticed. He tore his gaze from mine and gunned the gas.

“Let’s go get drunk, English.”

ten

Jonah’s tires crunched over pea gravel as we pulled up to the Galliger distillery. After getting a late start because I struggled not to pack everything in my apartment and then getting turned around twice thanks to faulty GPS instructions and no cell service, we’d finally managed to find what we were looking for.

I knew Galliger was based out of Wentworth, but in real life, it was a loose connection. It was literally in the middle of nowhere. And apparently, they didn’t build cell phone towers this far off the grid.

Jonah and I both breathed a sigh of relief when the lights of the distillery came into view. We followed a winding drive lined with trees and landscape lighting until we found the main building.

It was still uncomfortably chilly outside at the beginning of February, but the warm glow of string lights over a curated courtyard was enchanting. Jonah parked his car at the end of a line of other cars, and we hurried toward the open industrial-style door that was more rust than metal. The place was hopping, and I sucked in a breath of relief that the event was legit. We’d blend into the crowd. And we could avoid the dark corners and quiet rooms where real couples liked to hang out.

The whole building looked like it had seen a few things in its day. It was an interconnected building, like a small village of repurposed warehouses. While the outside looked close to collapse, the inside was vibrantly remodeled and inviting.

The brick walls looked freshly painted white in some places and left to their natural color in others. Impressive pieces of modern art hung on the walls, bringing the space to life. And where there wasn’t art, large windows paned in dainty black boxes let in the glowy light from outside. The single-story cluster of square buildings was connected with iron archways. The doors were all the same, old industrial and rust-covered, yet it was all so aesthetically pleasing.

I didn’t have a lot of love for Galliger, but this property made me want to root for them. It would have been a shame to shut this place down, I now realized. It somehow reminded me of an old monastery turned modern or a steampunk headquarters that also made vodka. It walked the line of industrial and vintage and modern as well as I’d ever seen it done.

We stepped inside, and the warmth of the indoors washed over me. I’d worn high-waisted boyfriend jeans ripped all down the front and a low-cut, cream ruffly crop top that only showed a sliver of skin because my jeans were so high. But the real showstopper was my real-deal cowboy boots. I’d ordered them on impulse from one of my favorite online boutiques and spent the past year breaking them in. They were finally perfect, so I wore them every chance I got.

I’d paired them with big feather earrings and a lot of bangles. I felt amazing.

Jonah’s hand landed on my lower back as he ushered me toward the check-in table. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it in any other circumstance, but it felt too good tonight to push away. It was steady when I was nothing but nerves and jitters. And I wasn’t sure why.

Jonah checked us in, apologized for his last-minute plus-one, and grabbed name tags for us both. The Galliger employee welcomed us and waved off his apology. “We’re just glad you could make it,” she said to him. “Drinks are through there. Here’s a QR code to take an anonymous survey at the end of the night. Or the morning. Depending on how much you enjoy our new and improved spirits.”

“Do you have drink tickets?” he asked her before we joined the party.

She shook her head. “Nope, just the survey.”

“Thanks,” he murmured.

The party itself was everything I could have asked for. It was so worth leaving the bar and getting dressed up for. There were tables all around the room with bartenders behind them. Apparently, when Galliger had revamped its vodka recipe, they’d gone all out. Each table was covered in bottles of vodka, differentiated by their color. The floral blush bottle with pops of green was raspberry lime. The bottle with two kinds of green abstract shapes: basil and cucumber. Jonah had told me on the way up that their original line of infused vodka represented one solid flavor or flavor profile—s’mores or peach, for instance—but this time, Galliger was attempting to mingle two strong flavor profiles together to make a more complete cocktail. It was a fantastic idea in theory. TBD on how it actually tasted.

I tugged Jonah toward a table boasting orange and cardamom. “This looks good,” I told him.

His low chuckle followed after me. “Whatever you say.”

We hadn’t eaten supper yet. Or at least, I hadn’t because I’d gotten us on the road so late. My stomach growled in warning at all the booze littering the room, a safety precaution reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything today except a protein bar at lunch. But I didn’t see food in this room. I was sure there probably was food somewhere. But this was just vodka. And I was here for it.

The bartender mixing drinks smiled at us as we walked up to the table. He reached for the bottle and waved it back and forth with flair. “Hey there,” he said with a toothy grin. “How are y’all doing tonight?”

“Good,” we said in unison, surveying all he offered.

“Well, this one here is a mix of cardamom and blood oranges. It has a very bold taste but mixes smoothly. I’m serving it tonight in any of three ways. As a traditional vodka soda, with Sprite, if you prefer it a little sweeter and fizzier. Or the skinny version with an orange Perrier.”

“I’ll do the orange Perrier,” I told him, wondering if I would be disappointed. I loved a good vodka soda, but he’d sold me on the “skinny” version.

“And I’ll do the vodka soda,” Jonah chimed in.

“Excellent choices,” he encouraged us.

It only took him a couple minutes to pour our drinks into airline-sized beverage cups and add a dried orange as the garnish. We asked for directions to the food room and chatted about how great this place was. He told us to go straight to the shrimp toast table and skip the ceviche because it was sketchy.

I took a sip of the cocktail and tried not to wince. The flavor was audacious, but I would probably be back for seconds because this guy was a wealth of information.

Jonah and I wandered off, and I immediately reached for his drink. “Sorry, I just need to try it with a different mixer.”

“Wait, what?”

I smiled up at him. “Please?”

“Is yours bad?”

“Terrible.”

He relinquished his cup. I took a sip and instantly regretted my skinny decision. “Oh, my gosh, that’s so much better.” I took another sip, this one longer. “Okay, it’s actually delicious.”

“Are you drunk already?” he asked. “Give me yours. I want to try it.” He did. And promptly made a disgusted face. “Oh, God. What the fuck is that?”

“The skinny version.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You mean, fewer calories? What’s wrong with you? Why would you pick that one?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought if we’re drinking and eating all night, I should start by making some calorie-conscious decisions.”

He shivered. “Eliza, don’t ever do that again. I’m offended on your behalf.”

We switched cups back, but I promptly tossed my full drink in the nearest trashcan. “People do that, you know. Mix spirits with flavored water. It’s like a thing now.”

Without needing me to ask him, he stepped toward a short line for watermelon and Tajín-flavored vodka. They were mixing it with lime Jarritos. It looked delightfully refreshing.

“Why? Why would anyone do that? It’s a bad thing. Never make me drink it again.”

I laughed before borrowing his drink again for another sip. “Food room after this one?”

“Obviously.”

We finished sharing the vodka soda in line, grabbed two more drinks from this table, and headed in the direction of the buffet. It was already shaping up to be a fun night, and we’d only been here for twenty minutes.

Food was everywhere in the food room. Tables of appetizers and desserts. A make-your-own slider table. A fancy mac and cheese station. A chocolate fountain.

“Wow . . .” I held back a whistle. “These people went all out.”

“They must have money, right? Like they have to come from money?” Jonah sounded as amazed as I was. “There is literally no other explanation why makers of such a shitty vodka can throw something this extravagant.”

“Unless we’re too snobby to see the real charm,” I reminded him. Because it was entirely possible. We were not gentle judges when it came to our booze. But our picky taste was also one of the reasons Craft was so successful.

Jonah made a sound in the back of his throat, and we began loading up plates. Despite how spacious this room was, I could tell it was busier than the rest of the building we’d been in so far. I had to wait in line at a couple stations, and there was just a general sense of examining what other people were drinking and/or eating.

We split up to cater to our separate tastes, with promises of meeting back near the same door. I started piling my plate high, sneaking premature bites and trying not to spill my drink.

A part of me wondered if I should be more self-conscious. There seemed to be a weird vibe between us tonight. Or maybe weird wasn’t the right word. It was more like . . . an added energy to the air. A tension that hadn’t been here before.

And if I was really honest with myself, which I tried to be, it started after he’d spent the night at my place. I’d tried not to make a big deal out of that night. As much as it had opened up a window to our past, I had done my best to bounce back to normal and find our groove again.

It had been Jonah who had seemed off. Something was different about him lately. Something more intense. Something more . . . comfortable about the way he acted with me. Comfortable but also new. I didn’t know how to explain it other than his eyes were more blue these days than gray.

Gray meant walls-up, guarded, defensive Jonah. Blue was when he was most relaxed, most playful, most dreamy. Usually, he was an even mix of both. I spent whole days watching his eyes shift colors, watching them warm, then cool, heat, then retreat.

I didn’t know what changed that night, but lately, he was all open warmth. Especially last Sunday. And now this spontaneous invite to the distillery. It wasn’t so out of the norm for us that I was shocked by it, but I couldn’t help feeling surprised. A night away together?

I didn’t know what to make of it. And why had I said yes so easily?

Regardless, I piled my plate with delicious food—shrimp toast, sliders, mac and cheese—and several salads. And since I didn’t see Jonah at any of the stations I stopped at, I hoped he was getting whatever I missed. So I could sample his goods too. If he let me. He was such a plate goalie.

Yet if the situation was reversed . . . it never seemed to bother him to steal bites off my plate. He was all kindness and smiles and charm.

I found Jonah standing in the wide doorway, waiting for me. He was deep in conversation with someone I had never seen before. She was taller than I was, older too—okay, by like a year. Maybe. But she was also stunning with long, wavy blond hair and bright eyes. And basically, unfairly beautiful. She was wearing a strapless jumpsuit with wide-leg style trousers. The bodice-style top had sheer cutouts along her ribs and abdomen and looked more like elegant lingerie than work clothes. But in a way that she, and she alone, could totally pull it off.

I wasn’t a jealous person by nature, but she was almost too beautiful to be believable. Plus, she was sort of hanging on Jonah’s arm like she owned him, and that definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I took the short distance to remind my brain and my heart that I had no romantic claim on Jonah. He could therefore let any girl he wanted hang off his arm . . . even though I was technically here with him. Or perhaps this was Jonah’s way to keep me firmly in the friend zone.

But I was still growly and ready to fight this total stranger regardless of what I thought I should think.

Approaching carefully, I balanced my too-full plate of food that I now regretted in one hand and my nearly empty drink in the other. “Hey, sorry, there was a line.”

Jonah looked over at me and smiled. “Oh, hey, Eliza.” Oh, hey, Eliza. I refrained from kicking him in the shins. He turned back to the intruder. “We’ve only had a couple of drinks so far,” he was telling her, “but it’s a massive improvement from what I remember. I wouldn’t hesitate to introduce them to my clients back home.”

I cleared my throat, a nervous tic that always gave me away. Jonah didn’t notice. But the woman did.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

The planes of Jonah’s cheeks turned pink, but he nodded. “I was just about to.” She shot me a look that said she didn’t believe him either. “Eliza, this is Logan Kendall. She’s a rep with Modern Bev.” To Logan, he said, “This is Eliza English. She owns Craft with her brothers.”

Logan’s raised eyebrow inched higher. “Craft, the cocktail bar in Durham?”

I nodded, tucked my now empty cup into the crook of my arm, and extended my hand, “Nice to meet you.”

She gave me a firm handshake but didn’t return the polite smile. “I thought this was a distributor-only event?”

“It is,” Jonah explained. “Eliza’s my plus-one. I’m here on business, but she’s here for fun.”

“Well, you better give her an alias,” Logan scolded him. “Or she’s going to be swarmed all night.” Leaning toward me, she put her hand up like she was telling a secret. “We’re vultures. He should know better than to let you loose with all of us circling.”

I laughed nervously. “Well, I wasn’t planning on meeting anyone.”

Her head tipped back, and she laughed a tinkling sound like that was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. “Not meet anyone? It’s a mixer. And we’re salespeople. Meeting strangers is like an addiction.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong. But I had figured Jonah and I would just do our own thing. Plus, it had been such a last-minute decision, I hadn’t considered . . . well, anything honestly. And also, Jonah had always been our lead distributor and handled almost all purchasing for the bar. I managed the stuff he couldn’t or didn’t want to get by email. I wasn’t used to aggressive distributors vying for my attention.

Nor did I ever want to get used to it.

Clearing my throat, I offered a weak, “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

She turned back to Jonah, conversation with me over, and clung tighter to his arm. “Are you doing the whole glamping thing?”

I recognized her tone. It was carefully neutral. That way, if he said yes, she could offer an enthusiastic “me too!” but if he said no, she could talk about how stupid it was instead. It was a trick I’d pulled many times before. And part of me wanted to ask her if she was staying before Jonah could respond so we could get her real answer.

But I also wanted to see how Jonah would handle this. I had almost never met a girl he was dating—mostly because he never dated for long. Sure there had been randoms over the years, but he never brought them around Will, Charlie, or me.

This woman was clearly into him. And she was gorgeous. But he seemed more uncomfortable than interested. His cheeks were slowly growing redder, and he seemed increasingly uneasy with her on his arm. Or maybe I was the one making everything awkward.

Shame and discomfort spiraled through me. I had the strongest impulse to throw my food on the ground and sprint from the building. But I had nowhere to go. We were in the middle of the country, hours from Durham. I doubted I could Uber home from here.

Suddenly I was the little sister trying to tag along again. A chill ran down my spine, and I regretted everything. Not just my most recent bad choices like letting Jonah talk me into this overnight. But all my life choices. Starting at birth.

“Yeah, it sounds cool,” he told her. He glanced at me. “I’ve been trying to get Eliza to go camping with me forever. But she always turns me down. Says she has to work or she hates nature or whatever. This seems like a step in the right direction.”

I perked up. A slow heat warmed me from the inside out. He’d only tried to get me to go camping one time. And it was last fall. And I did have to work. Also, it hadn’t just been me. He’d wanted Will and Lola to go too. The weekend hadn’t worked for any of us, and then the good weather had disappeared. We kept it on our radars but then it was winter and freezing. However we’d been throwing around a future trip, maybe for this summer.

Logan’s gaze swerved back to me. Then back to Jonah. “I’m staying too. I’ve heard great things about their setup, but I believe we’re the first people to test them out. They just built them.”

“Oh,” Jonah said. “Cool.”

“You don’t have food,” I noticed suddenly. The room was quickly filling up with reps, and the table near us looked significantly picked over. “Go ahead, Jonah. Grab food. We’ll wait for you.” Not that I wanted to be stuck here with Logan Kendall. But I was genuinely worried he wouldn’t get anything to eat.

And even more worried he was going to ask to share my plate. It was one thing to go halfsies. It was another thing to give up half my food and go hungry.

I looked down at my loaded plate . . . not that I would go hungry per se.

I fully expected a “You’re not my mother” joke like my brothers would have thrown out, but he nodded in agreement and repeated what he was going to do to Logan. He squeezed my bicep and headed toward the food. Then it was just me and this woman I didn’t know at all.

I rocked back on my boots. “So you know Jonah through your work?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear with glossy, pointed nails and nodded. “I tried to recruit him before he started his own gig. He turned me down . . .” There was a slight pause, and then she added, “For the job. But we’ve stayed, um, close.”

Was she trying to tell me something about their relationship? I’d never heard Jonah talk about anyone named Logan before, so they couldn’t be that close. Unless he had mentioned Logan’s name and I’d assumed it was a guy friend . . .

Fishing for something to say to her implication, I decided to change the subject. “Do you know my brother, then? Will English? He worked with Jonah at Benton Brothers before we opened Craft.”

Her eyes brightened. “Oh, for sure. I know Will. I haven’t seen him in a while though. How’s he doing?”

“Great. He’s doing great. The bar is . . . doing great.” Oh my gosh, why was talking so hard? I didn’t usually struggle quite this much. But the whole “Jonah and I are having a secret love affair” connotation was throwing me for a loop. I couldn’t seem to move past my own feelings of wanting to run away. Who was this woman? And why was she throwing her weight around like she owned my best friend?

I wasn’t a violent person by nature. Not since my adolescent years when I lived in the same house as my brothers. But if she wanted to fight me, I was getting more comfortable with the idea.

I discreetly pinched the inside of my bicep to get ahold of myself. I wasn’t a jealous person by nature either, but clearly, I’d left my sanity back in Durham.

“That’s . . . great,” she said with a sheepish smile, apparently caught in the same difficult trap that I was in.

What was taking Jonah so long? I cleared my throat for the second time. Or the fiftieth time? It was hard to tell at this point, and now my food was getting cold. And I could really use another drink. “What do you think of Galliger’s rebrand?”

Her eyes refocused on a question she finally wanted to talk about. “Actually, I’m impressed. Not many spirits companies are brave enough to fix their mistakes. They didn’t just make their product better. They’re launching an entire experience. I can’t speak for the glamping yet, but this building is beautiful. One of their reps told me they’re planning to host weekly tastings and tours, weddings, corporate events, and however else they can rent the space. The glamping will be available seasonally and comes with a tasting and tour night. Plus, they’re opening a restaurant on premises that will be ready early summer.”

“Oh, wow, a restaurant? That’s really cool.”

“I think I heard someone say there will be a golf course as well. Not sure if it’s a traditional eighteen holes or putt-putt though.” She laughed at her own joke.

I could tell she was schmoozing me. It wasn’t necessarily her fault. I’d learned that most distributors had a salesman default. But it was strange to see it on someone Jonah would call a friend. He wasn’t salesman-y at all. Couldn’t be even if he tried. He was honest, respectful, and always charming. But he didn’t turn plastic. Not like this.

“This is more than just vodka, then. It’s like, a whole getaway.”

She smiled, and it was all teeth. “I believe that’s the plan.”

“Well, hopefully, the glamping is great. I’d definitely come back for a weekend if it really promises all that.”

The light behind her eyes dimmed a bit. “So are you and Jonah staying together . . . or do you have your own spot?”

Honestly, I was shocked she was fishing. And so obviously. This woman was stunning. Like so pretty, everything else in comparison felt dull and less than. Including me, and I didn’t normally struggle with low self-esteem. But then again, this was Jonah. He was worth fishing for, I supposed.

From her perspective at least.

But here was the problem . . . I should be honest with Logan. I should tell her that Jonah and I were just friends. I should be a better wingman and help him out with this woman who was so clearly interested in him. Whether they’d been together before or not wasn’t my business. But she was obviously hoping for something more than just a working friendship with him. And if I was a good friend who remembered how jealous of Will he’d been lately, I would get out of her damn way.

I just couldn’t bring myself to do that though. I tried. Kind of. But the words felt bitter and sour on my tongue. It wasn’t only that I was jealous . . . it was that I was overprotective too. I didn’t know anything about this woman except that she was smarmy and pretty. And usually, those two qualities did not a good girlfriend make.

Or at least that was what I told myself so I felt less bad about what I actually said.

With the cockiest hair toss over my shoulder ever, I said, “Yes, we are. Jonah surprised me at the last minute. But it’s been a really fun night so far. I’m so glad he asked me to join him.”

Ugh, if I were her, I’d probably punch me in the face right about now. But being the classy lady she was, she simply narrowed her eyes instead. “That’s so sweet of him.”

“He’s the sweetest.”

“The sweetest,” she echoed in a flat voice.

Jonah chose that moment to rescue us both. “You weren’t kidding about those lines.” His smile was warm, familiar, and so perfectly Jonah.

I smiled back, and it was the first time it had been real since he left. “Everyone’s fueling up for the long night of drinking ahead of us.”

He laughed at my joke, prompting a fake-ish laugh from Logan too. But he only had eyes for me. “Well, should we find a place to sit down? Your food is probably cold by now.”

“That’s okay. I was fully planning to steal from you.” Okay, maybe I was overplaying my flirtatious card, but I wanted to make my half-lie believable.

For his part, Jonah didn’t seem to notice. He turned to Logan. “Want to join us?”

She bounced her narrowed gaze back and forth between us. “Oh, that’s okay,” she assured us. “I already ate, so I’m going to keep exploring. Maybe I’ll see you both later.”

“Sure,” Jonah said with the same smile he gave me. I deflated. Why was he being so generous with his nice smiles? Either give them to me only or stop using them completely forever.

In a softer voice, almost inaudible voice, I replied, “Yeah, maybe.” But nobody was paying attention to me anyway.

Logan walked away, and Jonah turned in the opposite direction and led me toward a wooden table that had just been vacated in a room adjacent to the food room. We shoved dirty plates to the side and mopped up spills with our napkins before settling in. One thing about owning a bar was that dirty tables were part of the day-to-day.

Just as I was taking my first bite of cold crab cakes, Jonah leveled me with a look and said, “You hate her.”

How did he know? But to him, I blinked innocently and said, “Hate who?”

He took a bite and stared me down. “She’s really nice,” he finally said.

Giving up all pretenses of not knowing who he was talking about, I shrugged and said, “I’m sure she is.”

“And she was nice to you.”

“She was.”

“So why do you hate her?”

It was my turn to shoot him a look. “I didn’t say I hated her. You said that.”

“Eliza,” he warned.

All right, so this wasn’t working. I took a different approach. “She’s a salesman. Er, saleswoman. I’m allergic to schmoozy people.”

He laughed and sank his teeth into a bite of a slider. Another drink station was nearby, and I eyed it wistfully. I was legitimately thirsty, but it would look suspicious if I got up now.

“You’ve never mentioned her before,” I prodded instead. “How long have you known her?”

He poked around his plate, avoiding my gaze. “Uh, I don’t know. Since I was at Benton Brothers. She started there too, then moved on to Modern Bev. She tried to get Will and me to go with her, but that was about the time we both left anyway.”

“She seems nice.”

“You just told me you’re allergic to her.”

I smiled. He’d caught me. “Yeah, I don’t want her trying to get me to sign a contract tonight. But I mean, as far as you’re concerned. She seems . . . nice.”

“Oh, you think I like her?”

“You just told me you like her.”

“I told you I’m friends with her,” he clarified. “Friends.” There was a beat of silence before he added, “Not everything has to be like . . . romantic with me.”

I frowned, unsure how to take that. Were we still talking about Logan? Or was this about last weekend? For being best friends, there were sure a lot of things I was afraid to ask him.

“I know.” It was my turn to push food around my plate. “I think we need more drinks.”

He nodded. “Definitely.” Without me asking him to, he stood and walked over to the nearest table that had a perfect lull in the line. He grabbed two cups and walked back over to me in less than a minute. “Apple cinnamon vodka and cider or something like that.”

“Ooh, seasonal.” Kudos to Galliger because this was my favorite one yet. I was all about seasonal flavors. Watermelon and peaches all summer long. Florals for spring. Pumpkin everything in the fall. And apple cider, white Russians, and mulled wine through winter, please and thank you.

“This would be pretty with a smoldering cinnamon stick and a spiraled apple for garnish,” I told him, imagining it at my own bar.

He looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re not wrong.”

And just like that, we moved from weird and awkward into comfortable and friendly once again. I took a deep breath and relaxed back into the fun vibe I’d started the night with.

Why was I worried about Logan anyway? Jonah should date somebody. He was too good to be left single. Why not Logan?

Except there was something about her I just didn’t like. And it had nothing to do with her job or the killer saleswoman I knew she could be.

It wasn’t even her looks. Although, I was tempted to ask her for contouring tutorials because her makeup was flawless.

No, it was something entirely different. Something deeper inside me. Something rotten and hollow-feeling in my gut. And if it was simple jealousy, I could have made sense of it. At the very least, I could have shoved it back into that buried box it belonged in.

But it wasn’t. At least not totally. Instead, it felt like something closer to grief. Closer to loss.

Closer to an upending sorrow that would last a lifetime.

Closer to inevitable. Because maybe it wasn’t Logan. And maybe it wouldn’t be for a while. But all of us would eventually get bitten by the same love bug that had found Will. This best-friend status wouldn’t be possible when we had significant others to spend our lives with. He would find someone. And she would replace me. And he wouldn’t remember our inside jokes and late nights of binging his shows and secret getaways to distilleries.

His life was all about me right now . . . but it wouldn’t always be. I thought back to his confession in my office weeks ago, his open envy over Will and Lola. That would be me someday soon. Pouring my heart out to Claire or Ada because Jonah finally found his perfect someone. I’d be the one left behind. I’d be the one bitter over unreturned text messages and canceled plans. I’d be the one wishing everything could just go back to the way it used to be.

He’d be the love-sick dope too wrapped up in his woman to notice he was letting something else slip away. He was letting me slip away.

And her? She’d be someone special. Because this was Jonah, and he deserved someone special. She’d be the girl who’d effortlessly keep his attention, not just now but forever. She’d be the woman I wanted to be when I grew up. Smart, funny, sassy. She’d keep him in line, and she’d make him laugh. She’d know all the great places to go out but still be able to cook for him when he wanted to stay in. She’d take her career seriously but also support his. She’d love his taste in music, his flip-flopped feet, and probably, even, The Witcher. They’d share something as special as Will and Lola had. Something as special as he deserved.

Something I would never know because Will was my brother, which meant Jonah could never be mine.

And that deep gash in the center of my heart? It had been created for that unavoidable day.

eleven

A couple of hours later, we’d hit our sample-sized cups of vodka cocktails limit. The room tilted to one side as I waited for Jonah to get the key to our room and directions to our glamp spot. I still didn’t know if you could call it a cabin? Or a tent? Or if we were sleeping in the freezing cold under the stars?

I tossed my last cup in the trash and readjusted my purse over my shoulder. A laugh settled in my chest, but I refused to let it out, knowing I would sound crazy. And drunk. But dang, we’d had a fun night. We’d tried every cocktail multiple times. We’d eaten until I’d had to resist popping open the top button of my jeans. I would so not be getting on a scale any time soon. And we’d laughed and laughed, sipped more cocktails, eaten more food, somehow avoiding all other people and salesman and Logan. It had just been us. And it was the best night I could remember in a long time.

Jonah walked back toward me like he was concentrating very hard on being normal. The laugh finally escaped. By the time he made it to me, I had to lean on his shoulder. He caught me in his arms and laughed too.

“What?” he asked.

“You walking,” I explained, still laughing.

“What?”

I giggled again. “I don’t know. I thought it was funny how you were walking.”

“How was I walking?”

“I don’t know. Normal. It was funny.”

We were both still laughing. None of this made sense. “You’re crazy,” he murmured against my head, his lips tickling my hair.

I realized we were clutching each other, holding each other close. It was mostly for balance, yet there was comfort in the way his arms supported me. How his head gently leaned against mine.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked, resisting the urge to twine my arms around his neck and lay my head on his chest. The booze was catching up to me. I was getting sleepy.

He held up a paper map. “Yes. Kind of.”

I peered at it, trying to make sense of the blurry pastel markings. None of it made sense. “Lead the way then.”

But instead of leaving me to follow him, he grasped my hand, and we wandered side by side back to where the car was parked. We grabbed our overnight bags and my pillow—I never slept anywhere overnight without my favorite down pillow—and stumbled around until we found a lit path shooting off from the parking lot. And by found it, I meant we followed some other people who were a little less drunk than we were.

The night was crisp but clear. This far outside of the city, a million stars twinkled overhead. The milky moon was full, illuminating the path and the landscape.

The area was stunning. It would be so pretty during the day. But at night, with golden lantern-style bulbs lighting our path and the warm glow of glamping cabins dotting either side, I was completely charmed.

They were definitely more cabin than tent, but not by much. They were oddly shaped. Like a hexagon, but with more sides. And 3D. And if I hadn’t had quite so many vodkas, I might be able to recall their geometric shape.

Maybe.

They seemed to be soft-sided, but Jonah had sworn they were heated. Plus, they each had space for a chimney through the top. And the ones that we passed that were occupied even had smoke curling out of the tops. They were well spaced apart, so you wouldn’t feel like you were right on top of your neighbor. And when I glimpsed the front of one of them when we rounded a curve, I saw a large, open porch that led to a glass front.

Then, sure enough, when we finally found our assigned cabin, we confirmed that the entire front was glass. It faced a great expanse of nature. The moonlight was bright but not quite bright enough to make out exactly what everything was in the dark. I could see trees and trees and trees. And maybe a lake? The sound of lapping made me think of waves on a beach, but they were faint, and the darkness obscured the landscape, so I wasn’t totally sure.

A small firepit had been set up down a ways from the deck. In the spring, with a warm breeze, chairs around the firepit, and a bottle of whiskey, this would be about the most enchanting experience ever.

Jonah walked up the deck stairs and opened the door. A gust of winter air blew past me, pulling out a full-body shiver. I hurried after him.

The first thing I noticed inside the cabin was how warm and cozy it was. I mean, really cozy. So cozy, two people hardly fit inside.

The bed . . . the one bed . . . took up the middle of the room and had a stunning view through the all-glass front. Off to one side was a fireplace with two small but comfy-looking chairs flanking it. And on the other side was the tiniest of kitchens that consisted of a mini-fridge, a microwave, a small sink, and a two-burner stovetop with about one solid foot of counter space.

“Um, is there a bathroom?” I’d address the one-bed situation in a minute. First, a girl had to take care of a night of drinking vodka cocktails.

Jonah pointed toward a door I hadn’t noticed. I set my bag on the end of the bed and squeezed inside a bathroom the size of one typically found on an airplane. Or in an RV. To its credit, there was a shower. Er, sort of. And now I regretted having zero dietary restrictions tonight because if I had gained any weight, there was no way I could fit inside there.

When I came out of the bathroom, I found Jonah stripped down to a pair of sweatpants and a thin T-shirt. “Wow, you changed fast.”

“I raced you,” he said with an adorable tilt to his lips. “You lost.”

A laugh bubbled out of me. “What would you have done if I won?”

His expression turned perplexed like he hadn’t thought it all through. I looked back at the bathroom and wondered how I would change. In my current wobbly state, I was more likely to drop all my possessions in the tiny toilet than handle them responsibly. But no way could I beat him if we raced by the same terms.

Boys were faster pee-ers. It was common knowledge.

“Okay, well, I need to change now too. So go lock yourself in the bathroom until I tell you to come out.” My clothes were growing increasingly uncomfortable. I’d hit my jeans limit about an hour ago. It wasn’t that I hated dressing up. I loved it, actually. But every girl had a limit. For someone who ran a nighttime business, I should be better at wearing solid clothing at all hours of the night. But I just couldn’t stand to be in anything besides stretchy pants after ten p.m.

Plus, the bra had to go. It just did. I had to get it off me. There was a fine line between wearing a bra and a bra driving you to raging psychosis. And I was currently walking it in a drunken stupor. Things could escalate quickly if I did not immediately remove this underwire from my person.

Ignorant of all my wardrobe struggles, he rolled to his side and stretched his phone out in front of him. “Can’t I just promise not to look? I don’t feel like getting up.”

I just blinked at him. He couldn’t be serious. “You’re not serious.”

“Seriously, do your thing. I promise. I’ll be a gentleman.”

“Jonah Mason,” I gasped, scandalized.

He laughed at my expression. “Come on, Liza. Don’t make me get up. I just found the perfect spot.”

My resolve was already breaking. He was this driven, tough guy. And he was too comfy to move? Seriously, nobody had the fortitude it took to stand up to that nonsense. When I rolled my eyes at him, his mouth broke into a wide grin. He made an exaggerated show of moving to his side again and covering his eyes with one hand.

“Tell me when,” he said.

I glanced to the other side of me. “What about this big-ass window? How many perverts are lurking out there, do you think?”

“There are curtains,” he told me. “On the side.”

He was right. I untied both ends and let the white linen curtains fall into place. I instantly felt safer too. Not that I’d really been worried about perverts and ax murderers lurking in the woods. And even if they were out there somewhere, a piece of linen couldn’t do a whole lot to save us from them. But the illusion that we were safe and secure and snuggly locked inside our cabin was enough to soothe some of my unrealized fears.

As quick as I could, I dug in my bag for my pajamas—a matching pair of tie-dye joggers with an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt and a lacy bralette, so I wasn’t totally au natural—and changed. It proved more difficult than I expected it to be. The boots were much harder to toe off than I remembered. I nearly twisted my ankles at least three times. Then came the boyfriend jeans, which were extra difficult in my inebriated state with their all-button fly. I’d whipped my top off before I thought better of it, then panicked because I was now shirtless in the same room as Jonah. I quickly wrestled my sweatshirt into position so I could swap bras without flashing . . . no one . . . because Jonah was not even looking.

Ugh. I was an idiot.

“Everything okay over there?” His voice was slightly muffled as he kept his word not to look.

“Peachy.” I gave up on trying to figure out boobs underneath an already tangled sweatshirt and whipped the damn thing off, figured out my shit, and then went back to the sweatshirt.

“You would have lost both times,” he murmured from the bed.

“Hush.” Finally dressed in my jams, I dealt with the rest of me. Jewelry, hair—up on top of my head with a satin scrunchie the way God intended for women to sleep—and fuzzy sleep socks. “Okay, I’m done.” I glanced over my shoulder to find him already on his back.

“I could hear you messing with your hair. I knew that was the final step.”

I paused halfway through straightening a fluffy sock. “How could you possibly know that?”

“It’s been that way for as long as I’ve known you,” he pointed out. It had been, but even when he spent the night at my house when we were kids, I didn’t exactly get dressed in front of him. He shrugged and turned his attention back to his phone. “I just know things, okay? Pants. Shirt. Jewelry. Hair. Socks.”

I let out an indignant laugh. “That’s impossible. Have you been spying on me or something?”

He suppressed a smile and said, “I would never. What kind of pervert do you think I am?”

“I know what kind of pervert you are.”

He chanced a glance at me and let out a deep rumbly laugh. “You were seventeen.”

The breath whooshed out of me. “What?”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m actually like . . . a bad guy. You were seventeen. And your door was cracked. I didn’t see anything, I swear. Just a lot of . . . hopping around. And hair flipping.”

“Jonah Mason,” I hissed.

“It was cute. I swear.”

Putting the pieces together, I said, “But okay, one time does not a habit make.”

“The other night, I noticed you did the same thing.”

“The other night?”

“When I slept over.”

“Wait . . . what?”

“Your door was open, okay? It wasn’t like I was trying to spy on you. I just . . . I couldn’t not watch. It’s not in me. I’m a good guy, but I’m not perfect.”

I pounced on him. Truth be told, I didn’t exactly know what I would do once I got ahold of him, but I couldn’t let him get away with that. This was deplorable behavior. And that he thought he had me all figured out because he’d spied on me twice? The nerve! I was an enigma, dammit. A mystery wrapped in a surprise packaged in spontaneity. He did not know what he was talking about.

He tossed his phone to the side to brace for my impact with both arms. Then we were in a sort of wrestling/tickling match, and I somehow wasn’t winning. We rolled around, totally messing up the blankets, torturing each other until he had me pinned to the bed, and I was gasping for breath.

“Okay, fine! I concede!” I yelped when his hand found my bare side again. It stilled against my skin, but the pressure was there to remind me he could start tickling again at any second. “Enough,” I gasped, sucking in a full breath. “I can’t take anymore.”

He stretched out his arm next to my head and rested his weight on it. Our legs were tangled together still. And his long, lean body was incredibly warm next to mine. “You’re sexy as hell, Eliza, and you know it. If I have ever stolen a glance at you, it was because I couldn’t help it.”

My heart stuttered at his words, and I nearly melted into a puddle right there on the glamping bed. But because I knew he was teasing and that we’d both been drinking, I said, “Well, next time, ask, so I don’t hop around on one foot and look like a total idiot.”

His lips twitched. “You want me to ask your permission the next time I watch you undress?”

My cheeks blushed with heat—both embarrassed and other. He’d said it in such a sexy way, his voice all low and innuendo-y. And he’d done it on purpose because he knew it would throw me. If he was a guy I was trying to flirt with, I would have thrown out something sassy and turned it into an invitation. But because this was Jonah and I knew he was joking, I decided to make him as uncomfortable as he was trying to make me.

“Yes,” I purred, holding his gaze. “I want you to say, ‘please, Eliza, let me see you naked.’” As I said it, I ran my finger up his side, intending to tickle him as badly as he’d tortured me. Instead of flinching, though, he shivered. And instead of pulling away and whacking me with a pillow—like I expected—he just stared at me, all-blue eyes practically on fire, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he struggled to swallow.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” he murmured, dragging his tongue over his lower lip.

Now it was me who was practically on fire. But not just my eyes. All of me. From head to toe. God, this vodka had all but disintegrated my wiser instincts. Even though I'd significantly sobered between the brisk walk here and our wrestling.

Both of us had our hands on the other’s smooth, bare side, our shirts having shifted during our wrestling match. We were just inches apart, his long, lean body stretched out next to mine. And close. So close. Close enough that I could feel his body heat everywhere. Covering me like a blanket made of one-hundred-percent virile male.

“Nobody’s here but us,” I whispered back, shocked by my words and my boldness. My hand drifted higher over his ribs.

“Eliza,” he groaned, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on mine.

He was struggling with something. And I was too chicken to ask what it was. There was smart, stable, sane Eliza, and I was sure she would be back tomorrow. And whatever happened next would be her problem. But tonight’s Eliza—this brazen hussy who didn’t care about consequences or broken teenage hearts or anything in the past or future—wanted something I couldn’t even put a name to. The need, the want, was so fierce, so blinding, that I’d raised my back off the bed and pressed my chest against Jonah’s before I even consciously knew what I was doing.

It wasn’t even the vodka at this point. Yes, we’d had a lot of cocktails, but over hours. And there had been food, a walk in the brisk cold, plus time between then and now. I was sober enough to see reason. Yet I didn’t want to.

I didn’t want logic or loyalty. I just wanted Jonah.

I had wanted him for so long that I wondered if I even knew how not to want him. I wondered if this need could even be sated.

Or if it was just this bottomless desperation from now until forever.

With all those thoughts on a spin cycle inside my brain, I wasn’t the one who ended up moving first. He was. Maybe he could sense my desire swirling in the air around us. Or maybe he was more driven by the vodka than I thought I was. Either way, with a sound in the back of his throat, his mouth pressed against mine. Warm lips to parted warm lips. A spark to tinder waiting impatiently to ignite.

And then we were only lips and tongues and teeth. After we kissed ten years ago, I had never dared to imagine what it would be like again. After that first and only time, I promised myself I would never waste mental minutes fantasizing about Jonah and all the ways he could ravish me.

So with such a long time between our last kiss and this one—and having absolutely zero expectations on what it should be like—I was absolutely, one thousand percent rocked. From head to my fucking toes.

This wasn’t teenagers fumbling in the dark. This wasn’t a first for either of us. Or even a clumsy third or fourth. We were two well-practiced adults who knew the ins and outs of pleasure, who had honed and practiced and, dare I say it, perfected the art of kissing. This was a thousand wanted moments, a million seconds in the making. This solid friendship was blossoming into something more, something bigger, something that wanted to swallow me whole.

His body covered mine more completely, sinking me into the mattress and wedging his thigh between my legs. His lips explored mine, hungry and possessive. His hands shoved at my sweatshirt, pushing it up so he could wrap his hands around my ribs in a grasp that made me feel tiny, delicate, and fragile beneath his masculine touch.

He tasted like vodka and cinnamon, like spearmint and himself. His lips were so much softer than I could have ever guessed. And the way he used his tongue in my mouth was . . . next level. He made that sound in the back of his throat again—something between a sigh and a growl, and I whimpered in response. Actually whimpered.

I was trembling when his mouth left mine to trail kisses along my jaw, to nibble on the fleshy part of my ear, to lick and suck and nip down the column of my throat. And all the while, our bodies pressed into each other . . . closer and closer and closer until we were met with resistance from the physical aspects of our individual bodies. And still, it wasn’t close enough. It was like my soul needed to touch his. Like the nonphysical parts of me needed to crawl inside him until they were tangled together with his nonphysical parts. Until we were indistinguishable from each other.

His mouth worked slowly back toward mine. His kisses were slowing down. He was taking his time. Savoring each taste of me. My fingernails dragged over his back beneath his T-shirt. He made that sound again. The throaty one. So I did it again, and his mouth landed back on mine. Unable to wait.

We kissed again until I wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. Just two small business owning adults making out in a way that set me on fire.

He hadn’t tried to take off my clothes or push things a step further. Which I was coherent enough to be thankful for. I wasn’t a virgin by any means, but I didn’t just go around sleeping with people when there weren’t clear boundaries.

Like before, we’d made it clear we weren’t going to sleep with other people, for instance.

And usually, I knew the latest results of their sexual health test. Jonah and I were close, just not exactly that close.

But Jonah didn’t need to sleep with me tonight to completely upend me. His kisses ravaged me. Physically, emotionally, mentally. All I wanted were those kisses. All I needed were his lips on mine. All I asked was to be kissed like this for the rest of my life.

We kissed until I was gasping for breath and afraid I would be the one to take advantage of him.

We kissed until I had memorized the planes of his back, the dips between muscles, the ladder of his spine. Until I was fairly confident he had memorized the imprint of my ribs against his hands, the curve of my waist, the softness of my skin compared to the roughness of his.

We kissed until I knew exactly how he liked me to pull his lower lip between my teeth. And he knew how I liked him to suck on the hollow of my throat.

We kissed until our bodies melded together, and the bed beneath us—a perfect imprint of him on top of me.

We kissed, and he didn’t pull away, didn’t invoke Will’s name and ruin everything, didn’t remind me of all the people in our lives and the way they tended to get in the way of my happiness on a regular basis. The shadows were there, but they were far away. For now, this was between us. A delicious and private unspoken pause in the game of keep away we’d been playing for ten years.

A long time later, though neither of us had decided to stop, Jonah pulled away. The lights were still on, so I could see his gorgeous face as he looked down at me. His lips were swollen from my kisses, and his jawline wasn’t quite as smooth as usual this late at night. My God, he was absolutely beautiful.

“I’m going to shut the lights off,” he whispered, breaking the spell that had captivated us for over an hour.

“Okay.”

He got up to turn the light off, and I slipped off the bed and ran to the bathroom. There would be time to overthink this tomorrow. And regret it. And walk back from it. But I put all of that on Tomorrow Eliza’s plate and brushed my teeth instead, trying to hide my huge smile behind foamy toothpaste.

When I left the bathroom, the lights were off, and he was under the covers. An invitation was there, but I wasn’t sure what the terms were exactly.

Sensing my hesitation, he said, “I promise I won’t bite.”

“That’s disappointing,” I teased. Now or never, Eliza. In the end, it was being cold that pushed me toward the bed. It was one thing to have a torrid affair with your brother’s best friend in the middle of nowhere. It was quite another thing to avoid that torrid affair and freeze to death.

Slipping beneath the covers, I lay on my back and pulled the blankets up to my chin. His hand reached for mine, bridging the gaping space between us.

I took a deep, settling breath. His hand was more of a comfort than I wanted to admit I needed.

In the bathroom, I had decided there was absolutely no way I could sleep tonight. It was impossible. To be honest, it would have been hard before all the kissing. Obviously, I freaked out when Jonah slept on my couch. No way was I going to be able to survive sleeping in the same bed with him.

Except the longer he held my hand, the easier to breathe I found it to be. And pretty soon, it wasn’t just easy breathing. It was slow, steady breathing. My eyes fluttered closed, and sleep overtook me. If I had thought making out with Jonah Mason would overcomplicate my life, I clearly wasn’t that worried about it.

At least judging by the deep, deep sleep I almost instantly fell into.

It might have been the vodka . . .

Or it could have been the warm, sexy, gorgeous man sleeping next to me. The one who had finally addressed the elephant in the room that had been between us for more than a decade.

Addressed it by kissing it to death.

twelve

I woke up with a strange sense of déjà vu and a simultaneous sense of where the hell am I? It was very confusing.

First things first, I was not in my own bed. That was very clear. Although I did have my pillow—also very clear because I preferred to hug it against my chest. But, and this was where things began to get next-level baffling, I was also being hugged against someone’s chest like I was their favorite pillow.

And that person was very warm. And I seemed to fit against them perfectly. And their very strong arms were wrapped around me. One beneath my head like a pillow, the other heavy and possessive around my waist, holding me against them, their hand snaked up to rest on my breast.

I took all this in as I drowsily climbed from dead asleep to groggily awake. My brain was noting pieces to a puzzle it couldn’t seem to fit together.

And then, all at once, with the light of morning sneaking in through the cracks of the curtains, I remembered everything. I remembered I wasn’t at home. I was glamping with Jonah. I remembered the vodka. And the fun. And the cabin. And the one bed. And the kissing.

And now, the cuddling.

We fell asleep holding hands last night, but we did not wake up with space between us. Gosh, it actually hurt my heart how good this felt. I must have wiggled a little now that I was awake because he held me tighter against him. It took everything in me not to snake my arm around his neck and press my ass into his, um, front. I closed my eyes and imagined waking up like this as a couple. Pulling him back in for more kisses. And this time, not stopping there.

“Mmph,” he murmured into my neck. It was a warm, content sound that did make me press back into his chest. Just when I thought he was going to be as confused as me, he whispered, “Eliza,” against my skin, and it was the most delicious sound.

“Jonah, what—” A buzzing phone interrupted my question. He squeezed me against him, and we both let it go until it finally ended.

“This is nice,” he said in that sleep-roughened voice I’d gotten acquainted with the other morning. “I could get used to this.”

I didn’t know if he meant waking up with someone in general or waking up with me specifically. Also, his hand was still cupping my breast. And my morning dry mouth dried out even more. I was worried that if I opened my mouth now, it would smell like a dead person’s mouth being pried open after years of decay. A cloud of green smoke would puff out, and then either he would die immediately from asphyxiation or he’d be so grossed out by my morning habits that he’d make me walk back to Durham.

So instead of asking him what he meant, I stayed silent. And then that damn phone started buzzing again. He leaned back, presumably to check his phone, but then settled against me once more. “It’s not mine,” he declared, getting as close to me as possible, from our feet to the tops of our heads.

I had questions. Like what was he doing? And why was he doing it? And had we formed an alliance last night where we make out and cuddle, and nobody complains? Or was this something else? And what the hell, Jonah!

I needed to brush my teeth before we settled any of these questions, though. I mean, priorities.

But also, what did I want? Did I want this?

It was a hard question to answer. I knew what I didn’t want. That was much easier to figure out.

I knew I never wanted to be the heartbroken seventeen-year-old girl crying over her brother’s best friend ever again.

But what did that mean now?

Because now he was just as much my best friend as he was Will’s, which created a sinking feeling in my gut, like an anchor pulling me down to the depths of the ocean. Because for the past ten years, I’d believed that nothing was worse than being rejected by the guy you were in love with so he could save his friendship with your brother. But now I knew there was something worse. It was as if that same guy rejected me to save his friendship with me.

I wiggled away from Jonah’s arms—albeit reluctantly—in order to explain that I was going to the bathroom at a distance. Knocking him out with my morning breath was an actual concern.

He let me go, even if it was also sort of reluctantly. Swooping down to grab my toiletry bag, I realized it was my phone that kept buzzing. I grabbed that too and then held everything up for Jonah.

When I spun around to face him, he did that wide-eyed double take. But this time, he said, “I’m sorry, sometimes your makeup in the morning is surprising.”

I scowled at him and finally explained, “I’m just going to take care of it.” Then I lunged into the bathroom and slammed the door behind me.

Ah! He was not wrong. My makeup was . . . terrifying. My eyes looked like sparkly raccoons, and my mascara had somehow smudged all over my right cheek. I had forgotten to take my makeup off last night because of all the kissing. And now I looked like the bride of Frankenstein. Fantastic.

I quickly took care of business—cleaned my face, brushed my teeth, resecured my hair. Voila, fresh-faced and not terrifying. Good job, Eliza.

Then I finally reached for my annoying phone. As I put my hand on it to pick it up, I realized I hadn’t checked it in a long time. Which wasn’t like me. Owning a business with my two brothers had taught me to always have it within reach.

But last night, we’d been in a hurry to leave town, and then we’d had spotty to no service on the ride up here, and then again at the tasting party . . . and then I’d been drunk enough not to think about it . . . and then there was the kissing and . . . and now it was morning.

My notifications were intense. More intense than they should have been, even for taking a spontaneous trip out of town. I scrolled down and realized they’d started last night with Charlie in a panic.

There was too much to fully comprehend, so I called him instead. Then I hung up. The last few phone calls had been from Will. Oh, my gosh, what was going on?

I stepped out of the bathroom with my phone pressed to my ear, waiting on Will to answer.

“Fucking finally,” he growled into the phone by way of hello.

“What is going on? My God, Will. You’re blowing up my phone as if the bar burned down.”

Jonah sat up in bed, startled by my sudden panic. “Is everything okay?”

Will stilled on the other end of the phone. I didn’t have to be in the same room as him to interpret that silence. I knew it oh too well. Big Brother Will had just arrived for the conversation. “Where are you, Eliza?”

Fuck. “I’m out of town.”

“Yeah, Charlie mentioned that last night. But it was hard to get a clear explanation from him after his surgery.”

Stone-cold dread rocketed through me. “What? What surgery?”

“Did you happen to mention before last night that you were going out of town? Because for the life of me, I can’t remember you saying anything. And it wasn’t on the schedule. When I showed up at the hospital, Charlie said you were out of town, and Ada wasn’t any help with the details. Meanwhile, our little brother had to have major surgery, the bar was a complete and total disaster last night, and someone stole about four thousand dollars from the till. So do you mind explaining where you are and when the fuck you can get back here?”

“Will, oh my gosh, everything was under control when I left last night.”

He spit out a series of mumbled curses that told me I had found the lowest spot on his shit list. Great.

“Why did Charlie have surgery, Will? Please, put me out of my misery. Is he okay?”

“Charlie had surgery?” Jonah demanded from the bed. I glanced over at him with his mussed hair and askew T-shirt and winced. What was I doing here, waking up in the same bed as Jonah Mason?

“Is that Jonah?” Will demanded in my ear. “Where are you guys? What are you doing? When are you going to be back?”

I didn’t know how to answer any of his questions. We went to a vodka tasting and spent the night in a one-room igloo sounded . . . not great. But his silence demanded an answer. It wasn’t that he was patiently waiting for me to explain what was going on, rather, he needed the damn reason I wasn’t there to stop this shit show from happening.

“Will, please. Why is Charlie in the hospital?”

He let out a ragged sigh. His weariness reminded me of our childhood, of how Will had taken the brunt of my dad’s cruelty, of how he’d stood up for my mom and for Charlie and me, yet my dad had always made him feel like a loser for doing so. The thing about doing good deeds was that they didn’t always feel good. Sometimes they were the most crushing, exhausting, soul-squeezing acts you could do. And they came with zero rewards besides getting to keep your own heart intact. Will had been stripped of his self-esteem, dignity, and a relationship with our dad throughout his childhood. Charlie too. It was a testament to my mom and God that they’d turned out the way they had.

They were so much more than halfway decent. So much more than survivors. They were good men. Who would never treat people the way they had been treated.

And they were the most important people in the world to me. So if something happened that I could have prevented . . .

A tear slid down my cheek. Jonah sat down next to me, his weight causing the bed to dip and for my whole body to lean against his. I didn’t try to put space between us. I needed his literal shoulder to cry on. And the strength it represented.

“It was just his appendix. Not the end of the world. I guess it’s usually an outpatient surgery, but he’d waited so long to deal with it that it had nearly burst. And then he apparently had some other gastrointestinal issues they wanted to run tests on. Anyway, they kept him here overnight. They’re talking about letting him out before lunch.”

“Will, are you kidding me? I thought he was dying. His appendix? What the actual hell?” I was seething with rage.

“It was serious, Eliza. Just because appendix removal is a common event doesn’t mean that it wasn’t serious in the middle of the night. And that was after Lola and I walked into a fucking disaster at the bar last night. Where were you?”

I took a deep breath and bit my cheek until I could form a sentence without saying things I would regret later. “I can’t take one night off? Where were you?”

“You know where I was. Picking up my girlfriend from the airport. You left Charlie in charge to go God knows where with Jonah.”

“Charlie is a co-owner with us, Will. He wants more responsibility. And you’re hamstringing him with your micromanaging.”

“That’s fine, Eliza. But when he’s doubled over in pain from appendicitis, you probably shouldn’t just abandon him to figure it out on his own.”

He was using my name in that patronizing way he had. It made me want to punch him in the kidneys. “Obviously, if I’d had any clue Charlie was having issues, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere. But he didn’t say anything. And I’m not a mind reader, Will. Ada was there too. Did she know he was in pain or uncomfortable?”

Even though I was defending myself, I thought back to his attitude before I left. He had seemed off. But I had projected my own issues with Lola and Will onto him and assumed it had something to do with that. In hindsight, maybe he just wasn’t feeling well.

Goddamn.

Something like this always happened when I tried to take a night off or any significant time away. Will seemed to be able to take weekends off or go on trips just fine. In our early years, Charlie wouldn’t show up for weeks. Months sometimes. He’d been going through some things back then, so we got it. Honestly, we didn’t even notice his absence.

But when I tried to leave? Three years ago, Ada and I tried to take a girls’ weekend, except a city water line broke and flooded our entire bar. Two years ago, I tried to go to a funeral with my mom in Georgia for her late aunt, and we ended up with a black mold issue in Craft’s basement storage. Last year, I got COVID, and while I was at home in quarantine, I ended up having to work the entire time via Zoom and FaceTime because nothing went like it should when I wasn’t in the building.

Why I thought I could just get away for one night with Jonah was beyond me. And this time, it wasn’t the building that suffered. It was my little brother. Well, and we suffered a four-thousand-dollar loss. Shit. When and why had that happened?

Will let out a frustrated growl. “When are you going to be back?”

“Soon. Text me the hospital details. If he gets out before I get there, text me first, and I can meet you at his apartment. Is someone there to open the bar?”

“Lola will head over if we’re still dealing with Charlie.”

That was the real problem right there. Will’s attitude toward Charlie. And usually, it was justified, which was why I never gave him shit for it. But right now, we weren’t “dealing” with Charlie. We were taking care of him. Because he’d just been through a whole thing, and he needed us.

“All right, I’ll text you when we’re close. Bye, Will.”

“Bye, Eliza.”

I clicked the end button on my phone, acknowledging the small victory that we hadn’t hung up on each other at some point. That showed maturity, right?

Standing up quickly, I began to gather my things. “I’m sorry, Jonah, but we have to go. Like right now. Charlie apparently had appendicitis last night, which resulted in surgery to remove his appendix. The bar was a mess. Someone stole four thousand dollars from the till. Will is pissed I wasn’t there to deal with all this. And I don’t know—”

He grabbed my hands and pulled me over to him. “Slow down, Eliza. Take a breath.”

Jonah said my name the exactly opposite way Will used it. Instead of a curse or a hiss, it was a gentle caress. He used my name like a prayer. It undid the tension that had tied me in knots. And softened the sharpness to my tongue that couldn’t wait to lash out and cut something. Anything.

I closed my eyes and stretched my neck on either side. “He drives me crazy, Jonah. Batshit crazy.”

I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke, although I wasn’t ready to open my eyes yet. Actually, I was trying to convince myself not to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head for the rest of the day.

“Is Charlie okay?”

His question caught me off guard because it wasn’t about Will. I opened my eyes and looked at him. “What?”

“You mentioned Charlie had to have surgery. Is he okay?”

I let out a shaky breath. “Yes, he’s okay. It was appendicitis. And maybe some other worries. But they got his appendix, and he should be going home later today.”

“That’s good news.”

“That’s great news,” I agreed. We stared at each other for a couple of moments. If I thought he would bring up all the kissing last night . . . I was wrong. And I wasn’t about to be the one to remind him we’d made out until my toes had curled, and it had been amazing and sexy, and all I wanted to do was jump on him right now and start it all over again. Nope, it wasn’t going to be me. When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else, I said, “Do you care if we hit the road soon? I told Will I’d be there this morning. He’s probably expecting me in the next ten minutes.”

Jonah nodded. “Of course. I just have to throw my stuff together.”

“Same.”

We got to work bouncing around the small space, finding all our things. What had started as a lovely morning had turned into a crisis and was settling on awkward. The longer we didn’t acknowledge the steamy make-out session, the bigger and bigger it got until I felt pushed up against the wall with my oxygen being slowly squeezed out of me.

“Do you have to check out or anything?” I asked when I was sure I had everything.

“No, I don’t think so.” He looked at me, really looked at me. “Unless you broke something last night? The shower? The bed? The most expensive thing here?”

His teasing made my lips twitch, but I was still too worried about Charlie to laugh. “I actually make it a point to avoid most expensive things.”

“Is that so?”

“As a general rule, I find it’s easier for everyone if I don’t specifically acknowledge the most expensive thing in the room, as I will find it, break it, and then pay for it. So this way, by only allowing myself to be near the cheapest things in the room, I can usually avoid the whole . . . financial burden of replacing all the shit I broke.”

He laughed. “Remember when you cut the line to Mr. Gamble’s sprinkler system, and then you flooded his entire yard?”

“Hey, okay, first of all, I was seven. And Charlie bet me I couldn’t dig to Australia faster than he could. Obviously, I couldn’t let him win. And how was I supposed to know he wasn’t going to notice that his sprinklers weren’t working properly, keep them on their automatic timers, and ruin his prize-winning zinnias by drowning them in the great neighborhood flood of ’02?”

Jonah laughed harder. “Or the time you drove your car onto wet concrete.”

My cheeks flamed red. I had just gotten my driver’s license a week before. I thought my dad was going to actually kill me. “Several things were wrong with that scenario. Starting with the fact that there were no signs.”

“But there were people. Pouring the concrete.”

“I just want to inform you that you’re playing a dangerous game. Jokes before coffee are not ever going to land like you hope they will.”

“I’m just teasing you,” he said. But it was ruined because he was still laughing.

“Can we go?”

“Lead the way.” And he was still laughing.

I glanced around for something to knock over just so he would have to pay for it but chickened out at the last second. With my luck, I’d somehow knock out the power to the entire distillery, the vodka would be unprotected from whatever cooling and heating system they had, it would rot, they’d be out billions of dollars of spirits, or they’d poison a million people, and I’d have to fake my own death and move to Belize.

It was the only way.

But thankfully, we made it out the door without any incident. And to the car quickly, since we could see our breath, and neither of us was wearing coats warm enough for the morning chill.

Jonah stored my bags and started the car. I jumped in the passenger’s seat and prayed for my brother.

God, Charlie, why?

Any other day that Will was in charge would have been a great day for emergency surgery. If Will had been there, we could have all blamed him. But this was the worst-case scenario. I tried to figure out how Charlie had gotten so sick so quickly, and money had been stolen from the till. Had it just been mass panic after I left?

Will would never trust Charlie or me again. We’d be running this bar without breaks or vacations until I fell over dead at the tender age of thirty-two.

The car ride was silent and tense. I was too anxious to get back home to make small talk. Or normal talk. My phone was a mess. A night full of unanswered texts and calls. I’d put it on silent after leaving Craft last night, assuming everything would be fine. Now there was a graveyard of texts from Ada and Will, even Miles and Case, trying to get ahold of me. I couldn’t look at them now. Even though the damage was done, I wasn’t ready to face the panicked pleas from my friends and family.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jonah said calmly from the driver’s seat as he pulled into the parking lot of a supermarket. It had taken us an hour and a half to get back to town. Will was handling Charlie’s discharge, so Jonah and I were going to meet them at Will’s apartment.

I already felt like a total asshole. The least I could do was show up with gifts.

“Mmm, maybe eventually. But first, Will is going to torture me until I’m begging for forgiveness. Charlie too.”

“Charlie won’t care,” Jonah assured me. And he was right. Charlie was probably more annoyed with Will’s coddling than my absence. Still, I should have been there for him.

We hurried into the store, seeking protection from the cold. “Probably shouldn’t get him booze?” I asked.

Jonah glanced around. “Not from here.”

I suppressed a smile at his inability to tone down his snobbiness when buying alcohol and headed for the floral department. We picked out flowers, balloons, three cards, a stash of candy, his favorite snacks, a get-well-soon cake, three different restaurant gift cards so he could order food while he recovered, and a flat of Gatorade. To be fair, I had no idea about the recovery after surgery to remove your appendix, but hydration felt important.

Sure, Charlie had given up sugar. But this felt like a necessary exception.

“Yikes.” I gasped at the grand total. I’d been too penitent to worry about cost until now.

“Want me to get it?” Jonah asked in a soft voice.

My heart squeezed like it was prone to do. Only this time from panic. Last night had been . . . And this morning he had been . . . But . . . still, this bill was more than I wanted to spend, and Jonah made a ton of money. Okay, not like millions. But he didn’t have to share the profits of his business with his siblings. “Halfsies?”

His lips twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face. “Sure, halfsies.” He looked at the cashier. “Is that possible?”

She punched a series of buttons on her screens. “Whoever wants to pay first can go ahead.”

I was already at the credit card reader, so I pulled out my wallet. My hand shook as I went through the routine. A sick feeling sloshed around in my gut, and I was working on a stress headache.

As much as I wanted to brush this whole debacle off like it wasn’t a big deal, or it was fine that I hadn’t been on call all night . . . it wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay.

When my dad died . . . I took it hard. We all did. I’d lost grandparents before and experienced grief, but not like that. It was as though my life was divided now. Before my dad died, when he was alive and a part of my majority. And then after he died, when his absence could be felt in everything.

My dad was who he was. There was no explaining away his behavior or trying to understand it. I got the least of his assholery because I was the only girl. And the baby. But I wouldn’t have ever called us close. Or called our relationship loving.

Still, he was my dad. And that, no matter how much I wanted to deny it, meant something. A piece of my heart crumbled and fell away from the main body of that delicately beating organ. It might have already been brittle and withered, but I felt the loss deeply. Like losing a whole section of me.

But Charlie. Charlie wouldn’t have been an atrophied muscle that fell off from lack of use. Charlie would have been my whole heart. My soul split down the middle. My important bits and pieces and goodness.

Losing Charlie would have destroyed me.

Jonah nudged me to the side when I was finished paying and then loaded up our haul in the cart. We made it to the car and then to Will’s apartment, but I was lost somewhere between what could have happened and what did happen.

We used the back entrance and carried everything to Will’s apartment. However, a logical part of my brain wondered if we would just have to bring it all back down again later. Oh well, that didn’t matter.

We’d taken too long at the store picking out the perfect balloons, cards, and gift cards, so Charlie, Will, Lola, and my mom were already there. The door had been left ajar for us, so we pushed in, our gifts leading the way.

“We’re here!” I said as brightly as I could manage. Poking my head around the balloons, flowers, and cake, I saw Charlie laid up on the couch like a king. Will was pacing the apartment like a psycho. My mom was making coffee in the kitchen per usual, and Lola was trying to help her. And failing.

Kari English was a strong-willed woman who’d kept her independence despite being married to my dad, raised three successful-ish kids, and was living her absolute best life now that Dad was gone. She didn’t, nor would she ever, need help making coffee.

“Eliza,” my mom said, her tone somewhere between thrilled to see me and disappointed with my behavior. Only moms could pull off that balance so flawlessly.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Kari,” Jonah echoed, pushing in behind me.

“Jonah,” my mom squealed, no disappointment evident anywhere in her tone. I started setting my things down on the counter while my mom attacked Jonah with a hug and danced around like it was the best day of her life.

Never mind that her only daughter had just arrived. Or that her son had just had surgery. We were all aware Jonah was her favorite.

She wasn’t even shy about it. She always said, “He needs more love than the three of you.” And she was the one who was going to give it to him.

Whatever. It wasn’t like he was the only one with a traumatic childhood.

Lola rushed to my side, happy to have her hands busy. I appreciated how difficult it was for her to be still. She always had to be working. Even when she wasn’t working. “Hey, Eliza,” she said calmly, pulling me into a side hug. “I’m so glad you guys are here.”

It was easy to read between the lines. Will would settle down now that I was here. Not that she couldn’t handle Will at his most neurotic. But . . . who wanted to, honestly?

“Let me help you with all that,” she insisted. “Go ahead and check on Charlie.”

“Thanks.” And that was as sincere as I could be. I didn’t want to deal with sorting through the random crap I’d stress-bought. I just wanted to see my brother. He was on the couch, all miserable and pathetic. I walked over to him and perched on the edge of the coffee table. “Hey, Charlie.”

He opened his eyes and turned his head my way. “Sis.”

“How’re you feeling?”

He shrugged and then seemed to think better of it. “Honestly, better in a lot of ways. And worse in others. My back hurts like a motherfu—”

“Charlie,” my mom warned from the kitchen. I swore she had ears like a bat.

“Trucker,” Charlie finished smoothly. His small smile was enough to ease some of the pain in my chest. “It was a hell of a night, though.”

“Sorry to just abandon you.”

He closed his eyes and moved his hand like he was gently swatting at something. “Whatever. What’s a little appendicitis? Hardly nothing. I think I really freaked Miles out, though. So I don’t know, you might want to call him and see if he’s okay.”

I filed that in my mental to-do list. “What about Ada?” This question was a little more personal, although I wasn’t entirely sure if Charlie realized it.

He tried to shrug again and then winced through his teeth. “Who knows? She was the worst last night. She was basically mad at me the whole time and then tricked me into going to the hospital. She can fuck off for all I care.”

“Charlie,” my mom hissed again. “Watch your mouth.”

Ada was another one of her favorites. She was all our favorites, actually. And even if she didn’t stay at the top of Charlie’s list as regularly as she starred on ours, he wasn’t usually this grouchy.

“It was probably my fault she was in a mood last night,” I explained to him. “I kind of left you guys hanging.”

“We were fine,” Charlie insisted, eyes still closed. “She just . . . she wanted me to go to the doctor or whatever. She said she could tell something was wrong even though I was acting totally normal. And she was being super pushy about it. So we were fighting the whole night. And then I lost my car keys, which now I’m realizing she stole, so she told me she would give me a ride home. She then drove me to the emergency room. Do you know how much that ER visit is going to cost me, Eliza? I say we take it out of Ada’s check. I did not agree to go anywhere with that woman. She kidnapped me.”

My mouth was unhinged. “Charlie, she probably saved your life. You’re so lucky she didn’t listen to you.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “She literally never listens to me. She is purposely difficult, and I’m tired of it. But this time, it cost me financially.”

“Are you listening to yourself? You could have died.”

He shrugged for the third time and grimaced once again. “It was just appendicitis. No big deal.”

Oh, my gosh, there were too many big deals for me to know where to start. I couldn’t believe he was pushing back on this. Did he really think he could just walk appendicitis off? What happened when his appendix burst, and he went septic?

Jesus, take the wheel. Brothers were inconveniently pigheaded all the time.

“Okay, clearly, you’re on a lot of pain meds, so I’m going to let you rest. Do you need anything? Can I do anything for you?”

“Can you help me get a drink?” he asked meekly. The ire had left his voice, and he sounded like my poor, pathetic brother once again. I picked up the hospital cup with the handle and the crinkle straw they gave to all patients and helped him take a small sip without moving.

His eyes were already heavily closed by the time I set the cup back on the coffee table. Snoring shortly followed.

It was so weird to see him sleep. Of course, I grew up regularly seeing my brothers sleep. But we’d been living separately for long enough for that to feel nostalgic. He looked so peaceful like that. So . . . unlike his awake self.

I brushed his hair off his forehead and then stood, steeling my nerves to face Will.

Except when I turned around, and he was standing with his back against the far wall and his arms crossed over his chest—and looking as pissed off as ever—something broke inside me. The hard emotions I’d built up to protect myself until I could make sure Charlie was okay, the defenses I needed to keep the panic and heartache at bay long enough for me to get what I needed to do . . . just gave way.

I’d held it together on the drive here. I’d survived the early morning panicked phone call and the unknown. Now I was here with my family, and Charlie was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. And that hard, thick, protective barrier inside me split right down the middle. The crack was so loud and so forceful that I swore the rest of the room heard it.

I threw myself against Will and sobbed against his shoulder. He hesitated for a couple of seconds before wrapping his arms around my back and hushing me—the anger leaking out of him just as quickly too.

“Geez,” he murmured against my hair while holding me tightly in a hug. “So dramatic.”

It was enough to get me to laugh, and then the tension was broken, melting the overwhelming anger, irritation, and frustration I’d been building up. And the same on his side. I wasn’t even sure we said all we wanted to say. It was just enough to be together, and Charlie was fine. And gosh, this was stupid.

So was my beef with his second location. I just needed to talk to him about it, figure out what was going on . . . before I decided to hate him and Lola forever. Why was my default setting with my brothers to act like a complete child? Why couldn’t I always be this mature and understanding? It would make our business partnership so much easier.

“We’ll talk about why you were with Jonah overnight later,” Will said patiently.

Ooooh, right. That was why.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him something truly scandalous involving orgies and drug mules and rival gangs. But even a made-up story as interesting as that one would be better than the truth—better than a shared bed and a lot of kissing and waking up wrapped in each other’s arms. Now that I knew Charlie was okay, I wasn’t sure returning to Durham was such a smart move after all.

thirteen

I pushed away from him and brushed my cheeks dry. Ignoring his statement altogether, I asked, “So did the bar burn down too? Or what?”

He rolled his eyes and got down to business. “There was a series of complaints because you said Charlie could bartend, but toward the end of the night, he was in a lot of pain. And in a lot of denial. I guess Ada could see he was struggling and was doing her best to get him to take care of himself, but he wasn’t having it. Miles just let him do his thing because, well, because he’s Miles’s boss, and Miles didn’t want to get between Ada at her bossiest and Charlie at his most stubborn. Anyway, customers were not happy. And instead of cleaning up the mess and smoothing things over as we pay her to do, Ada escalated the situation with Charlie. I had to talk Miles down from trying to quit. And several bad reviews were left online yesterday.”

There it was . . . Will’s hot button. Bad reviews. He could not stomach them. No matter how hard he tried to be cool about them or ignore them or go to therapy over them, they were the thing that drove him the craziest.

Sometimes he pretended they didn’t bother him so much. But I knew the truth. They kept him up at night. And he was convinced they would be our downfall.

Meanwhile, I was the PR person and supposed to be the one who cared the most about them. But nobody could beat Will’s stress level in this.

Early on, if the bar even got something as low as a three-star rating, Will would troll the troll. Like literally get online and go to war with his words. I had to change the password at one point to keep him from making enemies all over the city.

Not that it stopped him. But people were less likely to put his name with the bar without the official “Craft” logo and moniker attached to it.

This far along, we hardly got bad reviews anymore. And dealing with one every couple of months was bad enough. But a couple—he’d said several, but there was no way I believed him. Not that many people left reviews for bars. Most people expected a certain level of shitty service. And the rest of the people drank enough that they didn’t care about the shitty service. Multiple bad reviews in one single night were enough to make him lose it.

I sucked in a fortifying breath and prepared for battle. “Okay, I’m sure they’re not that bad.”

He gave me a withering look. “Well, they certainly aren’t great.”

So we were back to fighting. Awesome. “Did someone offer them free drinks?”

“Eliza, I wasn’t there. How should I know what happened?”

Calling on my last dregs of patience, I took a step back. “That’s fine. But we didn’t hire idiots. Miles and Ada know what they’re doing.” I held a hand up. “Regardless of what happened, I’ll reach out to the reviewers and offer them gift cards or something. I’ll make nice. It will be fine.”

I loathed the pandering to the customer that had to happen in this day and age. With the power of the Internet at their fingertips and posted reviews engraved on the Internet in infamy, a disgruntled customer could easily tarnish anyone’s reputation. A few bad reviews in a row, and someone’s dream got flushed down the toilet through no fault of their own.

In almost any other job, you were allowed to have a bad day. Or to struggle while you found your footing. Not so in the food and beverage industry. It was be perfect, be the best, be the nicest, be the coolest, be the most accommodating ever all the fucking time. Or die.

And the customers you thought were loyal and would fight for you to the death? The ones who actually felt more like family than friends? They just moved on. Found a new favorite establishment. And maybe every once in a while, they would remember the good times and good drinks they’d had with you, but it was only sentiment and would barely last a minute.

The restaurant industry was brutal. And those who chose to work inside it, with its shitty pay, constant customer service pitfalls, and all the work it took just to bring people in the door . . . were a special brand of gritty.

But here was the thing about food service. Beyond accounting for human error in your own staff, you also had to account for the unrelenting, unacknowledged human error in the customer. And that was what got to me.

It was one thing for Ada to be having a bad day and mess up. She couldn’t, nor could any other person who worked at Craft, always be perfect. So fine, mistakes happened, and Will, Charlie, and I went out of our way to accommodate and turn those experiences around.

But there wasn’t anyway on this earth to convince the customer of their human error. Maybe they were having a bad day without a way to please them. We could have worn bunny costumes and stripped for them and brought them a basketful of adorable puppies, and they would still give us one star because we didn’t live up to their clouded expectations.

Or maybe we weren’t to their taste. Maybe they wanted a good old PBR and not a craft beer that tasted like peanut butter and jelly. That was fine. They were absolutely entitled to their own opinion. But we weren’t the problem. We just weren’t a good fit.

That didn’t mean we deserved one star.

And last night, from what I gathered, the owner had been very sick. And his server had been very concerned about him. And while he fought through the pain, she became more and more distraught. Maybe she looked shrill and harpy to outsiders. But I knew Ada. And I knew that seeing Charlie in pain would have killed her.

Meanwhile, the owner was a tough man who had equally hated and feared hospitals ever since his dad died. And the only way he would go to one would be kicking and screaming. Which was apparently what happened.

Did that deserve a night of bad reviews?

I didn’t think so. But I didn’t make the rules.

“I’ll take care of it, Will. Please stay out of it and let me do my job.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat, and it said everything he didn’t say out loud. Starting with “I should have done my job last night then.”

I pointed a finger at him. “You weren’t there either.” I remembered what else he said on the phone and said, “Was four thousand dollars really stolen?”

He worked his jaw back and forth. “It might not have been quite that much.” He paused for a beat and then added, “And Ada texted this morning, telling me where she’d put it. It wasn’t stolen, just misplaced in her rush to close everything down and get Charlie to the hospital.”

“What?”

“I said, it wasn’t stolen after all—”

“I heard you the first time, Will, but I’ve been sick over that money this entire day. Between Charlie and the money, I’m fairly confident I gave myself an ulcer. At the very least, I’m working on a stress migraine. You didn’t think to text me as soon as you found out Ada had simply misplaced it?”

“Oh, like you texted me last night to let me know where you were going?”

He was so lucky our mom was here. I loved her too much to make her a witness to a murder in the first degree.

Enough of Will and his false guilt, I whirled around and stomped toward the kitchen. Lola ducked out of my way and hurried over to Will. I was hoping she was planning to talk some sense into him because nobody wanted me to be the one to do it.

There would be a lot less talking, for starters.

My mother gave me an assessing look as I slid onto one of Will’s kitchen stools. “There’s no use fighting with him, babe. He’s as stubborn as a mule.”

I forced a breath out through my nose. “Someone has to, Mom. Otherwise, he’ll think this behavior is perfectly acceptable.”

The corners of her mouth lifted in a secret smile. “He has Lola now. He listens to her.”

Meaning he didn’t listen to me. If I hadn’t already known that, I might have been hurt by her insinuation. “It’s not my fault Charlie got appendicitis,” I growled.

She patted my hand. “Of course it’s not. Will knows that. He’s just . . . a perfectionist. When life interrupts his plans, he gets frustrated.”

I looked at Jonah for help. “Please tell my mom that Will isn’t a perfectionist. He’s a psycho. And he should have been institutionalized years ago. She listens to you.”

He grinned at my mom. “I forgot how fun these family disputes are. It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed one firsthand.”

My mom took a demure sip of coffee. “That’s because you never come over anymore, Jonah. I’m left to deal with these maniacs all by myself.”

I made a shocked sound even though I should have known better. Jonah was such a traitor when it came to my mom.

Just when I’d finished making my poutiest face, my mom winked at me. “Let’s order some food, huh? We can stay all day with Charlie and drive Will nuts.”

Her deviousness knew no bounds. I smiled before I could help it. “Fine, you pick the place. I’ll order.”

She wandered off to sit by Charlie and scroll through her phone. She was honestly the slowest person at deciding where to eat. She had to look up reviews, compare online coupons, and scour the recesses of the Internet for the best deal. I had at least thirty minutes.

Jonah slid over by me. “The English family always keeps it interesting.”

I elbowed his bicep. “Not intentionally.”

He reached for a bag of chips we’d bought for Charlie. It had been a long day so far, and we’d skipped breakfast, coffee, and lunch. Plus, we’d spent last night drinking. Honestly, I was impressed I hadn’t fainted yet. “Will needs you to stand up to him, you know. He respects you more for it.”

“That is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.” I dropped my voice over bullshit lest I got scolded too.

“It’s not. He needs pushback. Thrives under it, actually.”

“Well, whatever. I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” he said seriously. “You’re the toughest person I know, Eliza. A little bullying from your brother isn’t going to break you.”

I looked up at him, trying to figure out if he was teasing me or not. “It might.”

He held my gaze, leaning closer but not touching me. Or even breaking my personal bubble. “My money’s on you. Any day of the week.”

“You’re really saying you think I can—”

“Break him,” he said. “Probably make him cry. You’re Eliza fucking English. You don’t back down.”

I laughed, playing off his compliment like a joke. But internally, I drank it down like an elixir. Was that really what Jonah thought of me? Did he really think I could go up against my big brother and win?

Could I?

At this point, it didn’t matter. Just Jonah believing I was enough made me bubble with badass energy.

“What would I do without you?” I asked him.

“Shrivel up and die. Life would be so boring.”

That was true. But instead of telling him that, I just looked at him like he was my real-life hero. Maybe he was.

“Jonah,” Will called from across the room. “Have you seen this?”

Something on the TV pulled Jonah’s attention away. He walked over to stand with Will, but I was too giddy to comprehend what they were looking at. Sports? News? An alien invasion? Did it even matter?

Jonah was . . . Jonah. And he was and would always be my hero. I didn’t know what last night’s make-out session was. Or if it even needed to be defined. But I did know he was one of the best and brightest things in my life. And I had wanted a night like last night for as long as I’d known him.

“So, where were you and Jonah last night?” my mom asked, interrupting my gushy thoughts with a sly smirk.

“What?”

“You were obviously with Jonah. Only an idiot wouldn’t have put that together. And I’m not an idiot. Do you think your mother is an idiot?”

“You’re not an idiot, Mom. I don’t think that. I never said that.”

“So you were with Jonah last night?”

Oh, my gosh. How had she done that? That was like some weird mom voodoo or something. “Mom!”

She wagged a finger at me. “Confirmation. Man, I’m good.”

Her gloating was too much. “We went to a distillery out of town. It wasn’t like we eloped or anything. We just went to check out the vodka.”

“Mm-hmm,” she coaxed. “And then what?”

If I had had a normal morning, my jaw would have been dragging on the ground after my own mother prodded me for details about what I could only assume was my sex life. Thankfully my capacity for shock and awe had diminished significantly over the last couple hours.

“You are out of your mind,” I told her. “I think this might be an early sign of dementia.”

She shook her head while Lola came over to join us. “Ugh, sports,” she said, not noticing we were in the middle of a conversation—which was fine with me.

Turning my attention to Lola, I said, “You hate all sports?”

“All of them.” She sighed. “Except for maybe Olympics curling or something. I can get on board with a bunch of dads taking a guys’ drinking trip that also happens to end in gold medals.”

I laughed, but my mom stayed focused. “We were just talking about where Jonah and Eliza were last night.”

“Mom!”

Lola perked up. “I was right. This is way more interesting than sports.”

“We went to a vodka tasting. It was a perfectly normal night for us. We hang out all the time. This time just happened to be out of town.” And we kissed for an hour. “It’s not a big deal.”

Lola slapped her hand down on top of mine. “Eliza! So are you guys like official yet?”

“What?” I screeched. “No. Seriously, we’re friends. We’ve always been friends.”

“So you had separate bedrooms?” my mom asked.

I was officially the color of an alarm. A bright-red emergency alarm. “Excuse me, what?”

“Well, friends don’t sleep in the same bed together, obviously,” she continued like this was the most natural way to ask your daughter if she slept with a man, “so you must have had separate rooms. And woke up in separate beds.”

“I am just going to go over there and die now,” I declared. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Lola squeezed my hand harder, holding me hostage. “What your mom is trying delicately to say is, did you sleep together or not? We want the truth.”

“No! Oh my gosh, no.” They both stared at me, eyes narrowed, clearly deciding if I was a liar or not. “This has never been an issue before. Why are you suddenly all over my case, Mother?”

“You’ve never gone out of town before, Daughter. What was I supposed to think?”

“It was like a thing for reps. He was invited and asked me to join him at the last minute. End of story.”

My mom’s interested expression soured quickly. “You realize he’s going to marry someone, don’t you, Eliza? And if you’re going to keep pussyfooting around, that someone will not be you.”

If my mom used the word pussyfooting, you knew it was serious. She was like a politician with her language. Ninety percent pristine. Ten percent pussyfooting.

But this was so out of left field that my eye started twitching. “Where is this coming from?”

“I’m an old woman, Eliza.” And now she sounded like one. Tired, worn out, ancient. “I want to enjoy grandkids before you have to lock me away in a home. I don’t want grandbabies when I’m too old to get on the floor and play with them. I want grandbabies now. When I can still take them overnight and sit in the bleachers for all their activities without needing a hip replacement. I need you to give me grandbabies, Eliza. And that means securing yourself a good husband first.” She heaved a sigh. “I would even take you just getting knocked up by that man. I’m honestly not even asking for marriage. I want babies, Eliza. And I want them now.”

I turned to Lola before I was forced to hear my deranged mother use the word “grandbabies” again. “My mother has lost her damn mind. Charlie gives us one scare, and now suddenly, she’s trying to secure the English legacy. Are you hearing this?”

My mom turned to Lola. “You’re not off the hook either, missy. Get that boy to put a ring on it and start popping out babies.”

Lola looked like she’d been hit in the face with a water balloon. And I suddenly couldn’t stop laughing. The stress of Charlie’s appendicitis really made my mom lose her mind. Oh, my gosh.

“She doesn’t mean it, Lola,” I rushed to tell my brother’s very soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. “At least I don’t think she means it.”

My mom harrumphed, then turned her back on us so she could refill her coffee mug. Okay, maybe she did mean it.

I started laughing again.

“I, um, I’m not sure what to say,” Lola finally managed.

“Maybe we should leave,” I suggested. “We don’t have to put up with this, you know.”

“I’m staying here.” She pointed at the floor. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Okay, then know this is from the bottom of my heart, but I have to leave you behind. I’m sorry. You’re on your own.”

“You can’t leave,” she pleaded. “I-I-I think food is coming.”

It wasn’t because I hadn’t ordered yet. Which was better for me. I could escape before I was tied to a meal and more demands for grandbabies and husbands.

“I’m sorry, Lola,” I told her. “Really, I am. But . . . this is a self-preservation scenario. And I need to take care of . . .” I pointed at myself and grabbed my purse off the counter where I’d left it in a pile with all the other crap Jonah and I had grabbed. “Bye, Mom, I love you.” She waved me off, apparently actually mad at me.

I slipped out of the apartment, trying to remain undetected. My overnight bag was still in Jonah’s car, but it was worth leaving behind. Even if it did have my favorite face wash, cell phone charger, and pillow.

On the way down the stairs to the ground floor, I dialed an Uber. It showed up a few minutes later. I slipped inside the back seat and confirmed the address to my building with the driver, never thinking to say goodbye to Jonah, Will, or even Charlie.

Everything at the bar was handled for now. Okay, maybe not handled but at least not in crisis. And Jonah would understand my need to flee.

He might have thought I was strong enough to stand up to my big brother, but nobody was strong enough to face down Kari English. She was a force of nature.

And out of her damn mind.

Also, possibly psychic. How was it possible she’d echoed my thoughts almost exactly? Or maybe it was just that obvious.

“You realize he’s going to marry someone, don’t you, Eliza? And if you’re going to keep pussyfooting around, that someone will not be you.”

Her words were like a ghostly monster intent on haunting me. But was it up to me? I thought about his kisses last night. He seemed . . . so into it. But where had he been for the past ten years? Why had our first kiss ended in total devastation, but last night was fine and dandy?

It was one thing for my mom to demand grandchildren and point out that Jonah would eventually marry another woman. But it was an entirely different thing to put the responsibility for any of it on my shoulders.

If I’d had a say, we’d have never stopped kissing all those years ago. We’d probably have twelve kids by now. And I would be living life barefoot and pregnant. But life hadn’t gone that way. And now I wasn’t even sure what I wanted.

Was it Jonah?

Yes, of course it was.

But was it Jonah at any cost? Was it Jonah at the risk of losing him just as quickly as last time? Was it Jonah at the risk of damaging or destroying our friendship?

No. No, it wasn’t.

I didn’t know where that left us. Nor did I have the mental energy to process any of what had happened last night.

If Mom wanted grandchildren that bad, her best bet was to bother the already-in-love happy couple. And leave the rest of us angsty, miserable, single people alone.

fourteen

Thankfully, the next day was Sunday. I’d somehow slogged through the night before, avoiding all other humans—related or otherwise. Will had been too busy at the bar Saturday night to bother me anyway.

We’d given Miles and Ada the night off so they could mentally recover. Lola had filled in on the floor, and Will had handled the bar. And I’d managed. But like literally managed. I dealt with Case and his bad attitude all night. I helped Lola stay on task and even took some tables so she could catch up. I walked around and made sure every damn table was happy and well taken care of. If I caught a whiff of a little irritation or frustration, I sent a free round their way. And I made sure Will could keep up with the busy demand.

And somehow, we’d survived.

Would I ever want to run another busy weekend with just the four of us? All the hell noes. But, for one night and one night only, we’d gotten through it.

I needed this Sunday off like a fish needed water.

I couldn’t look back at my single night away as a restful vacation because of the madness it had turned into. Usually, I walked into Sunday feeling tired but fulfilled. I loved my work. I loved my workplace. And I really loved my days off.

But today, I felt like I’d crawled into Sunday. On my belly. Under barbed wire and a constant barrage of gunfire.

My body felt bruised and beaten. My head hurt. I hadn’t managed to change out of the softest joggers I owned and the baggiest, oldest, tattered-iest sweatshirt I had from high school. My hair was unwashed on top of my head, my makeup was still in Jonah’s car, and I planned to eat about four thousand calories of microwave popcorn and let Tomorrow Eliza deal with the weight gain from the night of vodka tasting and sodium I planned on consuming today.

More than the physical toll of the past couple of days, my soul felt tired. I had no idea where I stood with Will. Or Jonah. My mom had lost her mind—so that was another thing to deal with. Charlie was still at Will’s recovering . . . and I knew that was going to turn into a whole other thing. That I would have to mediate. And Ada wasn’t talking to me.

Well, Ada wasn’t talking to anyone right now. I hated that she’d included me in her Craft boycott. I wasn’t my brothers. I was her friend. I mean, she hadn’t come out and said she wasn’t talking to me, but she hadn’t answered my texts or calls, of which I had sent her many.

Also, we’d traveled this road with Ada before. She’d been sent to us from another one of Will’s restaurant connections before we opened the bar. She was technically our general manager, although we rarely had enough employees for her title to hold weight. Almost instantly, she and I became friends. Same with Will. Charlie was a different story.

I liked to think Ada loved the bar as much as she loved Charlie, and that was why she never left us. But lately . . . it wasn’t that I thought her feelings for the bar or Charlie had changed, however a girl could only take so much. I guess I worried that she would leave us because she loved both the bar and Charlie too much.

Besides her non-relationship drama, our sibling in-fighting was the hardest on her out of everyone. Will, Charlie, and I had grown up this way and honestly didn’t know a different style of communication. Ada had a much younger sister whom she adored, so she didn’t quite get the whole process of shouting every hateful word in the English language at a sibling, only to be over it entirely a few minutes later. Over the tumultuous years, she’d staged boycotts and walkouts regularly. And then eventually cooled off, calmed down, and came back.

I was praying this was just another one of her enraged—and justified--statements. Charlie had put her through hell, and she needed a minute to get over it. Only time would tell.

In all fairness, I’d spent the whole of Friday night ignoring her calls and texts too, so I probably deserved this. But it was much harder to be the one being ignored than it was to be the one doing the ignoring.

Especially when the ignoring had been unintentional. Then there was Jonah. Thankfully, the day had been so busy I hadn’t been able to hyper-obsess too much. I tried to pretend I wasn’t looking for him every time the door opened, but that was a lie. I was equal parts disappointed and relieved every time someone walked into the bar, and it wasn’t him.

He’d texted shortly after I abandoned Will’s apartment, asking where I’d gone. And then he’d offered to bring my things by the bar so I had them. But I’d been too much of a coward to deal with the exchange in front of Will and Lola, so I’d told him not to worry about it and then fibbed about a massive stress headache being the reason I needed to escape Will’s.

But then there I was, my head bobbing around like a turkey, hoping he’d read through my fear-induced bullshit and show up anyway. Ugh, why was I like this? I didn’t have any right to tell him one thing and then hope he’d do the exact opposite.

Now I was in a weird funk of my own making, desperately needing my favorite pillow, and too afraid to text Jonah and tell him what I wanted.

So I texted Claire instead. I poured out my heart to her and tried to believe her when she promised I hadn’t messed things up irrevocably.

Our text session was just wrapping up as I lay wallowing in self-pity and exhaustion, stretched out on my couch watching my favorite show. Or at least what I defaulted to the most: scrolling every streaming service I paid for in hopes that the perfect show to fit my mood would pop up and I’d finally find the one thing I couldn’t wait to binge until I passed out. I decided that I should probably squeeze some work in.

My laptop was in the other room, though, so I opted for the easiest possible solution—the kind I could do without moving. I picked up my nearly dead phone and posted a stunning pic of our most recent seasonal cocktail—our Orange Flower Honey Hot Toddy. It was my favorite thing this winter, and I made it for myself whenever I had the chance. Plus, Will and Miles had taken my bourbon brand suggestion, so I felt a little extra ownership of it. Then I replied to a few job applications for the kitchen—I’d posted it yesterday while at work and already had several replies—and set up interview times. I’d talked to our accountant, and he said we had room for another full-time employee for the kitchen and a couple more part-time employees as well.

This was excellent news since Case wasn’t the only one who needed help. If I didn’t find more servers for Ada, she might decide to ignore me for the rest of forever and ever amen. And with the recent boom in our kitchen fame, we needed a busser and a dishwasher.

The sheer amount of potential payroll needs made me sweaty, but I was determined to view these problems as good things. And I would deal with them one at a time. First, another cook for Case. Then we’d tackle the rest of the roster.

I spent time replying to some comments on posts and in our messages, posted a video to stories that I’d been saving for a couple weeks, and finally tackled the bad reviews that had Will so up in arms.

First of all, there were only two bad reviews. This was obviously not great, but I had assumed that there were at least five to ten based on Will’s overreaction. So facing two pissed-off customers ended up being a relief.

I could handle two bad reviews.

Craft could handle two bad reviews.

Still, I thought about how happy it would make Will if I could turn these two bad experiences around.

He’d be ecstatic.

Which, despite everything, was what I wanted.

So I offered them gift cards and a renewed experience. Afterward, I set my phone down and let out a deep breath. A nap might be in order. The past twenty-four hours had been absolutely crazy. Taking charge of staff interviews, suggesting Charlie bartend, cockblocking Logan, the kissing—oh the kissing—the wake-up call about Charlie . . . Our accountant had been the easiest part of the weekend, even though I’d been dreading speaking to him the most. He’d gone over the numbers we’d discussed on the phone and had then written a lengthy email reply. Thankfully, he never abandoned his email. Not even on weekends. I felt like I’d gone from rock star to badass bitch to sexy siren to deranged sister barely holding it together in a very short amount of time. And survived. So yeah, I deserved a nap.

Just as I’d closed my eyes and found the perfect position, a knock on my door jolted me awake. I was asleep enough that, for a second, I thought I’d dreamed it. But there it was again . . . pounding away.

Argh.

Now I faced the dilemma of pretending I never heard it, lying as still as a corpse until I was certain they’d walked away, or answering it.

They knocked again. I prayed it wasn’t my neighbors. Other than a friendly smile in the hallway or at the mailbox, I tried not to talk to them. I didn’t have anything against them personally . . . I just wasn’t ready to make friends in the same place I lived. I preferred to maintain my emotional distance so I wasn’t afraid to call the super on them if they behaved badly.

But it wasn’t my neighbors.

Through the door, a muffled voice called out, “Eliza, it’s me.”

Only a certain number of people could get away with the whole “it’s me” bit. And one of them had just had surgery to remove his appendix. Which meant Will was out since he had to tend to the patient.

That left one single, remaining person . . . Jonah. Was I excited to see him? I didn’t know. Was I dreading talking to him again face-to-face? Also unsure.

“Eliza’s not home,” I heard myself holler, still undecided what to do. Also still unmoving from the couch.

“Liar.” It was definitely Jonah. “I have your stuff.”

Well, I couldn’t very well leave my stuff in the hallway. He had my pillow. “All right, fine.” I got up and made my way toward the door. I found him grinning with my bag in one hand and my pillow in the other.

He stood there for a second, looking me over. His gaze started at my face and worked its way down, over my ratty sweatshirt, over my joggers, to my socked toes. Somehow his smile got bigger. “You have so many different looks.”

I stepped out of the way so he could bring my things inside, then contemplated pushing him out the window. “Are you saying I’m ugly without makeup?”

“No,” he said quickly. “How did you get that from what I said?” I blushed as my insecurity tucked its tail and hid. He added, “You’re never ugly. Sometimes scary. But that’s only when it’s a combination of makeup and somehow not makeup.”

Listen, I should be offended right there. But I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was when I went to bed with my makeup on and woke up looking like an extra in The Walking Dead. It was a totally fair, if not annoying, assessment. Plus, he’d happened to see me multiple times like that lately.

“What I mean is,” he continued, “you always look so good for work. You’re always so . . .” He stared off into the distance for a minute, seemingly searching for the right word. But apparently, he didn’t find it. “But here, you’re dressed down and still look . . .”

I waited patiently for him to get to the end of his sentence. Compliment? Insult? It was too early to tell, but he had to say something. He had to finish his thought.

“Still look . . .” I prompted when he didn’t come up with anything.

He looked at me and tilted his head. “You know you’re beautiful. Why do you make me say it?”

Was he serious? Like genuinely, heart-melting, goose-bumps popping was he serious? But also, all the eye rolls, and was he serious??? “The thing about girls,” I told him in my best teacher voice, “is that no matter what we think we know about ourselves, we always prefer to have it confirmed.”

Something in his eyes gentled, and he took a step closer to me. “You are beautiful, Eliza. All done up, makeup, hair, the whole thing. And just like this, comfy, no makeup, mismatched socks.”

I looked down at my feet. My socks were two totally different colors. Oops. I smiled and met his gaze again, ready to say something back like thank you, or you’re beautiful too. Or . . . whatever.

Instead, my brothers’ voices sounded in the distance. I looked at my wide-open door and froze. There they were. Both of them. Walking this way.

BUT WHY?!

Charlie lifted a hand in greeting, and Will followed shortly behind him. Charlie looked a thousand times better than he had yesterday. Relief flooded me. His coloring was so much better compared to the deathly pallor he’d been rocking only twenty-four hours ago.

“Jonah, what are you doing here?” Will asked instead of explaining why he was here.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

Jonah lifted the bag and pillow he still held. “Dropping off some stuff.”

Will’s gaze went right to my pillow. “Yeah, are we ever going to talk about that or—”

“No,” I said sharply. “What is going on?”

“We’re bored,” Will explained. “You have better TV over here.”

I did not have better TV over here. Will and I shared the same Netflix account. What was really going on was my brothers were probably tired of each other and needed someone to balance out their mood swings. I was that person.

Charlie shot Will a look and said, “Lola kicked us out. She said she needed peace and quiet or something. Apparently, we were bothering her.” Will didn’t refute Charlie’s explanation, and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing. Good for you, Lola. He added, “We thought we could order takeout and watch basketball or something.”

I liked watching basketball. Being raised with two brothers plus Jonah had introduced me to all sports. We were especially close to Duke basketball for city loyalty reasons. But recently, we’d become big Hornets fans. And we loved ourselves some Panthers during football season.

But did I want my brothers couch-coaching basketball games all afternoon? When I’d been planning a trashy reality dating show and popcorn marathon?

Hell, no. They moved into my apartment. Charlie toed off his shoes and headed straight for the couch. Will hovered around Jonah and slowly removed his coat. He was totally waiting on Jonah to spill his guts, but it wasn’t happening.

Charlie started messing with my remote. I didn’t have enough energy for this. But I wasn’t totally unreasonable either.

“We can watch something, but not basketball.”

“Surgery!” Charlie cried.

“Surgery,” Will echoed, pointing at Charlie.

“You can pick the takeout,” I told Charlie. “But I get to pick the show.”

They grumbled their consent, and Will joined Charlie on the couch. They settled in for the long haul. I turned to Jonah. “Are you going to stay and hang out?”

He narrowed his gaze at the back of Will’s head in thought. “I was planning on it. But I don’t want to get in the way.”

I took my pillow out of his hands. “It will be just like old times. We’ll have a Highlander marathon and order Mountain Dew and a pallet of Doritos.”

He cracked a smile. “All right, I can get on board with that.”

Our fingers brushed when I reached for my overnight bag, and I had the crushing feeling that my brothers had just interrupted something significant.

Or maybe they’d saved me. I was still undecided on our make-out session. Was I happy Jonah had finally kissed me? Or had it even been intentional?

What if I was some kind of drunken accident? And he was planning to pull the big brother card again?

I was also too afraid to examine my own mind and figure out which way I wanted things to go. I’m not sure I can cope with another broken heart. I wasn’t sure I could face another rejection from Jonah. Especially after knowing how good we are together. Shove it down, Eliza. Spiral any other time than when your apartment is full of your brothers. And the sexy man causing the emotional somersaults.

“How about Golden Palace, Liza?” Charlie shouted from the couch. “Hot and sour soup is my comfort food.”

Mine too. Golden Palace was my all-time favorite Chinese restaurant. And Charlie’s. Sometimes he came over for supper just so we could order from there. “Perfect,” I yelled back, already pulling up the app and readying my finger to take orders.

“Eliza wants a Highlander marathon,” Jonah told everyone as we walked into the living room.

I laughed at my brothers’ outraged responses. “I was kidding.”

“Thank God,” Will huffed, full of his usual snobbiness. And apparently in denial of his absolute addiction to that saga as a little kid. He might have conveniently forgotten, but I would never.

Charlie, somehow pulling off that same reclining king look he’d perfected at Will’s yesterday, said, “If we’re going blast from the past, I vote Star Trek.”

Jonah walked around to the front of the couch and plopped down directly in the middle. My brothers had sprawled all over the right side, which left few options for me. Thanks to the gigantic size of my couch, nobody sat too close to someone else. But now I suddenly regretted that. At least if we’d been forced to squish together, I could have come up with an excuse for sitting right by Jonah. Or on his lap—either way. But thanks to my high-maintenance style choices, it would be obvious and a little awkward if I sat down directly next to him.

“Movies or show?” Will asked in regard to Star Trek.

“Next Generation,” Charlie suggested mildly.

Jonah and Will booed him. “Is this about your Captain Picard obsession?” Jonah asked, throwing a pillow at him.

“I don’t have a Captain Picard obsession,” Charlie defended.

“You totally have a Captain Picard obsession,” Will and I said in unison, and then laughed.

“I vote for the new movies,” I threw out.

Jonah snorted. “Only because you have a thing for what’s his name.”

“Who?” Charlie demanded. “Why is it okay for you to have an obsession and not me?”

“Because my obsession is Chris Pine,” I said promptly. “And that’s normal. Expected even.”

“I vote for movies too,” Will put in very authoritatively. Then shot us a side glance. “Not because of Chris Pine.”

There was a beat of silence before Jonah threw out a low-key, “It’s totally because of Chris Pine.”

We all laughed, and there was this sharp, surreal moment when I felt transported back to our youth. It was just the four of us again. Goofing off and making fun of each other while we watched movie marathons and played video games and survived our childhoods side by side. And it was perfect.

In the end, it was that moment that made me choose the far left side of the couch, with plenty of distance from Jonah. Jonah and I would sort ourselves out, but right now this wasn’t about the two of us. It was about the four of us. And that was okay.

We ended up ordering our weight in Chinese food and smack-talking all aspects of the movie. And each other. And it was the balm my battered heart needed.

fifteen

Several hours later, I picked my head up off the couch and surveyed the room. Charlie was in one of the corners of the U-shaped couch, snoring like a chainsaw. Will was curled up at the end, his body wrapped around a throw pillow, feet dangling in midair. He was sleeping too. Actually, Jonah was the only one still awake, and he’d switched the show back to The Witcher.

I watched him for a few seconds, wondering why he was still here. Fifteen years ago, it would have made sense for him to hang out with us all day and all night. But now, he had his own life. His own home. His own TV to watch his current binges on.

He looked over at me with a crooked smile. “I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

“I’m surprised you’re still here is all.”

His smile wobbled. “Do you want me to go?”

“No, I just . . . what time is it?”

“Eight-ish.”

I looked at my brothers. “Do you think they’re ever going to leave?”

He let out a weary sigh. “No. Never.”

My heart jumped at the sound of frustration in his voice. Did he want them gone as badly as I did? But before I could ask him, Will stirred, sitting up with a big, gasping breath.

He made an unintelligible sound and said, “Didn’t mean to fall asleep here. Shit.”

“I think we all did,” I said around a yawn. “It’s Sunday, though. It’s the best day for naps.”

Will grunted in response. “I should go.”

Thank God. But of course, I didn’t say that out loud. Will leaned over and punched Charlie’s kneecap gently. Charlie sat up with a start, as dramatic and breathless as Will had been. Then he winced and flopped back down.

Will didn’t seem to notice. “It’s late, Charlie. Let’s go home.”

Charlie pulled out his phone and mumbled something nobody understood.

“Thanks for dinner,” I told Will. He hadn’t always been generous enough to pay for the whole order, but dating Lola had been good for him in this one aspect. I was fairly confident they were talking about getting married. And they both worked full-time plus her family had a ton of money. Which meant Will could stop being such an asshole about who paid for what when we went out to eat or got takeout.

Before Lola, we once took my mom out for her birthday, and Will made us split the check three ways, including the tip. When Charlie had tried to throw in fifteen percent instead of twenty, Will had sent him an invoice for the remaining two dollars.

He was being more generous lately though. And tonight, he’d paid for all the takeout. It was a nice gesture, especially after letting Charlie crash at his place last night. Maybe he was growing up. Or maybe my mom was right, and he really did listen to Lola.

“No problem,” Will said. Then he turned to Jonah. “Come on, man, you can walk out with us.”

There was a heavy beat of awkward silence. Jonah glanced at me at the worst possible moment, and I shrugged in response, wide-eyed and pouty. Will caught the whole thing then glared at me, his perplexed expression twisting as he thought hard about what that exchange could mean.

“Unless you’re not ready to go?” Will pushed him. “Were you guys planning to hang out or something?”

Were we planning to hang out? No. No official plans had been made. Did I want to hang out with only Jonah for the rest of my evening? That was an entirely different question with an entirely different answer.

“We don’t have plans, Will,” I said dryly, brushing off his innuendo.

Will looked back at Jonah, who merely shrugged. “If we did, would you feel left out?” Jonah asked him, a smug smirk challenging Will to answer honestly.

“Well, I wouldn’t think it’s very cool. But you do you, bro.”

Jonah glanced at me again. Will’s “bro” language was always a dead giveaway that he was pissed. Sometimes he used “dude” in normal conversation. But “bro” was reserved for the bleakest of circumstances.

“Let’s go,” Charlie groaned. “I forgot my pain pills, and my back is killing me.”

Will got off the couch and started clearing the takeout containers. Charlie got up too and gently stretched his body out. Jonah lingered.

He took the opportunity of my brothers being busy to whisper, “Would you be mad if I came back?”

My stomach flipped. “No.”

He smiled. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Jonah and Eliza are telling secrets!” Charlie announced to the entire world. “They’re being weird.”

“Don’t lie,” I growled at him, “but how many painkillers are you on right now? Because what in the world made you think it was okay to act like that?”

He just grinned at me. “None at the moment, which is why it’s so important that we get back home ASAP, Will. I’m going to die over here, and you are showing no urgency. Just like the other night.”

Charlie was clearly doing better if he felt good enough to tease the rest of us about the night he refused to get medical help.

Will rolled his eyes. “All right, princess, let’s get you home. Come on, Jonah, help me make sure he doesn’t fall down all four flights of stairs.”

“Does it count as helping him not fall if I’m the one who pushes him?”

Charlie glanced helplessly back at me. “Eliza, stand up for me. Do something.”

“I’m trying,” I said boldly from my spot across the apartment from him, where I was parked comfortably on the couch. I didn’t move a muscle. “Really. I am. Trying so hard.”

Jonah and Will let out a chorus of “bye, Elizas” and then my apartment door was closed, and the room was quiet again. Nothing moved inside my apartment. I wasn’t just alone, I was by myself. Which was an entirely different thing.

My heart sank with their absence and then buoyed again when I remembered Jonah’s question. Was he really going to come back? How was he going to ditch my brothers?

What if they wanted to do something with him? What if they wanted to come back and watch another movie, another excuse for Will and Charlie to be all up in my business.

Ugh, why were they so damn involved in my life?

Never mind that I was all over Lola the second Will showed the slightest interest in her. And I’d made making Ada my best friend a personal mission for years. But this was different. Jonah and I had been close forever. We’d been hanging out alone forever. Why the sudden not-so-covert ops?

After several long, excruciating minutes of nothing happening, I picked up the remote and turned on my show. I was just getting really invested in a particular couple when a knock sounded on my door again.

I regretted giving the building code to all the people in my life. My day would have looked very different if none of them could gain access inside on their own, and I was able to play gatekeeper with the buzzer.

Nervous butterflies raced around my belly. I hadn’t been nervous around Jonah in years. At least a decade. It was surreal to be nervous now. There wasn’t even a reason to be nervous.

My body was being stupid. And my mind promptly tried to tell it that. No surprise, it didn’t listen.

When did emotions ever listen to rational minds? The world would be an entirely different place if we could just talk ourselves into feeling the logical, normal thing to feel.

Anyway, I opened the door with icy, shaking hands and rioting butterflies that had the adverse effect of making me feel like I wanted to puke. So top form. Great.

Despite all evidence pointing to Jonah being on the other side of my door, I was genuinely surprised to find Jonah standing on the other side of my door.

“How’d you ditch them?” At least I sounded normal. If you ignored the slight tremble and high-pitched squeak at the end of the sentence.

His mouth split into a wide grin. “It wasn’t easy. Will wanted me to go back to his place for beers. Thankfully, Lola called to tell him she wasn’t feeling well.”

“Uh, oh, what about Charlie?”

“I guess he was fine to go home. The worst of his pain is over, and he’s up to taking care of himself.” He paused, then winked at me. “Will made him promise to call you if there was an issue.”

“Oh, Will made him promise to call me, huh?”

“Something about it being your turn?”

I rolled my eyes at Will and at Jonah’s amusement. “Of course he did.”

We’d somehow moved toward my kitchen instead of the living room. The light was off in here, but the blinds were still open, filling the room with the creamy moonlight from outside.

“Want me to make us some drinks?” he asked.

We were standing in the middle of the kitchen. Neither of us moved to turn the lights on. He towered over me, all gentle masculinity, which I didn’t know could exist until I saw it in Jonah Mason. This was a new version of him I’d never known. Soft Jonah. Tender Jonah.

When we were kids, his home life had been a mess. His dad had split shortly after he was born, leaving him with his mom. Being raised by a single mother would have been challenging enough. But Shayla Mason had been a piece of work—undiagnosed mental illness, alcoholic, couldn’t keep a job, neglectful harpy. It wasn’t that she had a long list of problems that weren’t ever addressed. It was that she was cruel and distant.

Sometimes, I felt sorry for her. And sometimes, I wondered if she’d had the help she needed when Jonah was little after his dad left if she’d be a different woman today. But then again, I’d seen her reject help constantly.

My mom had initially tried to befriend her. They’d had a lot in common, and their friendship could have been so good. Maybe my mom didn’t struggle with mental health issues or addiction, but she knew what it was like to raise kids on her own. She knew what it was like to have the world deal her a bad lot and then spend her own life making sure her kids turned out despite everything they were up against.

But Shalya had hated my mom from the start. And although she always let Jonah come over to our house and stay with us whenever he wanted, it was only so she didn’t have to deal with him.

In high school, Jonah had started acting out. He’d gotten in with the party crowd and started going through girls like a stack of cards. Will had tried to help him. Maybe not talk him out of parties or anything, but at least help him put purpose behind his life. Jonah had started to float . . . to detach completely—not just from consequences, but from life. But even after Will talked to him, Jonah had pushed away further.

It was my own mom who had brought him back. She kept inviting him over, kept asking him if he was okay, and kept digging and digging and digging at his armor until she finally made a chink. And then made the whole damn thing fall away completely.

That was what my mom was best at—making people feel loved amidst their most unlovable circumstances. It had been her greatest gift to Will, Charlie, and me as children. Our whole lives, really. Our dad’s cold cruelty only made her love on us all the more. We all had a deficit from where our dad’s love could have mattered. But Mom did more than help us adjust. She loved us until we could acknowledge all we’d been through and move on.

And somehow, she’d done the same for Jonah, even though she wasn’t related to him by blood. Even though his childhood was so much worse than ours. I was so lucky to have her as my mom. And as crazy and far off as it felt to think about having kids, I really was excited to follow her example when they finally came into the picture.

Jonah’s mom had seen him at his best and couldn’t seem to love him. My mom had seen him at his worst and loved him anyway. I really believed her love had saved his life. But because of how he grew up, he wasn’t a soft or tender person.

He could be abrasive and gruff. He could be fun and wild, quiet and laid-back. But he was not ever gentle. Or tender. Or . . . this. Whatever this was.

“Be honest,” I teased him. “Did you come back just to watch The Witcher? Because if you need my password, I can give—”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me against his chest with enough enthusiasm to push the wind from my lungs. “I thought it was obvious why I was here,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “And it has nothing to do with The Witcher.”

I was breathless with confusion. So nervous I could hardly think. “What is this, Jonah?”

He dipped his head and brushed his lips over mine. “I thought that was obvious too.” Another delicate kiss. “If you’re not into me, you should tell me now. Because I’m not here to watch The Witcher.” Another kiss. This one longer. Lingering.

“I-I-I didn’t say that.”

He kissed me slowly, his lips and tongue moving against mine like we had all the time in the world. His lips were so soft. And his tongue was so hot. If I struggled to understand these new gentle places in his personality, it was just as difficult to understand the tender places on his body.

As hard and unyielding as his personality was, his body was equally so. He was six foot two inches of lean muscle and chiseled definition. His hands were calloused from working out and hours of moving heavy crates of alcohol for work. His jaw was rough again. His five o’clock shadow had started to fill in. He was all careful control and restrained testosterone. And I wanted to put my hands on every inch of him.

But it was more than the feel of him. More than the taste of him.

It was just him, taking his time to kiss me until I was breathless and leaning into him. My hands landed on his chest and clutched his sweatshirt. The butterflies had moved from trembles to shivers. The nervousness had given way to passion. That desperate seventeen-year-old girl inside me had yawned awake, hungry to finish what she’d started so many years ago.

But it was that same seventeen-year-old girl who had to ask, “What are we doing, Jonah?”

He pulled back, but barely, angling his face so he could look me in the eyes. “We’re kissing, Eliza.”

He said it like it was the most natural and normal thing in the world. And perhaps, in my shadowy kitchen glowing with moonlight, he was right. Maybe that was the most natural and normal thing in the world.

Maybe he and I were completely natural. Maybe he was my normal. And I was his.

So I kissed him back. Releasing his sweatshirt, I wrapped my arms around his neck. He made a hum of approval in the back of his throat and kissed me with more intention.

I pressed my chest against his and let his mouth take me to an entirely different place. His lips danced with mine, kissing, sucking, biting.

His hands landed on my hips, holding me tightly. His fingers slipped beneath my sweatshirt, finding hot, bare skin. We both gasped at the feel of his palms against my hips. And when our mouths came back together, we were more intense, more desperate for each other.

Unlike the glamping experience, Jonah wasn’t content to slowly kiss me this time. His mouth moved intentionally down the column of my neck, tugging at my sweatshirt to find my collarbone, while his hands slid up, up, up until they found ribs and then breasts.

I’d only bothered with a lace bralette today. Enough support if hidden behind a gigantic sweatshirt, but hardly anything but a scrap of delicate fabric.

His hand was hot against my breast. Rough and masculine against my soft femininity. Frustrated with the barricade of the oversized sweatshirt, I tugged at the hem until he joined me in ripping it off with his free hand, tossing it somewhere behind us. His hand had not let go of my breast, holding it as if it were a rare and precious thing. His thumb brushed over my nipple, and the sensual act and pure sensation of it made my knees wobble.

I made a high-pitched sound that was somewhere between a moan and a squeak. He did it again. And then again.

“Jonah?” I murmured, unable to speak the unspoken question. Were we doing this? Was this really happening? Did he want to go further than kissing?

His hand cupping my boob would suggest yes, absolutely, but I hadn’t realized until now that this was what I had agreed to.

Was I complaining? No. Hell, no.

I was currently arching my back so he could do more with his thumb. And tilting my head so he could have more access to my neck. I was working on the hem of his sweatshirt, sliding it up, over his smooth skin, chiseled abs, and the ladder of rib bones.

He stepped back so I could get it all the way off. I threw it in a pile with my own. The T-shirt he’d had beneath it was a mess of tangled clothing. Then I reached for him, pulling him back against me. Reached for his head to bring it to mine.

All signs pointed to me being all the way in.

But was he feeling the strangeness of what was happening? Was he ready for this next step too? Or was I the one pushing him into spaces he wasn’t ready for?

In case it wasn’t clear, making out with your best friend was complicated.

“Is this okay?” I asked in a whisper, afraid my question would break whatever spell had pulled us under, and he’d run out of my apartment half-naked and screaming in panic.

“Fuck, yes,” he breathed against my skin. “Fucking finally.”

Finally? Oh, if my libido had been able to slow down just a little bit, I would have pinned him to the ground and asked all the questions.

Instead, his answer kicked it into overdrive, and we started . . . well, it couldn’t be called kissing. Kissing was something PG. Civilized. Appropriate for other people to witness.

This was not that.

This was something carnal and hungry. Completely indecent.

He unlocked some kind of next-level kissing that completely undid me. I stopped worrying about what that meant or what would happen next. I stopped thinking completely.

I just let him have his way.

When I pulled back to gasp for breath, he moved to my jaw, then my neck, and then my breast. His tongue flicked over the lace, creating delicious friction against my nipple. And there he stayed, working me into an absolute frenzy.

His hands moved lower as well. Down over my hips, palming my ass, and then to the outside of my thighs. And then to the inside.

I clutched his shoulders as one hand traveled back up and up and up until he was at the apex of my thighs, pressing against the seam of my joggers . . . the seam of me.

“If you want me to stop, tell me.” His whispered words were against my breast.

“No, please don’t.”

He growled a reply and then worked at the waist of my sweatpants. Kneeling, he peeled them off me. His hands kept moving, kept touching every single inch of newly exposed skin. His lips too. Kissed and tasted and moved over my stomach, the top of my pubic bone, the underside of my breast as I toed my pants off my ankles.

By the time he was back to my lips, I was wondering what I would do if he tried to stop now. Had I ever wanted someone this much? Had I ever been this turned on?

I’d dated several guys between Jonah’s first kiss and this one, but sex had always been more of an obligation than a desperate need.

This. With Jonah. Was as important as my next breath.

And there I stood, completely naked except for my bralette. Yet somehow, he still had his jeans on.

Before I could do anything about that, his fingers stopped wandering and found a place to land between my thighs. And my God, had it ever . . .

I gasped as he plunged one finger inside me, my head tipping back as a moan ripped out of my throat. He added a second finger, and my breathing became shallow and staggered.

He supported me with his free arm around my back as my knees grew weaker and weaker. He continued to kiss my neck, my jaw, and my ear.

This . . . I had never . . . my God . . .

I could have fallen apart just like that. With just his hot fingers doing their delicious work. Him so rough and strong. Me so delicate in his arms. I could have exploded into a million pieces with just a few more . . .

His fingers withdrew, and just as I was about to complain, he picked me up in one swift movement and landed me on the kitchen counter. It was ice-cold against my bare thighs, but I only had a second to process the chill before he slid me to the edge and dropped to his knees.

“Jonah,” I squeaked, surprised at his intentions.

“If you think I haven’t thought about doing this at least a million times . . .” His lopsided grin was startling in the moonlight. His hair was tucked behind his ears. His blue, blue eyes piercing even in the darkness.

I ran my hand over his cheek, memorizing this moment. How could anyone be this beautiful? This incredible?

I stopped wondering as soon as his head disappeared between my thighs. And then it was nothing but a spiraling race toward the edge of a cliff.

My hands gripped the edge of the counter until it dug into my palms. My legs wrapped around his back, anxious for something to hold on to. And then the building began as his tongue and mouth did wicked, exquisite things to the most intimate part of me.

“Fuck, Eliza,” he growled against me. “You’re so fucking perfect.” His mouth kept moving, but not because he was speaking.

The tingles carried over from the work his fingers had started. Small at first. Enough for me to beg him for more. And then there was more of everything. More of him. More of my desire. More of my body slowly unraveling but picking up speed.

I came apart on his mouth, a freefall off the edge of the world, while he gripped my thighs and my heels dug into his shoulder blades. I made noises I had never made before. I saw stars in faraway galaxies I had never visited before.

Jonah didn’t stop until he was sure I was through. And when he stood, his expression was all masculine pride and satisfaction. He stepped between my legs and crushed me against his chest. One hand cradled the back of my head and the other rubbed soothing circles over my shoulder blades.

“Goddamn, Eliza. Should have done that years ago.”

My eyes were closed. A single tear slid down my cheek. I wasn’t sure if it was the relief of hearing he’d wanted this for years too. Or if it was from the epic orgasm he’d just rocked through my body. Either way, I made no effort to swipe it away.

“Years ago, huh?” I couldn’t help but give him shit. I had a thousand questions to ask him, but my brain felt like pudding.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said instead of answering my question. “So fucking everything.”

We stayed like that until goose bumps covered my body, and I started shivering. I was still naked after all.

“You’re cold,” he murmured. “I should let you get dressed.”

“Let’s take a hot shower instead,” I suggested, surprised at my own boldness. Maybe this would end up like the first time we tested the waters. But if so, I was going to have my fun first.

He pulled back, looking down at me. His lips were glossy, and that five o’clock shadow darkened his jaw. In short, he was breathtaking. “A shower?”

I shrugged. “You had your fun. Now it’s my turn.”

His eyes darkened, and his jaw ticked. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “I don’t want to rush you . . .”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.” Then I hopped down from the counter and took his hand. Leading him into my bathroom, I regretted the clothes and makeup that seemed to be everywhere.

Although I didn’t think he noticed at all. His eyes were on me and me only. The hunger in his gaze made me shiver for an entirely different reason than the cold night air.

We paused only to shed the rest of his clothes. Up until now, I had seen all the skin Jonah was showing on a fairly regular basis. We’d go swimming or boating all summer, or I’d stop by to cheer on a basketball league practice where he’d been shirtless. And while he was magnificent without his shirt on and had a great set of calves, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of his entire body stripped bare.

His tight calves gave way to muscular thighs dusted in dark hair. His body as a whole was all cut lines and solid muscle. His waist tapered oh-so nicely just beneath the washboard abs of his stomach. And then there was the part of him I had never come close to seeing until now. My mouth went dry at the full sight of him. My desire tightened inside me all over again.

God, he was so perfect. So perfect for me. And all I wanted to do was lick him head to toe. So that’s what I decided to do.

We stepped beneath a hot stream of water. And then I returned his favor from earlier. Not out of obligation, but out of excitement, curiosity, and fun.

I was rewarded with Jonah Mason coming undone, wholly, completely, all because of me. Afterward, we cleaned up and dressed in the barest essentials. I found an extra toothbrush. And then we crawled into bed together.

There was no outstretched handholding this time. As soon as we were beneath the covers, he pulled me against his chest.

“Should I warn you this time that I’m planning to spend the night?” he asked, his low voice teasing and sweet.

I laughed. “I’m pretty sure I already got the message.”

“It hasn’t been the same since that night, you know.”

I lifted my head up so I could meet his gaze. “What hasn’t been the same?”

“Sleeping.” His crooked smile made my heart thump aggressively against my breastbone. “It may or may not have been my main motivation in asking you to Galliger.”

“So you could sleep with me?” And weirdly, I didn’t think he meant it in the Biblical sense. At least not only in the Biblical sense.

“Don’t get me wrong, this is a thousand times better than the couch. But my apartment has felt extra lonely without you there. I just couldn’t . . . stand staying away from you any longer.” I stared at him, desperately trying to make sense of what he was saying. He added, “Isn’t this better?”

“Better than what?”

“Than everything else.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, I laid my head on his chest. His arms held me even tighter against him. Was this better than everything else?

Yes. Absolutely yes.

This was better than anything I could think of. Jonah in my bed with his arms and legs wrapped around me. His heart wrapped around mine. He wrapped around all of me, the seen and unseen, the felt and unfelt.

Jonah Mason had done something to me I was afraid was irreversible. I planned to fight it, or at least hold it at bay until I could figure everything out . . . but first . . . first, I was going to close my eyes and go to sleep.

“Good night, Eliza,” he murmured, sounding the most content I had ever heard him.

“Good night, Jonah.” And just like at Galliger, I thought it would take me forever to fall asleep. I mean, how could anyone sleep after all of that? But also just like in the glamping cabin, I closed my eyes and drifted off almost immediately. I was the most content I had ever been.

sixteen

Three days later, I was sitting at my favorite spot at the bar. I loved the corner closest to the kitchen because I could stay almost undetected by customers—and sometimes even Craft employees—and still observe everything that went on.

We had just finished a massive rush. Wednesdays weren’t usually a busy night for us, but a warmish February day had pushed everyone out of the house. I’d stayed late to help wait tables. Ada’s trainee had the night off, and Charlie still wasn’t back to work.

I’d talked to him yesterday and thought he’d sounded just fine. But this was Charlie, so he was going to milk it for everything it was worth.

Lola was here too. She’d stopped by with her laptop to do some work, but Will had wrangled her into waitressing. It was still hours till we closed, but I was ready for bed.

Will walked over to my side of the bar. “Can I make you a drink? We’re probably good for the night.”

I let out a happy sigh. “I would love one. Whatchya making?”

He shrugged but pulled out the Jameson. It wasn’t my all-time favorite whiskey, but it tasted like college and good times, so I was always up for it. “I’m working on some St. Paddy’s Day drinks for next month. How about a Jameson and peach lemonade?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Peach lemonade, you say?”

He didn’t acknowledge that I was impressed. He drove me crazy a lot of the time, but man, having a bartender for a brother sure did come in handy. “You’re different lately.”

His sudden assessment of me made me instantly nervous. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, sliding my drink toward me. “You’re . . . lighter somehow. Nicer.”

I was definitely not nicer. That was in his head. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m actually mad at you about something.”

His eyes narrowed. “About what?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’m still building my case.”

“Building your case?”

It was my turn to shrug. “You know, gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, investigating all possible outcomes.”

“I take it back. You’re not nicer. You’ve gone full psycho.”

“It could be both,” I told him flatly. “For instance, this drink is delicious, and you should definitely serve it next month. Maybe put it on the spring menu permanently.” I took another sip. “See? Nicer.”

“Come to think of it . . .” Will wiped at a few drops of sticky cocktail on the bar next to me. “It all started when you abandoned the bar and went out of town with Jonah for the night. Are you ever going to share where you guys went? What you were doing?”

I was honestly saving my bombshell reveal for a bigger conflict, so avoiding this question was my number one priority. “Are you ever going to tell me why you have a real estate agent? She called the bar looking for you.”

His gaze squeezed into slits. “Must have been a scammer.”

“Drug run,” I lied as easily as he had. “Jonah and I are drug mules on the side to pay for our expensive whiskey habit.”

Jonah took that exact moment to walk into the bar. He’d left my apartment Monday morning and gone to work. And then come over Monday night, and we watched The Witcher and made out for hours. Tuesday was much of the same, although he’d gone home to sleep in his own bed. He said he couldn’t sleep with me so close . . . but that obviously wasn’t true since the man snored all night long.

And held me very tightly in his arms.

What he really meant was he couldn’t sleep as much as he wanted to. Thanks to all the fooling around. We’d yet to have sex yet, but the building anticipation was making it hard to think about anything else. I appreciated that Jonah seemed to be working up to it. Giving us time to fully explore each other. Making each new physical adventure more familiar, more intimate. I couldn’t wait for what was to come. But I loved all these advancing steps along the way.

This was the first time we’d seen each other today, and I was valiantly trying not to ogle and drool over him. But I was afraid I was failing.

“Is this true?” Will asked as Jonah took the barstool next to me.

Jonah tipped his head toward my drink. “I’ll have what she’s having.” Then he turned and smiled at me, holding my gaze for no other reason than just to look at me. “Hey.”

I blushed. Head to toe, I turned bright red. I wanted to blame his unfiltered attention and how special he’d just made me feel . . . ignoring Will just to say hi to me . . . but honestly, it was the tennis audience approach Will had taken to watching us. His head bounced back and forth like we were the US Open, and he’d bet his life savings on the match.

“Hey,” I whispered to Jonah, hoping he would divert his attention elsewhere.

“Eliza says you’re a drug mule,” Will all but shouted. Several heads down the line of the bar turned to look at us. When it was clear I didn’t fit the description of a drug mule, they turned back to their drinks.

“I’m going to need more context,” Jonah shot back, not missing a beat.

“When y’all disappeared for the night,” Will gritted out. “She says you’re drug mules as a side hustle.”

Jonah whipped his head toward me. “You told your brother? I thought we agreed to keep it between us?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry. It just slipped out.”

Will scrubbed the now nonexistent cocktail spill harder. “You know, y’all think you’re real funny, but I’m going to find out. And then you’re going to be sorry you didn’t tell me yourself.”

I rolled my eyes. You knew things were serious when Will got extra Southern. “You first, big brother.”

He lifted his head and gave me a warning look. I was apparently diving into a sensitive subject. Headfirst. Good. He couldn’t keep secrets like that from me and expect me not to figure it out somehow.

Ada walked over the first chance she got. She’d shown up for work today, and all of us had breathed a big sigh of relief. “Hey, Jonah.”

“Hey, Ada. You survive Charlie Gate recently?”

She was just about to sit down when Jonah asked his question. Immediately she walked away from the barstool and pointed a stern finger at him. “Do not speak his name around me right now if you expect to keep all your fingers and toes, Jonah Mason. I will cut them off out of pure, unadulterated annoyance. Don’t push me.”

We all watched her stomp into the kitchen, cursing Charlie the entire way. On second thought, maybe Charlie wasn’t milking his surgery but simply avoiding Hurricane Ada. Because yeah . . . I’d be scared to come back to work too.

Honestly, I knew we were lucky to still have Ada. And Miles, for that matter. Although we were more reliant on Ada’s full-time position, so she would have been the bigger loss.

I wasn’t even sure we could run Craft without her. She did so much and was in charge of so much that without her, we’d be irrevocably fucked.

“Wow,” Jonah said with a whistle through his teeth. “What did I miss?”

Oh, just about five years of choking sexual tension, constant bickering, and two people who loved each other and also really hated each other. But out loud, I said, “I think she’s still pissed at Charlie for not taking care of himself.”

He gave me a wide-eyed look. “You think?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I bumped his shoulder with my shoulder. Everything he did was funny. And flirty. And . . . Will was watching us.

I straightened and took a sip of my drink. “This might be too sweet for you,” I told Jonah. “But I think it’s delicious.”

Will slid another one in Jonah’s direction. “What are you doing here tonight? I’m surprised to see you since you’ve been so swamped with work lately.”

My cheeks turned a brighter shade of red. Is that what he’d told Will?

“Is Lola here?” Jonah asked, doing a big, fake look around the room.

“Yeah, she’s in the back taking a break.” Will went back to scrubbing the clean countertops.

In an attempt to change the subject, Jonah said, “Did you hear that The Social Club is closing?”

Will and I both straightened to attention. That was big news. The Social Club, or TSC as locals called it, had been the new thing in Durham last summer. We’d all been there and had a great time.

They were a cocktail bar and changed their menu seasonally as we did. But they’d been all modern and trendy with lots of curated corners and styled backdrops. They used their cute spots to blast themselves all over social media. Everyone loved posting their hashtags with filtered pictures of themselves in front of their selfie spots. It was genius, free marketing.

And it had worked. When we went in late August, we’d had to wait an hour and twenty minutes before they let us in. And then we didn’t get a table for another hour after that. By the time we sat down, I’d been famished, only to find out they didn’t have a kitchen.

But they did have a platter of free bar snacks. We’d been shocked when they’d come out with huge bowls of fancy olives, asiago cheese crackers, and artisan nuts. We’d been so hungry that we asked for a second round. They hadn’t batted an eye.

“Was it the free snacks?” I asked solemnly.

Jonah nearly spit out his drink. “Yes, how did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

He smiled at me, his gaze holding me captive and looking at me like . . . I didn’t know like what. Nobody had ever looked at me like that before.

Will made a thoughtful sound from the other side of the bar, shattering our moment. “It had to be more than the snacks,” he mused. “Their cocktails were expensive, and there was always a line out the door.”

“It was poorly managed,” Jonah put in, jumping back to reality like we weren’t hiding this huge secret from Will. From everyone. “That’s the rumor anyway. They spent too much. And they were way overstaffed.”

“Dang, it’s so hard to make it in this biz.” I sighed.

Will nodded. “No joke. It’s hard to find that balance of having enough employees so you don’t kill yourself or run people off and being able to pay them.”

Oh, shit. “That reminds me . . .” I gave Will my best repentant puppy eyes. “Case needs someone in the kitchen. He’s losing it. I put an ad on Indeed and talked to Bob to make sure we could afford to hire someone else. I have interviews starting tomorrow.”

Will looked as though he might have accidentally swallowed his tongue. “You did what?”

“He threatened to quit. Several times. And I see him struggling back there. We can’t just close the kitchen every time he’s not here. It’s getting its own reputation. People aren’t just coming for the drinks anymore, they’re coming for his food. But he deserves a day off every once in a while.”

Will took a deep, meditative breath . . . and then launched his attack. “Eliza, people come here for Case’s food. Is he going to make an official menu? Train this new staff to replicate what he does? Is he now the head chef and can tell everyone what to do? Or are you thinking these people are coming in as equals? What about pay?”

I sat up straight and squared my shoulders. “Bob says we have enough to match Case’s salary.”

“But if Case becomes the head chef, doesn’t that come with a pay raise?”

Well, damn, I hadn’t thought of that. But still, I needed to hold my ground. Just because Will had thought of things that I hadn’t didn’t mean we needed to scrap the whole idea. “Case is drowning, Will. He can’t keep up on our busy nights. And he can’t keep up this pace. I know we need to fill in other positions, but maybe the server job can be put on hold for a minute. I’ll help out until we are in a better spot to fill out the rest.”

Nothing I was saying seemed to penetrate Will’s thick skull. His face was red, and if he had been a cartoon, smoke would have been billowing out of his ears right about now. “You should have talked to me before you did anything.”

I slid to the edge of the barstool, as angry as him now. “I’ve been talking Case out of quitting for weeks now. I did what I knew was best for the business. I don’t need your permission to make every single decision.”

Will leaned forward, his face a solid purple color. We were about to start shouting. Usually, we saved these brawls for private, but apparently, tonight, we were going to give our customers dinner and a show. “For fuck’s sake—”

Jonah jumped to his feet and stepped in front of me. “Will, you need to calm down. You can’t talk to her like that.”

Will was so surprised at Jonah’s intervention that he took a step back. The eggplant color on his face started receding, and he turned a more normal tomato red. “I can’t talk to who like that?”

“Eliza,” Jonah said. His voice was calm on the surface, relaxed. But there was steel behind it. Will and I both heard the domineering command in his quiet words. “Think about your next words very carefully,” he warned my brother. “Eliza was doing a hard part of her job without asking for help. You should be thanking her. Not yelling at her.”

“You’re talking about my sister?” Will asked, still too confused to make sense of what was happening. “You want me to thank my sister for going behind my back and trying to hire a full-time position we can’t afford?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to remind him I’d cleared the salary with our accountant and business manager, but Will clearly didn’t want to hear those rational details. He just wanted to be mad.

To be honest, I would have reacted the same way.

And as much of an asshole as Will was being, it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. We were siblings. In business together. We fought regularly. It was part of our charm.

“You need to calm down,” Jonah insisted. “Think about what you’re saying and about what Eliza did for you. When you can speak to her with respect, then we can continue the conversation.”

“We can continue this conversation?” Will was flabbergasted. That was the only word for it. He looked so confused I was worried his head was about to explode.

But so was I. Where was this coming from? There had been times when Will, Charlie, and I had been really going after each other that Jonah had intervened before. But I always assumed that was because our fighting made him uncomfortable. Plus, who liked to hang out with siblings who were constantly at each other’s throats? But now, he was very specifically taking my side and standing up for me.

Against Will.

His best friend.

Will was officially going to kill me.

“We’ll go,” Jonah announced, standing up. He put his hand out for me to take. “Figure out a better way to say everything you’re saying, Will. Because this is unacceptable.”

“What is happening?” Will demanded in a shrill squeak. “Eliza, what the hell?”

It took a very valiant effort not to shoot him a smug grin. Instead, and by some miracle, I managed to keep a straight face and offer a solemn nod. In my head, it sounded more like, “That’s right, sucker! Figure your shit out, and then maybe I’ll talk to you.” My inner Eliza was laughing maniacally.

“We’re leaving,” I told Will. “No decision has been made yet. So you need to seriously think this over. Talk to Case. We can discuss this further after you’ve calmed down.”

Will’s eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. His voice dropped to a low growl. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Jonah put his hand on my back. “Do you need to grab your things?”

“Yeah, they’re in my office.”

“We can go out the back then.”

A couple walked in and sat at the end of the bar. Providential timing because now Will couldn’t follow us.

“Eliza,” Will said regardless. “Jonah? What the hell is happening? What is going on between you guys?” His tone was growing more desperate the closer we got to the kitchen door. And epically more pissed off. “It better not be what I think it is. I’m fucking serious, Jonah. That’s my fucking sister.”

By the time we reached the safety of the kitchen, I was breathless, trying to hold back laughter. Jonah was not as amused, though. We walked briskly by Case into my office.

“He can’t talk to you like that, Eliza,” Jonah snarled while I grabbed my things and made sure my computer was turned off.

“He’s always talked to me like that, Jonah.” But to be fair, I usually talked to him like that too. It wasn’t like he was a bully. Maybe moodier than I was. But we were brother and sister and had zero fear of telling the other person exactly what we thought.

“It needs to stop. He needs to respect your boundaries.”

I laughed because that sounded amazing. Totally fantastical but amazing all the same. “We have no boundaries. I don’t know why not. But we’re all like this.”

Jonah made an angry humming noise. “Not anymore.”

I opened my mouth to argue but closed it. Will did need boundaries. And it probably wouldn’t hurt for me to have them too. And Charlie for sure.

I doubted my brothers would take it very well coming from Jonah, but someone had to be the one to bring it up. And it might not be best received coming from Jonah either, but it would be even less well-received coming from me.

“That’s not going to be easy,” I said instead, stating the obvious.

He grunted something else that sounded like, “We’ll see,” but I couldn’t be sure.

We left through the back door, and as soon as it closed behind us, I whirled on Jonah, pushing him roughly against the brick wall of the building.

“What are you—?”

But my lips were on his before he could finish his sentence. That had been the hottest thing to ever happen to me. I didn’t need anyone to stand up for me to my brothers. Or to anyone, really. I was hardly ever quiet and even more rarely kept my opinions to myself. But that . . . standing up for me, getting Will to stop belittling me and my work authority, telling me I needed boundaries . . . my goodness, that was the sexiest thing I had ever witnessed.

He didn’t raise a complaint, which was convenient since I had a lot more plans for us tonight than kissing.

“God, you’re irresistible,” I told him when the urge to rip his clothes off was getting dangerous since we were outside, in public.

He leaned his head back against the building and looked at me from beneath hooded, dreamy blue eyes. “That’s interesting because I seem to remember a lot of years of resisting.”

I raised both eyebrows. “Are you serious? You rejected me.”

“I would never have done that.”

His voice had that tone where I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “Are you trying to fight with me? Because someone recently told me I need to put up some boundaries, and I’m happy to put up boundaries alllll over this.” I gestured at his entire body.

He smirked. Actually smirked. “Yeah, right.”

I backed away. “We’re about to have a serious conversation, Mason. I hope you’re ready for this.”

“I’m always ready for you, English. Bring it.”

He was so easygoing, so laid-back . . . For the first time in my adult life, I couldn’t read him. “When I was seventeen, we kissed. And you turned me down. Told me you promised Will you’d never date me.”

He nodded. “And I’ve regretted it every day since.”

“You’re lying.”

He shook his head, his intense gaze shimmering with sincerity. “I was young. And stupid. And I didn’t realize what I was missing. I’ve had a decade or so of regret to sort it out.”

My insides jumped spastically and seemed to rearrange themselves within my body. How could this be real? “What are you saying?” I asked breathlessly.

“You got over me,” he said in a low, serious tone. “Like, almost immediately. And by the time I realized what I’d lost . . . you’d moved on. I was willing to live with my mistake as long as we could be friends.”

I knew that game. It was the same one I’d played for the past ten years. But he was wrong. I never got over him, even if I’d done a really good job of convincing even myself I had. “What changed?” My heart was now in my throat, doing jumping jacks and beating so loudly I could hardly hear him.

“Will and Lola,” he admitted in defeat. “I saw how happy they were. How happy they made each other. And I realized how stupid I was to let what we have go to waste. I got tired of being friend-zoned, Eliza. So I made my move.”

“Wait, you planned that? The vodka tasting?” My brain had officially quit working. Just totally gave up. Because nothing he was saying was making any sense.

His smile was sheepish, guilty. “Would you hate me if I said yes?”

“What about that girl who was all into you? The other rep?”

His gaze clouded with confusion. “Who?”

“The perfect one. The pretty one. The . . . Logan.”

He laughed. “The Logan?”

“Yeah, what about her? Or your Tinder dates? Or whatever.”

“Listen, for the past ten years, I thought you were out of reach. I was trying not to be miserable. Logan and I went on a date or two years ago. We had a good time, but there wasn’t anything solid there. Certainly nothing serious. And yes, there have been other dates. But none of them went anywhere. None of them have mattered. Or worked out. You’re the one who matters to me. The one I’ll do anything for. The one I’m willing to seduce with glamping and vodka. Also, you’ve probably realized by now, that it wasn’t my first attempt.”

I threw my arms around his waist and laid my head against his chest. I couldn’t look at him. And I didn’t want him to see all the emotions playing out across my face.

It really hadn’t been his first attempt. But had he really wanted this all those years? I sucked in a deep breath before I passed out and decided not to push too hard on this right now. I had a thousand more questions and a thousand more pieces to put together. But for right now, this was enough.

Because here we were. Just him and me and more than a decade of time to make up.

I tipped my head back so we could look each other in the eyes. “Okay,” I whispered, my heart soaring, butterflies racing, my whole soul bubbling and fizzing like a popped champagne bottle. “Okay, this is happening.”

He cradled my face, his thumb rubbing a line over my lower lip. “It’s been happening.”

I smiled at him. “But I thought it was a mistake before. Like we accidentally just kept making out. Now I know. You’re in this. I’m in this. It’s happening.”

He smiled back, and it was radiant and so happy. “Yes, it is.”

“So what now?” I asked, trembling with nerves.

His eyes shifted to that heated blue. “Want to go back to my place?”

I nodded. Yes. Yes, I did. “Please,” I whispered.

He took my hand and led me to his parked car. It was a short drive to his apartment, but my mind didn’t stop replaying all that he’d just said. This was on purpose.

We were on purpose.

And now we were headed back to his apartment? I gulped. Not sure if I was ready for this. Not the physical aspect of our relationship, but that right there . . . this relationship.

I had been astonished by his actual interest in me. I’d spent so long denying I had any feelings for him and shoving whatever emotion surfaced back into a tiny box that I didn’t know how to process what I was currently feeling. Or what he was currently feeling.

But the thing I was most afraid of was just how much I felt for him. Now that he’d given me an inch . . . my heart wanted to take a whole damn mile. A whole marathon worth of miles.

I had this full decade of caring about him. Even if I’d pushed the more-than-friendship parts down into the desolate places in my heart. Or into the friend zone I was struggling to shake off with little luck.

But we weren’t starting this . . . whatever this was . . . like two normal strangers who had to build feelings for each other and fall slowly in love.

No, I was already there. I had been there for as long as I could remember.

“. . . none of them have mattered. Or worked out. You’re the one who matters to me. The one I’ll do anything for.”

And maybe, just maybe, Jonah was there too.

seventeen

We walked into his apartment holding hands. He managed to unlock the door with my hand still in his. He seemed reluctant to let me go, even for a second.

My heart thumped wildly against my breastbone, unable to believe this was happening. That Jonah and I were . . . whatever this was.

My brain was so resistant to the idea that I couldn’t put a name on it. I was afraid the second I defined what was happening, I would jinx it to fail.

Maybe that was completely neurotic and fictional, but I couldn’t help it. Every time Jonah kissed me, it felt like a fantasy. Every time he touched me, I had to convince myself it wasn’t make-believe. And now, in his apartment, I wanted to pinch myself to make sure it was real.

This space was so familiar to me. I’d been here a hundred times before. For pre-game drinks, for parties, for hangouts, to pick him up if I was driving, to decompress after a long night out, to play Scrabble on a Sunday afternoon, Cards Against Humanity on a night in with my brothers, to referee FIFA tournaments, to read books side by side, to exchange bottles of whiskey and stories and life.

The more I thought about how much this man meant to me, how much our friendship meant to me, the more I sank into this new, physical, fun, sweet, sexy side of us, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to untangle myself quite as easily as the first time if things went south.

This would end in beauty or utter disaster. But mainly, I didn’t want it to end at all.

“Drink?” Jonah suggested.

“Sure.” We walked into his kitchen, and for the first time ever, I noticed how different our styles were. Where mine was full of color and flowers and cutesy pieces, Jonah’s was all simple stainless steel and bare necessities. For a man who did pretty well for himself, he was quite the minimalist.

He walked over to his counter where his whiskey bottles were on display, as well as two clean tumblers just waiting to be used. He poured us two fingers of his favorite Japanese whiskey brand and held them up.

“Rocks?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

He pulled a tray of perfectly clear, gigantic ice cubes from his freezer. He was very proud of his clear ice cube system, and these had turned out perfectly. Apparently, the trick to ice cubes was more complicated than a normal person would assume. While I loved all things whiskey, I wasn’t quite as fanatical about it as Jonah.

And I was okay with that. Even if he wasn’t.

He added a cube to my tumbler but left his plain. Then he handed my glass over, and we both sighed around our first sip.

“This is good,” I told him. The slow burn followed the drink down, warming me from the inside out.

“Mmm,” he agreed, then set his glass down on the counter and walked across the room to me. Pulling me into his arms, he said, “This is better.”

His mouth found mine, and he tasted like whiskey and satisfaction. I set my glass down too and wrapped my arms around his neck. Jonah’s hands landed on my waist and tugged me tightly against him.

We kissed in a familiar dance. His pillow-soft lips moved and tasted and memorized mine. While I did the same to him. And then his tongue—hot and slow and so wicked. He trailed kisses over my jaw, nibbled on my earlobe until I was squirming and gasping, and then sucked his way down my neck.

My hands slid over his chest, feeling every bump and dip of his impressive muscles until I found the hem of his shirt. I needed his skin, the intimacy that waited just beneath his clothing, all of him. I needed Jonah Mason more than I wanted to admit.

His skin was smooth and hard beneath my touch. I loved the way he flinched as my fingertips brushed over his ribs, how his fast puff of breath indicated he was ticklish—a weakness I struggled to reconcile with the masculine man I knew him to be.

He returned the favor. Hands beneath my worn Craft T-shirt I’d tied at the hem so it fit tightly, he tugged on the knot until it pulled free. Then my too-big T-shirt was gone, on the floor somewhere behind me.

His turn. I tugged his shirt over his head, enjoying every inch of hot skin on my way. Then we were chest to chest. Heart to heart. His body tangled with mine until I wasn’t sure where he ended, and I began.

“Bedroom?” he murmured against my lips.

“Yes,” I said on a dreamy sigh.

His bedroom was the one place I hadn’t spent much time in. He always kept the door closed whenever I was over, and although I’d used his bathroom once or twice during parties, I never allowed myself to linger.

Was I always curious about what Jonah’s personal space would hold? Absolutely. Which was why I never gave myself the freedom to snoop. Over the past ten years, in my determination never to fall for him again, certain things had to remain off-limits, or my heart wouldn’t have had the stamina.

Whether he made his bed or left it rumpled. Whether clothes found the hamper or got lost on the floor. Whether his book piles next to his bed were just for show or dogeared like I expected.

Did I sometimes wonder about those things? I mean, I was only human. How could I not?

Did I imagine him curled up on his big bed with the practical navy blue comforter and exactly two pillows, clothes neatly tossed in the hamper, bathroom spotless . . . sometimes? Did I have fantasies of him reading in bed before he fell asleep, the only light in the whole apartment from his bedside lamp? Shirtless. In nothing but sweatpants and reading glasses . . .

Ahem. Not that I would ever admit that out loud to anyone.

So this invited look inside his bedroom made me almost giddy with anticipation. It wasn’t only what was going to happen inside the room, but the room itself.

He kissed me through the kitchen and down the hallway, never leaving my mouth but somehow still guiding us in the right direction and around any obtrusive furniture. He pushed the door open behind my back, and there we were. Jonah’s bedroom.

The room reminded me of him in every way. From the clean and tidy spaces—a feature he never experienced growing up. To the way everything was pristine and perfect. But right then, all I could concentrate on was his touch. His desperate need to have me. The heat he’d built beneath my skin, in the very center of me, pulsing and pounding and drowning out every other thing until there was just him and me and what was about to happen.

He guided me to the bed, my back landing on his perfectly tucked-in comforter. He took a second to toe off his shoes and slip them onto a shelf near his dresser before joining me on the mattress.

After he was stretched out next to me, his hand splayed over my stomach, his face hovering near mine, I said, “Should I put my shoes away too before we continue or . . .”

His eyes immediately narrowed. “You didn’t already?”

I knew he was teasing, but I wondered if he was also vaguely serious. “I can if you need me to.”

“What do you mean if I need you to?”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Did he really not see what a neat freak he was? But instead of asking him that directly, I said, “Does my apartment drive you crazy? Be honest.”

His teasing frown turned into one of confusion. “What do you mean? Why would it drive me crazy?”

“It’s so messy compared to yours. There are shoes everywhere. Clothes everywhere. Sometimes dust everywhere. Your apartment is perfectly in order. I’m like a tornado in comparison.”

“I love that about you,” he said honestly. “I love your apartment. I wouldn’t ever call it tidy, but it’s you. I much prefer it to mine.”

“Stop lying,” I demanded playfully. “Your apartment is so clean I bet I could eat off your ceiling fan. There’s no way you prefer mine to this germ-free haven.”

His deep rumble of laughter vibrated through all the spots where his body touched mine. “You think because I’ve hired a cleaning company, I’m somehow better at keeping house than you?”

Cleaning company. That made more sense. Still, I shrugged. “I think you like things in order . . . and I am anything but orderly.”

He kissed my temple and then the corner of my mouth, letting his mouth linger and then slowly draw away. “You know my mom. She was never . . . I don’t know . . . neat. But it wasn’t just that my house was messy. It was that it was like the physical version of my mom. And what she was capable of. Holes in the wall, broken furniture, mattresses on the floor. I grew up in unsafe conditions that usually scared me. To be honest, I grew up in filth. I made myself a promise a long, long time ago that once I was out of her house, I would never go back to those standards; I would always have a safe and healthy home.” His lips pursed before he rushed to explain. “I do know how to keep my own home clean. The cleaning company is just . . . convenient. I work so much, you know?”

I did know. This was nothing he had to explain to me. I had been there. “I get where you’re coming from,” I told him immediately. I hadn’t been over to his house many times when I was a kid, but I knew that it was bad from what my mom and Will had said over the years. It had never been bad enough for Shalya to lose custody . . . but it had been bad enough for me to whisper desperate prayers for his safety in the middle of the night. And for my mom to constantly offer him a place to stay. “But hey, I can make a better effort if my place makes you feel uncomfortable.”

His brows dipped together over his nose. “Your place doesn’t make me uncomfortable. The furthest thing from it. And please don’t try to make it something it’s not because you’re worried about me, Eliza. I’m fine.”

“I am worried about you, though. I just . . . I was there, you know? I was there when you were a kid. You might not have known it, but I was. I watched you go through all of that. I’ve watched you continue to deal with it now as an adult. I just . . . I think you’re incredible for surviving what you did. But I also know you have limitations. You’re an amazing, gorgeous, capable man. But you’re still just a man.”

His lips curved in that lopsided grin I loved so much. But this time, it was softer, sweeter. “You have nothing to worry about. Your apartment doesn’t feel stressful. It feels like the closest thing I’ve ever known to home.”

My heart jumped up and then twisted into a somersault, then landed in a splat somewhere near my kidneys. Had I just died? Was it possible to die from happiness? Because those words . . . those words would have been the thing that did it. “Your apartment doesn’t feel stressful. It feels like the closest thing I’ve ever known to home.” It means I’ve done what my mom did for Jonah. I’ve helped him feel safe. Seen. Loved.

His pointer finger traced the outline of my jaw. “You’re so beautiful. Do you know that? Sometimes, I look at you, and I forget what I’m going to say or even what I was thinking. I just . . . it’s not just your apartment that’s home, Eliza. It’s you. You’re home to me.”

A tear slid from the corner of my eye and rolled over my temple and landed in my hair. I felt its entire path but didn’t bother to wipe it away. Because honestly, what was I supposed to do with all of that besides melt into a puddle of liquid goo. “Jonah . . .”

“You seem to think I had this terrible childhood. I mean, I know you think that. And I know all the evidence points to you being right. But . . . but I didn’t have a bad childhood. I had a redemptive one. There were a lot of hard moments. Honestly, to this day, my mom is still the most difficult person in my life . . . but there were so many better moments, so many good times. Because of your family. Because of your brothers, yes. But also because of you.”

“But what about—”

“You think I pushed you away that time because of Will.” He closed his eyes like he was in pain.

I gave him a look. I was still wrapped in his arms, and the heat from his bare chest was keeping me very warm, so if there was a reason for insecurity now, I was struggling to let it penetrate my Jonah-Mason-half-naked-cuddling fog. Still, I said, “I only think that because you said it.”

“You were seventeen,” he argued defensively as if he’d been waiting for this conversation for a long time. And maybe he had been . . . because I certainly had. “And we were in your parents’ house. The same parents who saved me from a wretched home and fed and clothed me for my entire life.” He was growing more animated. “And you were seventeen. I was fucking twenty, Eliza. Your dad would have murdered me. In cold blood.”

My mouth twisted into a frown. I had a whole decade to stew over what had happened. And I wasn’t someone who had normal face-to-face conversations unless it was with my brothers. No, I was more the imaginary-conversation-in-the-shower kind of girl. So I had had this argument with Jonah at least a thousand times before now. At least. But to be honest, in my head, he had never explained it quite like that.

There had been a lot of apologies. A fair amount of pathetic groveling. Sometimes he had been angry or vindictive or cruel. But mostly, he had always blamed it on Will.

This was an entirely new perspective. Because I really had been seventeen. Sure, an almost legal adult beyond the dangers of statutory rape scenarios. But . . . still seventeen. He had been well into college. I had still been in high school. He had been a grown adult living on his own. I had been at home. With my parents. After a day at school.

Argh. I wanted to grab one of his two pillows and slam it over my face. Or crawl under his bed and never come out.

But also, he really had blamed it on Will. He’d invoked the bro-code. So there had to be more than his loyalty to my parents.

“You said you promised Will you’d never touch me,” I growled at him.

The planes of his cheeks turned red. “Okay, yes, I did do that. But I only told you that so I didn’t embarrass you.”

Thoughtful? Or pigheaded? I was struggling to decide. “So you didn’t promise Will you’d never touch me?”

“Oh, I definitely did. Swore it up and down.”

My mouth dropped open.

His mouth split into a cocky grin. “But in my defense, they could tell I was into you. It was getting harder and harder to stop drooling around you. I would make up excuses to take you with us. Stupid things like, we might need a sober driver. Or we can make Eliza order the food for us. Or, I don’t know, a hundred other things to get you to join our fun. Your brothers aren’t total idiots. They could tell I was falling fast. So they made me swear I would never date you. And because I was stupid enough to think they could somehow keep you from me, I did what they asked.”

My mouth closed, and I made an outraged squeak.

“If our age difference hadn’t been such an issue, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. I would have been happy to break my promise to Will.” His blue eyes shifted back to gray. But I knew this time it wasn’t for me. It was sadness for a lie that never had to happen. It would have killed Jonah to be dishonest with Will. And part of me wondered if his strong emotions for how the story would have gone were strengthened in my favor because of time. Back then, it would have been a much harder choice than he was giving it credit for.

But none of that was important because it had never come to that.

“I wanted to explain that to you back then, Eliza. I did . . . I mean, I was terrified and insecure back then too. But I would have figured it out. Except you weren’t bothered at all by what happened. I thought we were . . . I thought my feelings for you were . . . reciprocated. And when they weren’t—”

“What do you mean weren’t? I was head over heels for you, Jonah. You shattered my heart. Destroyed it, actually. I thought I would never recover.”

“You didn’t say that.” He looked genuinely perplexed. “You didn’t say any of that. You just seemed . . . fine.”

“I wasn’t.”

“But you never cried or anything. You didn’t even avoid me. You made it seem like all you had ever wanted was friendship.”

I rolled my eyes. Were boys always this obtuse? Wait, I didn’t need to answer that question. I knew the answer. “It’s called self-preservation. I thought it would be weird if I started sobbing hysterically every time you came over. And then you were trying to keep it a secret from Will, so crying would only cause questions. You were so worried about him finding out that I thought . . . it would be better if I just got over it. As much as it killed me, I needed to figure out how to friend-zone you so I didn’t lose you completely.”

His hand squeezed my side, and he kissed the corner of my eye. Which I was surprised to find was wet with tears. “You got over me to protect me?”

“I knew how important my family was to you. I didn’t want you to lose Will’s friendship because I’d been an idiot.”

His face softened so intensely I thought my heart might actually jump outside my body and run away. “Eliza, I broke your heart, and you were worried about my friendship with Will? How are you this amazing? This selfless?”

“I did it for you,” I clarified. “Not Will.”

He smiled, and it was blinding in the best way. But then his smile died, and he held my gaze with those eyes I loved so much. “I’ve been waiting ten years to hold you like this again . . . to kiss you. There have been a hundred times over the last decade where I thought if you just gave me one hint, one sign . . . I’d just go for it. But you’re a very good friend. The best, actually. And I could never seem to risk losing you if you really weren’t into me.”

“Did you really not know?”

“I hoped,” he breathed, and it sounded pained. “I mean, I couldn’t not hope. But I also never wanted to hear you tell me that you thought of me as a brother. Or that we were weird. So yeah, as much as I wanted this”—he gestured back and forth between us, then landed his hand on my side and squeezed again—“I wasn’t willing to risk losing you.”

“So what changed your mind?”

He thought about what he was going to say for a second. Not that he was making something up or struggling to come up with an answer though. It was more like he wanted to say this exactly right. “It was Lola. I saw how happy Will was with a woman he truly cared about. I saw him release his hold on the bar and all the other things he obsesses over and choose her instead. And I just thought . . . I just knew I couldn’t be friends with you forever. One day you would meet someone. One day, you would find someone. And if I didn’t at least shoot my shot then . . . then I might never know.”

Had my mom gotten him alone and had the talk with him too? But seriously, I thought about the day he came into my office all mad about Will and Lola. Was that the reason? He thought Will was getting something he would never have?

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer to me. “Well, you might have taken your sweet time, but I’m glad the wait is over. I’ve wasted years of my life not kissing you, Jonah. I plan to spend however long it takes to catch up.”

“Dear God, please let it be at least ten years,” he murmured against my jaw.

I pulled back, surprised again at his plea. “You’re serious?”

We stared at each other, both of us searching the other’s gaze for the truth. “You have no idea how much I love you, do you?”

Did he say love? Oh, my gosh, this was death. It had to be. It had to be actual death. Who could survive this? Not me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I love you, Eliza. I’ve loved you . . . for a long time.”

“Since when? I need to know.”

Far from being offended, he kept that sweet, soft look that made me tingly inside. His voice was all rumbly laughter, “Since the day you kissed me and I knew that I was going to fuck this up entirely.”

“You did,” I told him. “I’ve been over here fighting feelings for you for a decade, and you’re just like . . . I love you. Like it’s no big deal.”

Now his expression turned smug. “You’ve been fighting feelings for me? For a decade?”

I rolled my eyes. “Longer than that.”

“You’re just going to leave me hanging, aren’t you? No, I love you back? No, soul confessions you want to get off your chest?”

My teeth ground together as I decided what to do. It wasn’t a long thought process, but I did need to take a second to get my life in order. Finally, I puffed out a deep breath and sprang on top of him.

Straddling his waist, I looked down at him with deep disappointment. “I’m trying to figure out why you’ve been torturing me for ten fucking years and thought it was okay.”

His smile was different from this angle . . . sexier and full of anticipation. His hands landed on my waist and moved up and down in a slow caress. “I didn’t mean to torture you. I thought I was the only one suffering.”

“Well, you were wrong.” I slid down an inch and settled into a more intimate position. “I was also suffering. I love you too, Jonah. I think I always have.”

One of his hands moved to my jaw, cradling my face. “Then let me put you out of your misery.” He pulled me down to kiss him, and it was like nothing I’d experienced yet. He was all fire and passion and delicious intent.

His hips bucked gently against mine, and I moaned in his mouth. He tasted like dreams and promises and whiskey. And I was already addicted. He fit against me in the best way. Even through his pants and my skirt, which were just in the way at this point, I could feel his solid manhood, and I shivered in anticipation.

He reached up to unhook the push-up bra I’d dug out from the back of my drawer just for him. The clasp snicked free, and the straps immediately fell from my shoulders. It disappeared somewhere—neither of us noticed because his mouth was already on my nipple, and I was gasping for breath and sanity.

His hips pushed against the apex of my legs, and with his tongue moving over my breast, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The pleasure was too intense, too consuming.

He rolled me to my back, clearly better at thinking than I was. Or maybe he was better driven by his desire. I was all mindless need and trembling anticipation. He at least was pushing us in the right direction.

I reached for the buttons of his trousers. We worked together to rip them off. Then my skirt, which was one hundred percent in our way.

And then it was underwear. His first. He knelt over me, his torso tall, and my mouth went dry at the simple outline of him. He was all man, from his longish hair that was wild and tousled from rolling around on the bed with me to his broad shoulders and tapered torso down to the part of him that still made me breathless. His most intimate place.

He didn’t let me linger though. His fingers dipped inside my panties, tugging them down and then off. We were both in awe that this was really happening. He reached for a condom in his bedside drawer, and then we were grasping and clawing and desperate.

He stretched out on top of me, kissing his way over my breasts, across my collarbone, up my neck, and to my mouth while my hands buried themselves in his thick hair. His fingers dipped inside me, taking me to the edge as he pumped them in and out, adding a second finger, driving me absolutely wild.

And then he was at my entrance. He pushed inside me slowly, savoringly. Both of us arched and gasped and held on to each other.

Stars danced behind my closed eyelids as I accepted the fullness of him. He wasn’t just inside me physically. He was inside me metaphysically too. In my heart. In my soul. In my very bones.

He stayed like that for a minute, letting my body acclimate to his size and shape. My legs wrapped around his waist, my arms around his back, and we just held each other.

“I love you more than anything on this earth, Eliza,” he whispered against the shell of my ear.

“I love you, Jonah,” I murmured against his cheek. “I always have.”

And then he moved. Our bodies came together like they were meant for this—as if I was designed for him and he was created for me. His hips worked against mine until we were sweaty and gasping and racing toward that cliff.

I held on to him like I would die without him, like I couldn’t live without him. He murmured sweet nothings in my ear, telling me how sexy I was, how irresistible, and I clung to him as he pushed me closer and closer to that cliff’s edge.

All at once, we were freefalling together.

I cried out in pleasure, my voice a surprising high-pitched gasp. And then there was nothing to do but hold on to him until we landed.

The world came apart behind my eyelids. Fireworks and meteor showers and a whole other galaxy of light. He held me just as tightly. His body was rigid and spasming against mine.

And when it was over, we continued to simply hold each other. We had been in each other’s lives since almost the beginning, but never like this. Never in this way until now. And it was a moment I would remember for the rest of my life.

He loved me. He had always loved me.

And these feelings I had been burying for too long could finally be free. I could finally let them out of their box and give them the sun and breath they deserved.

Afterward, after we’d cleaned up and crawled back into bed together, he pulled me close and held me . We didn’t find sleep immediately. Instead, we laughed about all the times the love was so strong between us, yet we both thought it was only one-sided. We talked about the past. And then talked about the future. And never stopped touching.

He was mine.

And I was his.

And it might have always been like this, but now it was real.

eighteen

“It’s been two weeks. Are you ever going to tell Will and Charlie? What about your mom? God, your mom is going to be so happy. She’s probably going to start showing up at your apartment with pregnancy tests.” Claire laughed over my groan and took another big bite of her eggs benedict.

“You are not wrong.” I was simultaneously excited to tell my mom and dreading the whole experience. “Of course, she’ll never stop gloating once this is all out in the open. So that’s reason enough to keep this secret forever.”

Claire had been so busy with finishing school and all the final projects that entailed, and I’d been so distracted catching up with Jonah—okay, having so much sex—that this was the first time we sat down to talk about things. It was so good to finally see her. And tell her everything. I felt close to bursting holding this secret inside. I started spilling my guts before we even sat all the way down for a quick mid-week breakfast.

I had been worried that she’d be angry about Jonah and me, as they weren’t each other’s biggest fans. But Jonah had agreed to stop being such a snob about my friendship with Claire. And Claire was thrilled for Jonah and me. Her biggest issue with him, according to her, was that it was annoying how in love with me he was. But she was over that now that it was all out in the open.

“So, what about Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?” she asked, reaching for another bite of cinnamon roll. Her nose wrinkled as soon as her fork was in her mouth. Our table was littered with pastries from one of the popular breakfast spots in Durham, but none of them were Claire-approved.

“Stop eating it if you don’t like it,” I warned.

She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes community hype is a good thing. And sometimes . . .” She pushed the cinnamon roll plate farther out of reach. “It’s nothing but lies.”

Steering Claire away from her pastry-expert soapbox, I refocused the conversation, “I don’t know, Claire. It’s been nice, you know? The past couple weeks with Jonah have been . . . actual bliss. Completely amazing. We’re like couple goals or something and I don’t even feel bad about saying that.”

“Well, you are.” She smiled. “You were already constant fixtures in each other’s lives. Now you get to have sex too. That has to be an upgrade.”

“A major upgrade,” I agreed. “But the good parts of our friendship are still there too. He still texts me all the time. And we still laugh about everything, and tell each other all the small, insignificant details of our days. He’s everything I loved in a friend, and so much more.”

God, Jonah was so much sexier than I ever gave him credit for. And that was saying a lot because I’d already thought he was basically the sexiest man alive before he turned the full scope of his sexy attention on me.

But it was deeper than that. It wasn’t just his sexiness or the sex. It was this soul-deep connection we shared. The way he was there to catch me when I fell, hold me when I needed comfort, listen when I needed to vent, and mix me a good drink at the end of a very long day.

“I have never had this much fun with a guy I was dating, Claire. It’s like we’ve taken all the best parts of our friendship and made them better, sweeter, more intimate.”

I already shared everything with Jonah . . . but now, there was an extra level of emotional support and concern for all my problems. And he had always relied on me for advice, companionship, and jokes. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t admit out loud that he needed my jokes, but he did. So badly. And now, I could give all of that away without fear of being too much. Or not enough.

“He’s all the things I loved about him in friendship—teasing, attentive, giving. But at a deeper level. Makes me wonder why we didn’t take this next step years ago. What on earth made us wait so long?”

“That’s easy, my friend. Your big brother and their stupid bro-code.”

I looked around at the pastry and egg devestation on the formica table and sighed. “You’re not wrong.”

“So when are you going to tell him?”

By him, she meant Will. “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked, wishing I could ignore the way her question made the swelling happiness I’d found with Jonah deflate. “Never.”

She glanced at her phone, acknowledging the time. We both had places to get to and were squeezing breakfast and a carb coma in as quickly as we could. “Well, as long as you have a well-thought-out plan.” She grinned at me. “I’m so happy for you. Have I told you that yet?”

I grinned back, the Will-induced doom taking a back seat to this bubbling happiness I couldn’t turn off. “Only a hundred times.”

“Everything will work out, you know. With Will. I have a good feeling.”

I was glad one of us did. “Speaking of my big brother, I need to run. I’m interviewing this afternoon with Case, so I better go.” I went to grab my purse to pay for breakfast, but Claire stopped me. “You go. I’ve got this.”

“Thanks, Claire. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

* * *

“Why are you smiling so big?” Will asked from behind the bar.

Oh, right. Now I remembered.

I turned my soul-satisfied glow on him. “It’s gorgeous out. These warm February days are giving me life.”

His eyes narrowed skeptically. “Uh-huh.”

“Hey, I have some interviews for that kitchen position with Case this afternoon. Do you want to sit in on them too?” This was interview session round two. The first batch of candidates had not gone well. So far, nobody had been as qualified as they claimed on their application. Or they hadn’t shown up. Or they were just using our interview as leverage to get a better job or bigger paycheck. This whole process was slowly killing my hope in humanity, so if Will wanted to be a part of it, my suspicions about something being wrong with him might be actually grounded.

His eyes didn’t un-narrow, but the reason for them shifted. “Do you need me to sit in on them?”

I shrugged. “I think Case and I can handle them. Case knows what he’s looking for. I’m just there to make sure the applicants aren’t criminals or serial killers.”

“Okay, then, nah. Go ahead without me.”

I walked closer to the bar, almost unable to believe what I was hearing. “You’re sure?”

He looked at me like I was crazy for asking him. “Why wouldn’t I be sure?”

Now I was looking at him like he was crazy for asking me that question. “Will, you’re a grade A control freak. Unless you’re controlling things, you freak out. Not having the final say in who we hire for the kitchen might seem like a fine thing to do today, but then we’re going to hire someone. And you won’t have given your approval. And then what will happen is an epic, end-of-the-world meltdown.”

He made a disgruntled face and rolled his lips together in a “psht” sound. “You’re exaggerating. I’m not that bad.” I continued to give him the look. “About some things. Fine . . . Yes, I can be a little . . . controlling. But this isn’t my department. So it’s fine. It’s totally fine. You and Case will do a fine job.”

Three fines without taking a breath meant this was anything but fine. But whatever. I wasn’t going to push him into this. It would be a thousand times easier without him there to nitpick.

Charlie walked through the doors, arriving to work for the day. He had a backpack on, but he was moving his shoulders and neck like it was the heaviest thing in the world.

“You okay?” Will asked before I could get the words out.

He took his backpack off and tossed it on a barstool. “It’s this fucking surgery. It’s killing me. My back is broken.”

Charlie had been back to work for over a week. And he’d seemed fine, but his back pain had been getting increasingly worse. Something to do with how they did the surgery and filled his body up with air to get to his appendix. Now he was struggling with extra air in his chest area.

Modern medicine was weird. Miraculous and life-saving, but weird.

“Is it still getting worse?” I asked. It wasn’t just his back. He’d been extra growly since the surgery.

If you asked me, it all had to do with his fight with Ada. They weren’t speaking to each other. Or even looking at each other. And I was waiting for the day when they stopped working the same shifts together too. Which would make things extra difficult since Charlie worked every day with Will and me. And we needed Ada. Every dang day.

“It’s not getting fucking better,” he countered in a way I assumed a grizzly bear would answer if asked the same question.

“Well, Case and I are doing interviews for the kitchen this afternoon out here. So you can go lock yourself in the office if you want.”

His face relaxed with a few seconds of relief. “Thanks, Eliza.”

After he’d wandered off to the kitchen, Will gave me that look again. “See? Something’s different about you.”

I averted my eyes and struggled to repress the smile that so wanted to break through. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. “Oh, I think you do.”

“You know, Mom cornered me at your house the other day and all but demanded I pop out a baby. I think she’s actually lost her mind. Should we be worried about dementia? She said she didn’t even care if I got married first. She just wants grandkids right now. Has she done the same thing to you?”

The look of horror that passed over Will’s face would have been comical if I couldn’t relate so completely. “What?”

“Yeah, she cornered Lola and me in your kitchen and started telling us how she needed babies before she got too old to play with them. She was like actually mad about it too. Like we were somehow behind schedule in giving her grandchildren.”

His skin had turned a sickly shade of green. “Kids, though, right? Like who’s really ready for that kind of responsibility? We’d have to be out of our minds to have kids, am I right? I mean . . . now . . . with the state of the world. And this bar. How would that even work? You can’t bring a baby to a bar. And then would I just be not home every night? Like never be a part of this kid’s life? How would Lola even handle being a mom with all her current responsibilities? This kid would have to grow up in daycare and with nannies and never get to be with his mom or dad. And—”

“Yikes,” I cut in before he launched into a full-fledge panic attack. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to trigger you.”

He grasped for a clean glass and shot the beverage gun directly into it. Water whirlpooled around until it overflowed. Then he dropped the gun and gulped the water. It sloshed all over the front of his shirt. “It’s fine,” he promised, wild-eyed and jittery. “I’m fine.”

What was going on with him? Was he really that afraid of having kids? “Mom, though. Is your answer, I mean. She would watch the kid so you guys could still keep your jobs.” I thought about what I said and quickly added, “Not that Charlie and I would fire you because you had a baby. Obviously, things would change. But it would be for a good reason. We’d figure it out. Geez, Will, calm down. It’s not like you need to worry about it for a while.”

If possible, he looked more freaked out. Then he walked out from behind the bar and straight out the front door and down the block. Where was he going? Why was he leaving? What the hell?

Case walked in a couple of minutes later. I still hadn’t moved from my spot at the bar where I was currently wondering if both of my brothers needed to be committed.

“Hey, you ready for this?” I asked him by way of greeting.

He held up an official-looking pad of paper. “So ready. My goal is to be fully staffed by the weekend.”

“Wait, how many employees are you planning to hire today?”

He made a nervous face. “Four to five?”

“Are you serious?”

His mouth broke into a grin. “I’m just kidding, boss. I’ll be happy with anything. Part-time. Full-time. A little rat in a chef’s hat. I’m not picky.”

“Ratatouille?” I guessed at his reference. It was low on the list of favorite kid movies for me, but literally every chef I knew freaking loved it and referenced it all the time. It was the definition of cult following.

He nodded. “What time is the first one scheduled?”

“In about ten minutes.”

He nodded again, and I could see his mind mentally scheduling his afternoon through his eyes. “Okay, I’m going to start some prep, but I’ll be back in ten.” He started to walk toward the kitchen, mumbling, “I should have come in earlier.”

His stress made me feel better about this hire. Honestly, it was amazing we’d lasted this long with only Case. Guilt panged through me for how much we’d asked of him. But also astonishment for how much he was able to handle for so long. He was genuinely an impressive chef. And if we did manage to hire someone, he definitely deserved a raise.

So did I. But I’d wait to fight that battle for another day.

I set up at one of the high-top tables near the bar and pulled out my notes and notebooks. I was a notebook junky and tended to buy a new one every other week. Sometimes I filled them out completely and then saved them for . . . who really knew why. But sometimes, I would get them for one singular purpose—like interviewing several potential candidates—and then carry them around for a week to ten days before buying a new one and forgetting all about it.

My phone pinged with a text. I looked down expecting Jonah, but it was from Charlie instead. I was surprised since he was just in my office and could have easily walked out to talk to me. Well, until I saw the content of the message.

It was a black and white video clip. I realized after a few seconds that it was security footage of our bar.

Anxiety spiked in my belly as I tried to figure out why Charlie would send me this. Had something happened? And was it going to be expensive?

The longer I watched the short clip, however, the more I realized it was of a blurry image of two people. Two people were making out in the alley behind the bar.

Oh, my gosh, it was Jonah and me. The night he’d stuck up for me, and we’d gone back to his place.

We’d gone out the back entrance and kissed for just a little bit. Not even a full-on make-out session. We’d even managed to keep our clothes on.

But here was the footage, carved into infamy thanks to our bar’s Ring security system. Charlie’s text followed next.

Charlie: Do you want to tell him? Or can I? Please? It will make my whole fucking life.

He meant Will. He meant did I want to come clean, or could he lord it over Will’s head and torture us all?

Obviously, the latter suggestion was never going to happen. But I didn’t want the first one to happen either.

Honestly, Charlie.

Me: How do you even have this?

Sometime during year one of Craft, Will had put Charlie in charge of security. It had been a consolation prize after we’d stripped him of bartending duties. But, everything at the bar was recorded and stored in the cloud. So if anything ever happened, we could just go back and look at the footage. So far, we’d been pretty lucky. A few bar brawls and a few shady employees, and one outright theft, but other than that, the cameras were mostly a deterrent.

Neither Will nor I even expected Charlie to keep looking at camera footage on a regular basis. And maybe he hadn’t been until a slow day at the end of February when I’d offered my office because he didn’t feel well.

Ugh, stupid, Eliza. That was stupid.

Charlie: Someone stole the Swharma Shop’s artificial tree. The one that lights up. Moz asked me to see if our cameras caught something. Boy, did they. Just not the tree thief.

The Shwarma Shop was on the other side of the alley from Craft. Charlie had just been being a nice neighbor. But now recorded footage existed of Jonah and me being so much more than friendly in Craft’s back alley. My gosh, I was never going to live this down.

And poor Will. If his reaction just now was any indication of how he handled stress . . . Well, yikes.

And I needed to quickly learn how to permanently delete something from all devices.

True to his word, Case came back in ten minutes, just as the first interviewee arrived. I turned my screen off and set my phone upside down, determined to ignore that whole mess until later. Much later. Two to three years from now, at least.

The next several hours were filled with three actual interviews, five no-shows, one call-in-sick, and one possible candidate. We were a half hour from opening for the night, and I felt like I’d just worked eighty hours in a row. Why was interviewing so soul-sucking?

More than that, why didn’t people show up for their interviews? It was fine if they decided that the job wasn’t for them, but why no text? Why was our consumer culture so inconsiderate of other people’s time and effort?

“My head hurts,” I mumbled to Case as I rested it on the table and closed my eyes.

“Mine too. That was a gigantic waste of fucking time.”

“Where were your friends?” One of his buddies had shown up, but the other two fell into the sick category and the no-show shit list.

“I think Angel is actually sick. He’s not the kind of guy who just abandons this stuff.”

“And . . .” I looked at my list of candidates. “Mauricio?”

“Less reliable. But a damn good cook.”

I shrugged. “Listen, if he’s a great chef, I can handle unreliable. But you’re the one who’s going to suffer. Do you want me to reach out and see if he’ll reschedule? Or do you want to cut our losses?”

He folded his arms over his chest and thought seriously about my question. Finally, he said, “Yeah, cut your losses. I’d love to open this door for him, but I’m not sure if he’ll take it seriously.” He thought about it for a sec. “Yet. He’ll get there. He’s just . . . young.”

I smiled, and it was the first time my lips had moved in an upward direction in hours. “Yeah? You know something about that?”

He grinned back. “As a matter of fact, I do. I mean, look at me now.”

We shuffled through our notes for a second. I knew he had to get back to the kitchen, but I didn’t want to leave this hanging over our heads. I had really been hoping for a solution today so I could figure out the rest of our staffing issues. “Then I think we can both agree the only real option here is that girl. Uh . . . what’s her name . . . Joey?” To be honest, both Case and I had been surprised when a female walked in the door. The applications had been filled out online, so the information was there for us. But with a name like Joey Daniels, both of us had wrongly assumed we were getting a dude.

“You’re kidding?” Case scoffed. “I’m sorry, but she was not the vibe.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t find her . . . smug?”

“Well, I would call her confident.”

Case opened his mouth and shut it before settling on. “She’s pretty young for that level of confidence. And she’s only really ever worked at”—he picked up the paper in front of him and read—“Slatskeys. Which is a glorified sports bar.”

I had never taken Case for the sexist type. Like ever. He’d always been great to me and treated me with all the respect in the world as his boss. But did he not see . . . “Okay, but Case, we’re a bar-bar. Nothing glorified about us. Is your issue that she’s female?”

He snorted. “What? My issue with her is her lack of experience. It has nothing to do with her gender.”

“I hope not,” I said patiently.

His cheeks were turning a mottled red. He rarely got embarrassed, so this was slightly amusing, if not a little concerning.

“Listen, seriously, Eliza, I hope you know me better than that. I don’t doubt her skills because she’s a woman. I’m sure she’s fine. And great or whatever. It’s just . . .”

“What is it?”

He was now fully tomato red. “Okay, listen, I know her, okay?” My eyebrows shot straight up. I hadn’t picked up on that at all. She’d hardly looked at Case. “I mean, she wouldn’t like remember me or whatever. But in my last kitchen, in Charlotte, I hadn’t been . . . I’d been a shithead. I wasn’t nice. I was doing a lot of recreational drugs. And I made some big mistakes. It was a fucking terrible place to work. My boss was this narcissistic asshole who . . . Okay, he didn’t make me act out. But he didn’t . . . he didn’t make things easy on me either. It’s that way in a lot of kitchens. There’s just a lot of—” He was so uncomfortable with the story it took everything in me not to give in to him and just let him have his way. But Joey ticked all of our boxes, and she wanted to start ASAP. So if I couldn’t hire her, I needed a great reason. “That’s why I like it here. I don’t have to deal with the kitchen politics, okay?”

“Okay,” I said gently. My silence let him know it was okay to go on.

“Anyway, she was my replacement.”

“You didn’t act like you recognized her name before the interview.”

“I never officially met her,” he confessed. “I just . . . saw her . . . as I was being escorted out of the building.”

Wow, okay. So that was a confession Case probably never wanted to make. Our big sell on Case had been Killian Quinn’s recommendation. As the HR manager, I should have been the one to follow up with his last place of employment. But . . . I mean, he came with Killian Quinn’s stamp of approval, so what else did I need to know?

And I’d gotten lucky because Case had more than worked out for us.

But it had been shoddy work at best on my end.

Hey, I’d been a new business owner, and much younger. I’d learned my lesson in later years.

“What was the name of your last restaurant?” I asked because that would have at least given Case a heads-up.

“Treble,” he answered. “She didn’t put it on her application. I would have noticed it immediately.”

Yeah, neither of us might have cared about her gender, but past employment was top of our lists. “Does she remember you?” I asked with that same careful tone. I had never had to use kid gloves with Case before, but I could tell he was ready to bolt if I asked him too many personal questions. Which was fair. Whatever kind of employee he’d been at his last job, he wasn’t here. He had never been anything but reliable and dependable. And our kitchen’s success could be solely credited to him.

We might have had other employees go through our kitchen before, especially at the beginning. But Case was the one who had emerged quickly as the best. It hadn’t taken us long before we gave him complete control of the menu. And when he was the last one standing after our grueling, late-night hours and difficult working environment—ahem, Will as the boss—he’d stepped up and hadn’t complained until very recently.

“I don’t know,” he said in a defeated voice. “I was kind of notorious back in the day. But, my hair was longer. And I left Charlotte years ago. So . . . I just don’t want to open that can of worms. I’m sorry.”

I thought about all he’d shared with me and what it could mean for him to invite trouble he’d valiantly left behind into my kitchen. But . . . she also ticked all of our boxes.

After weeks of interviewing, I knew that would be very hard, maybe even impossible to replicate. “Think about it,” I told him neutrally. “Get through tonight, sleep on it, drink on it if you have to, whatever, just . . . marinate on Joey Daniels. We don’t have to decide anything yet, okay?”

He worked his jaw back and forth. “You’re really not even going to consider Brent?”

I shot him a look. “Are you serious? We don’t need that dude-bro energy in here. We have enough of it.”

His mouth split into a small smile. “He’s not bad at what he does though.”

“Yeah, but from the sound of it, it’s a lot of fried foods and barbecue. While I love both of those food groups, we’re just not that place.”

He stood and grabbed his things. “Yeah, true. It was worth a shot.”

“Think about Joey,” I called after him as he headed for the kitchen.

The door swung open, and I was alone in the bar. Will had wandered back at some point, but he’d disappeared into the back. And now that it was just me, I finally had time to think about Charlie’s text.

I swiped up on my home screen and clicked through to messages. I tapped a quick, “They know,” to Jonah just before the kitchen doors swung open again, and Will and Charlie both walked onto the floor.

One glance over my shoulder told me Charlie had already spilled the beans. What a jerk.

My fury with Charlie was overshadowed by the real fear from the look on both of their faces. They were pissed. Actually pissed.

But why? I wasn’t seventeen anymore. I was twenty-seven with an adult life that included bills, a budget, and taxes. And that meant I could date anyone I wanted.

If you paid taxes, you should have total freedom to date anyone.

Well, okay, there were some criminal exceptions. But consenting adults should be left alone. By family, friends, and otherwise.

But most especially by family. Besides all that, Jonah had made it more than clear several times how much he loved me and wanted a future with me. But what to tell Will and Charlie . . . You would think because they loved me, and they loved Jonah as a brother, they would just shut up and be happy for us. But if the murderous vibe they were putting out was anything to go by, it wasn’t going to be that simple.

“Eliza,” Will growled as he approached the table. “Do you have something you want to share?”

Play it cool, Eliza. “Yeah,” I said in a huff. “There was only one serious candidate in that whole batch. And Case isn’t even sure he can work with her. Can you believe that? One out of ten!”

“We’re not talking about the kitchen position,” Charlie snarled. “We want to know how long this has been going on.”

“How long what has been going on?”

Charlie raised his eyebrows in like a really snotty way. “Do you want me to pull up the video?” He made a big show of reaching for his back pocket. “Because I will. We can all watch it together. As a family.”

Now I was pissed. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Ada walked in the front door. She used to come early for her shifts and help out around the rest of the bar, but now she showed up exactly on time for the bar to open. And it was all Charlie’s fault. Why weren’t we talking about that? That drama actually affected the day-to-day business.

But oh, no, we were just shoving all Charlie’s problems under the rug as per usual.

“Then what the fuck, Eliza? Jonah? What is wrong with you?” It was Will’s turn. And I was fine with all the hard questions until they started treating me like I had some kind of personal flaw. Then we needed to brawl.

“What is wrong with Jonah?” I held Will’s glare with one of my own. “He’s your best friend.”

“And he’s a great best friend,” Will roared. “But he’ll be a terrible boyfriend. And then what? What happens when you two break up? What am I supposed to do with that, Eliza? When this ends badly, how am I supposed to juggle my sister and business partner hating my best friend and crucial distributor?”

“That’s the thing, Eliza, you’re not thinking about the bar. This is incredibly selfish,” Charlie added. “When you guys break up—”

I cut Charlie off with a hiss of fury. He was lucky it wasn’t with my hands around his throat. “I’m sorry, you’re calling me selfish?” His mouth opened and closed a few times. Not because he felt any remorse but because he was absolutely outraged that I had the audacity to imply he was more selfish than I was. I could already tell this fight was going to end bloody. Nobody was getting out of this unscathed.

“What’s going on?” Ada asked like she was approaching wild animals fighting to the death in the wild.

Will threw a hand out, addressing her. “Oh, nothing much. Just Eliza and Jonah are fucking.”

Ada squealed and clapped—not a usual reaction from her. But the only reaction I appreciated today. “Are you serious! Eliza, are you serious? Oh, my God, fucking finally!”

My brothers swiveled their heads toward her in unison, doing their best to turn her to dust by their withering glares.

“In what universe is this okay?” Will boomed at her.

She was completely undaunted by his sass. “In every universe, William. You realize they’ve been in love with each other for literally ever. Why would you try to stop this?” Her head swiveled back and forth between Will and Charlie. “Why do either of you think you have the right to say who Eliza dates?”

Her questions caught them off guard, and they didn’t immediately know how to respond. I took the opportunity to jump in with my point of view. “Listen, not that you guys get to have a say in anything that goes on in my life unless it’s directly tied to the bar, but you’re looking at this Jonah thing like it’s a fling. And, okay, I can’t fully speak for him, but we . . .” I wanted to tell them that we loved each other. That we had loved each other for a lot longer than the start of our relationship. But the words got lodged in my throat and stayed there.

Would Jonah want me to share this with my brothers? We hadn’t agreed to keep our relationship a secret. We just were. And we’d never had a conversation about when we were going to tell anyone. We’d just been . . . enjoying what we’d started.

Or at least I was.

Well, obviously, I’d told Claire everything. But she would keep my secrets safe to the grave. And she was only happy for us, unlike my brothers. In fact, when we finally caught up last Sunday—she’d finally made a sponge decent enough for me to try, her words, and so she’d brought it over so we could binge bad reality TV and eat ourselves into a sugar coma—she’d said she was glad Jonah had finally pulled his head out of his ass and admitted what everyone else had known all along. And by everyone, she met herself. Clearly, she’d known he loved me long before I did.

“We what?” Will demanded.

A spiraling feeling of anxiety plunged through me. Had I made this entire thing up? I knew I hadn’t. Not really. But had I put more into Jonah’s side of things than he was really feeling?

No. No, he told me he loved me. Often. That had been real.

This sudden surge of insecurity had nothing to do with Jonah or me and everything to do with this worst-case scenario of my brothers acting the only way they knew how—like jackasses.

“What, Eliza?” Will asked with his fist pounding the table. “What is it about you and Jonah that we should know?”

As he was basically shouting at me, the door opened. I expected customers to walk in now that we were officially open. And my game plan had been to throw hundred-dollar bills at them in an effort to get them to forget what they’d walked into. But it wasn’t customers. It was Jonah.

He stormed through the door like an actual superhero, hair blowing in the wind from the whooshing door, face chiseled and firm while he took in the situation.

My brothers and I clocked him at the same time. While I was flooded with relief, both of them seemed to prepare for war.

But to all of our surprise, Jonah answered their question. A question I had almost forgotten Will asked. “That we love each other. We’ve loved each other for a long time.” He walked calmly over to the table and stood directly behind me, his hands squeezing my shoulder comfortingly.

I tipped my head back to smile at him. “Hey.”

He leaned down and kissed me directly on the mouth. It wasn’t one of his sexy long and lingering kisses. But it wasn’t a peck either. “Hey,” he murmured. “You okay?”

“Now I am.”

He turned his attention back to my brothers. “I’ve loved your sister for a long time,” he told them. He looked specifically at Will. “A lot longer than you’ve known Lola.”

Will looked betrayed. “You never said anything, man. How was I supposed to know?”

“It wasn’t your business,” Jonah replied, that hard edge of steel strengthening each word. “You didn’t ask me for permission before you found your person. And I’m going to expect the same courtesy. Eliza is it for me. Start to finish, she has always been my one. It just took me longer to get my head on right.”

“You promised.” Will genuinely looked crushed. His shoulders slumped, and his face crumpled. “You promised me you wouldn’t date her.”

Jonah squeezed my shoulders tighter, a sign that he was visibly distressed. I held my breath and waited for his answer. God, I’d been here before. I knew how this ended.

And that was with Will as the winner.

Only, this time, Jonah said, “When I was a fucking kid. This is my life, Will. Are you really trying to rob me of the greatest happiness I’ve ever known?”

Now Will looked like someone had slapped him. Also, I might have looked like someone slapped me too. The greatest happiness he’d ever known?

I forgot everything else. Why I was at the bar. Why Will and Charlie were mad at me. Why I was mad at Will. Why the sky was blue, and the grass was green, and how to breathe. Because how could I recover after he threw out sentences like those? Sentences that made me rearrange my entire future to make sure there was room for Jonah in every single part of it.

“You’re serious?” Will asked in a more subdued voice.

Charlie was less subtle. “Eliza? This Eliza?”

Just as Jonah’s tension reached his breaking point, I laughed. “Stop being assholes.”

And just like that, we all let out a deep breath. I could tell Will was still hurt. And he might be for a while. But at least, for now, he seemed to accept this was happening.

Lola walked into the bar next. I was relieved for the second time that she wasn’t a customer. She noticed us huddled around the table immediately. “What’s going on?”

And that was when I took my opportunity. “Will is opening a second bar,” I announced to the room.

Ada went sheet white and backed up three steps. Charlie's jaw dropped in utter shock, and he took a stuttering step forward. “What?” he roared.

Jonah squeezed my shoulders in a totally different way that wasn’t quite as comforting. “Eliza . . .” It was a warning.

But listen, if I was going to get attacked, I was also going to immediately launch a counterattack. And if nobody else here understood why . . . well, that was because they didn’t have this special relationship with their siblings. Jonah was an only child. Ada had a much younger sister. And Lola weirdly loved and adored her brother.

Unrelatable.

“I answered the call from the real estate agent,” I said, starting with my most tangible evidence.

“You think I’m opening another bar?” Will asked, overenunciating every syllable.

“And earlier, when I mentioned kids, you freaked out. Like had an actual breakdown. You’re obviously dealing with a lot of stress right now. Probably because you’re sneaking out with Lola to go open a second bar.”

He just blinked at me. His jaw ticked neurotically, but he kept his mouth shut.

“He’s not opening another bar,” Lola put in calmly. I glared at her. It wasn’t actually her fault I was so mad, but she was, unfortunately, the only one who spoke up. “I’m pregnant.”

Her confession hit the bar like an actual bomb had gone off.

Ada was the first to recover. “I’m sorry, what?”

Lola shrugged big. Like shoulders up to her ears only to drop as far down as they would go. “I’m pregnant. Obviously, we weren’t planning for this to happen . . . but it’s happening.”

“Oh, my gosh, Mom is going to be thrilled.” Not that I was gloating. But this would super take the pressure off me for a while.

Will glared at me, but he also finally explained what was going on. “I did ask Lola about what it would take to open a second location. But of Craft. Not of my own thing or something with Lola. I wanted to know what it would take for the three of us to expand. If it financially made sense. We’re having a hard time keeping this place staffed, so I know we’re not ready yet. I just wanted to set some professional goals. That’s all.” Charlie and I both started to speak at the same time, but Will pushed forward. “As far as the real estate agent goes . . . that was about Lola and me. Not about the bar. With a kid on the way, and”—he reached for her hand—“with things getting more serious between the two of us . . . Listen, I can’t live above the bar forever. I need a place I can raise a family.”

Charlie laughed. A light burst of genuine laughter. “Holy shit, Will is moving to the suburbs.”

“I didn’t say the suburbs,” Will snapped back.

“Oh, my gosh, you’re having a baby!” I squealed, the realization of what was happening finally dawning on me. “Oh, my gosh, a baby!”

Lola held up a finger at me and looked at her baby daddy with the fire of an actual dragon burning inside her. “I’m sorry, did you say now that things are getting more serious between us . . . because there’s a baby involved?”

I snickered at Will’s choking-on-air expression. It was fun to see Lola give him a some hell. They were still annoyingly obsessed with each other, but I fully supported Lola putting Will in his place—all in the name of love and happiness. “That’s obviously not what I meant. We’re serious because we love each other. And now there is a baby. And so we’re extra serious.”

“You need to rethink your priorities,” she snarled at him. “And what it means to be serious with the woman who is carrying your child.”

The rest of us watched their quarrel like it was a tennis match. “Lola,” Will coaxed, “you know what I mean.”

“But do I?” She turned around, shooting me a subtle wink as she stormed off toward the kitchen. “You’ve done it now, Will English.”

He tried to give us a tremulous smile. I had never seen him so sheepish before. I loved every single second of it. “Hormones,” he explained in a quiet voice. “She’s, uh, dealing with some mood swings.” He glanced nervously at the kitchen. “I should probably go . . .”

“This is happening,” Jonah said before he could escape. “Just so we’re clear. I want you to realize I have no plans of backing off when it comes to your sister, Will. I would love your blessing, but I don’t need it.”

“You have mine,” Charlie threw out as if he wasn’t the very reason all this fighting had happened. “If you can deal with her, I can deal with this.”

It wasn’t the nicest blessing anyone had ever given, but I would take it. “Thanks, Charlie.”

Jonah kept his gaze fixed on my oldest brother. “Will?”

Will let out an exhausted sigh. “There’s nothing I can say to get you two to reconsider? I mean, this is weird. You get that, right? This is weird for me.”

Jonah just shook his head. “Last thing I care about, man.”

Will finally smiled a real, authentic, not pissed-off smile. “This is probably the only thing we’ve disagreed about. Like ever.”

“It’s not worth it, though,” Jonah countered. “And you’re not going to win.”

Will rubbed his jaw, a sign that he was getting ready to concede. Hope blossomed in my chest. Like Jonah said, we didn’t need his blessing, but life would be a hell of a lot easier if we had it.

Lola popped her head out of the kitchen. “Will,” she beckoned in a hard tone.

The rest of us struggled not to snicker.

To Jonah and me, Will said, “Fine. My blessing. Have it. It’s fucking weird for me. And I don’t know. I have to see how it plays out. I don’t trust it yet. But . . . I have other things to worry about. I can’t . . . whatever, I can’t deal with this too.”

Jonah smiled, and I felt the tightness of his body subside. “A dad, huh? That’s wild, man. Congratulations. I’m so happy for you.” Jonah stretched out his hand and waited for Will to shake it.

We all watched, holding our breath, waiting to see what would happen. This was so nice of Jonah. I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t entirely over the confrontation yet, but he was trying. And I had so much more respect for him because of that.

Will hesitated a second, and then another second, and then met Jonah in the middle, taking his hand and tightly shaking it. “Thanks. I’m happy for you too.”

“You are?” Jonah’s tone was half sarcasm, half disbelief.

Will laughed. “Yeah, I am. I think I’ve known for a while. Probably not as long as it’s been going on. But I’m not a total idiot.”

“Debatable!” Charlie put in.

“But, yeah, anyway, no matter what happens, you can’t quit working with us. That’s a blood bond you signed as a child.”

Jonah’s laughter was even more genuine. “Obviously.”

Will stalked off toward the kitchen for a fight I was fairly confident Lola made up so she could divert Will’s attention. I loved her. If there were any doubts before? They were gone. She was the best.

Also, I probably should have just asked Will what he was doing weeks ago. It all felt so silly now.

Charlie slammed his hand down on the table. “I knew she was pregnant. I knew it, and I didn’t say anything, and I should get some kind of award for that.”

Ada, Jonah, and I gaped at him. “How could you have possibly known?” I asked, laughing.

“She threw up the entire time I stayed over there. That’s why I made Will crash your house that Sunday after my surgery. I was afraid I was going to catch something. But when he picked up ice cream and ginger ale on the way back to his apartment, I put two and two together. Sick people don’t crave Cherry Garcia.”

I was actually impressed with Charlie’s detective skills and his silence. “Meanwhile, you had no problem throwing me under the bus?”

He shrugged. “I did you a favor. Will is way too distracted with being freaked out to worry too much about you two. I’ll find a way for you to pay it forward later. But just so you know, I’m expecting something big. A cruise, a new car, something expensive.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Charlie.”

Ada seemed to realize she was left with just us and it was the most civil to Charlie she’d been since the night of his surgery. She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed tight. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you.”

“I want all the details,” she ordered. “And we’ll have to double date soon.”

“Double date?” She couldn’t have surprised me more if she’d said she was also pregnant.

She waved an easygoing hand in front of her face. I stilled my body so I didn’t accidentally look at Charlie. “It’s new. He’s great. You’ll love him.”

My eyes bulged as I tried to figure out if Ada had been body-snatched. But whatever her game was, it seemed to work on Charlie. He shoved away from the table and sulked away.

Ada pretended not to notice. “I better clock in. Congrats, you two.”

After she left, the bar was quiet for a couple of minutes. Jonah whirled the swivel chair around and stepped between my legs. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head against his chest. He was solid and warm and home.

“I’m not sure if you realized or not, but everyone we know is out of their damn mind.”

His low chuckle rumbled against my body. “Good thing we have each other.”

At the gentle prodding in his tone, I looked up. “Good thing.”

His mouth came to meet mine in a sweet kiss. “That was intense.”

“Yeah, it was.” I breathed out, realizing how edgy I’d gotten during that exchange. Even though things had ended well, I was having a hard time shaking off the stress of it.

“But I’m glad it happened,” Jonah finished.

“What?” I laughed at the absurdity of being glad about any of that. Except for the baby of course. “You are?”

“Well, it needed to happen. Now we can put it behind us.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“And stop hiding.”

“You’re not going to get bored, are you? This isn’t going to be disappointing because we’re not sneaking around anymore, hmmm?”

He laughed. “This is what I’ve been waiting my whole life for, Eliza English. Far from being disappointing, this is the best day of my life.”

“You’re crazy.” But his words hit the most tender places of my soul with a gentle caress that had butterflies soaring in my belly.

“Crazy in love,” he said with another kiss. “Should we head out?”

“I should probably stay to help.”

“Nah,” he coaxed. “They’ll be fine for a night. We got other things to do.”

I was beaming, maybe glowing. How could any one man be so very perfect? “Oh, yeah? Like they were fine last time?”

He rolled his eyes. “They’re overdramatic.”

I let him pull me into standing. “That’s true. But what else do we have to do?”

His smile was all male satisfaction and mischief. “Well, I broke a promise to Will by dating you. But there’s one promise I made him years ago that I intend to keep.”

Now I was all curious. “And what is that?”

“That our kids would be the same age so they could grow up like we did.”

His words didn’t immediately register. I couldn’t quite figure out what his kids and Will’s future kids had to do with me. He waited patiently for me to figure it out.

Because OH. OH MY GOSH. Will was having a baby. So that meant . . . “You’re joking,” I demanded.

He tugged on my hand, pulling me out of the bar. “I mean, we don’t have to make any official decisions. But we should at least practice, right?”

I reached for my purse and then my phone while he continued to pull me alongside him. “Jonah, you’re out of your mind if you think—”

He reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear. “Practice, Eliza. Let’s start there.” And then he kissed me, reminding me just how much I loved practicing.

And how much I loved this man.

This man who was mine.

Will would continue to be a butthead for a while. And Charlie would be as bratty as possible. But the hard part was over. Now it was just Jonah and me and forever.

And apparently, our future kids.

My mom would be thrilled.

nineteen

Jonah and I walked into Craft hand in hand. It was Sunday afternoon, but we were hosting a private event, so Miles stood behind the bar and I knew Case and his new apprentice, Joey, were working furiously in the kitchen. There was extra pressure today because of our guests, and Case was stressed to the max.

Thankfully, Joey seemed to have met his high standards. And while they were still awkwardly getting to know each other and learning to work together, they were at least turning out incredible food.

Claire had finally graduated from culinary school with an emphasis on pastry. Unlike Kaya, who was a regular badass in the kitchen, Claire had accepted a job at a local pastry shop. It wasn’t her dream job by any means, but it would look fantastic on a résumé. Even if her main job was bringing toddler birthday cakes to life to the specifications of their Momzillas.

Jonah’s hand landed on the small of my back as he held the door open for me. Even months later, I still got tingles every time he touched me. The warm fuzzies in the very best way.

How could I not? This man who I had loved and respected for so long was finally mine. Finally mine to touch and kiss and bang. And plan a future with. And talk about all the small and big details of my day with.

The friendship Jonah and I had worked so hard on had finally become a relationship that was even stronger. I never could have predicted that this would be our story. But I wouldn’t change a thing.

The bar was especially stunning today. Ada and I had hung a massive pink and silver balloon arch over the back of the bar, covering a lot of bottles of alcohol but giving the event an celebratory look. It had taken us a ridiculous amount of time and required oxygen from every single human being we knew, but we managed to make it look amazing.

Every table was covered with soft pink peonies, glitter, and fancy cookies that said things like “Congrats” and “Good Luck” and “Chef Claire,” and my personal favorite, “Delicious Future Ahead.” The bar was covered in food, more desserts, and all the cocktails.

I’d like to say it was all for Claire, but her guests were a part of Durham’s culinary elite, so I’d be lying if I said we weren’t also trying to impress them. But mostly, it was for Claire.

“Wow,” Jonah said immediately. “This place really cleans up.”

I smiled at him over my shoulder. “So do you.” He was all clean lines today. Hair up in that styled man bun that made me actually drool, crisp light-blue oxford rolled up at the forearms that reflected in his eyes, light-gray trousers, and his fanciest leather flip-flops.

His gaze heated. “We don’t have to stay long, do we?”

“She’s only my best friend,” I reminded him. His mouth curved in a crooked smile. “If you stay too long, they’ll notice you’re not drinking.”

My belly flipped at his words. We’d only been together five months, but we’d just recently decided to start trying for a baby. Was it smart? Probably not. But I was happy to help him keep this one promise to Will.

But more than that, I wasn’t worried about things not working out between us. We’d waited our whole lives to be together. It wouldn’t be an easy or uncomplicated journey forward, but we were taking it together. And that was all that mattered.

“It’s not like everyone monitors what I’m drinking,” I argued.

He just gave me a look.

Claire stepped over from where she was talking to Kaya and her brother-in-law, Wyatt, and gave me a big hug. “This place looks amazing.”

“So do you,” I gushed, admiring how glowy she looked today. She didn’t love attention, so this party had super stressed her out when I insisted on throwing it for her. But she was so proud of finishing school that I couldn’t let her not celebrate.

She pulled back, and said, “So do you. Happy couple life suits you.” She turned to Jonah and said, “But if you hurt my girl, I’ll end you.”

Jonah laughed easily and pulled me against him, my back against his broad chest, his arms possessively around my middle. “You keep making that threat, Claire, but we just keep falling deeper for each other.”

Claire raised a singular eyebrow. “Says the man who ignored her for ten years.”

We both knew he hadn’t ever ignored me, but Claire was a bulldog. Which was just one of the reasons I loved her so much. And she really was trying to get along with Jonah. Just like he was learning to love and appreciate her.

“Play nice,” I told them both. Looking up at Jonah, I added, “But you especially. She listens to a lot of murder podcasts, and I’m positive they would never find your body.” Jonah laughed, but it sounded nervous. Which made me laugh. “Seriously, though, you’re amazing, and I am so excited to celebrate you today.”

Claire grinned. “Thanks! I don’t have to tell you this since it’s your bar, but you know, go ahead and help yourself to whatever.”

She moved on to greet more arriving guests, and Jonah and I moved deeper into the building. Ada was dressed for the party but still managed everyone and everything. Things had not cooled down between Charlie and her, but somehow, the tension between them had made her more driven and efficient—if not more distant as well.

Lola was sitting in my favorite spot at the end of the bar, and Will was nowhere to be seen, so I headed in her direction. Her baby bump was showing these days at seven months along. She was the absolute cutest pregnant woman alive. All perfectly round belly and thick, luscious hair. She was beaming with a contagious happiness.

“Hey,” she said, smiling brightly. Her feet were propped up on the barstool next to her, and her cheeks flushed red. She was fanning her face with some cocktail napkins, and a small box fan plugged into the wall next to her blew directly on her. She noticed us noticing all she had going on and explained, “I’m not going to survive this summer. It’s going to kill me. I have never been this hot in my life.”

“I can’t imagine,” I told her sympathetically. Jonah squeezed my side discreetly. A reminder of how excited he was for me to be able to imagine. He was incorrigible. “Where’s Will?”

Lola shrugged. “Helping Charlie with something? I don’t know. I parked myself here as soon as we arrived, and honestly, I don’t plan on moving unless I have to pee. Which will be every half hour on the dot.”

Okay. She was starting to sell pregnancy less and less, but even her discomfort wouldn’t talk me out of it completely. Not when Jonah was so excited to start a family of our own. It wasn’t just about what he wanted, I wanted a baby too. And my mom made some valid points over the past six months. But honestly, nothing was sexier than seeing Jonah excited to have a baby.

I was fairly confident my body would have just produced one all on its own for him if I’d been able to. He was so thoughtful about it and so considerate. But mostly, he was just excited to hold a child we’d made together. He wanted a family of his own. He wanted a baby we’d get to love and raise and adore together.

He couldn’t wait to build the family he’d never gotten to enjoy. And how could I not just fall deeper in love with him because of it?

My mom walked out of the kitchen with a platter of fancy toast. The small crostinis were covered in burrata and roasted strawberries with a balsamic dressing or a ricotta whip, sauteed blackberries, and a mint chutney. This was Joey’s recipe, and while Case had been unimpressed at first, I was in awe with how they’d turned out.

“You’re here,” my mom squealed, setting the toasts down in front of Lola. She immediately reached for one and hummed her approval. Her napkin fan turned quickly into a napkin plate. My mom stepped close and pulled Jonah into a hug.

Not me.

Jonah.

She pulled back and held his face in her hands. “You look so happy these days, Jonah.”

I was apparently chopped liver. “Hi, Mom, it’s me, your daughter.”

She turned to me next and put her hands on my face. “The girl who has made my favorite person so happy. How could I forget you?” The twinkle in her eye let me know she was joking. But honestly. The golden child beside me gloated. My mom leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Hi, baby girl.”

“How’s it going back there?” I asked, glancing toward the kitchen. “Are they doing okay together?”

“Oh, no,” she said immediately. “I would not go back there if I were you. They were just fighting over the best way to serve something with leeks in it? I don’t know. They started using non-English words and cussing at each other, and I thought it was best to extricate myself from the situation.”

I made a face. “I’m going to hire a therapist for the bar. Someone who can just be here to help all my dysfunctional employees get along.”

My mom stared at Ada from across the bar. “Or maybe they all just need to get laid.”

Lola, Jonah, and I nearly choked on air simultaneously. “Mom!”

She shrugged. “What? I might be a widow, but I know what sexual tension looks like.” Then she rolled her eyes and pinned Jonah and me with a glare. “Trust me, I had to deal with decades of it from you two.”

Jonah cleared his throat, “I don’t know that it was decades . . .”

Thankfully, Miles appeared on the other side of the bar. “Can I get y’all something to drink?”

Will and Charlie walked out of the kitchen just then and joined us. We all said hello, and then melted a little when Will took one of Lola’s swollen feet in his hand and started massaging gently without being asked. He really could be a good guy when he wanted to be.

“Miles was being an angel and taking our drink orders,” my mom explained.

“Water for me,” Lola said. “God, I can’t wait until I can drink again. I expect all the gin the second I give birth.”

We laughed while the rest of the orders were taken. An old-fashioned for Will. A pour of our newest summer IPA for Charlie, who had dropped the sugar charade after his appendix surgery. A Tom Collins for my mom. A sazarac for Jonah. And a club soda for me.

Miles gave me a funny look after my order but walked away to start the drinks. When I turned back to engage in conversation with my family, they stared at me.

“A club soda?” my mom asked, intense gaze boring into me.

“It’s only three in the afternoon,” I said defensively. “I’m pacing myself.”

“Since when do you pace yourself?” Will demanded, big brother mode on full force. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“If you have a problem, Eliza,” Charlie added unhelpfully, “just tell us.”

“She’s fine,” Jonah answered in that steely tone of his. “No problem here.”

“Why are you all being so weird? What I drink is none of your business.”

They all shared looks. Jonah held me tightly against him. Then without warning, Lola screeched, “You’re pregnant!”

My mom squealed something unintelligible while my brothers cursed something equally obscure. Claire screamed, “WHAT!” from across the bar. I did my best to deny what wasn’t true. Yet. But nobody was listening to me.

Jonah leaned down and murmured, “Told you so.”

And he had. I should be furious with my family right now, but the moment's happiness outweighed any other fear or irritation. I wasn’t pregnant yet, and eventually, I would be able to convince them of that. But hopefully, I would be soon.

I turned around and pulled Jonah in for a soft, sweet kiss. “You were right about something else too.”

He looked down at me, his eyes so warm and intimate, his face oh-so achingly familiar. This was the man I loved with all of me. The man I had loved for as long as I could remember. The man I would love every day going forward. “What’s that?” he asked, his voice that deep rumble that vibrated in every part of me.

“We definitely shouldn’t stay long.”

coming next

Look for the next book in the Decisions in Durham Series, Promises We Break after Dark, coming March 28th, 2023.

Ada Kelly is doing the best she can. Smart, driven, and practical, she works hard to make her favorite Durham bar, Craft, as successful as possible. Except she’s thwarted at every turn by the sibling drama of the bar’s co-owning trio. Still, she loves the bar, and everyone she works with.

Well, almost everyone.

Charlie English is selfish, flakey, and the sexiest man she’s ever known. And he makes her absolutely stupid. Early on in her employment at Craft, Ada made the mistake of sleeping with him. She knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Charlie wasn’t the kind of guy who knew how to settle down. Or think about anyone besides himself. So why had she done it? And why would she still do it now? Years later?

Ada has promised herself she’ll never make that mistake again. She’s promised herself she’ll put Charlie in the past where he belongs and move on with her life, her job, and her relationships.

But the thing about promises is . . . they’re meant to be broken.

Promises We Break After Dark is the third standalone in the Decisions in Durham Series! Look its release coming March 28th, 2023!

acknowledgments

To the reader,

Thank you for reading Secrets We Whisper in the Moonlight. I am a terrible author, if we’re honest. Maybe an okay writer. But as far as this career goes, I am genuinely awful at it. I don’t spend enough time online, I barely make deadlines, and I can never seem to remember to promote my own work. And yet, you are there, dear reader, to make up for my shortcomings. When I am lost in the tangle of my life, kid activities, and taxi-driving all over the known world, you still pick up my books and read them. When I am wrestling insecurity, doubt, and toxic levels of imposter syndrome, you still anticipate my next release, send me encouraging messages, and share my books with your friends. When I pour out my soul into a book, and bleed words, and dig deep for the courage to publish, you are there to love it, or to even hate it, and to remind me that the struggle and hardship of writing is worth the long journey to find a reader on the other side. Thank you for spending time with my words. And for sharing my love of these characters and stories. Eliza and Jonah were an absolute joy to write and I hope you loved them as much as I did.

acknowledgments

To the bloggers,

Thank you so much for working with me on this release. I can’t tell you how much your support and flexibility mean to me. When I squeaked into your inbox in the eleventh hour, you didn’t hesitate to say yes to an ARC. I am unprepared for that level of kindness, but cherish it deeply. You are heroes to me. And your excitement over this book and these characters makes my job so fun. And so meaningful. Thank you for your time, and insight, your reviews, and your generosity. You are the best people in this industry. And some of the best people I’ve ever known.

acknowledgments

To everyone else,

Zach, my kids, my mom, and my girl gang who constantly love and support me when I try to juggle too many responsibilities and end up dropping them all. Thank you to Zach especially, who for some crazy reason, continues to believe in me and push me toward my dreams. And to my kids who put up with so much—forgotten permission slips, takeout suppers for weeks at a time, pushed sleepovers “until I’m done with this deadline,” and always, always, always being late. You guys are the absolute best. But if you’re actually reading this book and these acknowledgments, I’ve done something wrong. To my mom and my mother-in-law, who are always up for swooping in and saving the day at the last minute when I’m supposed to travel and have totally forgotten I need someone to stay with my kids. (and dogs.) And to my girl gang who is always there with an encouraging text, a genuine prayer, and a Taco Tuesday when I need to breathe. I am embarrassingly rich with good people in my life.

To Marion, Jenny, and Karen, thank you so very much for all your insights, edits and senses of humor. This story is what it is today because of you. You push me to write better, make fuller, more complete heroes, and give these characters the best possible story. You are all so incredibly smart. I am blown away by all that you see and catch, and especially, all that you fix. Thank you for continuing to put up with my justs, and evens, and bigs. And my total incompetence with commas.

And to my great, gracious God. I don’t understand Your plans. Or Your ways. And I don’t need to. Because I understand that You are good. And that Your plans for me are good. This life I’ve been given is total chaos. And joy. And the greatest gift. Thank you for relentless riches that look like people I love deeply, a dream job that continues to push me, and a life that is so bubbling over with joy.

about the author

Rachel Higginson was born and raised in Nebraska, but spent her college years traveling the world. She fell in love with Eastern Europe, Paris, Indian Food and the beautiful beaches of Sri Lanka, but came back home to marry her high school sweetheart. Now she spends her days raising their growing family. She’s obsessed with reruns of The Office and Cherry Coke.

Other Books Out Now by Rachel Higginson:

Love and Decay, Season One

Volume One

Volume Two

Love and Decay, Season Two

Volume Three

Volume Four

Volume Five

Love and Decay, Season Three

Volume Six

Volume Seven

Volume Eight

Love and Decay: Revolution, Season One

Volume One

Volume Two

Volume Three

The Star-Crossed Series

Reckless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 1)

Hopeless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 2)

Fearless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 3)

Endless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 4)

The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 5)

The Relentless Warrior (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 6)

Breathless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 6.5)

Fateful Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 6.75)

The Redeemable Prince (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 7)

The Starbright Series

Heir of Skies (The Starbright Series, Book 1)

Heir of Darkness (The Starbright Series, Book 2)

Heir of Secrets (The Starbright Series, Book 3)

The Siren Series

The Rush (The Siren Series, Book 1)

The Fall (The Siren Series, Book 2)

The Heart (The Siren Series, Book 3)

The Nine Kingdoms Trilogy

Crown of One Hundred Kings

2nd Book coming Summer 2022

Bet on Love Series

Bet on Us (An NA Contemporary Romance)

Bet on Me (An NA Contemporary Romance)

Every Wrong Reason

The Five Stages of Falling in Love

Trailer Park Heart

Never Fall in Love with a Rockstar

The Opposite of You (Opposites Attract Series)

The Difference Between Us (Opposites Attract Series)

The Problem with Him (Opposites Attract Series)

The Something About Her (Opposites Attract Series)

Decisions We Make After Midnight (Decisions in Durham)

Secrets We Whisper in the Moonlight (Decisions in Durham)

Promises We Break After Dark (Decisions in Durham) coming March 28th, 2023

Constant (The Confidence Game Duet)

Consequence (The Confidence Game Duet)

Connect with Rachel on her website at:

http://www.authorrachelhigginson.com/

Or on Instagram:

@mywritesdntbite

Or on her Facebook page:

Rachel Higginson

Keep Reading for a sneak peek of one of Rachel’s other contemporary romances, Never Fall in Love with a Rockstar

teaser

Never Fall in Love with a Rockstar

1

My fingers flew over the keys. Up and down. Black and white. Sharp and natural and sharp, sharp, sharp. The damper pedal lifted with my momentum. I pressed down again, elongating the notes, pulling the best of the melody out of the song and letting it hang in the air, notes dancing and twirling and singing the emotional symphony. Beethoven had never sounded so good.

I took a breath, closing my eyes at the final, heart-stopping crescendo, and then, I lifted my fingers and let the song resonate through the vaulted ceilings in perfect harmony.

When the notes died and the song drifted from the building, I couldn’t help but wait for applause. Receiving adulation was ingrained in my nature. My entire life I’d played to crowds much bigger than this one. And so, I sat there, my breath trapped in my chest, my eyes closed in anticipation and… nothing.

There was no eruption of cheering and wild clapping. There was no demand for an encore. There was no stadium filled with rabid fans, blissed out after the best show of their lives.

There was only one person clapping for this performance and it was Maya from the MAC makeup counter. And she only did it because she knew it made me happy. I grinned at her from over my shoulder. She clapped louder, jumping up and down in a pure attempt at feeding my ego. A cluster of teenage girls moved between us, laughing and chatting, eyes glued on all the pretty things around them. I turned away, ducking my head and focusing on the gorgeous grand piano that filled the center of the glistening lobby.

Nobody recognized me these days, but better safe than sorry.

When the shoppers had moved on, I gathered my music and slipped it inside a folder. Maya was still slow clapping by the time I reached the counter littered with lipstick tubes.

“Woman, you were on fire today,” she cheered. “I was seriously moved by that last piece. Tears, Clover. Actual tears.” She pointed at the corner of her eye where her electric blue eyeliner was smudged.

“Moonlight Sonata.” I took a steadying breath, banishing the lingering emotions that clung to the edges of me. It was one of my favorites too. And I rarely played it. But today I’d been in the mood for melancholy and memories. And that song, above all others, despite what the tabloids and bloggers said once upon a time, weighed the heaviest from my past. “It’s a good one.”

She leaned forward on her elbows. “You’re stupid good, you know that?”

I tilted my head, letting my long, fiery red curls fall over my shoulder and partially hide my face. “What you really mean is I’m good for Macy’s standards, right?” I looked behind me as Walter arrived and started to setup for his three-hour block of play. Macy’s hired us for elegant entertainment. We were the background music for the evening and weekend shoppers at the high-end department store. There was a rotating total of six pianists and each of us were happy for the work. It was a relatively easy way to make a hundred bucks.

This was all part of my new normal. Trying to live and eat and sleep off the grind of regular employment.

Once upon a time, I used my piano-playing skills to make lots and lots of money. Not that I put in less hours. But it seemed easier to make money as a headline band dropping platinum albums.

It seemed easier, I realized. But it hadn’t been.

I breathed deeply of this normal life I lived now and smiled at the simplicity of it. Sorrow and heartache tugged at the corners of my thoughts, desperate to get my attention and claim some space in this adjusted life of mine, but I refused to give them room.

They were banished, along with everything else that used to be.

“Girl, I mean you’re good period. Stop playin’.”

“Well, you’re really sweet. Thank you.”

She winked at me. “You’re welcome.”

“What is all this?” I asked, picking up a random tube of lipstick and turning it over. Russian Red. “Wow, this is aggressive.”

“Restocking,” she sighed. “It’s a pain in the ass. But also, better than giving tweens makeovers all day.”

“What about former tweens? Do you have time for one of those?”

She laughed her deep, throaty laugh that always made me smile. Maya and I had gotten to know each other slowly over the last few years, after I’d first started playing at Macy’s. She’d been one of my most favorite parts of slowing down and finding normal.

She was a real friend. And a real person. There was nothing shallow about her actually. She jumped right into deep friendship and demanded raw honesty. There were still parts of my life I kept a secret from her, but that wasn’t because I didn’t want to tell her the whole sordid history of how I’d ended up in Kansas City, Missouri. It was for her safety. And mine. And to honor all those pesky nondisclosures I’d signed.

Her big brown eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh, is tonight the night? The big night?”

I nibbled my bottom lip and nodded. “Yes.” My stomach flipped with anticipation for the surprise that waited for me just hours from now.

She leaned forward, bouncing on her toes with shared excitement. “What do you think it is? Oh, my gosh, what if he proposes?”

I lifted a shoulder and felt my stomach drop to my toes. Equal parts dread and hope spiraled through me, chasing each other, racing to see which emotion would win. “I have no idea what it is. He’s so excited though. He can barely contain himself. Yesterday, he had outfits spread out on his bed like he was deciding which one to wear.”

“Clover! This is it.”

I shrugged again. “It could honestly be anything, but a proposal, Maya? For real, that would be crazy.”

“Would you say yes?”

I took too long to think about my answer. Maya wanted an easy, breezy yes. She wanted to know that my relationship with Adam Shepherd was a whirlwind romance that had totally and completely swept me off my feet. She wanted a real-life romantic comedy and epic love story wrapped in one. She wanted me to be happy. And it was so sweet of her. But it was also unrealistic.

I’d already had all of that. And it had ended in the worst kind of tragedy.

Her question was supposed to have an easy answer. Even if I wasn’t ready for the proposal now, I was supposed to want it sometime, right?

Meet a normal guy. Fall in love with a normal guy. Marry a normal guy. Live a very normal happily ever after.

Every girl’s dream. Except mine.

“We’ve only been dating for six months,” I told her, laughing, playing it off, shining light on her absolutely ridiculous idea. “He hasn’t even told me he loves me yet.” A sick feeling rolled through my stomach, my body wholly rejecting the idea of saying those words to anyone.

She blinked, her fake lashes fanning over high cheek bones. “Oh.” Maya was a romantic to her bones. She wanted everyone to fall in love. If a man so much as knelt to tie his shoe in front of the makeup counter, she assumed it was some elaborate proposal stunt. “Well, maybe tonight’s the night for I love yous!”

My heart thrummed with the idea, bossing my nerves back in line. This was an easier question to answer, although she hadn’t asked it. Would I tell Adam I loved him if he said the words first? Yes. Yes, I would.

At least, I hoped I would.

Sometimes my mouth had a mind of its own.

I batted my lashes at her. “Better make me look pretty just in case.”

She grinned and grabbed Russian Red. “The good news is, if he doesn’t love you yet, he will after I’m done with you!”

I dropped my messenger bag full of sheet music at my feet and jumped up onto one of the high back stools, waiting patiently for Maya to make me gorgeous. The woman was a magician when it came to makeup. Seriously, she could make anyone look beautiful.

Not that she had to try very hard on herself. She was truly one of the most stunning women I had ever seen. Her dark skin was absolute perfection. Her wild afro so perfectly fitting with her larger than life personality. And her curves the kind that every woman wanted, dreamed of, spent hours in the gym to get. On her? They were just natural. She was one of MAC’s bestsellers consistently because everybody wanted to look like her.

Hell, most women wanted to be her.

Also, because she could transform anyone from blah to banging with a few mystical strokes of her brushes.

Thirty minutes later, I barely recognized myself in the small, circle mirror on the counter. She’d given me smoky eyes and highlighted cheekbones and dang if that Russian Red didn’t look amazing on my lips next to my natural red hair.

“No way,” I whispered as she grinned over my shoulder. She’d highlight the dusting of freckles over my nose and under my eyes and given me perfectly porcelain skin that seemed to have no blemishes. Although, I knew that was a lie. I looked better than I ever had.

Even when I’d had an actual makeup team.

“You’re going home with this lipstick,” she ordered. “You need to own it and treasure it and wear it every damn day.”

“It makes my hair look so red,” I groaned. My hair and I had been at odds since I could remember. There was a time I did anything to hide my crimson curls. I straightened, tied it back and hid it under stocking caps and finally, when the PR team got involved, I colored it in crazy vibrant colors like neon pink or bold purple. I loved the fun tones, even if I looked like a Barbie.

But I’d given all that up five years ago and went back to my natural shade. The curls were easier than trying to straighten this mess every day. And eventually my new hair stylist had found the perfect red to match my roots. I didn’t even get it dyed anymore. This was just me. Clover Callaway, completely natural. Completely ordinary. Completely anonymous.

Nobody expected the red curls. They were my new signature. And I was slowly learning to love them.

Just like I was slowly learning to love this life.

“You’re welcome,” Maya repeated, laughing. “Tell you what, if I had your hair, I would rock the shit out of it.”

Now that I believed. “M, if I had your hair, I would never worry about my hair again.”

She bugged her eyes out at me. “You think this is easy? You have no idea how long this takes me every day.”

“Same,” I sighed.

Shaking her head, she murmured, “I guess the grass isn’t always greener.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

An older woman and a thirty-something, younger version of her stepped up to the counter, pointing out eye shadows. “That’s my cue,” Maya whispered, totaling up the lipstick with her employee discount.

I gave her my credit card. Honestly, whenever she picked out makeup for me, I blindly handed over all my money. Maya knew best. “Thanks for this.”

She grinned at me. “Good luck! I want all the details tomorrow.”

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything as grand as I love yous. Adam and I had met at one of my other jobs—local photographer. He had been a groomsman in a wedding I helped shoot. We’d hit it off when he’d gotten socked in the face with a wayward basketball.

The groomsmen and groom, while waiting for the bride and her attendants to get ready, had been messing around in the church’s gym. My photographer partner and best friend extraordinaire, River, and I had been shooting fun photos of the pickup game in their tuxes when Adam had gotten distracted and taken a ball to the face. Blood had gushed everywhere, spurting out his quickly swelling nose all over his tux.

His excuse? He’d been staring at me and hadn’t seen it coming. I’d rushed to his aid and helped nurse his poor nose back to semi-normal so he wouldn’t look like a cartoon for the wedding pictures.

He’d asked me out before the night was over and now, we were dating.

Adam was one of those guys that always made things easy. He was laid-back, responsible and very sweet. The last six months had been a surprisingly easy succession of romantic dates and constant butterflies. And tonight, he’d planned something epic for our six-month anniversary.

I had never celebrated relationship anniversaries with anyone before, so my expectations were low. But I was also ridiculously excited. It made me feel special. I loved the idea of cherishing small milestones with the simmering anticipation for more to come.

And it just fit Adam in every way. Of course, he would make a sweet thing out of our six-month. Of course, he would make me feel prized. Of course, he would make this about us. And not about himself.

I left Macy’s in my cool blue Mini Cooper, my favorite of all the cars in all the world and drove directly to his house. We lived across town from each other, so I didn’t have time to go all the way home after my shift before I was expected at Adam’s house in Kansas City suburbia.

He was twenty-nine with a stable job as an IT guy at a tech company. Which seemed redundant to me. But he assured me even tech companies have tech problems.

His house was bigger than what he needed as a single guy. Basically, it seemed like a twenty-bedroom mansion that required a butler, a chef and a gardener.

When he’d first moved in, he’d shared it with three roommates. They’d all gotten married in the meantime and moved out, so over the last two years he’d been slowly remodeling and updating. Making it his.

I didn’t know why I found that attractive, but I did. It showed how stable he was. How reliable. How… invested he was in his life.

And for those reasons, I loved his house. Even if it was too big for him. It was this symbol of responsible adulthood and trustworthiness.

His house was a two story with the master bedroom on the main floor and three bedrooms and an adorable terrace that looked out over his sprawling backyard. He’d let me plant a flower garden on the terrace last spring complete with pallet planters he’d built for me and hanging pots. It had become one of my favorite places in KC.

The hot summer air stuck to my skin as I got out of my car and hurried toward the safety of air conditioning. I didn’t want to start sweating and ruin all of Maya’s hard work.

Pushing through the open door, I stepped inside, feeling a little extra ownership in Adam’s place. Six months was a milestone.

Six months meant something special.

“Hello?” I called out, feeling brave that I hadn’t even texted to let him know I was on my way.

I’d earned the right to show up unannounced, right?

He stepped out of his bedroom, tugging a t-shirt down at his waist. My eyes lingered on the smooth, stretch of skin across his midsection and I felt a burst of warmth bloom through me. This was going to be a fun night. Undoubtedly.

“Hey.” He grinned at me. “You’re here.”

He was so happy to see me. It was written all over his handsome face. My heart swelled in my chest as I realized this was what a normal, healthy relationship felt like. This was what it felt like to be happy.

“Hey,” I repeated. “I’m here.”

We moved together across the living room, sidestepping furniture and the big, clunky coffee table he’d built himself in his first try at furniture making. Our arms wrapped around each other and he dipped me into a long, satisfying kiss. Butterflies buzzed beneath my skin at the sensation of his tongue tangling with mine. The scruff of his jaw wasn’t typical, and I shivered at the sensation.

Maybe we didn’t have plans tonight. Maybe we were going to hang out here instead and find other ways to celebrate six months.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked when he’d pulled away.

“Depends,” I laughed. “Are you ready to tell me what we’re doing?”

He took a step back, barely able to contain his excitement. No offense to my bedroom skills, but any hopes of staying in tonight were dashed in that one uncharacteristic skip in his step.

Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out printer paper with barcodes in black ink. “I have tickets to Bright Tragedy! They’re playing at the Uptown Theater tonight.”

His words put a bullet in my good mood, killing whatever happiness and anticipation had been inside me. My heart dropped like a stone to my stomach, calcifying and fossilizing and drying up all at once.

“The Uptown Theater is too small for them,” I heard myself say, my brain relying on logistics to make this not true. To change what he’d said into something different, something that didn’t make me want to run away from his house, from this city... from this normal life that was only a lie—a pretty illusion I’d conned myself into believing could last.

“The venue is intentional,” he explained, his grin ticking wider. “This tour they’re doing is all about small shows and private meet and greets. I missed the tickets for the meet and greet, but I managed to grab two for the main event tonight.”

His grin stayed in place, waiting for my reaction. To be honest, I did breathe a small sigh of relief that he’d missed the intimate photo op. God, I couldn’t even imagine the shit show that would have caused.

You wouldn’t have gone, my brain whispered honestly. And it was true. If Adam had tried to drag me to a private event forcing me to interact with the members of his and the entire world’s favorite rock band and take pictures with them and shake their hands… I would have run screaming from his house. That was basically the worst-case scenario for me.

But a concert was a different story. Not because I had any interest in watching Bright Tragedy live or seeing them in person ever again. But because I wanted to preserve what I had with Adam.

I refused to let Bright Tragedy steal any more of my happiness. I refused to let them take anything more than they already had.

But this wasn’t a celebration for me. This was one of the hardest things I would ever have to do.

And the worst part… I couldn’t even tell Adam why.

He didn’t need to know that I used to be a member of his favorite band. Or that I had grown up with the guys. He didn’t need to know my brother was still a part of it. That when I left it fractured our once airtight bond. Or that the lead singer, Malachi Porter, had been my first boyfriend. My first everything. My only everything until Adam. That I had loved him with all that I had in me. That I had thought we would get married. That our entire lives would be each other and our band.

And that Malachi, or Kai as his adoring fans knew him, had hurt me in the worst way possible—that he had let our love burn into the brightest tragedy and left me ashes and dust and wisps of nothing.

He’d left me barely breathing.

He’d left me hurting more than I knew was humanly possible.

So, I’d fled. I’d disappeared. I’d carved out my normal, safe, happy existence without him. And without the world-famous band I’d helped build.

But now my wonderful, normal boyfriend was asking me to return to that dark place and I didn’t know how to tell him no without exposing all my shadowy secrets. Secrets he would never forgive me for.

Secrets I could hardly explain fully or reconcile with the girl I was now.

“Are you okay?” he asked, concern drawing his eyebrows together. His strong hands landed on my shoulders, rubbing soothingly. “Do you not want to go?”

I tried to smile, but it wobbled. And then it died completely. “I’m sorry, I just don’t love their music like you do.” Panic seized hold of my heart, squeezing it in an iron fist.

His face fell, crumpling with disappointment. The grip on my heart tightened. “Oh, but it could still be fun? We’re in the balcony. We’ll get drinks…”

I couldn’t stomach the way he was looking at me. I couldn’t be responsible for ruining this for him. I knew I had to face this. I knew I had to go. It was the only way to save my past from totally screwing up my future.

If I told Adam the whole truth, he would never look at me the same. He would never treat me the same. He would never… want me the same.

I would become an idol. And my past would become a badge of honor. And his feelings for me would become plastic.

But the band… if they saw me. If Malachi saw me…

They wouldn’t, I decided. They won’t. They can’t. How many fans did I recognize at any of our concerts? Zero. The stage lights were too bright. The crush of the crowd was too big. The adrenaline of the performance was too intense.

And besides… Malachi wouldn’t be in the right state of mind anyway. Not to notice me.

I ignored the despair that colored everything inside me black. Death seeped inside my new life, turning everything cold and corpse-like. My bones grew stiff and my muscles weakened. My heartbeat slowed to a crawl. My lungs shook with the effort to draw breath.

“It’s fine,” I heard myself say, desperation to save this easy new life of mine setting in. I wanted to shake my limbs loose of the rigor mortis. “It will be fun.”

He squinted at me, trying to make sense of the hollow sound to my voice. “I promise, you’re going to love it. Love them,” he said, overly enthusiastic. “You’ll see why I think they’re amazing. You’ll be a super fan by the end of the night.”

I smiled, it was paper thin and forced, but it held. He was wrong. I had already been a super fan. I had been their biggest fan. I had wanted them to have the most success. To be the greatest thing that had ever graced the stage.

Now I knew better. I had loved a broken thing because I wanted to fix it. Instead, it had broken me too.

“Maybe,” I told Adam, knowing the truth would be the opposite.

His answering smile restored some of my faith in life. I wasn’t the same girl I was five years ago. I wasn’t a part of Bright Tragedy. And I wasn’t in love with Malachi Porter.

But I did like Adam. And I could support him this one night. I would slip inside the theater, be a good girlfriend and hang out on the balcony. And then we would leave at the end of the night and life would go on.

Malachi and the guys would move on to the next city.

And I would move on with my new normal.

Easy.

2

Stepping inside the Uptown Theater, with the lights dimmed to a glimmering gold and the crimson carpet worn from years of foot traffic, sent a trill skittering down my spine.

When I walked away from Bright Tragedy, I walked away from all modern music. The last concert I played with them was the last concert I’d been to. I let myself have classical. I’d saved Bach and Beethoven and Sibelius for myself. The rest had been left behind in my self-imposed exile.

It felt strange to be back inside a venue after all this time. Strange. Nauseating. And thrilling all at once.

The opening band had already started. The sounds of heavy drums and guitar poured from the propped open doors that led to the concert hall proper. My heart pounded along to the kick drum, picking up the beat from the up-and-coming talent I’d heard over the speakers at Macy’s before I would throw myself into a performance.

Young. I knew it immediately. I could hear it in the excited way they played, in the adrenaline-soaked voice of the lead singer. I felt the naïve, innocent rhythm to the genuinely brilliant song they sung.

They’d stepped into a world they were unprepared for. Full of hope and optimism and dreams that could never be reality, they walked into the lion’s den willingly.

But I knew better than anyone, the lion chewed up hot, new things like them. Chewed them up, spit them out and left them to whatever was left of their careers, lame and broken.

Adam grabbed my hand as we walked down the long hallway, totally oblivious to the melancholy that had doused me like a sudden, out-of-nowhere tidal wave. I could see signs of a bar at the end of the corridor, lines of people with cash gripped in their sweaty palms, waiting to give their drink order. I hoped he planned to start the night there.

We turned to each other at the same time, his lips lifting in a smile when our gazes met. “Exciting, yeah?”

“Should we grab a drink before we go in?”

He didn’t notice my deflection. Instead, he nodded, the smile never dropping, and steered us toward the ID checkpoint.

Shit.

Maybe it was better to go sober tonight.

“IDs?” a woman with a graying pixie-cut and arms covered in tattoos asked gruffly.

Adam flashed his license while I searched the four corners of my clutch in an effort to find mine. “It’s in here somewhere,” I insisted. Clover Calloway was my real name. But not the name I’d toured with during my Bright Tragedy days. Like Malachi, who went by Kai. I was Clo Brannif—my mother’s maiden name. My parents had insisted I take a stage name so I could have privacy when I wanted. I hadn’t realized how brilliant their advice was until I’d needed it to rescue me.

They’d given the same advice to my brother. Cade Calloway became Cade Williams—a version of his middle name. But he hadn’t needed to worry about going back to normal yet. The band was still his life. The band would always be his life.

The band was his normal.

The woman behind the table sighed impatiently. Adam leaned over my shoulder, as if he’d be able to spot it since I couldn’t.

“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed pulling it out from between my bank and library cards. Holding it triumphantly in the air, I shook off the nerves that clung to my skin since Adam’s entertainment announcement and smiled at him. “Found it.”

“No fucking way.”

Momentary excitement instantly fizzled, dissipating into nothing but empty steam. I pictured a gust of icy wind blowing through my chest and dispersing the emotion as quickly as it had appeared. “Shit,” I whispered.

Adam’s brows furrowed when I took a step back, my feet readying to run.

“No fucking way!” the voice exclaimed louder. “Are you fucking serious? Is this for fucking real?”

So many F words. How did I nonchalantly explain away the F words?

“Clover fucking Calloway? Are you fucking serious?”

There wasn’t a way. Now she’d gone and said my real name and Adam would never believe this was a case of mistaken identity. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I turned away from him before the confusion on his face ripped a hole through my chest. “Talia…” I attempted a smile. And failed.

She didn’t notice. Before I could even get a full look at her, she pulled me into a tight hug. Momentarily stunned, because the Talia Ferrin I knew five years ago was more likely to punch you than hug you.

It took me a few seconds, but slowly my arms lifted to return the embrace. We had never exactly been friends, but as our stage manager, Talia and I had been through a lot together over the years. I trusted her with my life.

With Malachi’s life.

She was the reason I knew I could walk away. But standing here with her now, in the middle of this random Kansas City concert hall, I realized how unfair that was to her.

I’d dumped my problems on the people I knew would stay to pick up the mess. And I’d fled, not giving them a second thought.

Tears pricked my eyes at the prolonged hug. She was genuinely happy to see me. God, what an awful witch I’d been over the years.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she murmured in my ear, no doubt getting a mouthful of my hair. “And you look… so good, Clo.”

“So do you!” I pulled back so I could take in her jet-black hair with vibrant pink streaks, the creamy tone to her olive skin, her stunning almond shaped eyes accentuated with heavy black liner and her signature pink cat-eye glasses that she very much needed—girl was like Vilma from Scooby Doo without them.

She hadn’t changed a bit. Right down to the vintage floral wrap dress and black Mary Jane pumps.

“God, we’ve missed you,” she groaned. “Brennan didn’t tell me you were coming. That asshole. We could have grabbed dinner beforehand.”

Adam cleared his throat from behind me and suddenly, belatedly, I remembered the reason I was here to begin with. “Uh, Brennan doesn’t know I’m here.”

She nodded. “Smart.”

“This is Adam,” I announced, changing the subject quickly. Talia hadn’t mentioned the band at all, only Bright Tragedy’s manager. A wicked, cowardly part of me hoped I could still salvage the night. And my relationship with Adam. “My boyfriend.”

Talia’s expression changed from happy surprise to holy shit in the span of one second. She tried to cover it by narrowing her bugging eyes, but she’d never been good about not saying every single thing on her mind. “Your boyfriend? How cool.” She thrust out her hand to take Adam’s. “So nice to meet you. I’m Talia Ferrin.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Adam said suavely. “How do you two know each other?”

Relief spiraled through me. Adam had no idea who Talia was. “We go way back,” I answered quickly. “Like way-way back. We sort of, er, grew up together.”

Her brows drew together, and her neon pink lips pursed in a frown. “Is that what we did?”

I leveled her with a look. “That’s what I did. Grow up I mean. Didn’t you?”

Something like understanding lit her dark brown eyes and in true Talia fashion she blurted the first thing that popped into her head, “Oh my god, they don’t know you’re here. Nobody knows you’re here!”

“Who?” Adam asked at the same time I started shaking my head, trying to remain as discreet as possible.

“Bright Tragedy is Adam’s favorite band. He surprised me with the tickets.” I was wearing a black, strapless, ruffled, high-low dress and a leather, corded tassel belt. With my hair down and wild, I’d felt very boho chic prior to this conversation. Now I felt completely naked. Utterly exposed. It took everything in me not to slip my pointer finger underneath my suddenly-too-tight choker and stretch it out, so I had more room to breathe.

“Unbelievable,” Talia muttered, clearly disgusted with me.

Okay, this was more comfortable territory. I knew this Talia. I understood this Talia. “It was so good to run into you though,” I told her. And it had been. But now I just wanted to hide under a rock until the tour bus left the city. “We should let you get back to…it then.” I cleared my throat and gave her a pleading look.

A gigantic beast of a man stepped up behind her. He was the kind of big I imagined would dwarf The Rock. Most people were terrified of him immediately. But to me, he only represented safety. Home. Another lifetime in which he had been both for me. “Clo!” he said with his deep, rumbling voice. “I like the red.”

“Hey, Bish!” Full name: Bishop Mayes. Full-time job: Bodyguard Extraordinaire. I’d only ever called him Bish. I couldn’t remember if that was his idea or mine. “It’s really good to see you.” And this time I meant it. We’d been through a lot, him and I. And unlike Talia, he had consistently been on my side.

His eyes scanned the room, clocking everyone near us with that laser-like precision that made him especially dangerous. “Who’s here with you tonight?”

My sheepish smile might as well have been an announcement to the world that I no longer needed security. “My boyfriend,” I told him, nudging Adam forward. “This is Adam. Adam this is another old friend, Bish.”

Adam was officially uncomfortable with all my sudden attention. I felt the irritation at not understanding what was going on roll off him in waves. We’d hardly disagreed on anything since we started going out. And there had only been one real argument that required apologies in our short six-month relationship. My heart shriveled in my chest and all I wanted to do was disappear.

Why had I thought I could float through this night unnoticed? Why hadn’t I just said something back at his house? At least explained all the ugly possibilities of what could happen if I was spotted.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, but dang, this was a big mistake I’d made.

“She’s fucking alone,” Talia filled in when Bish awkwardly shook Adam’s hand, glaring at him like he was a hostile invader from another planet.

For as rough as the last couple years with Bright Tragedy had been, Bish was always Team Kai and Clo. I guess, if pushed to admit it, Talia was too.

“We’re just here to enjoy the show.” I tucked my arm into Adam’s crooked elbow. “From the back of the room.”

My two old friends blinked at me, as if I wasn’t even speaking English.

“That’s not a good idea, Miss Clover,” Bish finally said, the steely tone to his voice brokering no room for argument.

Talia whipped out her phone and started to text, her fingers furiously moving over the small keyboard. “This is a logistical nightmare, Clo,” Talia snarled. “You should have given us a fucking head’s up.”

Oh, no. Not this again. I was not getting sucked back into his world. I left. I made a clean break. The only reason I was here tonight was to support my sweet, kind, adorable new boyfriend, damn it. “It’s not,” I insisted quickly, my hold on Adam’s arm tightening. “We’re good. Everything will be fine. We’ll just hang out in the back and leave before the encore. No big deal.”

Bish turned his head, whistling low and menacing. Talia had a similar reaction, only her eyes were back to bugging out of her head. “He’ll kill us. You realize that right? We’ll both be dead.” She thought about it for a second and added, “And unemployed.”

“But—”

She threw a finger up in the air, cutting me off. “And I have not worked for ten fucking years of my life just to get fired now. After everything! Do you understand me?”

Ah, crap.

“I’ll take them to the box,” Bish offered. “Nobody’s up there. They should be safe.”

Talia gave him a look I didn’t quite understand. It was a mix between her classic, “Are you fucking kidding me?” and “Good idea.” She nodded her consent. Then turned back to me. “You’ll stick around after the show?”

My stomach dropped to my toes, tugging my lungs with it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She nodded again, as if she didn’t even hear me. “You’ll stick around after the show. Or my dismembered body is going to be all over the nightly news and you’ll never forgive yourself for it.”

“This way, Miss Clover,” Bish said, not bothering to suggest that Talia should calm down.

“I guess we’re going to the box,” I murmured to Adam when Bish had turned around and started moving through a packed crowd that easily parted for him.

“Clover, who are these people?” Adam asked, clearly unnerved by the last few minutes.

Moment of truth. There was no way to get around it now. I closed my eyes for the briefest second, wishing I had stood up to him back at the house. Wishing I’d just confessed all my ugly history with his favorite band the first night I met him. Wishing I had done about a million and a half things differently—including five years ago when I’d ran away from the hardest night of my life.

“They’re with the band, Adam. They’re with… Bright Tragedy.”

He tripped over his feet but managed to catch himself before he faceplanted into Bish’s barn door back. “Wh-what?”

“They’re friends of mine because… because I used to be in the band.”

His face paled at the utter shock of my words. I thought for a second he might want to argue with me, tell me that I was mistaken, but Bish moved beyond the section where the general public was allowed and toward the darkened area of backstage.

There was no arguing that Bish wasn’t who he claimed to be since everyone that worked here, nodded respectfully to him as he passed and eyed us suspiciously.

We caught a glimpse of the stage from between the curtains before Bish held open a private door that led to a staircase. I let go of Adam’s arm to climb up alone, trembling at the thought of what might be waiting for us at the top.

Who had Talia texted? Which ghost would I have to face next?

I let out a quivering sigh of relief when the private box turned out to be empty. Adam made a similar sound, but his was out of awe rather than fear.

We had a perfect view of the stage. Sure, we wouldn’t catch the excitement from the crush of the crowd, but from up here, we could see everything.

And a small, tiny, hopeful part of me realized we’d also be out of the view of the band. Even if they noticed our silhouettes up here, they wouldn’t be able to make out our faces.

Talia had done me a favor after all.

No, she didn’t, that still, small voice inside whispered. She did him a favor.

“It’s better up here,” Bish echoed my thoughts. “You’ll be safe.”

Unwanted tears pricked my eyes, hot and wet. I didn’t know why Bish’s words hurt so much, but they cut straight through me. Maybe they reminded me of the life I’d left behind. Or maybe of just the friendships I’d abandoned. Either way, this was infinitely harder than anything I’d imagined over the years. “Thanks, Bish.”

His small, barely-there smile eased some of my heartache. “I’ll be right outside.”

I felt Adam’s questions the second we were alone again. “Clover, what is going on?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I rushed to explain. “God, Adam, I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head, “I still don’t understand.”

The opening band shouted their thank yous and left the stage, suddenly erasing the need to shout at each other. Crew members jumped into action down below, removing the first band’s equipment and replacing it with familiar pieces minus the keyboard or piano.

Curiosity pricked at the back of my neck and I so badly wanted to watch them, see how they set things up these days, look for people I used to know. But I held Adam’s frustrated glare and told him my biggest secret. “I used to be in the band. In Bright Tragedy.” His head moved back and forth, disbelieving. Tugging a strand of hair straight and holding it next to my face, I whispered. “Clo Brannif. I played the keys.”

Recognition lit his eyes like fire. His focus moved over me, sweeping from head to toe, and then back again. He saw it now. He recognized me.

“You look… completely different.”

“It’s mostly the hair,” I told him. “It’s not purple. Or blue. Or… straight.” It was also that people didn’t generally expect to hang out with famous people. Normal people assumed the people they met and interacted with in their everyday lives were just like them.

“Clover, you could have told me.”

The betrayal in his voice gutted me. Accused me. Ripped me open all over again. That same warm wetness soaked my lashes and it took all I had in me not to weep. “I couldn’t,” I choked and sniffled back more tears. “It’s not something I can tell anyone.”

“Because you’re afraid of the press?” he asked, gentling his voice.

“Legally,” I answered. “Legally I can’t say why I left the band.”

The shock in his eyes was back. “Oh.”

“Miss Clover?” Bish asked from the doorway.

“Yeah?” I looked down at my body, noticing my crossed arms and back-to-the-door posture. How quickly I’d stepped into this entitled, big-deal role. Turning around fully, I purposed not to be the snobby superstar that treated other people like help. “What can I do for you?”

He moved more fully inside the box. “Talia sent these up.” He thrust two iced glasses toward me. “She said to let me know when you need refills and I’ll send word to the bar.”

“This is unnecessary,” I said quickly, not wanting to take the gin and tonics presented. It was my favorite live music drink of choice. Crisp, cool and refreshing, I could drink these bad boys all night. And Talia knew it. Which was why I needed to avoid them now.

There was nothing worse than a runaway ex-pop star except for maybe a drunk, runaway ex-pop star.

Bish handed them over with a wink, despite my protest. “Now don’t you worry about it. Let us take care of you tonight. It’s been too long.”

“Thank you, Bish.”

He hesitated in the doorway. “It’s nice to see you again, Miss Clover. Life on the road just hasn’t been the same without you.”

My chin wobbled, but I managed to smile without the waterworks. “Can I ask you something, Bish?”

“Anything.”

“Am I that recognizable? I thought with the hair nobody would even notice it was me…”

He winked again. “Doesn’t matter about the hair. Those of us who really know you can see those freckles a mile away.”

I just shook my head at him, embarrassed and soothed all at once.

When Bish had gone again, I handed Adam his drink and took a seat on one of the plush theater chairs. “Adam, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you. So many times. I just… I didn’t know how to admit this weird part of my past. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I believed it had happened some days. It was like this wild, crazy alternate life that I didn’t actually live. Like maybe it just happened to someone who looked like me. Maybe those memories weren’t real after all.” I gave him a helpless look, letting the pain of the last five years and beyond bleed out of me.

Questions swirled in his eyes, begging to be asked. But Adam was a good guy. Instead of blurting all the things he so badly wanted to know, he sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders, tugging me into his body. With a gentle kiss on the head, he said, “I get it. I mean… okay, I don’t really get it. But I understand the legal implications if you signed contracts and stuff. Besides, they’re my favorite band, right? I probably should have figured it out in the first place.”

I leaned into him, enjoying his warmth and familiarity and kindness. “I should have told you back at the house though. Maybe you would have let me skip it.”

His chuckle was warm, but quickly drowned out by the sound of musicians taking their places below us. “Are you kidding? It might have started weird, but this is going to be the best night ever!” He pulled back to flash the biggest grin. “I’m on a date with Clo fucking Brannif.”

Laughing at his forgiving tone, I ignored the slimy feeling slithering through my belly and decided to be thankful he was brushing this off so easily. Even still, I pulled away from him. I needed space. And quickly.

I took my drink to the edge of the balcony so I could breathe easier. Adam didn’t notice. He’d settled back into the good mood he was famous for.

But something bothered me about the light in his eyes, the easy way he forgave me. I chalked it up to being on guard after so much had happened in so little time. None of this was Adam’s fault. It was all mine.

Besides, Malachi Porter took the stage below me and my mind suddenly couldn’t process anything else.

There he was. My childhood best friend. My ex-boyfriend. The most beautiful boy I had ever known.

The man that broke my heart into a million unfixable pieces.