He could feel Monica beside him, looking at him in that knowing way of hers. Could hear the laughter that would be in her voice as she said something like,your brothers don’t care about me, silly. Tell them about the garage you once dreamed of owning.
“Remember when I came back for a visit in my first restored muscle car? I made some friends along the way on that trip.” He fiddled with a sugar packet as he went back almost ten years now, to when he was twenty-five. He’d thought he was king of the world. Working steadily, saving money. Building cars.
Nothing was out of the realm of possibility for Young Josh Kincaid.
“I started to think, I wanted to own my own place. Not like my garage here. Something bigger. With a warehouse, and…” He trailed off. Started again. Trailed off again.
In between their coffee arriving and ordering their food, he tried to tell his brothers about the vision he’d had for his business. But it felt so out of reach now, he couldn’t even put it properly into words.
So he shifted gears. “I met Monica when she returned to California after being gone for nine years for school. She needed someone to teach her about racing, and I…it took a single night, and I was a goner.”
Owen frowned. “You didn’t tell us about her at the time.”
“I was sure it was going to be a secret affair I took to my grave. There was no way we could work out in the long run. And then we got married in Vegas and went to Bali for a honeymoon, and we didn’t tell anyone. Not her friends, not her family. So I didn’t tell you, either, because it didn’t seem fair until we were both ready to tell the world. But we never got to that point.”
“What happened?” Will leaned in.
And Josh’s brothers meant well, he knew they did, but he couldn’t tell them the rest of the story. Not when everything he thought he knew about what happened next was now a big, open question, based on what Monica shared last night.
“She was put in an impossible situation,” he managed. “And I couldn’t stick around once I knew it was over. So I came home.”
Will nodded. But he still prompted for more. “And then she shows up after three years.”
Josh nodded. “Yep.”
“And…”
“And nothing? It’s still an impossible situation. She came to see me so we could have some conversations in person, because she cares about me, in the same way I’ll always care about her. But there’s too much water under the bridge.”
Their food arrived immediately after that, buying him some time and space.
But not much enough time for his brothers to let it go. After they dug in, and the frenetic sound of forks against plates slowed down, Seth tried again. “Can I offer you some unsolicited advice?”
Josh grimaced. “No.”
Seth was unfazed. “Well, I’m going to anyway. That’s what makes it unsolicited.”
“Please don’t draw a comparison to you and January. It’s not the—”
“I regret that it took me twenty years to be her friend again.”
Josh’s protest—that he couldn’t get Monica back, no matter how much he wanted to—died on his tongue.
As Monica would say,oh.
Seth shrugged. “I have more to say, but—”
“No, that’s enough.” Josh nodded. “I get it. That’s good advice.”
“You seem fond of her.”
That barely scraped the surface of how he felt, but he nodded.
“Don’t let stubbornness stand in the way of showing her that.”
24
By the timeJosh got back to the garage, he was feeling deeply restless. He didn’t bother to text. They’d had Monica long enough. He stalked over to the marina, ready to drag her home.
