“Jonah.” I gripped his wrist. This could not happen when he wasn’t fully awake and when he hadn’t heard what I had to tell him.
He stiffened. Yep. He was awake now. His muscles twitched and he jerked his hand away. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
I let out a sigh and rolled back to my side of the bed,which happened to be a longer distance than I’d anticipated. I had been like a heatseeking missile, locking on to Jonah as soon as we were both asleep.
I rolled to my side and straightened my twisted sweatshirt. I’d almost wiggled my sweats down my ass. Thankfully, the covers hid the worst of it.
“Jesus, Summer. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not.”
He snapped his mouth shut. His brows crashed together. “What?”
“I’m not, but we need to talk first.”
“No, of course. I mean...” He worked his jaw like he was tasting words and none of them were the right flavor. “You’re getting out of a relationship.”
“Boyd is absurdly easy to get over. It’s not him.”
His expression turned neutral. The creases on his cheek from the pillow made him more approachable, along with the sleep haze clearing from his eyes. But I didn’t care for the way he seemed to be bracing himself for a personal insult.
“It’s not you either. It’s me. And Eli.”
Understanding lit his dark gaze. “You’ve never gotten over him.”
I could’ve howled in frustration. On top of being ashamed of myself, I was flubbing this conversation before I’d even started, and I was fifteen years too late already. “That’s what I need to talk to you about. I miss Eli. I really do. He was a good friend and a good person. But you’ve been blaming yourself for his death when it’s not your fault at all.”
He scowled and punched at his pillow to prop his head up more. “You can say that until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t make it true. He didn’t just drinkanyone’s alcohol. He didn’t T-bone some stranger. Both were me. I wasn’t there for him when he was clearly bothered by something. I was there at the worst possible time.” He held a hand up. “And don’t say that he might’ve killed or injured someone else. I know all the facts.”
“Not all of them.” My heartbeats turned sluggish, like I was pumping sludge instead of blood.Here I go. What I should’ve confirmed before he ran me out of the hospital room. “I broke up with him. That’s why he was drinking.”
Jonah
I couldn’t have possibly heard right. My dick was still hogging my blood supply and my brain was functioning on an insufficient supply. “Say again?”
“He was angry and hurt. He was mad at you and upset with me.”
The events of that day ran through my head. I’d seen Eli at breakfast when I’d stopped in to help with ranch chores. My parents had asked what I was up to. I’d said I was bumming around with Teller. He had a couple of old bourbon barrels they couldn’t sell and we were going to fuck around in his shop. That day was my introduction to repurposing barrels. Eli had been excited. Summer was home for the weekend and he’d had plans with her for the whole day.
She had broken up with him? He must’ve been devastated. A new, fresh guilt welled inside me. I’d known hewas hurting, and now I knew why. I hadn’t been there for him.
Was that why he’d been upset with me? And how would Summer have known? “Why would he have felt that way?”
The air grew thick between us. Pain filled her eyes, but the fear in them as well gutted me. She shouldn’t be scared to talk to me, but I was also to blame for that too.
“I . . .”
“Why, Summer?” I said, her name a whiplash. My patience was thinning. I’d gone from waking up in a state of bliss I’d never known to having a boulder poised over my head, ready to drop. “Why would he hate me over your breakup?”
“I . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut.
The anxiety inside me built like thunderstorm clouds. She’d known Eli the best. She’d come to my hospital room for a reason and put her hand so comfortingly on mine. Fifteen goddamn years ago. “Tell me. What did I do that made my brother hate me enough to drink my liquor and speed down the mountain? Why didn’t you tell anyone? Do my parents know?”
Her eyes were still closed tight. “No,” she whispered. “I couldn’t do that to them.”
I relaxed only slightly. I respected her for sparing them more heartache. Losing Eli had changed them. Irrevocably.
Her swallow was loud. “I broke up with him. I was at college and he took a year off and I thought we’d grown apart, and he thought...” This was the part I was going to hate. I sensed it. Summer always said what was on her mind, but she’d kept this to herself for a decade and a half. “He suspected I had a thing for you.”
