“She claimed I was stringing her along. I destroyed her trust in me.”
“Seriously, Tenor,” Junie said, her tone chiding. “It’s not too late. Rhys ghosted meon purpose. Then he planned to just let me go.Again. And now I’m June Bee Kerrigan Kinkade.”
Wynter snorted. “Talk about ghosting. Myles ditched me a few times. Then I ditched him. He had to earn his way back.”
“Jonah wasn’t going to try.” Summer gave me a pointed look. “He thought he knew better for me.”
“Gideon left me,” Autumn added. “Though he never sent the divorce papers, so there was that.”
“I don’t have a breakup story,” Tate said, “but you guys had to buy me for Scarlett and I’d had plenty of opportunity to ask her out.”
Teller leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “You’re going to have to work for it. Contrary to what you might think, you haven’t had to do that before.”
He had no idea what he was talking about. “I’ve been dumped by every girl I dated.”
“They came to you,” Tate said, “and when they left, you let them go without a fight. You never had to work that hard.” I opened my mouth and he snapped his fingers. I pressed my lips together. “Thosewere the pretend relationships. Those were not the real Tenor trying to woo a girl.”
“The real Tenor wooed Ruby,” Junie said. “Just like the real Tenor had better make sure she doesn’t leave Copper Summit over this. If I have to find another social media manager, I’m going to burn your house down with those paints you use.”
The rest of my sisters nodded along.
They came to you.
Ruby had practically cornered me. And when our term was up, she’d walked. I’d gone after her. Then I’d gotten complacent. One road bump, albeit a fucking significant one, and I’d bailed. She’d been willing to talk it out. She hadn’t stormed off, embarrassed that I was the kid her dad had teased for years. Before that, she hadn’t left even after I had alluded to everything my exes had found wrong with me.
From the way Ruby acted, my work ethic, my love for my family, and my tame, useless hobbies were positive qualities. She liked memorebecause of them. She was the best damn thing to ever have happened to me and I’d tossed her away like a blown tennis ball.
“The next move is yours,” Teller said lightly, but his gaze was level on me. “You gonna win your girl back?”
Ruby
I poked at my cold pasta. To be fair, only the marinara was cold. The pasta was lukewarm. My mom crunched on her lettuce salad next to me. She kept peeking at me out of the corner of her eye.
I put my fork down with a sigh. “You can say it.”
When she swallowed, she reclined in her chair. “Your dad is worried about you.”
“About me or about how I feel over the way he treated Tenor as a kid?”
“Mostly you, but I think he’s seeing more of the lasting repercussions his behavior had. He’s never been proud of how he acted when he was younger.”
At least she didn’t try to downplay what a wrench Dad and Tenor’s shared past had thrown into everything. As for Dad, I wasn’t answering his calls. I hadn’t expected him to care, but he’d been trying to call once a day. When I didn’t answer, he’d send a text telling me he wanted to talk.
I wasn’t interested in hearing what he thought about Tenor, and I was even less interested in listening to him justify himself. Dad likely wasn’t going to wax poetic about how he was a changed man.
“Tell him I’m fine.” I picked up my plate and took it to the sink.
Boxes lined the floor by the dishwasher. More were stacked in the hallway and the bedrooms. This weekend, I’d help Mom haul them to storage. Next week, she’d close on the house. Then it’d be just me in Bozeman. Me and my job. Dad would still be in Helena, but I wasn’t sure when I’d want to talk to him again.
“He’d rather hear that from you.”
“Yep.”
“I’m not defending him, honey. But he’s your dad, and you’re one of the few people who has gotten him to be honest with himself.”
“You mean when he declared he couldn’t be a dad full-time?” My irritation reached a breaking point. “How in the world did you fall for him anyway?”
I was lashing out, but I couldn’t stop. The release valve on my emotions would burst, and I couldn’t wait until tonight when I cried myself to sleep.
