Nothing but understanding filled Summer’s face. She folded her hands on her lap. “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about. I don’t think it’s your age, necessarily.”
Wynter nodded. “Or even your dad.”
I snorted. “You were not there. It was definitely my dad.”
Wynter tapped her chin. “Yes. But not in the way you think.” She dug in her bag and withdrew the book Tenor had left me. TheSense and Sensibilitydust jacket was on it.
Emotion filled my chest. Embarrassment? Sadness? Irritation? “Why do you have that?”
“I found it in the garbage,” she said.
My heart sank. Right down to my toes. He’d thrown the book away? Because he’d seen what I had marked? What else had I been expecting?
Certainly not for him to dump the book, and then for his sister to find it.
“Getting teased so badly as a kid had an effect on him,” Summer said, retrieving me from my ruminations. “We can’t deny that. But part of why we think Bobby—your dad—was so hard on Tenor was because Tenor didn’t change a damn thing. Tenor kept doing Tenor and that pissed your dad off.”
Dad had thankfully dealt with whatever had caused that particular personality trait in him, but I didn’t understand where they were going with this.
“But after Tenor’s looks changed and girls started to notice him, he was different.” Sadness laced Wynter’s voice. “He tried to be the guy they wanted. Who they expected him to be.”
“Very not Tenor,” Summer said. “He’d take them on the dates they expected, he’d talk about football—which he gives zero fucks about—or bands?—”
“If the singer isn’t Junie, he doesn’t care,” Wynter interjected.
Summer nodded. “One time, I heard him mention a spreadsheet hack around a date and she scoffed, asking who the hell likes spreadsheets. He’s never mentioned his love of Excel since.”
“Anyone close to Tenor knows he loves Excel,” Wynter said solemnly.
“And inventory systems,” I said.
Summer gave me a heavy smile. “Yes. Then came Katrina.”
“The fallout was bad.” Wynter’s fraught expression told me I’d hate what came next. “He hid all the best parts of himself, and their relationship was so superficial she never realized he lived at home.”
I scrunched my face up. “How did she miss that?”
“She had a place in town and was always asking him to drag her to a bigger city or fly to one for concerts andtheater.” Summer said the last word with a pretentious tone. “She hated that he had standing nights each week when he couldn’t do things with her. Our best guess is that she thought he was cheating on her.”
Tenor would never.
Summer nodded like she’d heard my thoughts. “So when she found out that big ranch of his wasn’t his alone and that he livedwith his parents, she was pissed. On top of that, she learned he was leaving town for game nights with a bunch of dudes? She lost it.”
“She waged a one-woman smear campaign on him,” Wynter said. “After a few days, Teller found Tenor on his land, burning his Warhammer books. Apparently, he’d been in town and some guys had given him a hard time about what they’d heard. They thought it was funny. Everyone knew Katrina was superficial and just shy of batshit crazy, but she was gorgeous, so she got away with it, and suddenly Tenor was that middle school kid getting bullied all over again.”
“That’s awful.” Though not a surprise. I’d pieced as much together.
Summer hooked her hands around her knees. “We aren’t telling you that so you feel sorry for him. Or so you forgive how he’s letting his past affect the very good thing you two had. We just wanted you to understand that it’s not you, it’s him.”
Wynter nodded. “While we love our brother, he can overprotect himself.”
“He built his house with the thought he wouldn’t have a family,” I said, empty. The signs had been there.
Summer sighed. “Yeah, we all figured. We’re not here to lobby on his behalf. It’s just that we understand the hurt you’re feeling. The loves of our lives each did stupid stuff to protect themselves. They broke up with us to protect themselves.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. These ladies were everything I thought I would have to be to keep a guy. Smart, beautiful, and charismatic. They were the nicer versions of Cara that I assumed men like Brock wanted.
In my mind, I’d gotten dumped for the same reason I’d always been dumped. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t worth the effort or the risk. So I’d walked. I’d walled myself off.
