I nod.
“Do you love her?”
I grab the bill of my hat, tilting it down a bit. “You know me.”
“I thought I did.” He crosses his arms.
“What’s going on?”
He swivels toward me, anger in his eyes. “You tell me, Jaxon.”
I scoff. “Dude, you know that’s not my full name.”
“Well, calling you Jax didn’t pack enough punch.”
“Did you slip something in your coffee this morning without me noticing?”
He frowns, pinning me with a stony-eyed gaze that makes my stomach drop.He knows.
“What are you doing with my little sister?”
“Nothing!” I blurt instinctively.
Clearly that was the wrong answer because his facialexpression darkens. “You call that nothing? I heard you two last night. I can tell you right now that’s not nothing to her.” He pokes me in the chest. “If you think I’m going to stand by and be okay with you messing around with her just because you’re my best friend, then you and I don’t know each other as well as I thought we did.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I hold out my arms defensively. “I—we—I don’t know. I wanted to tell you, but our relationship is a little complicated. She’s been through a lot, so she was scared to tell people about us and have the chance for it to be ruined, but it’s always meant something to me.”
“So, you’re not just screwing around with her?” He drops his hand.
“No. I love her. So much. I want to tell her, but I’m terrified she doesn’t feel the same way.”
“What do you mean?” His brows knit together. “I heard everything you two said to each other last night. She’s clearly in love with you.”
“You heard us?”
“You forget the cabin was built in the twenties. It has incredibly thin walls and next to no insulation.”
I glance out into the field in front of us, processing everything. Finally, I turn back to him in disbelief. “You’re the worst.”
He chuckles. “If you didn’t want to be heard, then you shouldn’t have come here.”
We sit in silence for a while, me watching the grass blow in the wind, and him keeping his gaze on me in a way that makes my skin crawl.
I know he can tell I’m ignoring him, but that doesn’t stop him from asking, “So where do you two go from here?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I don’t want to screw things up.”
“That’ll only happen if you don’t tell her how you feel.”
“But she’s been through so much. She’s still learning to trust herself again and to trust someone else with her heart. I don’t want to scare her off.”
“Dude, she probably didn’t think she was going to date again for a long time after Austin, but here you two are.” He lifts his hand to gesture in my direction. “I know she still needs to work on not overloading herself, but she’s clearly very happy. I think that happiness has a lot to do with you, so don’t mess this up by waiting forever to tell her how you feel. She deserves to know she’s loved after everything she’s been through, don’t you think?”
“Of course.”
“My sister loves you, and you love her. Let it be that simple.”
A deer creeps onto the field, but neither of us moves. The topic at hand is more important than the deer, and Charlie’s words hit hard. I’ve been holding back with Lauren for all the wrong reasons. She deserves to know I love her. I’ve already waited nine years to tell her.
