He was lining up the hinges for the next door when footsteps sounded in the front hall.
His breath hitched. Maybe she came back.
Anders strolled around the corner and Brock’s hopes fell.
“Hey.” Anders removed his heavy coat and draped it across a makeshift table made of plywood. He grabbed a screwdriver and a cabinet door. “Your dad said you might be here.”
Brock grunted and didn’t look up.
Anders lined up the next set of hinges. “I take it the two of you are okay now?”
“Something like that,” he muttered.
It was wrong of him to take out his frustrations on Anders. He was only trying to help, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his agitation under control. He and his father were more than okay. They were doing really well, surprisingly enough, but Brock didn’t feel like talking. He didn’t want to discuss his feelings. He didn’t want to explain to his best friend why he was in a foul mood. He didn’t want to admit to making a huge mistake.
“I see,” Anders fired back with his own sarcasm. “And how did the meeting go?”
Fresh annoyance fired through Brock. He dropped the hammer and stood up. “What meeting?”
Anders stood, stretched out his bad knee, and dusted off his jeans. “Oh, you know, the one with Juliette and her ex-boyfriend? The one meeting this entire project has been riding on from the beginning?”
“It…” Brock pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck.”
Not only had he missed the meeting, but he’d been so intent on finding Juliette and asking her about the picture someone sent him, he failed to bring up the meeting with Rodrigo and Charity. Actually, Juliette had tried to bring it up. She’d even been ready to discuss it. But he’d brushed her off completely. Granted, he’d been slightly sidetracked with Yaya’s bonfire celebration, and then he’d received those stupid text messages with pictures of her, but it was no excuse to be a crappy coworker. Or boyfriend. Or…whatever he was, which was probably nothing now.
He pulled his phone from his back pocket. The battery was at less than five percent, but a message from her was glaring at him. The time was two hours ago, which meant she must’ve sent it right after the meeting, right before he arrived to toss accusations at her.
She was so excited, and he’d blown it. There was no way to recover. She would hate him after today. She’d never come back.
“I screwed up, man.”
“Yeah, you did. Lucky for you, I know the meeting went well.” Anders flipped his pencil between his fingers, then tucked it back behind his ear. “They booked for next spring, and the bride-to-be plans to tell all of her friends about Coastal Vows.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
Anders nodded. “Yeah. Juliette thought of it.”
Of course she would think of something like Coastal Vows. It was perfect. Just like her.
Brock dipped his head. “Sorry for being a dick.”
“I’m not the one who needs an apology.” Anders didn’t look impressed. He shifted his weight and leveled Brock with a knowing stare. “So, you want to tell me why you’re being a total moron, or no?”
Brock roughed a hand over his face. He didn’t particularly want to rehash that story all over again but he did. He told Anders all of it. He explained how Gigi had convinced him to cut all ties with Juliette, to walk away from her and never come back. He showed Anders the photographs sent to him via a random text message. Though the source was anonymous, he was fairly certain Evelyn had sent them, probably out of jealousy and anger. Then he explained how he’d come clean with Juliette, how he’d told her everything—after he’d accused her, of course—and how he ruined everything.
Anders’s lips pressed into a firm line, and he nodded in understanding. He took all of it in before asking one question. “And you’re sure she’s gone?”
“She has to be. She told me she was leaving.” Brock didn’t think Juliette would bluff about something like that, he just hoped she didn’t intend to act on it right away. Hopefully he still had time to fix things, to convince her to change her mind.
Anders’s brow arched like he didn’t believe him. “Did she say where?”
“She may have mentioned California.”
“California?” Anders asked, bewildered. “What’s out there?”
“You mean, who. And it’s her oldest sister, Gabrielle.”
Anders ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “How many Laurent sisters are there again?”
