I glance down at my drink, watching the ice melt in slow, uneven shifts, trying to understand why the first thought I had when he admitted his crush was…I get it.Something tightens in my chest, nothing I can name. Not jealousy. Not attraction. Just this persistent awareness I didn’t ask for, clinging like static.
“Probably have a couple of days to make that happen,” I say after a beat. “Given that concussion, she won’t be traveling anytime soon.”
“I wonder if she’s still friends with Gabby Gifford,” Bennett says, like he’s plucking a new thread from memory. “The three of them used to be inseparable. You remember Gabby, right?”
I nod slowly. “Gabby was dating Grayson back in high school.”
That’s the thing about small towns. Everyone knows everyone, or at least knows someone who knows someone. Anywhere else, it’d be wild luck that the woman I treated yesterday was friends with one brother and her best friend used to date the other. But here? The real surprise is that she and I had never crossed paths.
“Gabby was going tomarryGrayson.” Bennett sits back, lifting his beer to his lips, then lowers it enough to hit me with a bitter smile. “Until you talked him out of it.”
He tips the bottle in my direction before taking a swig. Bennett’s a romantic and I’m a realist. He’s never had his heart broken. Mine’s been stepped on and shattered. He’s never understood my perspective on this. Hopefully he never will.
“I gave Grayson advice.” I fold my arms on the table and stare at the chipped wood. “What he did with it was his choice.”
“You told him to chase his music instead of settling down.”
“I told him not to make permanent decisions at nineteen.”
“Right after you and Jadelyn divorced.” Bennett mirrors my posture. “After you’d sacrificedyour plans for your high school sweetheart and were maybe—rightfully—a little jaded.”
I tense. He doesn’t mean it as a jab.
But it lands like one.
I gave up my dream for Jadelyn and built the life she said she wanted instead. I'd planned to follow in Dad's footsteps. Honor him by joining the Navy and get my medical degree that way. Instead, I built a life neither of us was happy in at her request. When she left, she didn’t just take the marriage, she took the meaning out of what I built.
Letting Grayson end up like me would have been like watching my life fall to pieces all over again. Instead, I get to watch him take the world by storm.
“I stand by the advice I gave Gray,” I say, and mean it.
“I can see why you’d say that. You’ve been so… different… since everything with Jadelyn. And I know it had to hurt like hell, but I hate seeing you like this.”
“Like what?” I sit back, dragging my arms off the table and cocking my head at my brother.
Bennett flares his hands. “You’re… I don’t know… frozen. You used to go out. Have fun. You played the guitar…”
“I go out.”
“You show up for drinks with me here at The Lantern when our schedules align and family dinners with Mom. That doesn’t count. It’s no wonder you’re not happy.”
My jaw tenses. My brows furrow.
“Who said I’m not happy?”
“Show me one thing that says you are.”
“I have a good job that I don’t suck at. I…” I hold out my hands, searching for the end of the sentence. “I’m fine, Bennett.”
“If you say so.”
Silence wraps uncomfortably around the booth… until the jukebox kicks on, oozing a velvet-slick ballad sung by our younger brother.
“Wow,” I mutter. “He’s on the rotation here now?”
“If we’re talking egos, his has a better tour schedule than his band.” Bennett groans, though gratitude flickers through his eyes. We’d stumbled into difficult territory. Ragging on Gray offers a chance to retreat to safer ground.
I drape an arm over the back of the booth, the picture of unbothered, despite years of dissatisfaction boiling in my heart. “I should start charging that kid royalties for the brain space he takes up.”
