“Shit,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “They’re having another baby. It’s not . . . bad. It just . . . ”
“Sucks.”
I shrugged. “A little. For me. In a supremely selfish way.”
Lucas frowned. “You can be happy for your friend while admitting that this kinda isn’t what you wanted. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
My teeth sank into the inside of my cheek. “Okay. Well, I don’t want Craig to back out of Lucky Black Cat, and I was sulking about it last night?—”
He held up a single finger. “You were feeling your emotions.”
I scowled. “Well, now you sound like Mom.”
He didn’t take the bait but swirled his hand in the air for me to continue.
“So I told him. Landon. About... all of it. Messing around in the garage when we were kids, how we thought we were going somewhere, and at first, it really seemed like we were. Then how?—”
I grimaced again, and I didn’t even know why—if it was talking about Henry to Landon or just facing the whole thing over again and wanting to shrink away from it. I hadn’t talked this much about Henry in?—
Well, since the memorial.
“How it all fell apart when Henry got sick?” Lucas asked gently.
I shrugged, wrapping both hands around my beer and those last cold gulps that promised to get me through this.
Lucas leaned in over the table, bending down to catch my eye. “You know I think you’re great, right?”
I huffed and nodded. “You have to. You’ve, like, spent your whole life idolizing me or whatever it is little brothers do.”
He scoffed. “Have not. Not ever. I’ve always been more hip than you.”
I couldn’t help my incredulous stare, even as he turned his chin up and grinned at me.
“But really,” he said, leaning in again, “I think you are so fucking talented, and your music is worthwhile, and Lucky Black Cat is amazing. And even if it’s not the same as it was yesterday, or it goes away entirely, you’re still incredible and your dreams are still worth chasing.”
I puffed out my cheeks and let the air out slowly. “Well, I hope so. I’vebasicallyrendered myself unemployable by mainstream society.”
Lucas rolled his eyes as he dropped back in his seat. “Bullshit. I could get you a job at Crescent tomorrow, and you know it. I even think you’d get on with Seth. You two can do the whole big, broody predator thing. Be all protective and whatever.ButI’m not letting you do that. I’m gonna give you about a week to pout?—”
“That’s nowhere near enough time.”
“For someone as edgy as you? Probably not. But, like, throw all those feelings into a new song or something. You’ll pull out of this. Figure it out.”
“And it . . . wasn’t too much for Landon?”
Lucas snorted. “He seemedfine. One check, please.”
This last, he threw over my shoulder as the waiter approached. I scowled at him. I hated when he insisted on paying, and he knew it. It made me feel small, pitiful, even.
I was the older brother. I was supposed to take care of this kind of thing.
Still, he snatched the pleather folder before I could grab it, and stared me dead in the eye as he put his card inside.
“Dean, you’re not actually too much for anyone. You get to be hurt and flawed and have your big feelings, andnoneof that makes you a burden. What will is if you don’t figure out how to accept kindness when it’s offered to you. Anybody you date, Landon included, is going to want to take care of you sometimes. Everybody who loves you does, every bit as much as you want to take care of us. So stop trying to be the big man all the time and feeling bad when you’re honest, okay? You went through some shit with Henry, and he needed you to hold it all together for a while, but you don’t have to do that anymore. You definitely don’t have to do it alone. I’mgladyou talked to Landon—I like that you feel like you can be that honest with him—and if you’re really worried, you should ask him how he feels about it. I bet he’s glad too.”
Damn it, he really did sound like Mom. When did my little brother become the reasonable one?
