Warmth spreads through my veins. I have the best brother in the world.
Ines opensthe door right away, like she’s been waiting for me. Her eyes are red, but she smiles faintly as she steps aside to let me in.
“Hey.” I wrap her in a hug.
She hugs me back, sniffling into my chest. “I feel terrible for asking you to come, but…I couldn’t stop replaying the album.”
“That’s okay.” I take a step back. “Where’s Santi?”
“His nanny took him to the playground. I told him you’d meet him there later.”
I give her an encouraging smile. “I’m always down to play with your little man.”
Her body relaxes, her shoulders rounding. “Want a cup of coffee or some tea?”
“Just water is fine.”
While she fills a glass, I amble to the living room and sit on the couch.
“Thank you so much for letting me listen to the album.” Ines sits beside me and wrings her hands. “It’s like he’s here again.”
My heart twists painfully. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
There’s not a trace of awkwardness, no underlying tension between us after the almost-kiss. It’s just us—Owen’s best friend and Owen’s wife. Six months after his death, we’re back to who we’ve always been to each other.
We talk about him—about the terrible jokes he used to make at rehearsals, about how he’d refuse to pose for pictures when he wantedto tease Ines, the way he’d drive Bo, Jimmy, and me crazy. We talk about how he’d hum lullabies after Santi was born. We’re so lost in our memories that for a second, it almost feels like he’ll walk through the door and sit on the couch with us, his curls falling into his eyes. He’d hug Ines close and call hermi reina. Then, he’d tell me not to fuck up the highest notes in “Ultimatum.”
I had my doubts about this album. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to go back to the studio, to play and sing again. But looking at Ines now, at how happy she is, despite her tears? It was the right decision.
“Enough about me,” she says, clapping once. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” I shrug.
“Still planning to come to Santi’s birthday party on Saturday?”
I nod, fixing my focus on the wall where she hangs Santi’s drawings. They’re all a creative mess at best. One is of a little orange dog sitting on a blob that might be a couch, but I’m not sure. It looks like the dog Riley and I saw at the café. The Pomeranian.
An image of Riley pops into my head, and before I have time to think about what I’m saying, the words are already out: “I want you to meet someone.”
Ines arches an eyebrow. “Someone?”
I dip my chin, my heart suddenly racing. “Someone special.”
She tilts her head, her curly black hair falling over her shoulder, and a mischievous glint flashes in her eyes. “Could thisspecial personbe the woman the gossip sites are saying you knocked up?”
I huff out a laugh. “Yeah, and it’s not gossip.”
“Wow.” She pats my hand. “Then congratulations. That’s amazing news.”
I try to smile, but from the way her brows pull together, it probably looks more like a grimace.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Sure, it was probably a huge surprise, but…why the long face?”
I rub the back of my neck, my heart thrashing against my rib cage. “Because I’m terrified. The fear of hurting this girl is getting the best of me. I’m afraid I only want her because I’m grieving. Because I’mlonely. Because I don’t know how to fill the hole in my chest that opened when Owen died.”
Ines examines me for a moment. Then, she shakes her head. “No. If your feelings were tied to grief or loneliness, you would’ve clung to me the way I tried to cling to you. But you didn’t. You kept your distance.”
“But—”
