"Is he drunk?" I ask, just as Jasper lifts a wobbly hand and points at me dramatically.
"Sister," he slurs, voice too loud for the quiet kitchen. "You’ve returned. Tell me, how was your long journey home?"
"We went to a baby shower for my sister," Wren quietly explains as Jasper trips over his own feet and crashes onto the couch. "He drank. A lot."
He buries his face in the throw pillows and lets out something between a groan and a laugh. My heart sinks a little more.
I never should have left.
"I have to…" Wren gestures toward the door, clearly reluctant to leave but equally helpless.
"We’ve got this," Brooks tells her, stepping in like he always does. "I’ll have him call you tomorrow."
Wren gives me a tight, sympathetic smile. "Good to see you, Elowen."
"You too," I murmur, watching her leave.
Then I turn to look at my brother, half-asleep and half-broken on the couch. And suddenly, all the weight I’ve been carrying settles even deeper.
This house doesn’t just need groceries.
It needs a whole new foundation.
After Jasper is cleaned up, put in bed, and monitored for what feels like forever, I slip out onto the porch and sink onto one of the old wooden steps. The air smells like damp soil and honeysuckle. Fireflies pulse gently across the yard like tiny lanterns, their light soft against the shroud of trees.
I feel him before I hear him. Brooks drops down beside me with a quiet grunt and hands me a beer.
Our fingers brush—just barely—but it’s enough to wake every nerve in my hand.
"What are we going to do about Jasper?" I ask, wrapping my hands around the bottle like it might tether me to something real.
Brooks takes a slow sip. "He’s hurting," he says. "So we support him. We let him know he’s not alone."
"And make sure he never goes to another one of Wren’s family events again," I murmur with a smirk.
Brooks chuckles, low and warm. The sound tugs something loose in my chest.
"I missed you," I whisper, the words small but weighty. I don’t sayI’m still yours. I don’t sayplease don’t give up on me. But the wanting sits there between us, alive and breathing.
He glances sideways, beer halfway to his lips. "I missed you, too."
Silence falls again, but this time it throbs with something unsaid.
He takes another sip, then gently reaches for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. The contact is effortless. Familiar.
We sit like that, two people orbiting the same grief, staring up at a sky too vast to hold all the things we’ve lost.
I want to ask if he’s still waiting for me. If I even have the right to wonder.
But I don’t. Not yet.
So, I hold his hand a little tighter.
And let the fireflies light the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Roots and Wings
