Her expression turned stubborn. “Avoiding the subject won’t help.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.”
She pushed her food away and crossed her arms. “How close did you get?”
“I told you. We’re friends.”
“I didn’t believe you then. So you were messing around and caught feelings.”
She read me too easily—or thought she did. But she was happily married and settled in life. I was embarking on a new adventure. She didn’t understand. She took care of herself before she got with Jensen. I was the one with something to prove.
“We lived together.” Why was I insisting on downplaying everything? Talking about it might make me process everything, help me move on from reliving so much of the months we lived together. “Okay, yes. I really like him. He’s who I should’ve been with from the beginning, but it’s too late. Now I have a life to build, and so does he. I’m not holding him back.”
“Is that what you think you’d be doing?”
“You don’t know his history, but he’s lost everything before. Because of a woman. Because of his brother.”
She dropped her fork and leaned toward me. “So now you’re both just going to be lonely because of that douche?”
“Yes! Wait—no? That’s not what it is.” How wasn’t it? The reason seemed important. “I’m trying not to be dependent on a guy, yet the guy I wouldn’t mind leaning on can leave at any moment, and he probably will. He should. He deserves it.”
Her back thumped against the chair. “I can’t believe I didn’t know you were going through all this.”
“You have your own life.”
“But you didn’t talk to me.”
“Van had to message you last time.” I didn’t mean to say it so bitterly, but there it was. I pressed my fingertips to my temples. “Sorry. We’re both adults with our own lives. I clamped myself to Elijah, and it was the worst decision of my life.” But it was also the best. I was in the town I grew up in with the rest of my family. I had a good job. I was going to be a mom. So many changes. “At the very least, it was life changing.”
“Are you afraid he’s going to be like Elijah?” Sympathy shimmered in her eyes.
There was no way Van would ever be like his brother. “I’m telling you that he’ll be so successful that he’ll run his work online, move to the Bahamas, and never look back.”
“Is that what he said?”
No. He was staying in Coal Haven. But for how long? “You’re missing the point. He can do anything now. He was stuck living at home with his awful parents after his ex slept with Elijah and blew up the first company.”
“Elijah fucked his brother’s girlfriend?”
I nodded. My righteous rage was satisfied at how scandalized my sister sounded. “Van’s a catch. Any girl he lands would be so damn lucky.”
“But you caught him.”
“No, I didn’t,” I mumbled, miserable. We talked about him finding his soulmate. “I’m not going to manipulate him like everyone else has in his life. He’s important to me, and that’s why I’m not going to tie him down.”
She crossed her arms, her food forgotten. “What if he’s lying down and holding the ropes?”
I scoffed and pushed mashed potatoes around. “He’s not.”
“He’s living in Coal Haven, and Jasper’s moving in with him,” she said pointedly.
“It’s his launchpad.”
She shook her head. “You’re just afraid.”
Terrified, but that wasn’t the real issue. “Poppy, if he fell head over heels in love, don’t you think he would’ve said so? He hasn’t. He’s been a good friend. He’s a red-blooded male who wanted sex. Then he moved into his own place. I’m not throwing myself at a guy just to bounce off him. I’m not putting myself in that position again. I’m making my own home, saving my own money, and raising this kid with only my name on the birth certificate.”
“Oh, Clover. I would hate for you to miss out on something really special because of what Elijah did.”
