Tag jumped to his feet, his dark hair disheveled. “Sam. What are you doing home?”
Sam stepped closer, jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
Tears sparkled in Amanda’s eyes. “This isn’t—I’m so sorry.” She put herself in front of Tag.
Because, yes, Sam wanted to pummel him right now. His hands clenched into fists. His breaths felt stuffed into his lungs. His brain worked to assimilate the facts.
Amanda and hiscousin.
Making out.
Right under his own roof.
The past few weeks flashed in his mind, times when Amanda was unavailable and Tag was MIA.
“How long?” he grated out.
“Not long,” Amanda said. “We tried not to—but we just couldn’t help it. I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you.”
“Oh yeah? When? When were you going to tell me?”
Tag put his hands up, palms out. “Hey, come on, buddy. We didn’t mean for this to happen.”
And that’s when Sam’s fist flew. Right into Tag’s perfectly sculpted nose.
Now Sam stabbed the shovel into the pea gravel with more force than necessary. The memory wafted away like an ill wind. So, yeah, his cousin and his girlfriend had cheated on him right under his nose. And sure, maybe Sam could’ve handled the whole thing better. But the way he saw it, his cousin had gotten off easy with only a busted nose.
Tag and Amanda had since offered many apologies. Tag immediately offered to find another apartment, but Sam moved out instead. He had no desire to live with the ghost of thatmemory. In retrospect he could see Amanda had put some distance between them those last few weeks. He’d just been too busy, too naive, to realize it was anything more than busy schedules.
Tag had done everything he could to salvage his relationship with Sam. He admitted to grossly mishandling the situation. Tried to stay out of Sam’s way for a while, even at work. He’d even, in a staggering moment of remorse and selflessness, offered to give Amanda up. Sam had been tempted to accept.
But in the long run she would choose who she wanted to be with, and it clearly wasn’t Sam. And he wasn’t so pathetic as to want her back.
Tag and Amanda had dated very quietly early on. It was months before Sam saw them together again. But over the past few months, Sam had seen the couple enough to realize they were madly in love. And though he’d probably never admit it aloud, they were better together than he and Amanda had ever been. Amanda seemed softer somehow. She’d lost that brittle edge and it suited her.
She was genuinely sorry she’d hurt Sam. Regretful that she’d handled her growing attraction to Tag so poorly.
And pretty soon, she would basically be his cousin-in-law.
Thirteen
New ideas often come along at the most unexpected times.
—Romance Writing 101
Baby Marcel pointed at the picture of the boat. “Bo!”
Sadie had found the board book in her Little Library this morning and grabbed it, thinking Marcel would like it. “Yes, that’s a boat. He sure loves books.”
“I read to him all the time,” Keisha said.
Sadie continued reading. “So Jonah ran far, far away, all the way to the sea. And then he got on a boat and floated far, far away. But no matter how far, far away Jonah went... God was still with him.”
“Fa, fa,” Marcel said.
Sadie smiled. “Yes, far, far away. You’re so smart.”
Sadie’s phone buzzed with an incoming call. She snatched it off the deck table, her spirits sinking when her agent’s nameflashed on the screen instead of Mary’s. She’d been waiting three days for that call.
