Chapter Twenty-Six
Brent hadn’t realized until he woke up alone that wherever Riley had gone last night, he never came back.
With his heart in his throat, he headed outside in his t-shirt and underwear to check on the RV, terrified that it was going to be gone, that he’d missed his chance to tell Riley how he felt, that he wouldn’t see him again for months.
Instead, he found Riley checking the ropes he used to tie the awnings in place. A ritual he completed every time he left.
Brent was too late.
“Are you going?” Brent asked, not sure what else to say. The thought of Riley leaving now, when they’d been so close to having something wonderful, made him feel sick to his stomach.
“I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” Riley said. “Gotta get out of here before you get sick of me.”
“I’m not sick of you,” Brent responded. He wasn’t even close to sick of Riley.
Riley didn’tmeanthat, though. That was what he always said when he was leaving. This was a conversation they’d had a dozen times or more.
He meant that he wanted to leave.
“Not yet.” Riley smiled a tiny smile.
The wordsnot everstuck in Brent’s throat.
He was stupid to think Riley would want to stay. Compared to the life Riley had, the freedom to go anywhere, do anything, Brent had nothing to offer. A house that was falling apart in the same small town they’d both grown up in, the small town Brent never really intended to leave.
It wasn’t enough for Riley. It would never be enough for Riley.
No matter how much Brent wished it would.
“Were you at least gonna say goodbye?” Brent asked. He hated feeling like this, feeling like a child being abandoned, but he couldn’t help it.
He knew he had no claim on Riley. That ship had sailed, and he’d let it.
“Of course. I was just waiting for you to wake up. You had a long night.”
Brent sighed at that. He had. Rose had kept him up until something like three in the morning.
He didn’t mind, exactly. She needed him, and he was glad that she felt he could come to him.
They weren’t right for each other, not romantically, but they’d both felt lost and alone, and that was why they’d ended up together. Brent had assumed Rose had realized that and run away because of it, but apparently it wasn’t that simple.
As if everything that had happened since last Saturday wasn’t enough, it turned out Brent didn’t know Tom at all. He could hardly believe that his friend and business partner had been willing to run away with his fiancée, not because he loved her, but to get his hands on her money.
It was a lot to process.
It made more sense the more Brent thought about it—there’d been hints that something wasn’t right, hints he’d chosen to ignore because they hadn’t felt like any of his business. Or because they’d felt like paranoia.
Or because he was afraid that if he so much as poked his life with a stick, the whole thing would come crashing down.
And now it had, and he was just beginning to realize how badly.
Brent would really have liked Riley to stick around while he dealt with it, but that was too much to ask. Riley didn’t owe him anything. He owed Riley so much already that he couldn’t ask for anything else.
He’d have to handle it himself.
“Yeah,” Brent said eventually, his brain still half asleep. “Yeah, uh. Rose disappeared into Emily’s room around three. She’s really upset, and I don’t blame her. I feel bad for being mad at her now. She’s young, y’know?”
“She’s twenty-seven,” Riley said. “But I take your point. Tom really did a number on her, huh?”
