I took one last look at Morgan, blinked stinging tears out of my eyes, and turned to head for the idling SUV.
21
Morgan
Dammit.
Dammit, dammit,dammit.
Devin was gone. Devin was gone because I got into a fight with him, a fight I never should have started, and then like the useless clumsy idiot I was I’d fumbled my chance to make it right, frozen up at an innocuous turn of phrase, let an old wound get between me and…
And…
My phone was ringing.
Wait.
My phone wasringing? What kind ofbarbariancalled before seven in the morning? What kind of barbarian calledat all, for that matter, hadn’t they heard of texting?
“What?” I answered, hoping belatedly it wasn’t a supplier, or a potential customer, or my mother. The only people likely to call me at all.
“Oh, so youarestill alive,” Aiden said. “What’s with the days of radio silence, man? Are you ghosting me? Because your shop is still right next door to mine, that’s not gonna go super well.”
“Aiden—”
“You said you had so much to tell me! I’ve got so much to tellyou, too.”
“That’s—”
“Carter’s moving in,” Aiden blurted out. “He’s quit his job, he’s gonna start working for his dad, he’smoving in. With me! Can you believe it?”
“Aiden,” I tried again, but I’d barely gotten a breath out before he interrupted.
“You gotta help me with the housewarming party. I mean, it’s not really a housewarming party, more of a… we’re-moving-in-together party,” Aiden continued, unhindered. “I want him to feel welcome here, with all of us, and I need you to be there.”
“Aiden,shut up,” I gritted out, growling more than I meant to.
Great. I’d lost Devin, and now I was determined to lose his brother, too. Maybe I could call Kieran after this and insult his hair or something, just to get the full set.
A few seconds of silence made panic well up in my gut, electric shivers running down my back, my lungs suddenly tight.
“Is this a bad time?” Aiden asked after a beat.
I almost laughed.Bad time. That was one way of putting it.
But Aiden was happy. I should have been congratulating him. He and Carter were made for each other.
Who cared about my problems? I’d caused them myself anyway.
“Talk to me,” Aiden said. “This is about Devin, isn’t it?”
I took a deep breath.
“Of course it’s about Devin,” Aiden said, saving me the trouble. “What else would it be about? Whathappened?”
“A lot,” I said automatically. “I dunno. Everything,” I finished, throwing my free hand in the air.
I sighed, put Aiden on speaker, and poured myself a glass of water.
