“Who’s Whitney?”
“She’s a friend of mine—mine and Gavin’s really, since he introduced us. I’ll make sure you meet her after. Did I mention I’m nervous?”
“Yeah, you—”
“Come on, there’s only a couple tables left.” She turned, towing me inside with her. “Gavin’s running late and there aren’t usually this many people here.” Selena’s gaze drifted around the room. “He put the word out with some people he knows, and I guess a lot of them came.”
I spied an open table in the far corner and started toward it, but Selena tugged me to a stop. “No, I need you up front. If I get nervous…” Her laugh was a little shaky. “WhenI get impossibly more nervous, I can look straight ahead and see you.” She nodded at a spot much closer to the makeshift stage, which was really just a stepped-up section of the coffee shop with some lighting and audio equipment.
“What am I saying? I won’t have to look for you—you’ll probably be booing pretty loud by then.”
I pulled free of her grip. “Hey, no one is going to be booing, least of all me. I get that you’re nervous, but enough. I’m sorry I’m late, ’cause that guy murdering the theme song to ‘Zelda’ with I don’t even know what kind of flute is clearly a once-in-a-lifetime moment, but I wouldn’t have missed this, okay?”
She took a deep breath and then flung her arms around my waist. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so panicky. Gavin’s usually here when I sing, and you’re usually not. And I just don’t want to mess this up, you know?”
I did know. From over her shoulder I stole another glance at the window, and my own panic came skittering back. “You’re going to be great.”
She let me go. “Tell that to my hands. I mean, I never got this nervous before a game. Feel them.” She reached for mine only to frown a second later. “Why are yours shaking?” Her face fell. “I really can sing, Dana. Maybe not as well as—”
“No, I know you can.” I pulled my gaze from the window. “I just want you to be happy. I want all of us to be happy.”
“Then maybe stop looking like you could cry any second,” Selena said. “Because I can’t be happy if you’re not.”
I gave her a smile that didn’t reach my eyes, but fortunately, “Zelda” guy was finished and basking in his smattering of applause. Selena turned to clap too. In profile, she looked even less like herself. She did look pretty, beautiful even, but standing across from me, she looked like she was already gone, to Nashville or some other stage and spotlight much bigger than the one at Lava Java. She really was leaving. Not two-hours-away-at-college leaving, where I still saw her multiple times a week, but like I-need-to-take-a-plane-to-get-to-her leaving. That thought made my stomach clench.
“Did I tell you what song I’m doing?”
I shook my head. “Something you wrote?”
“Nooooo. I’m not even close to being ready for that yet. ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac.”
My mouth lifted. “I love that song.”
“Why do you think I picked it?” She grinned at me, and I almost teared up on the spot.
“I love you too, okay? Just don’t forget that.”
“I have to head up in a minute. Where are you going to be?” The table up front was thankfully occupied by then.
“I’ll grab one in the back, but I’ll make sure you can see me.”
She nodded as we started moving in opposite directions. “And if somebody really awesome goes before me, try to make a scene or something awful for me to follow, okay?”
I didn’t want to dwell on how easy that request might be. As soon as I took my seat, deciding with a heavy heart and a little bit of relief that he wasn’t coming after all, Brandon slid into the seat next to me.
CHAPTER 34
Icould only gape at him. There. Next to me. “You came.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Brandon’s teeth were clenched so tight I was afraid he’d break his jaw.
I swallowed. His hostility was still in full force. It was painful to watch, knowing I’d done my part to make him feel that way. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should never have ambushed you that first day. You didn’t know me, and I showed up at your work reeling from things that I’d had no time to process myself, let alone figure out how to tell someone else.” And I could have tried harder to stop him from reading the DNA results.
Brandon was staring straight ahead, not looking at me, but I knew he was listening by the way his shoulders began hunching up.
“I don’t know how to deal with having a brother,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. Another singer was bowing, and I watched Selena offstage, sliding her guitar strap over her head, readying to take his place. “And maybe you don’t know how to deal with having a sister, but that’s just it—you don’t have one, you have—”
“I can’t have a sister.” He forced the words through barely moving lips. “All I have is my dad, and all we have is a memory. She died right after I was born and I have one photo with her—one! And now I can’t even look at it anymore. There aren’t any pictures of her in my house, and I always thought it was because he missed her too much, but that’s not it. There aren’t any pictures because he doesn’t want any, because it’s enough to have to see me and know—” the muscle in his cheek jumped “—know I’m not his.” His voice nearly broke, and a part of me broke with it. “She died and he had to raise some other guy’s kid, but there wasn’t a single day where he made me feel unwanted or unloved. And I willneverdo that to him.” His head turned sharply to me. “Which means I can’t have a sister or anything else that reminds either of us that I’m not his.”
