Kieran flinched, every muscle in his body tensing for a potential threat. No one ever managed to sneak up on him and certainly not his little brother. Sighing, he rested his forearm on his jean-clad thigh. Lily’s video froze on the final clip. She’d turned around, her jaw dropped in exaggerated exasperation while her bright eyes shone with mirth. He loved that about her—her playfulness.
Danny rounded the couch and slumped into the seat beside him. “Cool, so we’re still moping.”
Kieran cut a half-hearted glare at his brother but didn’t have a smart-ass reply. The kid was right. Though “we” was an interesting choice.
“So, did she post something new?” Danny scooted further down into the cushions and propped his socked feet on the coffee table.
“Nah.” Kieran slumped a little further, too. “Just lookingat some behind-the-scenes shots.” He snuck a glance at his brother, but Danny was too busy staring out the water-streaked window. “She reach out to you at all?”
Danny shrugged and cracked his knuckles, the pops like the sound of those little white bang snaps hitting the sidewalk. “Nah,” he echoed. “I don’t think she’s the type to do that without your say-so.” His dark blue eyes flicked toward Kieran and bounced away just as fast. “Why don’t you just talk to her?”
Man, he really wished the couch would just swallow him. Kieran rubbed his hand over the heat prickling on the back of his neck and sighed. “It wouldn’t have worked out, Danny.”
Danny’s nose wrinkled. “That’s such bullshit, Kier. What’s there to work out?”
Seriously, the audacity of this kid. Kieran scrubbed his face with one hand and lifted his own sock-clad feet onto the table. “First of all, there’s the gym. Neal wants me to take over the gym.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“It is when I become Lily’s boss.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Kieran dropped his head onto the back of the couch and stared up at the popcorn ceiling—his next project if his landlord would let him. “So what happens if we got serious, something went wrong and Lily and I split? How would everyone at work react? And more importantly, how would you react? It’s better to end it now before it goes anywhere.”
Danny slumped further down in his seat and crossed his arms. “I guess I’d blame you,” he grumbled. “By the way, sorry for what I said at the wedding.”
Kieran turned his head fully to look at his brother. The kid looked almost as miserable as he felt. “What do you mean?”
Danny’s shoulders jerked up in a shrug, and he frowneddown at his palms. “I didn’t say all that because I wanted you to break up with Lily.” He glanced up at Kieran and shot his gaze back down. “I actually like her, you know?”
“It’s hard not to like her. But you don’t need to worry about Lily and me.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve just gotta focus on my commitments. That means you and the gym, kid. You’ll always come first.”
Danny turned bodily toward him, confusion pinching his face. “Okay, but why can’t Lily fit into all that? Lily was good for you. You were happy, and you didn’t spend all day worrying about Maeve, Saoirse and me.”
Hell, he wasn’t going to make this easy. Kieran sighed, put his feet back on the floor, set his phone on the coffee table and turned to his brother. “I got distracted. My job is to look out for you guys and fix any problems that come along. Getting distracted was a problem, so I fixed it.”
Both of Danny’s brows lifted. “Why’s everything need fixing, Kier? The world isn’t perfect. Our family’s not perfect. Why can’t things ever be messy?”
Because messy was how people got hurt. Physically, mentally—Kieran had spent his whole life trying to clean up the mess left behind by his parents so no one else would step on a broken beer bottle or get conned into another manipulation. And when life got messy? Sometimes he had to sacrifice if it meant keeping his family safe. No, this was better. If he could control the situation, he could control the outcome.
But Danny wasn’t done. “Sometimes I feel like I have to be perfect. You’re so good at everything. And growing up, you were all Maeve and Shauna ever talked about. Saoirse freaking loves you. But Lily’s like me. She’s messy, and she’s not ashamed of it. And I don’t know.” He slumped back into his seat again, all bravado gone. “I just wish you didn’t use what I said when I was upset against me. I didn’t want you to fix it.”
Kieran shook his head. “That wasn’t my intention, Dan. I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“So why did you break things off with Lily? You just ended up hurting all of us based on a what-if.”
Well, shit. Kieran sank back into the couch, shame curling his shoulders in.
Danny huffed. He grabbed Kieran’s phone off the coffee table and tossed it into Kieran’s lap. “If you care about her so much, tell her.” He pointed at Kieran’s phone and the still-frozen clip of Lily on the beach. “She looks happy there. And I know you were happy, too. Well, as happy as you can get, I guess.” He rocked forward and shot up from the couch. He turned just enough for one brow to twitch upward, like he’d practiced but couldn’t quite hold the expression. “Anyways, the guys are waiting on me.” He lingered, insecurity lifting his brows. “Uh, good talk.” He clapped his hands once and headed back to his room.
Kieran stared after Danny. Had his brother just given him advice on girls while low-key insulting him? Impressive little shit.
He frowned and lifted his phone from his lap. With a jab of his thumb, he restarted the video, but this time, he paused it when Lily tipped her head back, her eyes closed as she offered her smile to the sun. Yearning rushed through him like the tide, its summer-warmed waters soaking into his bones and carrying away the fragments of doubt still lingering under his skin like broken seashells.
He’d built his life around consistency. Getting Lily back meant letting life get messy and offering himself up to chance—to an outcome he couldn’t foresee. She wasn’t a fighthe could train for. For the first time, if he wanted to win, he’d have to put his defenses down.
He couldn’t make her listen. But maybe he could make her see.
