“We are. As long as Stella is.” He nodded inside. “Like my mother just told you, be careful, okay?”
“Of course,” I said, nodding as Gary caught up with his mother.
Stella wasn’t made of glass. She was strong, tough, and wiser than her family gave her credit for, but maybe there was something I didn’t know. I’d understood and mostly had expected Gary’s reaction, but her mother’s request to be careful with her alarmed me enough to want to question her for the first time.
What wasn’t she telling me?
TWENTY-SIX
STELLA
“Stella?”
I clenched my eyes shut at my brother’s tentative voice on the other side of my bedroom door.
A quick smile coasted across my lips, despite how mad I still was. Whenever we’d fight, he’d always come find me later, calling my name in that soft, careful way, as if he were afraid I’d punch him if he hadn’t warned me of his approach first.
He wasn’t far off.
“Yes, come in,” I said, expelling a long sigh while I rubbed my temples. My head did hurt, but not from yesterday’s injuries. I hadn’t known how to tell my family about Lee and me since I’d barely known how to explain it to myself. It was all new, exciting, wonderful, and still surreal enough not to know how to define it—but I’d figured I’d had time.
Then Bennie had given them enough information not to have to fill in too many blanks, whether I was ready to tell them or not.
I stayed horizontal on the mattress, draping a hand overmy eyes while I registered Gary’s footsteps on the carpet. He’d never been able to sneak up on anyone because he stomped everywhere he went, the years he’d spent marching in the army making his feet come down even harder. Lee and I had teased him when he signed up not to try to be a sniper because there was no way he’d be able to stay hidden.
I loved and had missed my brother so much, even though I was furious with him.
“How mad at me are you?” he asked, peeling my fingers away from my face.
“Enough,” I said, fighting my own smile as I caught his lips twitch.
“You know I love you, right?” Gary said, his cocky grin fading.
“I know you do. But I’m not a teenager anymore, and it’s not your job to scare away any guy who’s interested in me. Don’t think I didn’t know how you did that all through high school.”
I almost laughed when he winced.
“I didn’t think you knew.”
“Ugh, please,” I said, shoving his shoulder when he laughed. “Of course I knew. But this is Lee.”
“Exactly.” His mouth flattened in a hard line. “This. Is. Lee. You know damn well why I’m concerned.”
“That was a long time ago,” I said to my brother, sitting up and waving a hand.
“Stella,” he prodded, moving in front of me, dipping his head to meet my gaze. “I have always known how you felt about Lee, from the time we first met him.” He lifted a shoulder. “I tried to let you talk about it, but every time I’d give you an opening, you’d change the subject.”
I gave him a wimpy shrug. Confessions were nevernecessary with my family. They just knew. I’d crushed on Lee for so long, it was a given, a constant, like how the sky was always blue and water was always wet.
I’d only told Bailee because I’d met her years later, but even she’d guessed it before I’d said anything.
“Do you know how hard it is to watch your sister get her heart broken over and over again? I noticed when he started dating Katie, and then I heard you sobbing after we came home from his wedding.” He exhaled a groan. “There was never anything I could do to help you, and it was frustrating as fuck.”
“But it wasn’t his fault.” My head snapped to his. “You can’t blame him for it because he didn’t know.”
“Which I never understood,” Gary said on a laugh.
I laughed too, because it really was ridiculous how he hadn’t picked up on it, even a little, back then. As we’d grown up, I’d learned to hide it much better, and we had stopped hanging out all the time. And he was busy enough with Katie and then Bennie, so his main attention was elsewhere.
