He glanced around as he followed me to the kitchen, probably noticing the dirty glass on the counter, the crumbled blanket thrown on the couch, and the general vibe ofdescending slowly into madness.
“Let’s start with a spiked coffee and escalate from there,” he said. I started on the drinks. “Jane told me what happened.”
“Funny,” I said dryly. “She wasn’t even there.”
“Never underestimate her powers of deduction. You disappeared and Jacqueline has taken PTO from the firm. Between Jane and Colin, they’re at those offices at least once a week. It’s a close relationship, so yeah. I doubt much happens there that the Thayers don’t find out about.”
I exhaled a heavy breath. “Yeah, I guess.”
He shifted his weight, studying me for a second before he came right out with it and just asked. “Are you okay?”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, not really. You?”
The truth felt strange coming out of my mouth so easily. I wasn’t usually the guy who admitted shit like that out loud, but this was Zach, and it helped that he was nodding like he understood.Which, yeah. He probably does.
He held my gaze for another beat before he shook his head and his eyes dropped to the floor. “Yeah, I’m not really okay either.”
It was a little uncomfortable and a lot weird to be having this conversation with him. He was my brother, sure, which meant I’d always been honest with him, but we’d never really been close growing up. Yet suddenly, we were having this moment. This shared experience of shitty, shitty heartbreak.What a time to bond.
I pushed off the counter once the coffee machine got going and grabbed the bottle of scotch from the cabinet next to the fridge. “What happened, Zach?”
He didn’t need to ask what I meant, but for a second, I thought he might brush me off or deflect. That was what we all did best, after all, but he didn’t.
“Will was right,” he said after a beat. “Adeline broke it off with me to be with the other guy. She chose the other family, another alliance, over what we had.”
Something bitter curled up in my chest. “Just like that, huh?”
He nodded, but his eyes were distant now, like he’d gone someplace far away. “She married him They have two kids together as far as I know.”
Holy fuck.“And you never?—”
“We didn’t keep in touch,” he said simply. “It nearly killed me, man. I couldn’t keep talking to her while she was living her life with someone else. Doing… what she needed to do to havehisbabies instead of mine.”
The quiet honesty of his words tore out chunks of my insides. Zach didn’t look at me when he said it, just standing there with his hands in his pockets while I poured a healthy dash of scotch into each of our coffee mugs.
“I’m sorry, Zach,” I said as I pushed his drink across the counter. “That’s fucking terrible. I should’ve been here for you.”
He shook his head immediately, like he didn’t want it, but he winced too. “My point is that the media is vicious. You shouldn’t have to protect me because I had my heart broken years ago. Alex will find me a wife soon anyway and all of this will blow over.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked before I could think better of it. “Do youwanthim to find you someone else?”
“Honestly? No,” he said without any hesitation at all. “I don’t. I haven’t even thought about it for a second.”
I almost believed him, but I also knew that look in his eyes. I’d seen it in the mirror every morning for the past few days, red-rimmed with violent wreckage sitting just beneath the surface.
While I didn’t have any experience with this myself, I couldn’t imagine that you stopped loving someone just because time passed. I had a feeling you just got better at pretending it didn’t still matter.
Zach wasn’t over her. These days, I knew a man in love when I saw one, and from the sound of it, she’d lived an entire lifetime without him. Marriage. Kids. A whole other world. Now a very messy, very public divorce thathewas being dragged into despite all that, and yet, he wasstillin love with her.
If only we could choose who we love. God, that would make things easier.
Zach shifted on his feet again, reaching for his mug and bringing his gaze back up to mine once he’d wrapped his fingers around it. “I don’t fault Alex for being a hardass. He’s the leader now. The one calling the shots. He’s doing a damn good job of it, too.”
I exhaled slowly and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? Alex isn’t wrong. He just doesn’t know when to stop.”
Zach nodded, then immediately followed it up by shaking his head like he didn’t quite have the words he needed. “I just…” Hetrailed off for only a beat before he finally finished the sentence. “This is throwing me, you know?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I know.”
