I roll my eyes and nod.
“I guess that’s what they say,” he agrees. “I’ve never been to one.”
“Me neither. But it sounds like the kind of thing one of them would repeat on a regular basis.”
“True.” He sighs, sips his beer, then lowers onto the couch. I sit next to him, nudging his arm with mine. “Still, I don’t think you should be talking to that guy. He did you dirty last year.” He gives me a sidelong look. “You still haven’t told Bryn, have you?”
I toy with the label on the beer. “There’s no reason to tell her. It meant nothing.”
“I thought all of us siblings weren’t going to keep secrets anymore? Didn’t we say so?”
“I figured it was, like, awe’re not going to keep secrets moving forwardkind of thing. This is a past secret and thereby safely under the acceptable secrets umbrella.”
He snorts and nearly chokes on his sip of beer. “You do realize that makes no sense.”
“Keep drinking. I sound more sensible to drunk people.”
A corner of his mouth twitches up. “If you say so. I just…I think you should tell her, is all. She’d want to know.”
He’s right, obviously, but I can’t help but scowl. It’s bad enough thatheknows. If Bryn knew…I expect she’d want me to talk about it, at length. There’d be a discussion of feelings and the mature way to handle and express them. There’d be opinions that I probably wouldn’t be comfortable listening to.
I take a long sip of beer, then shoot an accusatory look at my brother. “I saw you with your hand up that girl’s shirt, and I’m not giving you a hard time about it.”
He lifts his eyebrows, studying me with a deadpan expression.
“Okay, fine. I’m giving you a hard time about it, but I’m not acting like it’s some big deal to you. Or that you suddenly want to marry her because you had your hand on her boob.”
He looks like he might let this go.
Please, God, let it go, Rowan. Don’t start being sensitive now, at the absolute worst time.
But his lips firm, and he says, “We both know itwasa big deal, Holly. You’ve had a thing for that asshole for years.”
“Something you only know because you’re a snoop.”
Okay, that’s not totally fair. Rowan knows because he accidentally swapped notebooks with me one day, and I’d been playing MASH (Mansion. Apartment. Shack. House.) in it during a particularly boring English class about some grim book I’d only read three pages of before looking up the plot online. The only real guy on my list was Cole Garrison; the rest were either movie stars or rising stars in STEM. Rowan took a hint.
He charges on, ignoring me. “And then he—”
“Let’s not elucidate on what you walked in on. We both remember. Also, swear jar.”
He gives a firm nod. “Fine. But I also remember what happened the very next weekend…you know, when we saw him with that tourist at Whistlestop.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I gritted out. “You don’t know everything, Ro. I’m the one who told Cole it was a mistake. He had every right to suck face with someone else.”
He gives me a disbelieving look. “Then why do you act so pissy with each other?”
I play with the beer label. My mind is clearly a traitor, because it summons up all the memories I’ve done my best to keep in a lock box. Cole’s mouth on mine, possessive and hot, his short beard brushing my cheeks, his eyes blazing as they stared into mine. His body pressing me into the wall of a restaurant I can no longer even pass without thinking about him, as he hiked my legs up around his waist and kissed me like he wanted to consume everything I was and would ever be. Even thinking about it lights me up inside like a lotto machine with three bananas on the readout. It makes me feel shaky in the knees, the way I did that night. It makes me feel something deeper than the kind of lust a woman feels when a very capable handsome man is about to ring her bell.
Stupid mind.
Plenty of other men have rung my bell, loudly and proudly. Maybe Hot Rod will have a go at it in a few weeks. Maybe he’ll be the one who finally helps me forget that I’ve wanted the one man I can’t have since high school.
Maybe he’ll make me forget what it felt like to see Cole with that woman on his lap days after he had his mouth on mine, his touch infiltrating every last one of my cells.
You were the one who told him it was a mistake. You’re the one who told him it couldn’t happen again.
I did. Because it was. He’d made it very clear to everyone, on multiple occasions, that he had no intention of dating anyone seriously.Ever. Every single woman in town knew the drill. Cole was one of the guys who only hooked up with tourists. He didn’t want to have any awkwardness with someone he’d see around at the brewery, the coffee shop, and the few other businesses all the locals went to. Hell, he made a point of saying as much to me before he kissed me that night. Besides, he’d made it clear to me for years that he saw me as someone insignificant and pesky—a fly who kept landing too close to his skin.
