“Yourfakefiancée.”
A noise sounds from behind me, and Jo’s eyes widen over my shoulder. I turn around to see Tonya standing outside the back door, hand clasped over her mouth, eyes wide with shock. She heard.
Everything.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 28
JO
“Josephine, what’s going on?”
I step away from Nico, a giant weight off my shoulders that the truth is finally out there. We can finally stop pretending, and I can stop feeling so inadequate.
Or, more honestly, settle into that inadequacy.
Being back home, after burying my great-grandmother, I feel so out of place. Out of my head, and it’s all too much. The pictures, Nico here, grief weighing so heavily on my body that it would feel easier to lie down next to her than to step forward—the only thing that makes sense right now is to leave it all behind.
Shed every part of this fairy-tale lie.
Start over.
“You better tell me what is going on right now,” Mom says, voice loud enough that it carries through the backyard and bounces off the surrounding trees in the quiet afternoon.
Loud enough for Danny to poke his head out the back door. “What’s going on out here? Why are you yelling?”
Mom motions to me. “I don’t know. Your sister won’t tell me. She and Nico are out here arguin’ about a fake engagement or something.”
A few feet away, Nico releases a noisy breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him drag his hands through his hair, roll his head back to the sky, and set his hands on his hips.
Like he’s catching his breath after sprinting across the ice.
“Fake engagement?” Danny laughs like the asshole he’s always been. “I knew it. I knew it!” He disappears for a moment, only to return with the rest of my family. Even Mamaw.
They all line up. Mom and Dad, Lizzie, Danny, Waylon, and Mamaw with her glass of wine. She is halfway to drunk, smiling when she asks, “So what’s this show we had to come see?”
I swallow past the stinging lump in my throat, while Nico spins toward them. “There is no show. You all need to go back inside to give Jo and me some privacy.”
It’s Waylon who speaks up. “Nothin’ doin’. I knew not to trust you, and I want to find out exactly what you did to hurt Jo.”
Nico crosses in front of me, protecting me even now. After I’ve acted so cold toward him. “You think I hurt her?Me? It’s you!Youhurt her. You all hurt her.” He sweeps his arm in a big arc, calling each one out by name, starting with Waylon. “You broke her heart when she got up the courage to tell you she had feelings for you, only for you to turn around and hook up with her sister. Which you, Lizzie, should be ashamed about. I can only guess you’ve been jealous of her your whole life, which is why you’ve made it your mission to constantly wear her down.”
Lizzie glares slack-jawed, her cell phone put away for once. “I am not jealous.”
“Well, you sure as shit act like it. And hitting on me at your great-grandmother’s wake is just really embarrassing.”
“Elizabeth,” Mom chides, which sets Nico off on her.
“And you, Tonya. What have you done every time Lizzie has purposely hurt Jo? What have you done to make it up to Jo every time you put Lizzie above her? Every time you showed Jo she wasn’t as important as Miss Teen West Virginia over there? Howhave you made it up to her, because from where I stand, you never did.”
“Hey, fucker.” Danny barrels off the porch, fist clenched. “Don’t speak to my mother that way.”
But before my brother can take a swing, Nico does, popping him in the jaw, sending him back a few paces. Mom shrieks as Mamaw drops her wine, the glass shattering.
May as well have been my heart for how Nico points his finger at Danny, practically frothing at the mouth. “That’s for calling her Bucky Beaver her entire life. Come at me again, it’ll be for being a shit brother and bullying your own sister.”
Dad holds Danny back from attacking again, but Nico has words for him too. “My dad died when I was twelve. He wasn’t at all interested in knowing me as a person, didn’t care what I did. I was basically a prop to him. It was that way for both of my parents, and I can tell you from experience, my life has been better without them in it. Jo’s still here. She’s still giving you a chance. She’s giving all of you a chance, but I wouldn’t blame her if she gave up completely. In fact, I think she should.”
