His responding laughter grew in volume as I heard him walking from the kitchen and down the hall towards my room.He stopped in the doorway, looming and nursing a beer as I settled on a navy plaid snap shirt. I pulled it and a pair of jeans off of their respective hangers and laid them over the end of my bed as I moved over to my dresser.
“Speaking of sliding down poles,” Luke said, tipping his beer to me and raising an eyebrow. “You and Andi, huh?”
I glared at him from over my shoulder as I pulled out a pair of boxer briefs and socks. “Choose your next words carefully,” I warned, shutting the dresser drawer and stalking back to where I’d left my clothes.
“Don’t go gettin’ all defensive,” Luke said. “Alls I’m trying to say is…good job, man. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, and stepped into my boxer briefs before sliding them up and under the towel. With the goods now covered, I untucked the towel and dropped it onto my bed, reaching for my jeans.
“And you’re welcome.”
Something about the way he said that piqued my curiosity, because it didn't really sound like a response to the thanks I just gave him. My eyebrows went together as I shot him a look and situated my jeans around my hips. “For what?” I asked skeptically, reaching for my shirt and sliding my arms into it.
A weird grin curved up one corner of his mouth as he took a pull on his beer. “Letting you have Andi.”
I froze mid-collar adjustment and glared at him again, tonguing the inside of my cheek and finishing fixing my collar before crossing my arms over my exposed chest. “You wanna explain your apparentgenerosity?”
He shrugged. “If memory serves me right, you weren’t the most welcomingorfriendly of the two of us. I didn’t even have to try to be charming because you were a big enough asshole that it instantly just made me more appealing.” He laughed, anddamned, if that didn’t dig under my skin. “You look like you wanna hit me.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, knock it off, because it’s that grumpy ‘tude that set you back in the first place,” Luke said and took another drink. “You guys could’ve been here, fallin’ into bed or whatever, a lot sooner had you not been such a fucking bear at first. But I—” He dropped a hand over his chest, “being the good brother that I am, saw that spark between you for what it was and decided to back off.”
I felt the corner of my mouth lift, amused now because Luke was clearly delusional. “Back off from what?” I buttoned my shirt. “You were never even close.”
“Says the guy she actively avoided for a week.”
I rolled my eyes and sat on the bed, loosening my socks from their bundle and crossing my ankle over my knee.
“It was quite the sacrifice on my part, not going after the pretty new girl in town so my brother would finally get his head out of his ass and stop being stuck in the past,” Luke said, obviously teasing but really making me want to clock him. “A noble act like that deserves recognition and, with that, I’d like to propose that y’all name your firstborn son after me.”
I blinked at him with the blandest expression on my face. “You really are a fucking idiot,” I said, my tone dry and bored as I slid my sock onto my foot, only to have my big toe go right through a giant hole I’d had no clue was there. “Damn. Toss me another pair of socks, would ya?”
I ripped off the ruined sock as I heard the dresser drawer open behind me.
“Zane… What the hell, man?”
My brow crinkled. Did he sound…disappointed? I twisted and saw Luke holding a small, black, square box and—yep—that was disappointment all over his face.
“Why do you still have this?”
Go ahead and add pity to that look and tone.
I stood up from the bed and marched over to where he stood, taking the ring box out of his hand a little more pissy than I should’ve. I didn’t even bother opening it, knowing that nestled inside was the past, present, future ring I’d proposed to Brianna with—the one she’d left along with that “I can’t do this” note the night she gave up on us. Him wondering why I still had it was a good question, one I asked myself countless times over the past year. I guess some deeply broken-hearted part of me just couldn’t get rid of it on the off-chance that she’d show up one day, tell me she’d made a horrible mistake, and beg me to take her back.
Every time I thought about it, I thought of how pathetic that made me sound. How pathetic and inadequateshemade me feel by not even bothering to tell me to my face that she couldn’t marry me.
I threw the box back into my drawer and pulled out the pair of socks I’d asked Luke for—shutting the drawer a little more forcefully than I’d intended. “I asked for socks, not for you to snoop.”
“Why are you holding on to that thing?” he asked again, losing the disappointment and pity and replacing it with genuine-sounding concern. “Shit, Zane, if I’d’ve known you were clinging to the past like that, I’d’ve—” He pinched his lips like he was thinking, “—I don’t know, come up with some sort of…bond-breaking ritual to help you out.”
My mouth fell open as I gaped at him. “Bond-breaking ritual? What the hell are you on?”
“That barrel racer I talk to?—”
Jesus, here we go again with the barrel racer.I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, just a quick physicalreaction to this nonsense before I went back to looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
“—dabbles in something called romantasy.” He shrugged. “Dudes with wings and shit, I don’t know, but there’s all kinds of stuff in there about bonds and breaking them, and that’s what you need.”
