“Tried telling him that?” Corey asked.
I gave him a look. He sighed.
“Of course not. You know, for a man who makes a living handling words, you’re shockingly bad with them.”
“I’m good with other people’s words,” I said. “Not so much my own.”
“So use someone else’s, if you have to. I don’t think he’d care how you said it. I think he hangs on every word you say like it’s gospel.” Corey shrugged.
“I’m scared,” I confessed to the loosened knot of Corey’s tie, unable to meet his eyes.
Corey knew that. The whole crux of the issue was that I wasafraid. Afraid of losing the one good relationship I had in my life. My one constant. The one single thing I felt I could rely on even if everything else fell apart.
Simon wouldalwaysbe there.
Unless I drove him away, like I did everyone else I got romantically involved with.
“Can’t help you with that,” Corey said. “But as your new brother-in-law, I think it’s my sworn duty to look out for your happiness.”
I huffed, mouth twisting. “That would make you the only family who does. Shit.” I looked up to meet his eyes. “We’re family now.”
Corey broke into a broad grin. “Sure are. This is like in that one novel, where the guy that one guy hates marries his girlfriend’s sister.”
“Pride and Prejudice?”
“That one,” Corey pointed at me. “You love that one!”
“Not so much that I want to live it.”
I was surprised, honestly, that he remembered. Aside from Simon, people didn’t usually pay a whole lot of attention to my tastes.
“Is it really that bad?” Corey asked, scratching the back of his neck and not quite meeting my eyes. I hadn’t seen him uncertain often, and there was something endearing about it.
It wasn’t his fault I hadn’t loved him. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t Simon. If anyone was to blame for the way we’d left things, itwas on me. I was the one who’d been knowingly trying to force myself to do something I couldn’t.
“You don’t hate me forever?” I asked.
Corey laughed. “You worry too much about what people think of you.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Corey rolled his eyes, bending down to lean closer to me.
“I don’t hate you forever. I never hated you in the first place. Ilovedyou, Theo. It hurt that the feeling wasn’t mutual. That’s all.”
I swallowed. He’d said it before. That he loved me. Dozens of times.
I’d never once said it back.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I said. That much was true. I nevermeantto hurt anyone.
Corey shrugged. “I’m over it. Water under the bridge. Your boyfriend’s back,” he added, nodding over my shoulder.
My lips twitched wryly. “I wish.”
Corey rolled his eyes. “Go tell him that,” he said. “C’mere, before you do.”
He held his arms open. I looked at him for a moment, half-expecting him to duck away if I moved to accept the hug.
