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Jess slammed her eyes shut. She knew she was probably being unreasonable. It wasn’t like this was Charlie’s fault. He was following what his parents wanted, and he didn’t have any say on the house. The fact that they were even allowed to stay for a whole week was already generous enough.

Yet part of her wished that Charlie tried, just this once. To fight for her. To prove how much he wanted her there, a part of his family. Or at least tried to make some kind of vacation plan that was different, a new adventure that wasn’t the same old routine they lived out year after year. Something that would reignite the passion in their relationship that was sputtering out day after day. She couldn’t be the only one who felt it.

“Do you even want me there?” she whispered, feeling helpless. Vulnerable.

Charlie hesitated at first, his eyes wide. “Of—of course I want you there, Jessie.”

“Did you tell them that?” she asked. Her voice sounded steady and lethally calm, the complete opposite of the emotions raging inside her heart.

“I—” He broke off, his sentence dying in his throat.

Jess waited for him to respond, but nothing came. His face colored in shame as he looked down at his loafers. She simply nodded, placing the empty wineglass back down on the coffee table and stepping around him. “Do yourself a favor and sleep on the couch tonight,” she demanded coolly. “I have an early morning shift at Post Road so I’ll be out before six.”

Charlie nodded, not bothering to fight with her as Jess quietly took the stairs up to the loft, waiting for the tears to come. But after slipping on her sweats and sliding into the cool bed, her face remained dry. She let her mind drift to the methodical motion of kneading dough, the pressing and folding and pulling drifting her into a restless night of sleep.

Chapter Four

Jess was back in her least favorite place in the world—the chip aisle.

She was trying her best to be gentle with the bags she placed on the shelves, but when her mind drifted to her conversation with Charlie the night before and the fact that she wouldn’t even get a scrap of a vacation this year, some of those bags took the brunt of her anger. She sighed, and rearranged them so they weren’t the first ones customers grabbed, then closed her eyes. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Charlie had still been tucked up on the couch when she left that morning, hugging a throw pillow to his chest, a blanket tossed to the floor. She’d had her moments when she wanted to throw Charlie to the couch for the night, but he always said something to her that made her soften and forgive him.

Not last night though. He hadn’t even tried to fight her, and she didn’t care.

Maybe because deep down, in her heart, she was giving up. And maybe there was a part of him that felt the same way, too.

“Jessie?”

Her eyes flew open at the sound of that soft, familiar female voice. The voice that reminded her of whipped cream or meringue—light and soft and pillowy. Like it came from the clouds.

Jess turned to find her sister standing there. She was wrapped up in a pink checkered coat, wearing black leggings tucked into white workout socks and comfortable-looking sneakers, her soft blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail.

But it wasn’t her outfit that made Jess stare with eyes wide at the sister she hadn’t seen in years. It was her round belly.

Jess sucked in a breath. “You’re pregnant.”

Dakota gave her an impish smile. “Four months.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s just—wow. Congrats, sissy.”

Jess watched her sister wince at their familiar nickname for each other. The word rolled so easily off her tongue, yet it tasted stale in her mouth.

“Jasper?” Jess asked in a whisper.

“Is the dad, yes,” Dakota said. “We’re also, um—”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but instead, held out her left hand. Jess stared down at the glistening princess-cut amethyst stone on her ring finger.

Jess stared wide-eyed, and her sister’s eyes flooded with tears. One sprung free and trickled down her cheek.

“When we found out, Jasper proposed immediately,” Dakota explained, pressing the tear into her cheek with the palm of her hand. “We had been talking about getting married for a while anyway. This little one clearly wanted us to move things along.”

“And you’re happy about it, yes?” Jess asked, feeling her defenses flare up for her older sister.

Dakota’s mouth split into a grin. “Over the moon.”

Jess exhaled and nodded, not sure what else to say, her insides tossing and turning over the revelations. How much she’d missed because she was no longer part of their lives.