“She’s not yours, she’s bound to end up as someone else’s. Pretty girl like that? Thoughtful. Sweet. Funny. Sooner or later, someone with an IQ higher than yours will be along.”
“Good.”
She’d find someone else. She deserved someone else. Someone far from here, where I wouldn’t have to run into her in the produce aisle or see her across the bar or down the street. Naomi Witt would just fade away into a ghost of a memory.
Except I knew it wasn’t true. She wouldn’t fade away. The hook was set. I’d taken the bait. There wouldn’t be a day in the rest of my life that I didn’t think about her. That I wouldn’t say her name in my head a dozen times just to remind myself that I had her once.
I chugged the water, trying to fight off the tightness in my throat.
“Your brother looks at her like she’s a home-cooked Sunday dinner,” Liza observed shrewdly. “Maybe he’d be smart enough to know how lucky he was.”
Some of the water missed my throat and hit my lungs.
I choked, then coughed.
As I gasped for air, it played out in my head. Naomi and Waylay sitting across the Thanksgiving table. Nash’s hand on the back of her neck. Smiling at her, knowin’ what was in store once everyone else went home for the night.
I could see her moving over him in the dark, those sweet lips parting. Hair tumbling over her eyes as she breathed out the name. Nash.
Someone else would get to hear their name from her mouth. Someone else would get to feel like the luckiest man alive. Someone else would bring her mid-afternoon coffees and watch those hazel eyes light up.
Someone else would take her and Waylay back-to-school shopping.
And that someone very well could be my own brother.
“You okay?” Liza asked, dragging me out of my vision.
“I’m fine.” Another lie.
“You know what they say about fine. Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. And emotional,” Liza muttered. “Turn the lights off when you’re done. Electricity don’t grow on trees.”
I turned the lights out and stood there in the dark kitchen hating myself.
I had shards of glass in the lining of my gut.
That’s how it felt to hold the door to Dino’s open for Naomi. She was wearing another dress, but instead of the long, flowing silhouette of her summer sundresses, this one was fitted with long sleeves. I knew from getting dressed next to her this morning that she was also wearing one of the pairs of underwear I’d bought her.
The fact that it was the last time that I’d have the right to watch her get dressed had nearly brought me to my knees that morning.
So had breakfast with her entire fucking family.
One big happy family gathered around the table. Even desk-duty Nash had joined the fun. Hell, Stef had FaceTimed in from Paris just to judge the bacon Naomi made.
Amanda was thrilled to have everyone under the same roof and had whipped up a fancy-ass breakfast. Lou, who’d spent most of their time in town hating my guts, now acted like I was a Stef-level addition to the family.
He’d change his tune soon enough, I guessed.
This one big happy family deal wasn’t real, and the sooner everyone stopped pretending it was, the better.
I’d walked Waylay to the bus stop while Naomi got ready for work. I didn’t feel comfortable letting either one of them out of my sight while there was the possibility that whoever had broken in was still in town. Still looking to do more damage.
Which made what I was about to do even more of a problem.
When Naomi started for a table near the window, I steered her to a booth in the back. Public, but not too public.
“So I made a list for Nash,” she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her purse and smoothing it out on the table. Blissfully unaware of what I was about to do.
My brother’s name caught me off guard. “A list of what?” I demanded.