“Oh!” Brad waved his sandwich at me. “How’s your fiancée? Carey?”
“Carmen,” I correct. “And actually, we…” I glanced at Erica. “Actually, we’re doing really great.”
“We’d better be invited to the wedding,” Brad said. “I know we haven’t kept in touch these past years, but I can’t miss seeing Hunter Cade settling down. She must be someone real special.” He put down his sandwich. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed, Erica slid over to me.
“Why did you tell him you were still engaged!” she whispered.
“I don’t know!” I whispered back. “You lied about my arm because you didn’t want him to know I had fought a guy over you.”
Erica glanced in the direction of the bathroom. “We can’t tell Brad anything. Not yet.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“No,” she said emphatically. “He hasn’t been handling our parents’ death well. We can’t just drop this bomb on him.”
I cocked my head. I could hear the toilet flushing. “We’re all adults now. I think Brad would be fine.”
“You haven’t seen how fragile he’s been,” Erica insisted. “Please. Just give me some time to find out how to bring it up to him.”
I remembered how defensive Brad had been when we were teenagers. He flipped out when he saw me rubbing lotion on his sister’s back. It wasn’tthatlong ago. And if she was right about how fragile he’d been lately…
“All right,” I said as the door opened. “We can wait before telling him.”
Brad came back into the kitchen and snatched his beer off the counter. “Has my sis told you about her latest business idea?”
“I did tell him,” Erica said. “And he liked it so much that he invested.”
Brad blinked. “What? Really?”
Was that suspicion behind his eyes? I couldn’t tell. But after what Erica had just said, I knew I had to throw him off the scent.
“It’s a really good idea,” I said. “Our generation doesn’t care as much about natural gemstones. A new sales angle like this, where the carbon is derived from a specific person’s atoms, might be what jewelers need. There’s another investor involved, too. I wanted to jump in before someone else scooped up the shares.”
As soon as I told him there was another investor, the tension left Brad’s shoulders. “That’s fantastic.Twoinvestors, Erica! That’s better than you could have hoped when you went to the expo.”
I sighed with relief. I was glad Brad didn’t accuse me of just investing out of charity.
Or because I have the hots for Erica.
Brad must have been thinking the same thing, because he swallowed the rest of his sandwich and then waved his finger between me and Erica. “Man, I remember back in high school I was so afraid the two of you would hook up.”
I snorted. Erica made a show of scoffing at the idea.
“Why would you think that?” I asked.
Brad sipped his beer and leaned on the counter. “I don’t know, man. I got a vibe from you two, when you were living with us. I can’t explain it—it was just an older brother spider sense. Thank God that didn’t happen, or else I would’ve had to kick your ass.”
He smiled at me, and I smiled back.
“But then you moved away,” Brad said. “I figured you were just being weird because of, you know, your parents.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was in a weird place back then.”
Brad downed the rest of his beer and dumped the can in the recycling box. “I get it now. Maybe it’s not thesamesituation, since your parents died unexpectedly, but I understand a little bit of what you were going through. I’ve been trying to hide it, but I’m not really handling my parents’ death very well.”
“Really?” Erica asked, feigning surprise for Brad’s benefit.