Page 27 of Summer with a Brother's Best Friend
They did.
Good Lord, did they matter.
“Hey Ba… Reece,” Isaac catches himself as my eyes flare wide, “where do you want these flowers?”
“Those go over on the gift table,” I say, pointing across the room as I will my heart rate to slow. We’re too close to the end of keeping our relationship a secret to blow it now, but I’m craving his touch more than ever.
Especially today.
I’m so focused on sorting the favors I don’t hear Maddox come in behind me.
“Hey, Reece.”
“Hey, Brother,” I say, immediately defensive even though I don’t want to be. “Can you go get the balloons from my car?”
He doesn’t answer, lingering in the room before huffing and spinning on his heels. I don’t have time for this today, but morethan that, I hate that we’ve been practically strangers since I’ve been back.
“Baby, are you okay?” Isaac asks, wrapping his arms around me and letting me bury my face in his chest. We shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t deny how badly I need his strength right now.
“I’m so tired,” I admit, listening for footsteps outside the room and hearing none.
“Well, I did keep you up late,” Isaac murmurs, tilting my chin up with his finger to lick along the seam of my lips, forcing a giggle from me before fully pressing his mouth to mine.Thisis what I needed, and?—
“What the fuck is this?!” Maddox’s voice booms through the space, making me jump as I turn to face him.
Hours pass in the span of seconds as I watch a myriad of emotions flit across my brother’s face.
“I’m not doing this today,” he barks, stomping down the hall back toward the parking lot.
“No!” I growl, chasing after him, with Isaac right behind me. “Mads, you’re going to listen to me. This has gone on long enough!”
“Not today, Sissy.”
“Dammit, Mads!” My heels click against the pavement as he finally stops to face me.
“You’re together now, aren’t you? You couldn’t even tell me? You’re doing exactly what I asked you not to do!”
“Yeah, we’re together and we’re happy, and I need you to be happy for us!”
“I get that you wanted more than Love Beach, but why couldn’t you just stay? Why did it take you so long to come back?”
“Iamstaying! If you would’ve pulled your head out of your ass for five seconds, I would have been able to tell you that. Butyou’re too busy spending every waking moment obsessed with your job instead of putting that time into building a relationship with the first girl who’s ever been able to tolerate you!” My words are loud and hurtful, but I can’t stop them, and even though I should want to take them back, I don’t. He needs to hear them as much as I needed to say them.
Car doors slam, and belatedly, I know it’s Marigold and someone else, but I can’t take my eyes off Maddox. He’s angry and hurt and so am I. He was right. We shouldn’t be doing this here, but we’re like a freight train running off the tracks.
“It’s not about leaving you, Mads. I needed space, and I needed to be somewhere where I was justme, where I could avoid disappointing our parents for not going into nursing, where I wasn’t just your sister.”
“But you couldn’t tell me? You couldn’t tell me any of that, so you just broke his heart right along with mine?”
Logan materializes next to me, nodding toward the cake in his hands. The cake for my parents.
For their anniversary party.
Shit.
“Ladies, come help me take this inside,” he says to me and Marigold, and I follow because it’s too much, and I need a minute to breathe.
But there’s no time for that because as soon as the cake is on the table, Logan spins on both of us.
