I caught his eye and my mouth ticked up. “Thanks, Drew.”
“As for whether you’re doing the right thing—I totally respect your decision to make a change. You’re only thirty-one, Val. You have your whole life to keep changing it up—quitting shitty jobs, finding better ones…” he said.
I nodded. “That’s true.”
“Subject change?”
I cleared the last of the emotion in my throat. “Please.”
“So, you’re in love with the dad, huh?” His earlier sincerity was replaced with a teasing lilt in his tone.
I glared at my older brother. “I see subtlety is still lost on you.”
“What?” His tone was indignant. “You’re my sister, I can’t tell you what I think?”
I sighed. “I don’t know if I’m in love with him.”
Liar, a voice in my head said. I ignored it.
Drew popped his shoulder up, like this was the most casual topic in the world. We didn’t talk about our love lives that much. Once or twice he asked my advice when he was still single, but he’d been married for years now.
“Well, whatever it is, seems mutual to me,” he said.
My hopeful little heart latched on to that. I absconded any sense of mystery to ask him, “How can you tell?”
His mouth curved upward annoyingly, satisfaction rising to the surface of his blue eyes.
“Because he looks at you the way I’m sure I looked at O all those years. Like he kinda can’t believe you exist.”
Oh, god.The hope that filled my chest was overwhelming.Does Luke really look at me like that?
Drew thought he did, and Drew was the bluntest person I’dever met. Despite our tender moment earlier, and no matter how much my brother loved me, he’d never say something he didn’t believe to be true.
I buried my face in my wine glass, a pitiful attempt at hiding my smile.
“See? That’s what I mean.”
“Do you ever tire of the elation you feel when you’re right?” I teased.
“You wound me.” He clutched his chest dramatically. “But yeah, no, it doesn’t get old.”
I threw a pillow at him, and we both laughed.
“You seem happy here, Val. Are you going to stay?” Drew asked, light brown eyebrows raised.
“Hmm.” After mulling my decision to quit endlessly, I’d spent precious little time thinking about what I’d do once the summer ended. Mimi would go back to Florida. Did I want to stay here without her? I assumed I could keep helping Luke with Luna; he’d implied as much, but we hadn’t talked about it since I officially quit my job. He’d only need me for a couple of hours a day when Luna went back to school, so I’d be making less money than I am now.
But I’d have even more time to write.That thought drummed up some excitement in my veins.
“I don’t actually know,” I said to my brother finally. “I haven’t thought much past the summer.”
He shrugged again. “You’ll figure it out.” He stated it as an irrefutable fact.
“Thanks, Drew,” I said, meaning it. I looked at him—sitting in this house where we used to play in the yard in wet bathing suits and watch movies on rainy days before the more serious aspects of life took over—and questioned why I’d always felt like I needed to compete with him. Who signed me up for this race, with society, with my brother? We’re really different people, Drew and me. We always had been.And that’s okay.
“You looking forward to heading back to Boston tomorrow?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. I love you guys and all, but I miss my wife.”
