We wasted all this time. All these years. Who knows where we’d be if one of us had just told the other how we were feeling? Maybe we’d be married. Have a few kids. Maybe none of this would be happening.
“Hey, Sawyer?” I pull away so I can see his face.
“Yeah?”
I love you. That’s what I want to say. Three words I’ve never been able to speak to anyone but family because it felt like giving another piece of my heart away.
I lost one when my dad was killed.
Another when my best friend was murdered.
Will I lose this piece I’ve already given to Sawyer?
“I—if you need something, tell me, okay?”
He smiles. “Okay, Anastasia.”
“How did it go today?” I ask when Zane and Tessa come upstairs just after five-thirty.
“Good.” Tessa retrieves a glass from the cabinet and gets some water.
“I don’t know how you do that all day,” Zane says as he takes a seat on the couch, a couple of feet from Sawyer.
“Ignore him. You know your brother; he’s only social to a point.”
I laugh, so happy that they have each other.
“I can’t blame you there,” Sawyer adds.
“Whatever, you’re more social than all of us,” Tessa says.
“Nah, that’s just my charm. I can turn it on and off.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m going to grab a shower.” She kisses Zane, then heads down the hall while I finish cutting up an onion and put it in a roasting pan. Sawyer insisted on coming in here earlier and cutting up the potatoes that are currently boiling on the stove, but when he nearly fell over, I convinced him to sit back down.
Now he’s begrudgingly watching reruns of Psych on TV.
As I finish arranging the onion and move onto the Brussels sprouts I’d partially prepped, Zane gets up and comes into the kitchen. Since our dad died when I was still relatively young, Zane became more than a big brother to me.
We grew up closer than siblings, and aside from Sawyer, he’s my best friend.
“Hey, can I help?”
“Sure, if you feel up for peeling the carrots.” I point toward the washed and dried stack of carrots next to the cutting board.
“These are purple.” He holds up a purple carrot.
“Yes, now can you tell me what color that one is?” I ask, gesturing to a yellow one. “They’re rainbow carrots,” I tell him with a laugh.
“I have never seen a purple carrot.”
“That’s because you don’t cook.” I stick my tongue out at him while he starts peeling into the bin that will go to my compost outside.
“So, how are things?”
“You mean ever since my entire life was turned upside down because someone who wants to get back at my ex-boyfriend blew up the house and business of my new boyfriend?”
Zane chuckles softly. “So, you guys have a label now.”
