All of my thoughts came to a screeching halt as confusion took over.
But before I could ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, June’s agitated voice carried through the tent opening. “I cannot believe you’re doing this!”
Mike closed his eyes, his shoulders dropped, and we both moved out onto the beach.
June had paced a path into the sand. While Sadie was twisting her toes deeper and deeper as if she were trying to bury herself.
“When does this pattern end? I even told you that he was just like Fuckboy Lawyer”—June cut herself off, slapping a hand to her mouth—”it’s him, isn’t it?”
Chewing her lower lip, Sadie didn’t answer.
“Ohmygod! No! He’s an environmental lawyer in and out of Chicago, and he’s all tall and brown eyed and exactly your fucking type. No. Sadie, tell me he’s not...”
She squeezed her eyes tight hanging her head.
“Gene is Fuckboy Lawyer?!” June exclaimed.
I turned to Mike. “What’s Fuckboy Lawyer?”
He rubbed his fingers across his eyebrow. “You.”
My chest tightened as I struggled with the feeling that I was the last to know something. Something vitally important. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the guy. The one that’s been messing her up. Breaking her heart, stringing her along.”
“No, that’s not right. There was another guy.”
For the first time since the night began something like sympathy softened his features. “It was you.”
My mouth went dry as the blood drained from my face. Images of Sadie flashed in my mind, her scowl at seeing me, the tears in her eyes before disappearing into her room after our dance lesson, her wringing her fingers as she brought up wanting something meaningful. Every time her eyes burned a little too bright as she looked up at me making me feel like my chest wasn’t big enough to contain the tenderness building there. Every time I left her bed to retreat from that feeling. Every time I consoled myself that she couldn’t feel anything real for mebecause I had been clear and upfront from the very beginning—ignoring how my own reactions to her had grown unclear.
She’d picked up on all of it.
And when she’d built up the courage to ask for more.
And I believed that she couldn’t be searching for anything meaningful with me, because I would only let her down. I couldn’t fulfill her needs.
As the layers of my ignorance peeled away, it was clear that I’d been right all along.
I wasn’t enough.
Chapter 23
Sadie
“Gene is Fuckboy Lawyer?!” June shoved hands into her hair, holding both sides of her head. “This whole time it wasGene,and I didn’t put the pieces together. But then you pretended he was a stranger. You introduced yourself to himrightin front of me.”
It seemed there was no end to her shock or outrage. It was only made worse that I really couldn’t blame her. At the beginning of the conversation, she’d asked point-blank if I’d fucked her soon to be brother-in-law. She didn’t really wait for me to answer. Instead, she said she could tell from the way he’d opened the library door for me and the way I’d practically twirled my way up the aisle. But as she dug deeper, it grew more dense and my actions more deceitful. From the very start, I’d handled the situation with an astounding immaturity.
Wiggling my feet from side to side, I sank further in the sand. “I was shocked to see him when I got here.”
“Yeah, I bet.” At least she sounded a little less enraged, but the pity replacing it was almost worse.
From just outside of the mouth of the tent, Jamison stared out at the ocean with his brow furrowed and his arms crossed. Clearly, he was deep in thought, but I was too busy chasing out the frayed edges of my mind to try and comprehend what he must be thinking. Just a few minutes ago, everything had been contained and almost simple.
There was no way that was true now. Now he knew more than I wanted him to, and my pride was a shriveled husk in the pit of my stomach. I might have told him someday about how I’d longed for him and inflated his feelings for me until my confidence was nearly nonexistent. But I never would have done it like this.
At his side, Mike looked like he was on the verge of fighting or consoling his brother—I recognized it in the way my sister was staring at me.
