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“Okay, I’m gonna need you to back up a little, pick your head up, and say some of that again,” Brody commands, reaching down to lift my head out of my hands himself. “Because I only caught some of it, and I’m not even sure I understand what I heard. Take it from the top.”
I groan.
“Who is sexy Barney Fife?” Nina asks, trying to help.
“Ryan! Ryan Miller, aka my future stepbrother, is an uptight, rule-following, good-looking son of a bitch, and I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him.”
Pretty sure? Ha. No one cries this many tears for a pretty fucking sure.
You are in love with him.
No one says anything for a minute, and my lip quivers with the renewed urge to cry. Brody reaches out and taps my chin, though, effectively stopping me before I can get started.
“So…what’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem?” I shriek. “Have you been paying attention at all? I’m probably in love with my brother, and that is, like, insane! I’m talking Jerry Springer, back in the day, bring-out-the-bodyguards-because-this-family-is-a-freak-show crazy!”
Nina laughs and then squats down to join our little stall meeting directly. “First of all, you’re a grown woman, in your thirties, and you have but one sibling, a sister named Willow. You did not grow up with this man. You did not run around in diapers together. You did not know each other in any kind of sibling capacity at all. He is not your brother, babe. Period.”
“Are you seriously trying to act like this is normal?” I yell, and she laughs at me again.
I scowl.
“A little off the beaten path of the expected and ordinary, sure. But Car, I’ve got to tell you, that’s how love’s supposed to be,” Nina states, her voice steady. “If it weren’t, don’t you think you’d be finding it all the time?”
Brody is silent, so I turn to him and hold out a hand, palm up, hoping he’ll fill it with some knowledge. “What do you have to say about this? Don’t tell me you think it’s normal too.”
Brody shrugs, and then, believe it or not, has the audacity to smile, the bastard. “Nina is right. There’s nothing wrong with your situation. Honestly, it sounds to me like you’re just scared, and you’re using the stepbrother thing as an excuse.”
“You cannot be serious right now!”
“I am, and more than that, you know I am, Car. What have you got to lose here? You’re going back for the wedding next week. Since the groom is his father, I’m assuming he’ll be there too,” he says with a snicker.
I point a stern finger in his direction. “This isn’t funny.”
“Oh yes, honey, it is,” he replies. “When you go back for the wedding, open up your mind. Talk to him. See where it leads. I’ve never heard you use the word love so freely before, and it’d sure as hell be a shame to throw that sort of thing away.”
I stare at Brody for long moments while I try to absorb the things he’s telling me and actually let them stick.
If he and Nina don’t think it’s a big deal that Ryan’s going to be my stepbrother…is it really?
I don’t know. But I do know that whatever the case may be, the mess I left in Florida is more complicated than a simple change of heart. God.
Truth be told, for the last couple weeks, Ryan and I have been nothing but strangers. Who knows what kinds of things in his life may have shifted since we parted ways?
Brody climbs to his feet, and I hold out a hand for him to help get me up. “Can you help get me off my ass?”
“You bet, babe. And if you open your heart and your mind, I might just help you do it in more ways than one.”
Tampa, FL, November 2nd, Monday
Ryan
Nerves twist in my stomach as I pull away from the guardhouse at the entrance to Sunny Creek Village and drive down the main street toward my dad’s landominium in my rental Yukon. It’ll likely be the last time I visit him and stay there, in the bedroom where Carly and I first had sex, and the finality of it all has got me on edge.
Sal’s set to put his house on the market next week after the wedding and move in with Stella full time. I look from the driveway to the shrubs to the front door of each house as I pass, willing my stomach to stop its revolt against my return.
It’s not that I don’t want to be here that’s twisting me up—that I don’t want to see Carly—it’s the fervor with which I do.
I’m not used to opening myself up to the possibility of failure or rejection of any kind. I enter every task with the objective to achieve and to do it stellarly. But when feelings are involved, it’s not so black-and-white. That much, I understand.
