Page 74 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

February in Texas means everybody still gets to pretend it’s a real winter for one more month before the heat comes back and ruins it.

Backyard barbeque.

This is what a life is supposed to be.

Men around the grill with a beer in hand. Women by the desserts table, some with babies on their hips. And kids shrieking as they run around in the grass until somebody’s mother tells them to go shriek farther away.

Just the ordinary, respectable noise of people whose lives are not currently being dismantled by a wife who woke up one day and decided vows of forever were just a suggestion.

Jake works the yard the way he’s always worked a room: handshake half a second too long just so the man on the other end remembers to pay attention to him. He’s always careful to time his laughs right in time to give the other party permission to laugh, along with a hand clap on the back. That way it reads as affection instead of what it actually is, which is management.

Nobody walks away from five minutes with Jake thinking there’s a crack anywhere in his foundation.

That’s the trick of being a man. You don’t have to be fine. You just have to make everybody elsebelieveyou are.

“Man, good to see you out,” Jared says a little too carefully, meeting him at the cooler with a back-clap. Like he rehearsed it on the walk over so it wouldn’t come out sounding likehow are you holding up. Jake’s teeth grind, especially when Jared follows up with, “Wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Jake gives Jared the easy grin, the one women trust and men relax around. “Y’all always throw the best ones.”

“Brianna does the planning. I stand here and look useful near the meat.”

“Marriage in one sentence,” Jake says, and Jared laughs because that’s what people do when Jake gives them the right cue.

Jared pokes at something on the grill that doesn’t need poking. “You doing all right, man? With everything?”

There it is.

Jake lets the question hit. Just for a second. Then Jake lets his eyes go tired but the barest sheen of wetness.

Wet is useful.

Spilling is pathetic.

“I’m hanging in,” he says, quiet enough that Jared has to lean closer. “Marriage means you don’t quit on someone because they’re having a hard time.”

Jared’s face does exactly what Jake needs it to do.

Softens and aligns.

Good.

“She’s not herself right now,” Jake adds, because it’s important to plant that part early and often. “And I don’t mean that ugly. I mean, I know my wife. I know when she’s spiraling.”

“Yeah,” Jared says, nodding slowly. “Bri’s worried about her.”

Of course Brianna’s worried. Brianna is a decent woman. Soft-hearted and easy to steer.

“She should be.” Jake looks down at the beer in his hand like he is fighting for dignity in front of another man. “Lennon’s always been more fragile than people realize. I protected her from a lot of that. Probably too much.”

He lets out a small laugh, rueful and self-aware. Not bitter. Never bitter in public.

“I guess maybe I made it look easier than it was.”

Jared nods again, and there’s sympathy in it now.

It settles something ugly and hungry in Jake’s chest.

Because this is the part Lennon never understood. Women like Lennon never understand when they start using words likecontrolandmanipulation, only because some tattooed piece-of-shit loser has gotten into their heads.