Page 81 of Wild Thorns

Like I hadn't just chosen his brother over him.

I didn't understand.

The domestic normality of it was surreal. Rowena sipping her tea, Callum turning pages, Jasper humming while he cooked, Eli making notes in the margins of his book, and me, standing in the middle of it in a borrowed sweatshirt, completely lost.

I sat down with my coffee and my casserole and let the morning happen around me. Trying desperately not to think too hard about what any of it meant, and failing.

I couldn't stop glancing at Eli, waiting for the mask to slip. Waiting for the coldness to set in.

It never did.

And somehow, that was more confusing than anything else.

Chapter twenty-two

Things Get Weirder

Two weeks after the midnight stairs, I called Tara.

"I think I might be a disaster," I said when she picked up.

"I've been waiting for this call." I could hear her settling in: the creak of her couch, the clink of a wine glass. "Tell me everything."

"There's... a situation."

"How many situations?"

Silence.

"Serena."

"I don't know what's happening," I said. The words came out in a rush; I'd been holding them back for weeks. "Jasper and I have something. It's real, it's good, better than good. He's kind and funny and he looks at me like I'm—" I stopped, tried again. "Like I matter. Like I've always mattered."

"That sounds healthy. That sounds like the opposite of a disaster."

"But."

"There's a but."

"There's a but." I pressed my free hand against my eyes. "Callum has been doing this thing where he's just... always around. Protective. Intense. He barely talks to me, but he's there, and when he does talk, it's—" I didn't know how to describe it. The way Callum's rare words landed like stones in still water. The way his presence made me feel simultaneously watched and safe. "It's something."

"Something romantic?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably." I groaned. "He brought me coffee this morning. Black, one sugar. He remembered from weeks ago. And he just set it down and walked away without saying anything, but the way he looked at me—"

"Okay, so you've got a broody protector type bringing you coffee. That's... a lot. But also kind of hot?"

"Tara."

"I'm just saying."

"And then there's Eli," I said.

The silence on her end was pointed.

"The third brother," I continued before she could say anything. "The one I told you about; the archivist."

"The one with the glasses and the old books."