Page 20 of Where I Should’ve Been

Now, Norah manages his career and his mood swings, and I get to just be…Bee.

And he and Norah and Autumn get the life he’s always deserved.

I’m so happy for him. And for the first time ever, I find myself a little jealous too. Of the creative outlet he has to take chaos and make something beautiful out of it. Of the sanctuary and security of a family that loves him. Of knowing exactly what he wants and sitting in it wholeheartedly.

I thought I had some of that with the galleries, but I was wrong.

I know Bennett deserves this beautiful life. But I can’t help but wonder what kind of life I deserve.

I sip my coffee as he scoops Autumn into his arms, her little hands smearing yogurt on his sleeve, and something tender and bittersweet catches in my chest.

Something foreign—something that feels an awful lot like possibility and hope.

Once he sets Autumn back in her high chair, Bennett grabs a cup of coffee and stands at the kitchen island, flipping through the latest copy of the Red Bridge Chronicle and sipping on the plain brew.

Norah and I chat and laugh as Autumn finishes off her meal and mess, but when they get up to clean Autumn’s hands and face, I’m left with the vision of a smirking Bennett, his hips against the counter with the folded paper in his hand.

“What?” I ask, unsettled by the way he’s staring at me.

“Really making a splash in Red Bridge, huh, sis?”

I frown. “What are you talking about?”

He sets the paper on the table and taps his finger on the headline. “Front-page material.”

I follow his finger to the text, half expecting some kind of ridiculous small-town nonsense about a sheep sale for the library roof, but what I find instead is altogether more outrageous.

Bishop in the Barn: Breezy Bedding Both Hanson Brothers!

“Ahh!” I gasp. Snatching the paper off the table, I stand, my eyes flying across the page.

Move over, Mary’s little lamb! There’s a new shepherdess in town, and she’s keeping both Hanson brothers warm this season.

You’ve got to be kidding me! Eileen Martin, the little snake, wrote an entire exposé saying that I’m sleeping with Tad and Randy Hanson!

I keep reading, desperate to pull the words from the page and swallow them whole so no one else can see them as I go.

Our favorite Red Bridge realtor Hillary Howard has been saying property values are up in Red Bridge, but apparently, the Hanson brothers’ values are skyrocketing too. Rumor has it Breezy Bishop’s subletting space in both brothers’ beds.

What the fucking fuck?

Someone needs to tell Ms. Fiona Blue that this isn’t the kind of sharing we want her to teach our sweet children during story time at the library.

I finish scanning her ludicrous words quickly before taking in the stalker-esque grainy photos at the bottom of the page. One is a shot of me and Tad at CAFFEINE, caught mid-conversation. Another of Randy behind the wheel of my Range Rover, the New York plate zoomed in like it’s a smoking gun.

Heat floods my face.

“What the hell?” I look up at Bennett, who’s barely holding in laughter, the bastard.

Norah leans over to look at the paper with a furrowed brow. “What’s going on?”

I stab the headline with my finger, tapping furiously as I shove it at her face. “According to Eileen Martin, I’m bedding both Hanson brothers!”

Norah’s eyes widen. “What?”

“You know, I thought the article Eileen wrote about me years ago—the one where she said I fought off a gang trying to kidnap Norah—was peak crazy. But this is truly the cherry on top of the Eileen Martin bullshit cake.” Bennett pauses, but his eyes glint in the most annoying way as he studies me closely. “Or…is it…not bullshit?”

“Oh my God, Ben.” I huff, folding the paper in half like that’ll make it disappear. “Of course I’m not sleeping with the Hanson brothers!”