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Simon: Of course. Whatever we need to do.

It’s not even a question. If Blaire thinks we need to sit down and talk as a family, then I agree. I’m absolutely dog shit at even thinking about my own feelings, let alone trying to help my three-year-old navigate his. Our family therapist has been a godsend, and maybe going again more frequently could be good. It might help open that door a little wider for me to figure out how to bring up the idea of getting back together to Blaire.

Blaire: Oh, I forgot to mention. My parents are taking Theo tonight to a trunk-or-treat thing. I have no clue what time that will be done, but you’ll have to call my dad for phone call tonight.

Simon: You’re not going with them?

Blaire: No. I’m going out tonight.

Out tonight.

Is she going on another date? She said she wasn’t seeing that one fucker anymore, but that doesn’t mean she’s not seeing someone else. She isn’t the type to go out casually with friends. At least I don’t think she is. She’s never mentioned it before, but I guess I never stopped to ask what she does on her child-free nights. I was too busy fucking through half the town on mine, and I definitely didn’t want her asking about that, so I never asked her what she does.

“You look like we’re getting deployed. What did you just get texted?” Maddox’s voice breaks my internal spiral.

I look up from my phone, blinking to clear the burning behind my eyes, my grip too tight on the device. “Blaire has plans tonight.”

“A date?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

“Well, now you really gotta nut up and say something.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, the familiar feeling of cowardice creeping in again. “It might not be a date. Or maybe it is, and I completely misunderstood whatever I thought I was feeling between us.”

Maddox shakes his head and cracks open another beer, the sound sharp in the quiet kitchen. “You’re so fucking stupid, Simon.”

Chapter eighteen

Blaire

“Theo—Theo wait!” I groan, following in after him as he barrels into my parents’ house and flings his shoes across the entryway like they personally offended him. One lands on the welcome mat; the other skids halfway under the hall table.

It’s already deafening inside. My older brother Chance’s three boys are tearing through the living room like a pack of wild animals. Chance himself—broad-shouldered, exhausted looking, and red haired like our father—stands in the kitchen with a beer in hand, laughing at something our dad just said. The second Theo spots his cousins, he lets out a war cry and joins the chaos, bright blue cast and all. My temples are throbbing before I’ve even taken off my jacket.

In the living room, my mom is curled up on the sectional with a blanket over her lap, her silver-streaked brown hair pulled into a loose bun. Beside her sits my younger sister Brittney and Sophia, Chance’s wife, who’s currently nursing four-month-old Jackson. Sophia’s blonde hair is twisted into a messy knot, and she looks as tired as I feel.

Unlike Sophia, I don’t have the excuse of having three rowdy boys and a newborn. No, I’m just exhausted because I can ’t get myself to move on over a man who has already told and shown me that he doesn’t want me.

Brittney takes one look at my face and gets on her feet before I can even open my mouth.

“Hey,” she says, slipping an arm around my shoulders. “Everything alright?”

I nod toward the hallway that leads to her bedroom. She doesn’t ask questions, just steers me through the noise and chaos until we’re behind a closed door. The sudden quiet feels almost jarring.

Brittney and I have always been close—literally. She’s only ten months younger than me, and her twin daughters are barely eight months younger than Theo. Back in high school, she and her husband used to double date with me and Simon. We even looked so much alike growing up that people constantly mixed us up, though Brittney was never as levelheaded as I was. She settled down fast once she found out she was pregnant. These days, Mason is on the road most of the time with his band, leaving her as the sole caretaker for the girls, so she still lives at home so our parents can help out.

Brittney perches on the edge of her old bed, the same faded floral comforter she’s had since high school, and pats the spot beside her. “Spill.”

I wish I could even make sense of everything I’m feeling enough to properly explain it. It feels like the last four years I’ve had the Simon Crane door firmly shut and dead-bolted has now been kicked down, the house ransacked, and I’m left trying to patch it all up while a tiny tornado runs along beside me.

I sit, rubbing my hands over my face. “I still have feelings for him.”

She doesn’t even pretend to look surprised. Of course she doesn’t. Brittney spent the longest trying to convince me to give Simon another chance after I found out I was pregnant—countless nights of her holding me while I sobbed into her shoulder, insisting that I should just tell him how I felt, that she was certain he felt the same way. She threatened to text him herself so many times it nearly destroyed our relationship. We had one of the biggest fights we’ve ever had over it. She finally gave up when Theo was around fifteen months old and we stumbled across a photo of Simon with some woman on his Facebook. After that, she stopped pushing. My whole family did. It was like they all quietly accepted that whatever he’d felt for me was gone.

“I used to just see communicating with him as another part of parenting, nothing more exciting than emailing his teacher. But since Theo broke his arm it just feels different. I feel like that night really changed a lot for us both and now I get really excited to see his name on my phone and today when I picked Theo up from his place I got butterflies. Even got dressed up in this stupid sweater because I know green is his favorite color.”

Brittney’s expression softens. “Does he seem interested in you again?”