Page 94

“I mean it. If Jackson had been into men, I think he’d have been into you. Once you turned eighteen, of course.”

“How would you have felt about your brother dating your best friend?” It’s not until I ask the question that I realize how loaded it is and how much the direction of his answer means to me.

“I’d have been so happy.”

I stare at the fire for a moment. Jackson has been dead for a long time. Long enough that the sharpness has faded into something softer and duller, but I know it’s still a hard topic for Taylen.

I miss him, but mostly I miss him for Taylen because he lost a brother. I lost a friend, and those things are not the same, but I miss him for me too.

“Okay,” I say. “My turn. Same question.”

“You already know the answer to that question.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

He rolls his head against the cushion and looks at me. His eyes are already a little glassy.

“Bastian.”

“Say it again for the cheap seats.”

“Bastian. Bastian Hall. Your brother. The one who left. The one who came back. Him. It was him from the beginning, Finn. It’s been him since I was seventeen and probably before. It’s been him the whole time.”

Something warm sits in my chest that isn’t the whiskey.

“Tay.”

“Please don’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Are you going to give me a speech?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell me I’m a mess right now?”

“No.”

“Are you going to make me feel better?”

“No.”

He laughs, and it’s watery. “You’re the worst best friend.”

“I know.”

I lift my glass to him. He clinks his against mine, weakly.

“For what it’s worth,” I say quietly, “I think the two of you together would either be a disaster or the best thing to ever happen to either of you. Probably both.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

We drink some more.

At some point after that, I stop counting what round we’re in. Taylen gets a blanket from the back of the couch and drops it over both of us. We lie on the couch, my head at one end, his at the other, our legs tangled in the middle.