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Tessa rolled her eyes and stomped off to the family room to turn on the game. But over the sound of the endless pregame chatter, she heard Luke and her brothers talking. Ten minutes later, when laughter broke out in the kitchen, she couldn’t help sneaking back in to a steal a peek.
Eric and Luke were washing dishes, and Luke was laughing so hard about something that he had to wipe tears from his eyes with the dish towel. Though Tessa suspected they were talking about her, she still smiled.
But when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, her smile faded. Jamie was in the backyard, sitting on a bench near the fence. The bench faced the small stone they’d put there thirteen years before. Their parents’ names were carved into the stone.
He must have heard her as she walked down the path toward him, but he didn’t look up.
“Hey, Jamie. Are you avoiding the dishes?”
“Nah. Just thinking.”
She bumped her hip against his shoulder. “About what?”
“Nothing you want to talk about on a Sunday.” She’d made a rule long before that they couldn’t talk about the brewery on Sundays, but she didn’t like the tension in his shoulders.
“Come on,” she urged. “Spill it.”
“Eric pissed me off, that’s all. He thinks I’m irresponsible. Nothing new.”
“So why are you out here?”
“Because I can’t do this anymore. Things are going to have to change. I can’t keep going like this.”
“You have to give him time, Jamie. After your little slipup with Monica—”
“It wasn’t a slipup,” he snapped.
“Fine. Call it whatever you want. The point is, you screwed up.”
His laugh was so bitter that it sent a bolt of alarm through Tessa’s chest.
“Give it time,” she insisted. “You can’t just—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out. It’s been like this for years. I can deal for a few more months. What do you say we go inside and make your boyfriend uncomfortable.”
She wanted to press him. Ask him what he meant about plans and changes. But it was Sunday, after all. So when he stood, she dropped the subject and gave him a little sisterly shove. “Leave Luke alone.”
“In your dreams.”
As they wound their way through the overgrown garden, Tessa hooked her arm through his. “His nickname isn’t Babe Magnet, you know.”
“I heard it with my own two ears.”
“Nope. You got it wrong. In L.A. they called him Bullet Magnet after he was shot.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“He’s a good guy, Jamie. I love him.”
That chased all the amusement from Jamie’s face. In fact, he paled a little. “I’ll kill him if he hurts you.”
Tessa decided not to broach the subject of Luke moving in. Instead, she just murmured, “I know,” and gave him another affectionate shove.
Luke was waiting for her when she came through the patio door. The national anthem floated in from the family room. Jamie left them alone with only a quick glare at Luke. As soon as he disappeared around the corner, Tessa took the opportunity to snuggle into Luke’s arms and steal a kiss. “This is nice,” she whispered.
“Yeah, it is.”
“I meant this. You here with my brothers.”
