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“Thank you, Jack. We’ll just be in the other room,” she said before slowly making her way into the living room.
When it was just the three of us, I addressed the elephant in the room. “You two are gonna stay together, right?”
Jack turned toward Cassie, who was already staring right at him. “She’ll probably be sick of me by then.”
“Most likely,” she said in response.
I hoped they were kidding, assumed they were kidding, because I couldn’t believe the topic had never come up.
Leaning back in my chair, I said, “You guys seriously haven’t talked about any of this?”
“Not yet.”
“Dude, June isn’t that far away. And you’ll leave right after the draft. You two are hopeless.”
I stifled a shout as Jack rammed his foot into my shin full force.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Dean, and worry about your own love life? Or lack thereof.”
I shoved out of my chair, sliding it across the kitchen floor with a loud squeak.
“Ow, Jack! Jesus! I was just saying you two should probably get your shit together and actually start doing that whole communicating thing Gran was talking about. ’Cause the last time I checked, you sort of sucked at it.”
Jack stood up and pushed his face inches from mine, breathing hard. I tensed and braced myself, worried for a moment that my own brother was going to hit me.
“You’re being a real asshole, Dean, you know that?” A muscle jumped in his jaw, telling me I’d struck a nerve.
“Jack! Sit! Down!” Cassie yelled as she tugged at the hem of Jack’s shirt.
“Let’s go,” he gritted out, and Cassie scowled at him.
“What? No. We haven’t even done the dishes and—”
“We’re leaving. I’ll do the dishes when I get back,” he shot back, acting like a little bitch.
/> Cassie sighed and gave me an embarrassed smile. “‘Night, Dean.”
“‘Night, Cass. Sorry.” I shrugged, feeling a little bad about the conversation and hoping she didn’t hate me, but her smile told me she didn’t.
After they left, I looked around at the mess in the kitchen. As my way of apologizing without saying sorry, I rinsed all the dishes off before putting them in the dishwasher. At least when Jack got home, he’d know I wasn’t intentionally trying to start a war with him. I’d truly been surprised to hear that they hadn’t talked about any of those things.
June was right around the corner, and then what?
I’d already started to feel like Cass was a sister to me. I didn’t want to lose her either.
Take It to the Head
Even though I swore I wasn’t going to apologize to my brother, I still did. I hated the idea of anything being off between us. Aside from Gran and Gramps, he was all I had in this world, and I needed him on my side.
Jack forgave me easily, telling me that I only pissed him off because I was right and he hadn’t wanted to hear it. I told him that I hoped him and Cassie talked about everything before it happened from now on. He told me to stop being such a know-it-all when I didn’t know shit about being in a relationship. I wanted to argue with him, but he was right.
On Friday afternoon a couple of days later, Jack poked his head into my doorway, his keys in his hand. “Tonight, we’re going to Matt’s place to hang out before the softball game. You in?”
Since the baseball team only had practice this week and no games, Jack had been asked to throw out the first pitch for the school’s softball team. It was good PR, or so he said, so he’d agreed to it.
“Yeah. Should I just meet you there?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m going over to Cassie’s now, and then we’ll probably head there together later. I’m trying to convince her to come straight to the game with me, but she keeps telling me no.”
