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“Good,” I said. “Because she's not worth it.”
Quinn flinched like I'd slapped him in the face when I said it, and I could see that what I'd said bothered him. But I wasn't one to coddle my brother. Sugarcoating things wasn't going to help him, he needed to hear the truth.
“Seriously,” I said, loading a few smaller items into the truck bed. “She's not. She twists you all up and makes you feel like shit half the time, man.”
“I know,” he sighed.
“Man, you can do so much better than her,” I said, leaning against the truck. “She's done nothing but play you since the beginning. And you just keep going back for more and more abuse. Do you even love her?”
Quinn shrugged. “I don't know. Which I guess should tell me a lot. I mean hell, if I loved her, I'd know it, right?”
“Yeah, I think you would.”
It was a relief to know Quinn wasn't in love with Shelly and wasn't planning on moving away to New York City on a whim. We might have our differences, but the three of us owned a business together now, and we needed him.
“Come on, let's get this stuff over to the park,” I said, shutting the truck bed. “Ben should be meeting us over there soon.”
CHAPTER THREE - QUINN
The park was already starting to fill up with booths and people by the time we got there. It was a warmer than usual fall for us, and it still felt like summer during the day – especially with all the damn humidity in the South. But, warm or not, the leaves were changing and there were already big red and orange piles of them all over the ground.
“South Carolina apparently didn't get the memo that it's October,” I muttered to myself.
I wiped the sweat from my brow as we finished setting up the grill behind the food truck Bennett brought over. Most of the cooking happened out back, on the massive grill we brought out for special occasions. Good BBQ couldn't be made inside a piddly little food truck.
Cason and I were working the grill, and I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of standing outside in the damn sun all day. Bennett would be in the nice, cold air conditioning of the truck – taking orders, handling the cash and doing whatever else needed to be done.
As soon as we were done with the hard stuff, Ben drove up in his truck and parked alongside ours. Climbing out, I noticed he was dressed nicer than the two of us. He was in dress slacks and a button-up shirt. His hair, darker than ours – a chestnut brown opposed to the reddish-brown color most of the McCormicks are born with – was neatly combed and styled. He took after our mother in the face, but his build was all McCormick. Clocking in at six-foot-three, he had the same wide shoulders and chest that we all had.
“Where the hell have you been?” Cason called out.
“As usual, he waits until the hard stuff is over to show up,” I teased. “Probably had to get his hair done.”
Bennett McCormick was the brother who cared most about appearances – specifically, his appearance. He always took care to make sure he looked his best, right down to his freshly shaven babyface and meticulously trimmed hair.
“Business isn't all about what goes on behind the grill, boys” he said. “Someone has to make sure the bills get paid.”
And that was Bennett. Cason was the chef, Bennett was the numbers guy. I still wasn't sure where I fit in, but I helped where needed. Sometimes marketing and advertising, other times alongside Cason on the grill. I was the more jack-of-all trades type.
“And those bills just had to be paid this morning, huh?” Cason teased, wiping sweat from his forehead with his t-shirt, which was covered in charcoal and dust.
Ben shook his head, an almost condescending look on his face – an expression that never failed to make me want to smack him right in the mouth.
“Not like you'll understand it,” he said, his tone matching his smug expression, “but I was meeting with the banker this morning to discuss our expansion.”
“Explains the suit,” I said.
“And the haircut,” Cason added. “But still not why it had to be done this morning when we could have used another set of hands to put this all together.”
“Hey now, I'm not the one sleeping with my ex still,” Ben said, turning the attention back on me.
I shrugged. “At least I'm getting laid these days. One of us has to keep the genes alive.”
“And besides,” Carson said, “Quinn got up and busted his ass this morning.”
While I gave them shit right back, the mention of Shelly reminded me of what happened the night before. For the first time since we started hooking up, starting way back in high school, I knew it was the end. Hell, we hadn't even slept together last night. At least not in the sexual sense. We shared a bed one last time before she left for the bright lights of the big city.
And this morning, when I asked her again if she was sure she wanted to end this, she made it perfectly clear that we were over.
