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Her eyebrows climbed as she broke off. Lips pursed, she leaned forward and made another notation, then backed up to the beginning of the transition. When she dropped it that half-octave, I swore it was like she pulled mourning and worry twisted them right up with hope and fear.
It was—perfection and even made my eyes burn.
“Holy shit,” she whispered as the last bar fell away. “That’s—” She met my gaze. “Thank you.”
Running a hand over my hair, I rubbed the back of my neck. “You’re welcome. I should have asked before I touched it.”
“Maybe.” It was neither agreement nor chastisement. “But I’ve been stuck for three days and you found what I knew was missing.”
“It hurts.”
Dipping her chin, she nodded. “It definitely hurts.” The loneliness I might have imagined, but the melancholy I didn’t. Shifting, she put the guitar back on the stand. “I need to shower. I stink. Then we can make coffee.”
“I can try to make it for you if you want.” She’d been teaching me. I didn’t have it fully down, but I didn’t get a lot of practice.
“That would be great,” she said as she stacked the music sheets together and straightened them. “Thank you.”
She was almost at her door when I needed to ask, “KC?”
“Hmm?”
“Is Lachlan bothering you?” Cause if he’d broken in here while I was gone, my brother and I weren’t going to talk.
We were going to fight.
“I don’t know,” she said after a moment, one hand on the doorknob to her room. She’d picked up her shoes and sweatshirt. “I mean, he knocked on the door. So—improvement? We’re basically running and that’s about it. I’m not going looking for him, but he’s been here since right after I got back. So… we run. Usually really early, but he was late today.”
“Why don’t you just tell him to fuck off?” She was more than capable of doing it. I’d heard her—more than once. She could tell me to fuck off, too. It was part of what I liked about her.
She laughed, pushing the door open to her room and setting the stuff down on her bed before facing me again. I’d followed as far as the door but stayed out of her space. The sound of her amusement flooded me with warmth.
In all those pictures, she’d been kissing my brothers, but she’dsmiledat me. Smiled and laughed. The rich, throaty sound of her laughter right now reminded me of that and made me want to just wrap up in that musical sound.
“None of you listen to me,” she pointed out. “None of you.”
“I do,” I protested. Granted, it had taken a while. But I did listen.
“You do now,” she admitted after a long moment. “Will it last long?”
The doubt should have stung, yet the reality was right there. We’d all judged her last year. We’d all…done a lot of shitty things—some shittier than others. But I liked that we’d become friends this year.
“Can’t know until we try. I can go running with you if you want. Make sure Lachlan leaves you alone.” Kind of like I had at the gym over the last couple of weeks of the fall semester.
KC studied me, a faintly puzzled frown on her face. “But he’s your brother.”
Discomfort shifted through me. All I could hear was Mom ranting about us choosing KC over her and Gibs… over family. So yeah, Lachlan was my brother. He, even more than Ramsey, had known about my interest in KC last year and it didn’t stop him from chasing her.
From tormenting her.
Fromkissingher.
“He is my brother. But I want you to be my friend.”
“Brothers are important,” KC told me as she came back to the door to face me. “I’ll never ask you to choose between us. No one should.”
“Brothers aren’t that great.” I shrugged. Lachlan was annoying as fuck, and Ramsey could be such a control freak at times.
“I wouldn’t trade mine for anything in the world.” She grinned again. “Lachlan’s a dick, but he’s still your brother. Don’t give up on him.”
