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Insistent fingers.
If I was ruined for other men before, I’m destroyed now.
I whip back to Jake, try to think this through. Get us back to the close brothers I need us to be. “I told her we can’t happen. She knows.I know.It was just a blip this morning. We were both tired and overwhelmed from her accident and weren’t thinking clearly. But Iamthinking now, Jake. Jolene will only ever be a friend to me. You come first from now on.”
He’s not even looking at me. His hardwired focus is on Jo, and he looks beyond distraught. Equal parts mad and…fearfulalmost?
His furious attention snaps to me, zero forgiveness in his hard eyes. “You have no fucking clue what you did.”
He scrapes back his chair and storms from the shop, abandoning me on this shark-surrounded ship. He doesn’t need to walk me off this plank. I’ll walk myself right quick.
Jolene comes over. She reaches forward, like she wants to place her hand on my shoulder, but she falters. Must be the tortured expression on my face. “Are you okay, Cal?”
I shake my head.
Frowning, she glances at the shop’s door. “Why did Jake storm out of here like his ass was on fire?”
You have no fucking clue what you did.I slump into my chair, rub my eyes. “I’ve lost him.”
“What do you mean,lost him?”
I blink at Jo, no longer attuned to my body’s reaction in her presence. There’s a boulder on my chest. Air is barely pushing past. How do I live without my brother in my life?
“Cal,” she says and gently touches my shoulder, “what just happened?”
“I told him about this morning.” My voice sounds strange to my ears. Distant. “About my feelings for you. The kiss. He, of course, hates me now.”
Her hand shoots to her mouth. “Why didn’t you talk to me first? We could’ve done it together.”
“There’s no together,” I say, my tone as lifeless as I feel. “You saw Jake tear out of here. There’s no coming back from this. He won’t forgive me, and he shouldn’t.”You have no fucking clue what you did.“I broke his trust and his heart.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she says, shaking her head and watching the closed door. “He was okay when I spoke to him the other day. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating him, and he wasn’t mad or upset.”
I fling my arm toward the door. “Did that man look okay to you? Like a guy who isn’t torn up over losing you to his brother?”
“First”—she leans into my space—“you don’thave me, Callahan. No man has me. I’m my own woman, who chooses which man she cares about, and that man happens to be you. Although that status is questionable at the moment. Yes, he looked furious and upset, but I’m telling you, it’s not because of me.”
She’s wrong. Jake doesn’t get this livid or rattled. He doesn’t tear off without finishing conversations. He took one look at Jo and practically ran out of here.
“I’ll sleep on E’s floor until your place is ready,” I tell her as my stomach churns. “Once you’ve moved back in to your apartment, we’ll see about trying to salvage our friendship. Until then, I think we both need space.”
“Space.” She rears back, clearly unimpressed with my solution.
I give a helpless shrug.
“Didn’t you promise you wouldn’t push me away again?”
“That was before I broke my brother’s heart. I need to be there for him. Find a way to make this better.”
A muscle below her eye twitches. “Fucking men,” she mumbles and returns to Larkin, who’s presumably been watching this car crash with glee. “I need to speak to Jake,” Jolene tells her. “Whatever you wanted to talk about, can we do it later at work?”
“Sure, of course,” Larkin says. “Do what you need to do.”
Jo shoots me a look I can’t decipher and leaves to find Jake. I don’t know why she’s bothering to chase him. He’ll only hate me more.
Larkin saunters up to my table and crosses her arms. “Your brother is a fucking asshole.”
I bristle. “He is no such thing.”
