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“Thanks, baby,” he murmurs low. It slides beneath the noise of patrons but not too quiet I can’t hear the endearment. My heart clenches happily for the two of them. Their love will last a lifetime.
Maybe someday I’ll find that too.
I rise in preparation. If he doesn’t apologize, I’ll make a quick getaway until he’s ready to stop being an ass.
“Wait.” He steps in my path.
I square my shoulders and raise my chin, but it’s not much help. Eric will always be my big brother—both in size and the fact he’s spent a decade protecting me. I leave the burden to fix this up to him.
“I’m sorry,” he starts immediately, dousing some of my fire. “When I got here and found you at the hotel, it was like all my worst fears were confirmed.”
Like I knew it would, the first cracks form in the concrete wall surrounding me. I hold tight to my silence when, in reality, I’m clinging to my emotions in a double-handed grip.
“You’re homeless, Evie.” His voice splinters on the word. “No matter the reasons for it, I can’t begin to tell you what that does to me inside.”
“I’m okay,” I croak. My throat could suddenly use that drink I drained.
“Yeah, you are.” He rubs the back of his head as his face turns deadly serious. He steps closer. “But you have to promise me that as soon as you aren’t, you’ll find someone to lean on. Rhett, for starters, but if that relationship changes, you find someone else, or you come to me. No more keeping secrets.”
“Did you say Rhett first?”
Eric shakes his head, and I can physically feel the mood lighten. “Yeah, yeah. He won me over a little bit.”
“I knew that much when you came out here without a black eye, though I’m glad to hear you confirm it.”
“You also have to promise to tell me if he fucks you over so I can hop on another ten-hour flight to get back here.”
“Deal.” I grin up at him. “Let’s go eat before our food gets cold.”
As I make my way around him, he snags my arm. “One more thing.”
My stomach gives a hearty rumble. I peer up at him with an annoyed glare.
“I’ve missed you. A huge part of that is my fault because when things went down, I chose the wrong person.”
That happy feeling from seconds ago dissipates like a puff of smoke in a breeze. “Eric,” I warn. He knows this isn’t a topic I’m willing to discuss.
He shakes my arm still in his grasp. “I screwed that up.”
“You didn’t choose anything. If you did, you wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s not true. I let Tate say some shitty things about you and some of them I even believed.”
My hackles raise at the same time my stomach bottoms out. “Like what exactly?”
He raises his hands with his palms facing me. “I still don’t know the details of what happened. But when he said you were being dramatic and immature, I believed him. I didn’t want to lose my best friend.”
Knowing all the things Eric doesn’t know, I can’t blame him for his rush to judgment. My brother spent four years of his early adulthood raising me after our parents passed away. I once heard that people will always see others in the form they were easiest to exert control over. I don’t doubt that Eric still sees me as a lost fifteen-year-old girl who was very dramatic at times, regardless of how much time has passed.
“While I can admit now that it hurts he’s still in your life, I can also tell you that as long as you keep him out of mine, it won’t be an issue,” I deliver gently.
Even so, his face falls as if I said the opposite. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“People never do. You’ve apologized. You’ve flown halfway across the world to be here. And you aren’t on some crusade to get us back together, so I can leave it alone and say I forgive you. Even when you’re being a giant ass.”
Eric wraps his arm around my shoulder and nudges me to the side. The message that the conversation is over received. “As if you haven’t been throwing major attitude since I got here.”
“You mean since you ambushed me?”
