16. Austen
SIXTEEN
AUSTEN
I felt like the worst kind of traitor sitting here on the park bench with my brother, pretending everything was normal when I’d just kicked his best friend—whom I’d slept with—out of my apartment. My pumpkin muffin from Pie Hard sat half-eaten on my lap, my appetite gone despite Lola’s legendary baking skills. The October breeze kicked up, scattering gold and brown leaves across the grass, and I pulled my cardigan tighter.
“So, when were you planning to tell us about the injury?” I asked, desperate to focus on anything other than my own guilt.
Rhett took another bite of his apple turnover, chewing slowly. Always the tactical one, my brother. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Three surgeries isn’t a big deal?”
“Two.” He brushed pastry crumbs off his lap. “And the second one was minor. Just some shrapnel that needed cleaning up.”
“ Just some shrapnel?” The words came out sharper than I intended. “Mom’s going to kill you for keeping this from us.”
“Which is exactly why I haven’t been to see them yet.” He leaned back against the bench, and I caught the slight wince he tried to hide. “You know how Mom gets.”
I did know. She’d been a mess the entire time he was deployed, checking her phone obsessively for messages, jumping every time it rang. Finding out he’d been injured and hadn’t told her had broken her heart. I didn’t know what he’d said to her to keep her from flying straight up to Washington to mom him through his recovery in person.
“You can’t avoid them forever,” I pointed out. “And the longer you wait, the worse it’s going to be.”
The maple tree above us released another shower of leaves, and I watched them spiral down, wishing my own problems could drift away as easily.
“I know.” Rhett sighed, wadding up his napkin. “I just need a minute to figure out how to explain everything.”
“The last two months haven’t been enough time to figure it out?”
“Been a little busy with PT and shit.”
I nodded, but my thoughts drifted back to Clint’s face when I’d practically shoved him toward the door. The hurt I’d glimpsed in those hazel eyes before I’d turned away. God, I’d handled that so badly. After the most amazing night of my life, I’d panicked and treated him like some dirty secret.
Because that’s exactly what you made him , my conscience helpfully supplied.
I should’ve stood my ground with Rhett. Should’ve been honest. Should’ve...
“You remember that last batch of letters you sent?” Rhett’s voice jerked me back to the present. “The ones that came right before...”
“Before the attack? Yeah.” My stomach clenched. We hadn’t talked much about that day.
“We were all sitting around playing poker. Talking about home.” He paused, his gaze distant. “About what—and who—we were missing.”
Something in his tone made me look up sharply.
“We made this pact, right before everything went sideways.” He cleared his throat. “Said if we made it home alive, we were done wasting time. That we’d go after what we really wanted. Who we really wanted.”
My heart stumbled. “What do you mean?”
“Thompson had just gotten news about his adoption going through. Made us all think about what we wanted out of life.” He turned to look at me. “Kellan was talking about Tate. I admitted I screwed things up with Pepper.”
I barely registered the confession about Pepper—something I’d suspected anyway—because my mind was stuck on one thing: if they’d all made this pact, had Clint been talking about me?
My mind raced through every moment with him since he’d been home. The way he’d offered to be my date without hesitation. All those “practice dates” that hadn’t felt like practice at all. That kiss at the wedding that had curled my toes and set my heart racing. Last night...
Oh God. What if all of it had been really real? What if he’d been trying to tell me something the whole time with every lingering touch, every heated glance?
And I’d just shoved him out the door like yesterday’s news because I was too chicken to stand up to my brother.
“Earth to Austen.” Rhett waved his hand in front of my face. “Where’d you go?”
I needed to redirect. Fast. Before my face gave away everything I was thinking. “Just thinking about what you said about Pepper.” I turned toward him, grateful for the chance to focus on someone else’s love life. “Does that mean you’re ready to get your head out of your ass and fix things with her?”
He scowled, shifting on the bench. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” I arched a brow at him. “That’s all you’ve got? Maybe? After you just sat here telling me about this big dramatic pact about not wasting time anymore?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s really not.” I crumpled up my muffin wrapper. “You love her. You never stopped loving her. And I happen to know she never got serious with anyone else after you two split.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Actually, I do. We have coffee at least twice a month.” At his startled look, I added, “What? Just because you two got divorced doesn’t mean we stopped being friends. And trust me, big brother, complicated is just another word for scared.”
He grunted, draping an arm along the back of the park bench as he studied me. “That the voice of experience talking?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that somebody told me you’d been seen out with Clint since he got back.”
My mouth went bone dry, because I couldn’t read my brother well enough to know how he felt about this. “He took me to Gretchen’s wedding, so I didn’t have to face down Trevor alone.”
“Mm-hmm. That why you were wearing his shirt this morning?”
He knows. Oh, God, he knows!
My heart threatened to beat straight out of my chest, and I probably looked like a deer facing down a semi.
The silence didn’t stop Rhett from continuing. “Look, if you two are into each other, it’s none of my business. You’re a grown adult.”
I blinked. “Are you… giving your blessing?”
“Not that you need it.”
Realizing my mouth was hanging open, I closed it, slumping back against my seat. My hands trembled a bit because all that adrenaline had just dumped into my system, and now it had nowhere to go. “Well, that’s not at all how I expected this to go.”
“How did you expect it to go?”
“Possibly with your fist in his face.”
Rhett sniffed. “If I thought he was playing, it would have. But I know him better than that. He wouldn’t cross that line if you didn’t matter.”
Well, damned if that didn’t make me go all fluttery. Shit, I really needed to go talk to him. To apologize for how I’d run out on him this morning.
Leaning over, I wrapped my brother in a hug. “Welcome home, big bro. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s somewhere I need to be.”