Chapter 35
ROWE
Hi, Rowe,
Hey, Rowe,
Rowe,
Long time no write. I didn’t mean to take so long to reply, but I guess I was too nervous to send this to you. It’s been two months I think since your letter came in, and trust me, I’ve written a thousand replies back to you already. They always end up floating in the lake.
My trip was good. I spent three weeks there. My savings are gone, but I think it was worth watching my money disappear. I love it there, Rowe. Honestly.
I met a few people while I was over there.
Not too many, and fuck knows I wasn’t really looking for friends.
They’re nice enough and helped show me around the town.
Mahone Bay is where I went, and it was everything I thought it would be.
You’d have hated all the tourists there, even if you’d have been one, too.
There are two photos with this letter. Both are just random, but maybe you’ll get a kick out of them.
I had one of the girls I met take the first one during my first beach trip.
The second I took myself, so don’t mind the terrible selfie angle.
It felt nice to get away. I needed to clear my head and just exist in a place nobody knew me. The appeal of starting over somewhere is starting to look really good to me. I’d miss everyone here too much to actually do it, though.
That’s maybe why it took me so long to reply to you.
There are a million things I want to say and have held in for so long that I’ve spooked myself out of speaking them.
But being away and finding, I don’t know, fucking peace or whatever it is I was searching for has helped me realize that if I don’t admit them out loud now, I never will.
So here it goes.
I think I’ve always liked you in some way or another. And before you scrunch your brows down at these words, I don’t mean as a friend, which obviously you are to me. I mean it in a different way. The mushy ass romantic kind of like. I’m interested in you. There, is that better?
Maybe I’ve been gaslighting myself these last nine months, but .
. . I think you feel the same. At least a little bit.
Before you went away, I saw the way you looked at me when you thought I didn’t notice.
Or, how mean you got every time I’d go out on a date.
Look at where you are right now. You’re in jail because of the way you protected me.
Nobody else would have acted out the way you did if there weren’t some sort of interest there, right?
Those aren’t all normal things when you’re just friends.
So, I guess, I just wanted to get that out there so you knew. Obviously, I want you to reply soon and tell me that I haven’t been daydreaming about you for months only to get my heart crushed by sending this.
And before you even think to try and use Ash as an excuse for why I shouldn’t be saying these things, just remember that I love my brother.
He’s my twin, and some days, I feel like he’s the only person keeping me together.
But I don’t care if this bothers him. If he’s as smart as I know he is, he’ll have already pieced it together on his own and had years to get okay with it.
To everyone but you, I haven’t exactly been subtle about this crush. That’s what Lacey told me, anyway.
Okay . . . yeah. It feels good to write this all down and get it out of my head. I hope you reply quickly.
Yours,
Tilly
The crack of a beer bottle lid draws my gaze from the tent peg I’ve half buried in the dirt.
My mouth twitches at the corner when Tilly lifts the drink toward me in a silent cheers and then takes a long swig.
She’s lounging on top of a picnic table beside Lacey, watching as the rest of us finish setting up the tents we’re staying in tonight.
“Remind me again why we can’t just stay in the cabins?” Shade asks bitterly.
He’s further behind on setting his tent up than I am.
Millie’s got two bare knees deep in the mulched ground while reading him the instructions that came with their new tent.
It’s a test in their relationship, considering she’s even worse at delivering clear orders than he is at following them.
Their bickering got annoying fast, so I’ve tuned them out.
Or I had, until Tilly stole all my goddamn attention again.
“They’re all booked,” Ash answers, peeking his head up from behind his tent.
Lacey sips from the straw in her red cup and nods in agreement. “I asked Shelly, but it’s tourist season and all.”
“The mosquitos are going to eat us alive out here.” Shade swats his forearm and hisses.
Tilly keeps her eyes on me, even as she smirks around the rim of her beer bottle. She’s already had a couple since we got here, and I want nothing more than to join her. The mallet in my hand grows heavier when I adjust my grip on it, debating dumping it at my feet.
“If you were done with your tent, you could start a fire. That would keep them away,” Lacey sings.
Shade lets go of a long exhale. “Coming from the two women getting drunk while watching the rest of us do all the work.”
Tilly’s eyes slip away from mine and focus on the complaining, overgrown child. She bends over her crossed legs, draping her hands near her boots. The bottle she’s holding taps her shin to an uneven beat.
“You were supposed to tuck the ends of the poles into the little loops, Shade. That’s why they’re snapping up at you. You’ve got one of them stuck under the corner of the tent.”
A gust of wind has the entire thing lifting from the ground, a pole springing up and smacking him square in the chest. He takes a stumbled step back from it and kicks a biker boot into the air. I pinch my lips together and watch in amused silence.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, whirling around to face his girlfriend when her laugh cuts through the clearing. “You think this is funny, do you?”
Millie hides her smile behind the cuff of her pink coat and shakes her head. I hammer the last peg through the loop of our tent and into the ground before standing. Shade doesn’t notice me as I approach, too busy cussing out the tent.
I blink at the mess he’s made of the polyester. “It’s upside down.”
“What? No it’s not,” Millie argues, squinting at it.
Tilly hops off the picnic table, making her way over at a lazy pace. “The door’s on the roof.”
Ash appears on my other side and takes one look at the tent before dropping to a crouch and pinching the corner of the tent. “Dude, you really didn’t notice that none of the corner pockets were facing up?”
“I don’t know shit about tents! We haven’t done this since we were kids,” Shade defends himself.
Millie falls to his side and runs a hand up his back. It looks soft and reassuring, but her words are just as teasing as Tilly’s usually are. “Maybe I’ll crash with the girls tonight instead. You guys could all spend the night together in in your upside-down tent.”
“Not happening,” I mutter before anyone else can reply.
Ash balks at me. “What? Are you too good for us now?”
“Maybe a girls’ night is just what we need,” Tilly says, her voice just a tad too high to be innocent.
Shade drops an arm over Millie’s shoulders. “I’m siding with Rowe here. Fat chance I’m giving up a night with my girl.”
“Don’t be selfish, Shade,” Lacey says.
“What? You don’t want a night to snuggle with Ash? Is it because he sweats in his sleep? I imagine that makes for a pretty wet night.”
Tilly chokes on a laugh and dips her hand into my back pocket, settling between me and her brother. “Low blow, Shade.”
Lacey avoids looking in Ash’s direction.
He stares a bit too hard at her, nearly giving himself away for the millionth time.
Fuck, I almost smack him on the back of the head to make him ease up a bit.
He’s going to scare her away at this point.
It’s a miracle she hasn’t put a restraining order on him already with all his . . . yearning.
“I’m unfortunately gonna have to side with the guys here,” Tilly says, offering Lacey a slightly apologetic smile.
“Ugh. Of course you are. You’ve got dick brain.”
There’s a collective pause between the group of us.
Five heads snap in Lacey’s direction. Shade coughs into his fist, like whatever he’s wanting to say is caught in his throat while Ash fidgets awkwardly with the brim of his hat.
Tilly recovers first. She pulls her hand from my pocket and takes Lacey beneath her arm instead. The hug she gives her is awkward, but it seems to do the trick in relaxing the gentlest member of the group.
“That’s the coolest thing you’ve ever said, Lacey.”
Lacey flushes. “It’s true, isn’t it? We’re all thinking it.”
Shade laughs, and I kick the side of Ash’s sneaker to grab his attention before our friend has the chance to make this awkward.
Tilly’s twin glances at me, dipping out of the conversation that’s about to spiral around us.
Watching me jab my thumb toward the trees behind us, he realizes what I’m trying to say, and we extract ourselves from the group.
Tilly’s watching us go, and I ignore the stubborn, nagging feeling that tells me to include her in this conversation. She’ll insist she comes too, and that’s the last fucking thing I need while trying to tell her brother that I’m pretty damn sure we’re in a relationship.
We keep walking until I can’t hear what they’re saying behind us. Ash is keeping a bit of space between us like he can tell I’ve grown tense in the few seconds we’ve been alone. Discomfort scratches at my chest, leaving tiny, stinging ruts in the flesh.
“If you’re going to ask for my blessing or whatever, you don’t have to bother.”
I pause between two thick evergreens, my boots cutting into the loose soil. “What?”
“Honestly, you’re a bit late, anyway. I called it from the night I tried to visit Tilly at the ranch and she said she was with you. Then there was the rodeo, which, do I even need to give a reasoning for?”
“Smartass.”
He flips his hat forward and leans against a tree. “I’m serious. I’ve always had a feeling that she was interested in you. But I wasn’t sure whether you reciprocated completely. Is this old or new?”
“Both. Old enough that I should’ve realized sooner.”
“That makes no sense,” he says, his gaze tightening.
“She’s always just been there. Mostly as your sister, then my friend. We sent letters to each other while I was locked up.”
“I think we all knew that.”
My brows cut together. “Tilly thinks you don’t.”
“I didn’t exactly make a spectacle out of it. But the letters came to the house. Everyone saw them, we just didn’t say anything about them to her.”
“Do you know why we stopped?”
A pause. “Not specifically. I’ve got a feeling it has to do with why she refused to listen to any of us when we talked about you and why you were so dead set on pretending you didn’t exist while she was away.”
“She told me I wasn’t just a friend to her. Sent all her feelings to me in a letter when she got back from her trip to Nova Scotia, and I freaked. Wrote her back a month later, telling her she was wrong and that she mistook me caring about my best friend’s twin as some sort of romantic connection.”
“So, you were just being yourself, then.”
I scoff a laugh so rough it grates. “Yeah, guess so.”
“That explains why she got so damn testy when it came to you. Right before she moved away, there was this change in her that freaked most of us out. She wasn’t just her usual blunt, take-no-shit girl, but this . . . angry woman who couldn’t get out of this town—this province—fast enough.”
My middle tightens. “You should tell me to back off or whatever usual protective brother bullshit is used in these situations. Fuck knows I’m not good for her.”
“As opposed to Ethan?”
My jaw snaps shut before I pry it open around sharp words. “Ex-husband is just fine. You don’t need to say his name.”
Surprise travels across his expression before it evens out.
“My point still stands. I’m not in the habit of telling Tilly who she can and can’t be with.
We’re far too old for that playground bullshit.
I love my sister, and I trust her, even if she has a habit of making questionable choices, like moving across the country and marrying a douchebag. ”
“She shouldn’t have done that. It’s my fault that she did.”
“You’re far off, Rowe. Nobody makes Tilly do anything. You may have hurt her with what you said in that letter, but she made every one of her choices on her own.”
“There’s a lot of shit in the past, Ash.”
He jostles a shoulder. “Leave it there. Neither of you are going to forget it, but continuing to tug it into the future is going to have you repeating the same mistakes.”
“You’ve always been the level-headed one of us.”
“Somebody has to be. You could take a lesson or two from me.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You’re too passive sometimes,” I say, eyeing the tents peeking through the tree branches.
“We’re not going there today.”
“Do you have plans to ever head in that direction? Seems like you’re always cutting yourself off at the roots with her before they can take.”
Ash pushes away from the tree trunk and brushes off his back before flipping his hat around again. “Let’s head back before Shade sets his tent on fire and winds up snuggled between you and Tilly tonight.”
“Fuck off.”
He barks a laugh and reaches out with a hand to shove the back of my head. I scowl at him, flattening my hat back down.
His expression sobers, and he stares right at me while he says, “Don’t hurt her again, Rowe. I wouldn’t win a physical fight between the two of us, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still punish you for it.”
“I’m trying.”
And I’ve never meant two words more in my life.