Chapter 2 #2
Everett’s eyes flick toward me—quick, sharp, scorching—but he looks away just as fast.
“Next,” I say, because stopping now means feeling things.
Chance picks one, brows raised, a devious smirk on his lips like he’s about to test the structural integrity of the entire evening.
“Never have I ever… wished two people would just tell the damn truth.”
Charlie chokes on air. Talented.
Holly snaps her head toward Chance so fast she might need chiropractic care.
Nick whispers, “Oh my God,” like he’s watching a slow-motion car crash he suddenly understands.
Uncle Seth slings an arm around my back and mutters, “Finally,” under his breath with a delighted lilt.
But Everett—
Everett’s reaction is a whole damn novel.
His shoulders lock.
His grip tightens on the glass he’s polishing. A muscle drags along his jawline like he’s grinding down a decade of swallowed words.
His eyes flick to me.
One beat. One unguarded, scorching second.
“My turn.” I should quit while I still have emotional cartilage left—but momentum's a bitch and I'm past the point of brakes.
“Never have I ever acted like a petty little bitch by destroying architecture just to hurt someone.”
The stunned silence is immediate.
Violent.
Every set of eyes swing to me.
Uncle Seth mutters under his breath, “Jesus tap-dancing Christ.”
Holly touches my knee in silent warning.
Chance inhales sharply.
Everett lifts his head.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and go again, because apparently I've gone full self-destruct tonight.
“Never have I ever wanted to tell someone the truth… but couldn’t without breaking us both.”
Charlie fans herself. “Holy shit.”
Holly nudges my knee hard and whispers, “Sierra…”
Uncle Seth pats my shoulder like I just told him I joined a cult. “You wanna, uh… dial it back there, kiddo?”
“Nope,” I breathe. “Next.”
Nick tries to take over.
Holly tries to cut in. Seth tries to pass the turn like he’s tossing a grenade out the window.
But something is climbing up my throat like a confession on fire, and I can’t stop it.
“Never have I ever… tried to resurrect something that should just stay buried.”
Silence.
Actual silence.
Even the toddlers stop mid–sugar sprint like God hit pause on all children under the age of six.
Charlie whispers, “Ohhh no.”
Everett’s eyes lock on mine.
And for one terrifying second, neither of us breathes. I see it in his eyes. He thinks I’m done, that I won’t push it any farther.
Little does he know, Holly and Chance know everything. Nick and Charlie know enough. And Uncle Seth, well, whatever.
My brothers don’t know and that’s what matters.
I tilt my head, glare at him, and raise my glass. “That’s your drink, isn’t it, Everett?”
The glass in his hand hits the floor, shattering at his feet, but he makes no move to clean it up.
I shouldn’t stay.
I shouldn’t drink more. I shouldn’t look at Everett again.
Naturally, I do all three.
Dead inside on account of the alcohol and the emotional shrapnel, I prop my chin on my hands while the world blurs and my friends switch to something allegedly “lighter.”
Scattergories.
From emotional Russian roulette to freaking Scattergories.
We’re thriving.
Growing easy laughter and softer topics smooth over the jagged barbs I slung across the bar as effectively has Everett slung drinks. But too many feelings twist inside me to slide into the easy banter that doesn't require emotional hazmat gear.
I excuse myself to the bathroom because I need thirty seconds where I don’t have to perform.
At the reassuring click of the bathroom door behind me, I finally let my shoulders relax as I grip the sink.
What the hell was that?
Glancing up, I get a good look at Everett’s view during my spectacular lack of chill. Typical villain… flushed cheeks, too-bright eyes, the manic energy of a woman who carelessly detonated a decade of only the bare minimum of carefully executed exchanges for funnies.
I poked. I prodded. I watched him choke down every single hit.
And now I know.
He's not over it either.
I should be happy. Look at it as some twisted validation that I'm not the only one still bleeding.
Instead, my hands still shake five minutes later. My chest catches with each breath.
And despite logic, I want to march back out there and—something.
Finish what we started? Confess everything? Climb him like the damn mountain of a man he is and let the consequences duke it out?
Get it together, Barrett.
It takes three splashes of cold water on my face for the heat to fade into something manageable.
I don’t know what the hell I thought I was proving tonight. All I managed to prove is I still have a natural talent for bad decisions and when whisky and proximity collide, I’m a cautionary tale made for bad reality TV at best or trashy daytime talk shows at worst.
And that he still looks at me like I'm the answer to a question he's been asking for eleven years.
I dial my expression to something a little less emotionally compromised and horny about it, take a deep breath, and walk back out there pretending I didn't set our unofficial truce on fire.
And when it becomes too much—the noise, the warmth, the ache of wanting him and hating myself for wanting him—I slip off my stool.
Seth stands with me, bends down, and kisses the top of my head. “Don’t go too far, Bug. You’re smashed.”
I wrap my arms around him and hold tight, wishing—just for a breath—that it could all be this easy.
But it’s not. It won’t ever be.
My eyelids are getting ideas. Bad ones. The kind that end with me faceplanting into the bar and waking up with a pretzel imprint on my cheek.
I drift toward the window seat.
That stupid, sacred alcove that still smells like pine and memory.
I curl into it. Let my head fall back.
Close my eyes “just for a minute.”
Just to breathe.
Just to stop shaking. Just to let the ache settle without drowning me.
The laughter fades.
The world softens.
My breath slows.
The window seat is still here.
Still mine.
Still ours.
And the last thing I register is the faint echo of Everett’s voice behind the bar—low, tense, unmistakably aware of me even when he pretends not to be—before everything—the ache, the noise, the him of it all finally goes dark.