1. Sully
CHAPTER ONE
sully
“DOES NOAH THINK WE’RE broke?”
“No, Sul. I don’t think Noah thinks we’re broke.” He watched as I maneuvered into the spot next to him. “We’re not broke.”
“I know that,” I said defensively, finding both ends of my seat belt and wrenching them out from under my ass. “But I’m not entirely sure that he knows that.”
“We have good jobs and make more than a decent living,” Theo said, sounding as patient as if he were explaining how stocks work to a five-year-old.
“For normal people. Our brother isn’t a normal person.
He has a disposable income, so if he wants to fly us first class to Boston for his engagement party, then by all means, he can fly my ass to Boston. ”
I leaned my head back with a sigh because I knew he was right—something else to be annoyed about—and Theo looked over at me, eyes slightly narrowed.
“What’s up with you?” he asked. “Since when do you care if Noah pays for shit?”
“I don’t know, I just feel a little…” I shrugged, struggling to find the words.
My whole body vibrated as I tried to get comfortable in my seat, absently watching other people board the plane.
I’d never loved travel, which might explain the odd sensation that had been weighing me down this week, building as we got closer to the weekend.
But I’d traveled before without issues, even when I had to fly economy and squeeze my long legs between those tiny, torturous seats.
This felt…different.
“Do you ever wish you’d stuck it out with football instead of going the nerd route and becoming a professor?” I asked my brother, my brain flitting from one topic to the next. “You probably could have been rolling in as much dough as Noah.”
Theo’s eyes rolled up. “First of all, I wouldn’t have been rolling in as much dough as Noah. He’s a quarterback. I was not.”
He sounded bored, like conversation was truly beneath him, but that was just Theo. He preferred ancient fictional characters to real-life people, and that probably included his family, but he made an effort for me.
Because I forced him to.
What were we supposed to do for a three-hour flight, though? Just sit in silence? That sounded like pure torture for a mind that worked overtime in self-sabotage.
“Okay, but like, still more dough than you make as a professor,” I pointed out.
Theo ignored me, saying, “And second of all, I’m not sure how you’re sitting there calling me a nerd when you have a LEGO model of the Shire in your living room.”
“And she’s beautiful.”
My most prized possession.
Well, one of them.
“Oh my God,” Theo grunted and then tugged his hat down over his eyes.
“Did you bring a book to read for the flight?”
“Yeah.” Theo tipped his head so I could barely see the skirt of his gaze as he looked beneath the rims of his stereotypical professor glasses, a goddamn walking cliché in the form of tortoiseshell. “Just figured it would be rude to pull it out while you’re talking to me.”
“I mean, no more rude than that little hat move you just did, and it’s not like that stopped me anyway.”
“Nothing stops you, Sul.”
“That’s not entirely true. The Prozac does help calm things down. And the other one I can never remember the name of.”
“Speaking of your meds, have you adjusted them recently?”
I shook my head. “No. Why?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “Thought maybe that would have something to do with…” He gave his fingers a wave in my general direction.
“With my general moodiness and despair over a looming existential crisis?”
“Ah, so I haven’t been imagining things.”
“No.” I clasped my hands neatly together in my lap. “You haven’t.”
I rarely admitted things like that aloud, but there was no point lying to Theo. In almost every way, we were complete and utter opposites, but our brains often crossed each other on lonely paths. He would know, regardless.
Theo took his hat back off and ran a hand through his hair, which was a light brown, similar in color to Noah’s but not quite as long and unruly.
“What’s going on, dude?” His look turned tentative as he readjusted his hat. “You just got that new promotion, you’ve been thinking about getting that bigger apartment, you’re still six foot five. I thought things were going good.”
A humorless laugh slipped out of me, but I nodded.
He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, but the fact of the matter was I didn’t like my job, couldn’t give less of a fuck about my apartment, and was currently wishing I were a few inches shorter.
Even in first class, I remained cramped and suffocated.
I was crawling out of my skin with awareness of my own body. How big it was. How squished I felt.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, but Theo’s brows only furrowed.
“You haven’t had any contact with…”
He drifted off, and a hot, sickly feeling washed over me, getting stuck in my vocal cords.
I cleared my throat.
“You can say her name without mortally wounding me, you know.”
Theo grimaced. It was almost apologetic. “I’m not actually convinced that’s true.”
Me, either.
“It’s been years.” I tried to cross one leg over the other, realized that was uncomfortable as fuck, and then fidgeted in my chair until I resigned myself to manspreading. Theo could deal. There wasn’t anyone on my other side. “Not every bad mood I have is because of her. That would be—”
“Pathetic?”
I tried not to flinch. Tried to arrange my facial features so he wouldn’t know that he’d just cut open a chasm of pain in my chest.
“I was going to say unreasonable.” I grimaced. “But sure, yeah, let’s go with pathetic. You really do know how to pick a man up when he’s feeling down, bro.”
“Why do you care if I’m calling it pathetic? Unless…every bad mood you have is because of her.”
There was a pregnant pause while I considered whether to say the scary parts aloud or not.
And then decided to lie through my teeth.
Even while knowing Theo would see right through it.
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t care.” I shrugged and jabbed at the tiny screen on the back of the seat in front of me. “Do you think there’s any good movies on here?”
About a year ago, my brother secretly moved his friend’s sister into his apartment when he realized that she was pregnant and needed a place to stay on the down-low.
He claimed it was because he needed a puppy-sitter for when he was gone at away games during the season, but he’d had a crush on Gemma Briggs for years, and from the moment I saw the two of them together, I knew there was definitely some hot and heavy shit going on behind the scenes.
And now we were here, in the backyard of Noah’s new suburban mansion, celebrating his engagement. Noah had their daughter, Delilah, strapped to his chest, and Gemma was beaming from ear to ear next to him.
“Congratulations!” I hollered across the green space, which was slowly filling with people.
Theo and I maneuvered through the tables of food and drinks until we made it to the newly engaged couple.
“Young love,” I sighed dramatically, my lips stretching into a wide grin as I drew them both into a simultaneous hug, baby included. “It’s so sweet, isn’t it?”
“You know we’re both older than you, right?” Noah laughed, clapping me on the back. “And why are you talking like Mom? Have you been crashing bridge nights with her friends again?”
“Maybe.” I released both of them so I could crouch to give Delilah a little boop on her nose. This was the second time meeting my niece; Theo and I had come out with my parents a few weeks after her birth.
“He goes every week,” Theo cut in before giving his own soft congratulations and a round of tight, firm hugs.
“I need to get my dose of small-town gossip,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “But let’s focus on the important thing here.”
“The happy couple?” Theo drawled.
“Yeah, sure, okay, but what about the new digs?” I looked around the exterior of Noah’s massive new home, which I knew had been a surprise to Gemma, a part of the proposal.
They’d been living in Noah’s apartment in Boston and had been wanting something with a yard for Delilah and their dog, who was currently zooming around with Chloe, my other niece, courtesy of my only sister, Natalie.
Who appeared to be nowhere in sight.
Eh, Chloe was fine. She was nearly ten years old. And by nearly ten years old, I meant that she turned nine just last month and then immediately sent me a birthday countdown to her tenth birthday.
“What do you think of it, Gemma?” I gestured to the house and the yard and their little domestic lifestyle.
Adorable.
Cute.
I wasn’t jealous at all, of course.
It didn’t feel like someone was carving into my heart with a knife, gutting out all the things I wanted but couldn’t have.
Not one little bit.
“It’s…” She shook her head in disbelief.
Poor girl seemed a little overwhelmed by it all, but I knew Gemma could handle the London family antics.
This was what she and Noah both wanted, had planned for.
I suspected it just came a little earlier than Gemma thought it might, but it had been killing Noah not to put a ring on Gemma’s finger and lock that shit down.
“It’s beautiful. I’m still speechless. Thank you both so much for coming, for flying all the way here. ”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Theo said smoothly, giving a rare warm smile to Gemma.
“No, we would not. A chance to celebrate that we—” I flicked a finger between Theo and me. “—made this happen?” I cleared my throat. “It also helped that Noah sent us plane tickets.”
A heavy sigh fell from Theo’s lips. “We did not make this happen, Sul.”
I raised a brow, giving a pointed look to Gemma, whose vibrant blue eyes were sparkling. A light blush highlighted her freckled cheekbones because she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“Noah did need a little encouragement to get over the whole ‘best friend’s little sister’ thing,” she admitted with a giggle. Beside her, Noah rolled his eyes.
“Have you met your brother?” he muttered.
“And since Noah needed a little encouragement, I happily provided,” I explained.