12 #2
“Okay, stop,” I say, stepping into his path once more. “You are not going in there like this. You’re not bringing down their nice dinner. Come on.” I grab his arm and pull him farther down the sidewalk. “We’re doing a lap.”
He pulls his arm out of my grasp. “I’m not a child, Amelia. You can’t tell me not to go to my brother’s rehearsal dinner because you don’t like my attitude.”
“Yes, I can.” I point a finger towards his face. “He may be your brother but they’re my best friends, and I will not have you doing anything that jeopardizes their happiness tonight. I will physically fight you before I let that happen. So stop being a little bitch and come on a walk with me.”
When he still doesn’t move, arms crossed and stolid, I reach into my purse and pull out a joint.
“I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
A smile fights against his will, curling the corner of his lip. “You—Drill Sergeant Mercado—are actually willing to smoke pot before this rehearsal dinner?”
I shrug. “The rehearsal part is done. And I don’t know if you heard, but smoking pot is actually very conducive to eating.”
He plucks it out of my hands. “Such a bad influence. Got a light?”
I pull one out of my purse, then nudge his shoulder to get him walking again. “Come on, let’s go around the corner at least, you delinquent.”
“So, be honest,” I say, shoulders pressing into the yellow brick of the restaurant’s side wall, freshly lit joint between my fingers. “What’s your deal now anyway?
I should be worried about scuffing up the back of my dress—lavender jacquard, corset top, pleated skirt, tea length, absolutely gorgeous—but it’s been a long day, and I’m too busy interrogating Owen to really care.
“What could you possibly mean by that?” Owen asks, shoulder barely touching mine where he leans too. I hold the joint out sideways and he takes it.
“Mmm… I don’t know how to say this in a not-bitchy way.”
“You never do,” he chuckles.
“It’s just—” I rotate to face him, the roughness of the wall biting into my shoulder. “You never cared about Andy before, but it seems like you really are trying now. So what’s up with that? What’s with the change of heart?”
He doesn’t reply right away. Instead, he brings the roll of white paper to his lips and takes a long, slow pull. He holds it in his lungs for one, two, three seconds before letting go, smoke curling thickly from his lips.
“What kind of answer do you want to that, Amelia? The short one is I’m an asshole, and the long one probably doesn’t matter.”
“Humor me with the long one.”
Owen says nothing.
I try a different approach. A tentative one. “I’m asking because he’s happy, you know. He’s really happy you’re back. If there’s anything I can say to make you stay in his life, I have to try.”
Owen’s head falls back against the brick, anguish in his low muttered “Fuck.”
“Is it just a coincidence?” I push. “You moved back to Boston for the partner track at your firm and thought hey, might as well get to know my brother? Because you’d been gone from his life for a long time.”
He’s still not looking at me as he says, “Longer than you know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was gone from his life while we were still kids at home. I didn’t react well to dad leaving and I took it out on Andy.
And then I got accepted to college in New York and I just wanted to get out of that house, where everything was sad and hard and eerily silent all the time.
And then suddenly it’s seven years later.
I had my college diploma and my JD and a whole life in New York and I realized I’d done exactly what dad did. ”
“And what’s that?”
“I left them.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut, knocking me sideways. “Oh.”
“So yeah, transferring to Boston put me on the accelerated partner track, but honestly I’m not even sure I want to make partner.
The money’s good but the work feels so fucking meaningless most of the time.
I think I really came back to test myself.
See if I could be better than dad was.” He scoffs out a bitter laugh. “So far it’s not looking great.”
“You two seem to be getting along okay, though. He made you his best man.”
“Yeah. Andy’s trying. But I keep fucking up. Like with the bachelor party. I thought it would be my chance to show him I’m willing to put in the work, but you did everything so much better than I could have. You actually know him.” He shakes his head. “He has NASA, and he really doesn’t need me."
I consider his words, twisting them like yarn into the patterns of his behavior, forming a clearer picture. “Owen, you’re doing a good job.”
He doesn’t reply.
“Hey,” I say, pushing off the wall to face him. “Would I lie to you? Do you genuinely think I, Lia Mercado, would say something untrue just to make you feel better?”
Owen laughs. “No, you would not.”
“So then take me at my word. You’re doing a good job now. Just don’t stop, okay?”
“But it doesn’t really matter, does it?” he rebuts. “I can do the best job in the world now and it’s still too late. I want him to know he can throw anything at me and I’ll never leave. No matter what. Not again. But it’s been so long and…” Owen sighs. “He doesn’t need anything from me anymore.”
“Yes, he does. You’re his brother. None of us can be that for him. He wants to be able to rely on you specifically, even if he doesn’t know how to say it.”
Owen’s eyes press closed as he takes another drag, head tilted back. Even through the haze of the pot and the dimming light, there’s obvious tension in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw. This solid, willful man. Stubborn and loyal and yes, a Capricorn through-and-through.
Even with their fraught history, this gift he’s offering Andy is… beautiful. Someone to depend on. To close your eyes and fall back on, knowing he’ll always catch you. Someone who would tear himself to shreds to do it.
There’s a part of me—a tiny, buried, squishy part—that covets that feeling.
What would it be like, to let someone take care of me? To drop the weight and just float, held gently in trust and affection? To be totally honest with someone, about everything, after all this time, and know I couldn’t scare them off?
I can hardly imagine it.
I mean, I love my friends, of course. And I have my brother. We’re as close as people can be. They would do anything for me.
But even with NASA, there are parts of myself that I’ve never been honest about. Never truly unearthed all my broken parts. Never felt like I could.
And maybe it’s the fact that the wedding is tomorrow and everything feels sappy and romantic, but for the first time… I think I want that. I want to trust someone with everything. Every single thing. And to know they’ll love me through it.
Owen drops the butt of the joint onto the concrete, stubbing it out with his black leather shoe, then picking it up and tossing it in the dumpster.
“Should we head in?” he asks, pushing off the wall, a stormcloud still tucked behind his eyes.
“Yeah,” I say, not second guessing my instinct to lean forward and loop my arm through his. When he looks over at me, the tight set of his mouth loosens—curious, surprised.
“I don’t know about you,” I say, “but I’m starving.”
That hint of a smile blooms. “Amelia, I think you’re just high.”
And dammit—he’s handsome like this. Softened by evening air and honesty, the suggestion of a Walsh-family dimple peeking out through his dark beard. Clearwater blue eyes pouring into mine.
Maybe I am just high, but I think I’m actually starting to like Owen Walsh.
That feeling, it turns out, would be short-lived.