Chapter 22
THEO
“Thank you for coming.”
Corey’s voice behind me was more sincere than I’d ever heard it in the entire time I’d known him. I turned, surprised he was anywhere near me, and even more surprised once I parsed what he’d said.
That must’ve shown on my face, because he laughed. It was a nice, soft laugh.
He looked… good, honestly. The white suit Delilah had insisted on worked for him, showing off his no-doubt carefully crafted summer tan.
I’d never known a man—or for that matter, a woman—who had more steps in their skincare routine than he did.
Mornings with Corey had been a source of awe to me that someone could go to so much trouble for something that, to me, seemed so unimportant.
“Uhh,” I said, wishing Simon was still here instead of on a bathroom trip. I should’ve gone with him.
Corey smiled wryly. “I know you’re here because you don’t want to face your mother’s disappointment,” he said. “Which, by the way, is stupid. She’s a lost cause. You’ve gotta forget what she thinks.”
“Advice noted,” I said. We’d had this conversation about her before. I seemed to have this conversation about her with anyone who knew me for more than a few weeks.
“But I am glad you came,” he continued. “Honestly. It’s… nice. To see you.”
That sounded a lot more sincere than I would’ve expected it to. “You’re… not permanently mad at me?”
The corner of Corey’s lips twitched. “If I was ever mad at you, it was because I was frustrated that instead of doing the thing you wanted to, you were putting up with me.”
I licked my lips. That…
“That’s not fair,” I said, before I could think better of it. Apparently, I was fully committed to channeling Simon this weekend. “To you, I mean. You’re not… you’re fine.”
“I’m just not Simon,” Corey said. My stomach plummeted, and I looked over my shoulder reflexively to make sure he wasn’t near enough to hear us.
“I’m keeping a lookout,” Corey soothed, voice lower than it had been. “Don’t worry. Secret’s safe.”
Secret. Secret.
I got as far as parting my lips in surprise when Corey broke into a wolfish smile. I’d really liked that smile, once.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t liked him, or found him attractive. He was objectively charming and handsome—he made a living being both of those things, after all.
It was just like he said. He wasn’t Simon.
“I only look stupid,” Corey said before I could think of a response. “I know you’re not really dating. I’ve—”
“Known the whole time,” I finished for him.
Of course he did. He knew. He knew exactly how I felt about Simon.
Because I’d told him. At length, sobbing my heart out to the point of making myself sick.
He’d had the decency to hold me the entire time and listen to everything I’d had to say.
About how, when we’d met, I’d known Simon was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and so far I’d done exactly that without ever telling him because I also knew there was no way someone like Simon—who couldn’t be impressed by money or family—would ever want someone like me.
I’d told him about the ill-fated kiss ten Fourth of Julys ago, and how Simon had so gently pushed me away, and how we’d never talked about it again.
Then about the ten years since where I’d pined as quietly as possible and tried desperately to love other people. To find someone else who made me feel like he did. To be the person Simon saw me as for them. Worth the trouble of all my failings to hang out with.
And then about Ellie, who was perfect for Simon.
They were two of a kind. She was so bright and warm and good, she’d been nothing but a sweetheart to me, she’d treated me like a friend from the moment we met.
I’d hated her, and I’d felt unbearably guilty for it.
I’d been staring down the barrel of a lifetime of hating her and knowing she’d given me no reason to.
Of watching someone else have exactly what I wanted.
Corey shrugged. “I did wonder at first,” he allowed. “But not for long.”
I sighed. “I’m not sure anyone believed us.”
“Oh, your mother does.” Corey grinned. “She’s madder than a box of frogs about it.”
My lips twitched. “Silver lining.”
“Oh yeah,” Corey agreed. “I twisted the knife a little there for you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “She’ll just be even more smug when I have to tell everyone we broke up.”
“Do you have to break up?” Corey asked, brows raised. “Because Simon seems to be into it.”
I glanced over my shoulder again, paranoid. The crowd had thinned out by now—it was after dinner, getting genuinely late. I half-remembered that Delilah and Corey weren’t leaving for their honeymoon until tomorrow, or they’d have had to leave by now.
When Simon reappeared, we’d have to think about leaving. It was a three-hour drive back home, even at this time of a Sunday night.
“What happens in Montauk,” I said. The phrase had been on repeat in my head all day.
Corey raised an eyebrow.
“It... Simon said that whatever happened while we were here stayed here,” I explained. “So I, uh. I’m taking advantage.”
Corey’s brow arched another few degrees, eyes glinting. I hadn’t meant to tell him this.
Who else did I have to talk to, though?
“So the makeout session I walked in on wasn’t hastily staged for my benefit?”
I shook my head, biting my lip. “We... he and I... last night, we, and it... God, it was everything I’d dreamed of and more. No one’s ever made me feel like that.”
“Ouch,” Corey said, but he was, inexplicably, smiling. A little wryly, but there was a weary softness to it as well. “That good?”
Heat rose to my cheeks as I nodded, chewing on my lip again. “It really was. I don’t... I want more,” I admitted aloud.
“Tried telling him that?” Corey asked.
I gave him a look. He sighed.
“Of course not. You know, for a man who makes a living handling words, you’re shockingly bad with them.”
“I’m good with other people’s words,” I said. “Not so much my own.”
“So use someone else’s, if you have to. I don’t think he’d care how you said it. I think he hangs on every word you say like it’s gospel.” Corey shrugged.
“I’m scared,” I confessed to the loosened knot of Corey’s tie, unable to meet his eyes.
Corey knew that. The whole crux of the issue was that I was afraid. Afraid of losing the one good relationship I had in my life. My one constant. The one single thing I felt I could rely on even if everything else fell apart.
Simon would always be there.
Unless I drove him away, like I did everyone else I got romantically involved with.
“Can’t help you with that,” Corey said. “But as your new brother-in-law, I think it’s my sworn duty to look out for your happiness.”
I huffed, mouth twisting. “That would make you the only family who does. Shit.” I looked up to meet his eyes. “We’re family now.”
Corey broke into a broad grin. “Sure are. This is like in that one novel, where the guy that one guy hates marries his girlfriend’s sister.”
“Pride and Prejudice?”
“That one,” Corey pointed at me. “You love that one!”
“Not so much that I want to live it.”
I was surprised, honestly, that he remembered. Aside from Simon, people didn’t usually pay a whole lot of attention to my tastes.
“Is it really that bad?” Corey asked, scratching the back of his neck and not quite meeting my eyes. I hadn’t seen him uncertain often, and there was something endearing about it.
It wasn’t his fault I hadn’t loved him. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t Simon. If anyone was to blame for the way we’d left things, it was on me. I was the one who’d been knowingly trying to force myself to do something I couldn’t.
“You don’t hate me forever?” I asked.
Corey laughed. “You worry too much about what people think of you.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Corey rolled his eyes, bending down to lean closer to me.
“I don’t hate you forever. I never hated you in the first place. I loved you, Theo. It hurt that the feeling wasn’t mutual. That’s all.”
I swallowed. He’d said it before. That he loved me. Dozens of times.
I’d never once said it back.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I said. That much was true. I never meant to hurt anyone.
Corey shrugged. “I’m over it. Water under the bridge. Your boyfriend’s back,” he added, nodding over my shoulder.
My lips twitched wryly. “I wish.”
Corey rolled his eyes. “Go tell him that,” he said. “C’mere, before you do.”
He held his arms open. I looked at him for a moment, half-expecting him to duck away if I moved to accept the hug.
He waved me forward with an eyeroll. “I know I bite,” he said. “But not in public.”
That made me snort, my wariness melting away as I stepped forward to accept the offered hug.
Corey was exactly as I remembered him, a lean, hard body under his clothes and a slightly awkward few inches taller than me.
Simon and I were about the same height. He was softer in a way that made his hugs a lot more satisfying.
“Brothers?” Corey asked as he let me go, hands moving to my shoulders.
“Brothers,” I agreed.
I didn’t hate the idea of that, as it turned out. I’d always wanted a brother. Now I had one who didn’t hate me and was looking out for my happiness. This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined it coming about, but at this point in my life, I’d learned to take what I could get.
“Do you love her?” I asked. The possibility hadn’t actually crossed my mind before—I’d been so caught up in the idea that this was something being done specifically to hurt me that I hadn’t considered not everything was always about me. Even things that felt particularly pointed.
Corey’s smile this time answered my question for me. I knew that look. I wore it whenever anyone mentioned Simon and he wasn’t in the room. Whenever I thought about him.
“I do,” he said. “Terrified the feeling’s not mutual.”
I glanced over at Simon, who was hanging back by one of the raised beds, keeping a big variegated monstera company.
“You could always ask.”