28. Brooding
brOODING
COLE
There shouldn’t be a chill in the air at this time of year, but it’s settled in, bone-deep, like a fever that won’t break.
The sky should be turning shades of pink and orange by now, but it’s clinging to the gray like a fucked-up metaphor for my life.
The award that Nana Mae collected on my behalf sits beside me—a monument to what I’ve lost. I’m not even sure why I kept it except to punish myself.
Junie never turned on her lights, but I know she’s up there. I feel her.
She’s either asleep or she’s been sitting in the dark, and I’m not sure which option is worse. My eyes feel like sandpaper because I’ve been staring at her window since I stumbled out of the car.
Not once did her curtains move. Not a flicker of a shadow or hint of manufactured light.
It takes every ounce of self-control I possess not to cross the driveway, but this is a promise I have to keep.
I don’t go to her.
I don’t call.
But I do set in motion the takedown of Natalie’s career by filing a grievance with the American Institute of Architects.
Contacting the AIA board has been phase two of my plan, but my plan’s gone to shit, so now I’m all in.
And this is just the beginning. Fen’s typically the one to go scorched earth, but my earth is already on fire, and now I’m the gasoline.
The squeak of the screen door behind me breaks the painful silence.
Nana Mae steps out onto the porch in a bathrobe and slippers. Her gray hair is undone for the first time I can remember in years, and she sets a coffee mug down beside me without a word.
She doesn’t sit, but her heavy hand rests on my shoulder for a long minute. I have a feeling that she’s staring at Junie’s darkened window too.
The touch causes flashbacks to when I was five years old—sitting on a sofa with her—finding out she was now my entire world.
“Cole.”
I crane my head to peer up at her.
“I’m going to say something, then I’m going to make breakfast because the boys will start arriving soon, and you’re going to need food before they get here.”
“How do you—”
“Hudson’s been sending updates to Fen since the receiving line. Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. Hudson Tenney doesn’t chaperone the women in his family without a plan. They started mobilizing the moment your walls began cracking.”
She’s right, I’m not thinking clearly. When one of us falls, we rally. It’s been this way since elementary school. It makes my years of silence feel more weaponized than I’d intended.
“What did you want to say?”
She squeezes my shoulder this time—I had no idea she still had this kind of strength.
“Sometimes asking for help doesn’t feel like a victory. It feels like falling. You have to learn the difference between falling and failing, Cole. They’re not the same thing.”
I stare up at the woman who raised me—always so wise and straight to the point.
“I want you to be straight with me now. Are we going to lose Papa’s land?”
Guilt makes bile rise in my throat. I never told her I took out a loan against that land. It appears Hudson has been busy.
“No, I swear it. Between my inheritance, selling the antique cars, and the money I’d saved for my internship, I was able to get Junie’s home out of foreclosure and lower the loan to something mostly…manageable.”
I’ve never seen my grandmother look at me with such disappointment.
“We willed that land to you so you’d always know home. I gifted you The Haven land so you wouldn’t be lost. When you asked me to help you sell Papa’s cars, why didn’t you tell me you were going to borrow against the land too? Did you think I wouldn’t want to help?”
“That’s not—I—I had to do some things I’m not proud of.
If it didn’t go to plan, I…didn’t want anyone else to get into trouble.
As a family, we needed you to hold us together.
Hud had to finish law school. Nolan was suffering, and he only found peace in med school.
Fen was attempting to rebuild his father’s company—and thank God because look what he’s done for Junie.
The personal risk to all of you was greater than it was for me. ”
“Cole,” she says sadly. “When your dad rushed into burning buildings, he at least remembered to put on his own mask first. If you don’t learn to mask up before you help others, you’ll be no good to any of us.”
It’s not the first time she’s compared me to my dad. My father was a hero, a first responder. I was just trying to keep my family together the only way I knew how.
“Listen up, Cole. This is important.”
I keep my focus on her, though my guilt makes it excruciatingly difficult.
“You’re not allowed to disappear into your grief about this. I’ve watched you do it once. I won’t sit silently and allow it to happen again. Whatever those boys say to you today, you sit in it. You feel it. You let them in, and you learn from it. Do you hear me?”
“Yes.” The truth of that word feels raw and dangerous against my lips.
“Drink your coffee.” She’s gone before I can reach for it.
Hudson’s rental car wasn’t here when I arrived last night. At first, I panicked, thinking Junie was gone, but my heart says she didn’t leave—she didn’t run. Not yet anyway.
Hudson must’ve stayed at a hotel last night, which means he’ll be even more pissed off than normal.
“You let them in.” Nana Mae’s words ring like a warning of what’s to come.
With a heavy sigh, I lift my phone from my pocket and turn it on so I can prepare for the wrath of my brothers.
The moment the screen lights up, it begins to vibrate like a live thing. Forty-four notifications. Most are from a single sender. I scroll without reading, and the timestamps tell their own story.
11:47 p.m. Natalie: We need to talk…
12:09 a.m. Natalie: Cole, please…
12:33 a.m. Natalie: What the fuck is this email?!
1:14 a.m. Natalie: They’ll put me on administrative leave…
2:27 a.m. Natalie: What the fuck did you do?!
3:11 a.m. Natalie: I’ll release everything…
3:52 a.m. Natalie: What about Marcus?
5:18 a.m. Natalie: If I go down, so does she…
What the fuck?
6:30 a.m. Email from Meridian’s Compliance Office
I ignore everything from Natalie and open the email.
Dear Mr. Whittaker,
Recent events…
Authorship of designs…
Natalie Moore…
Please call my office at your earliest convenience…
I skim the message because the blood rushing in my ears makes me dizzy. There hasn’t been enough time for my grievance to make this kind of noise. This came from…
Junie chose reparations—for me.
Her window remains dark.
She chose to fight for me knowing the wreckage Natalie could do to her life.
Junie set fire to the lies, accepting she’d be burned by the flames.
The one thing I always wanted to protect her from.
I scroll back up to Natalie’s texts.
What about Marcus?
If I go down, so does she…
Natalie’s been my secret, and I’ve been hers. We’ve been holding each other’s worst across a six-year ledger that benefited no one except her brother.
But he isn’t the only innocent here.
And he’s not the only collateral damage of a war ignited by his sister—but he was never my burden to carry.
Natalie’s going to fall, and with her destruction, Marcus will suffer. It doesn’t sit well with me. If Natalie had actually done any of the work herself, her brother’s future wouldn’t be in limbo now.
Her decisions have endangered her brother’s care.
But my decisions have cost me everything.
So now, I act.
Not because I’m forced to—this was always going to happen as soon as I won the award—but now I’m doing it with no promise of tomorrow, and it hardens me in a way she can’t prepare for.
My thumb hovers over Natalie’s name until a pop-up box appears.
Then I block her.
There’s a peacefulness that falls over me once it’s done. Like a million-pound weight has been removed from my neck…but the fight is just beginning.
Hudson pulls in at 7:15, and I’m still on my front porch, in my tux from last night. The empty plate of food that Nana Mae tried to shove down my throat sits off to the side.
He gets out of the BMW in a fresh suit, sans tie, with his jacket open, holding a cardboard tray with three coffees. He lifts them to me as he climbs Junie’s steps, places one cup on the floor in front of her door, then knocks.
Hudson is halfway down the stairs when her door opens. I’m on my feet in an instant, anything for a glimpse of her.
All I get is an arm, but the expression on Hudson’s face as he stares at her tells me everything I wish I could fix—she’s hurting and shutting him out too.
My breathing turns shallow while he mutters words so low I can’t hear. I clutch the porch railing as he walks back to me. I fall to my ass on the stairs when he hands me my coffee.
Then he slumps onto the stair above me. “You’re my brother.”
“Hud—” I nearly crush the cardboard cup in my hands.
“You are my brother, Cole. I’ve known you since I was five years old.
I’ve lied to our family for you. I’ve driven you to the airport in the middle of the night when you looked like everyone you loved had died.
I covered for you because I knew you must have had a reason, and I’ve never once asked questions because I trusted you.
That’s the trust you broke while I’ve been waiting silently in your corner.
Yet you still hold on to the pain as though you’re the only one who can handle it. ”
I can’t speak.
“Look at me,” he growls.
When I do, Hudson’s eyes are red.
As though he’s been crying.
“You didn’t ask me for help until it was nearly too late,” he says. His voice is unsteady in a way the great Hudson Tenney never allows. “Do you understand what that is, Cole?”
“Hud—”
“It’s a fucking insult, Cole. When my world was falling apart, you were the first to show up, banging on my door and refusing to let me go it alone.
When Nolan was drowning in the company he inherited, you’re the one who came up with the fix to shift gears.
When Fen questioned his ability to take over his father’s firm, you’re the one who put together a fifty-five-page PowerPoint presentation with all the ways he would succeed. ”
I swallow hard.