Chapter 23 #2
“If you say 'fine' one more time, I'm throwing this thermos at your head,” Charlie warns, but her eyes are damp. “And I'd have to get up, which would be a whole production, so please don't make me.”
A watery laugh slips free, easing the pressure squeezing my chest.
Holly reaches over and takes my hand under the water. “You don't have to be fine. Not with us.”
“She's right.” Eve's voice is uncharacteristically gentle. “Whatever happens with Everett, whatever you decide—you're not doing it alone. Not anymore. You've got us.”
“You're stuck with us,” Charlie adds from her throne. “Whether you marry into this chaos or not.”
“God help you,” Dixie says. Then, softer: “God help all of us.”
Something warm blooms in the lonely place inside me that’s been searching for where I belong. A place with a foundation built on something other than obligation or pity.
Somewhere, I actually fit.
Maybe—after all these years of being “one of the guys,” of swallowing my feelings because there was no one safe to share them with—I finally have women in my corner.
Women who won't let me carry things alone.
Women who'll throw thermoses at my head if I try.
Mom would've liked them, I think. And for once, the thought doesn't just ache. It glows.
“I don't know what to do,” I admit. “He's done hiding. He basically said as much. And I'm—”
“Terrified,” Holly finishes.
“Paralyzed,” I counter.
“Same thing.” She shrugs. “But here's the question you need to ask yourself: What scares you more? Telling your brothers the truth? Or spending the rest of your life wondering what would've happened if you'd been brave enough to try?”
I don't have an answer.
Because I've played out every version of this in my head. Every possible future, every catastrophic ending.
The one where I stay silent and watch him move on.
Find someone else. Marry someone else. Have kids with someone else while I smile through their wedding and pretend I'm happy for him.
Pretend my heart isn't being fed through a wood chipper every time I see him build a life I was too scared to reach for.
And the other version. The one where we try—and destroy everything.
My brothers never speak to me again. Everett loses the men he chose as brothers and his business partners in one hit.
We implode under the pressure, turn on each other, shatter into pieces too jagged to reassemble.
Never have kids. Never have anything. The lodge dies anyway because there are no Morgans left to run it, and all that legacy, all that history, crumbles because I was selfish enough to want him.
Both futures end in rubble.
At least in one of them, I still have my brothers.
Right?
“Hey.” Holly's voice cuts through the spiral. “Come back. You're catastrophizing—I can see it on your face.”
“I'm not—”
“You are. You've got that look like you're mentally burning down both your lives and salting the earth.” She squeezes my hand harder. “Stop it. You don't have to solve every future tonight. You just have to survive the next few hours.”
“One crisis at a time,” Charlie agrees. “That's my pregnancy mantra. Also my life mantra. Also the only reason I'm not currently sobbing into this thermos.”
“Hormones?” Eve asks.
“Hormones, exhaustion, and the fact that Sierra's love story is somehow more stressful than my nesting list.” Charlie points her thermos at me. “Get your shit together, Barrett. Some of us are emotionally invested now.”
A wet laugh escapes me. “No pressure.”
“All the pressure,” Dixie corrects. “We're literally going to watch you like a reality show. This is the most entertainment I've had since Roman—” She stops. Clears her throat. “Since the festival started.”
“Nice save,” Holly says dryly.
“Shut up.”
But I'm laughing now. Actually laughing. And somewhere beneath the terror and the doubt and the eleven years of carefully constructed walls...
Something shifts.
I don't have an answer.
But for the first time, I'm not sure the answer is automatic.
The sliding door bangs open. My brothers pour onto the deck like a pack of overgrown retrievers who heard the word “walk”—all energy and noise and complete inability to read a room.
“Hot tub time!” Caleb announces, because Caleb has never made a subtle entrance in his entire life.
Roman and Nolan follow right behind him—and Everett.
Our eyes meet across the steam.
This isn't over.
His words from earlier echo through me like a promise. Or a threat. At this point, the distinction feels academic.
“Sierra!” Roman waves toward the men's tub on the other side of the deck. “Get over here. Partner meeting.”
“I'm good here.”
“It's about the festival. Lodge business.” Caleb's already stripping off his shirt with zero self-consciousness. “Come on, Shutterbug. When's the last time we all hung out? Just the five of us?”
The five of us. The Barrett siblings plus Everett. The configuration that's existed since we were kids, back when he was just my brothers' friend and I was just the tag-along baby sister.
“I know exactly how you guys make the bubbles in your hot tub.” I wrinkle my nose. “Why the hell would I get in with you?”
“We're grown now!” Caleb looks genuinely wounded. “We use the jets. Like civilized adults.”
“The whole time?”
“The whole time.”
“Swear it.”
“Cross my heart.” He makes an exaggerated X over his chest. “Jets only. No biological warfare.”
I glance at my girls. At Holly, who gives me a small nod. At Eve, who mouths, We're watching. At Dixie, whose expression has gone carefully neutral. At Charlie, who raises her thermos from her blanket throne like a salute.
Go. We've got you.
I push myself out of the water.
And walk toward whatever Everett Morgan has planned.