“Everything you just said about Teagan.” Jake takes the spot beside me. We’re shoulder to shoulder, both looking up at the sky. “I’ll be honest—after you two disappeared upstairs earlier, I was worried, but you sounded sincere.”
“I am.” My voice cracks. “I’ve felt something for her for a long time, but I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You could try telling her.”
Jake and I turn to see Shay stepping out of the shadows by her car two spots down. Fucking seriously?
I sigh, exasperated but resigned. Never was there a better metaphor for my entire life than trying to have a private conversation and discovering two of my siblings witnessed it. “Is my entire family spying on me, or just the two of you?”
Jake holds out his palms. “I was taking out the trash.”
I turn to Shay. “What’s your excuse?”
“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but you were dragging Myla into the alley when I got here, and I decided not to leave my car until you two were done talking.”
I sigh. I don’t really care that they both heard. I’m more upset with myself. How did my life become such a mess that I thought I was single and yet this week has felt like a series of bad breakups?
“Why don’t you, though?” Jake asks softly. “Tell Teagan, I mean.”
“Trust me, I’ve dropped a couple of significant hints today.”
Shay snorts. “Idiot. Women don’t like hints. We like kindness and consideration, but you still have to be direct. Believe it or not, we don’t like sitting around and dissecting what men have said to us.”
I swallow hard. I was the one to tell her only four days ago that I don’t do relationships, that I had nothing to offer beyond a friends-with-benefits arrangement. And she was with me on that. “She has no desire to be with someone like me.”
“A player?” Jake says at the same time as Shay says, “A man-whore?”
“A firefighter,” I growl. I roll my shoulders back. “She was in love with a police officer who died on a bad traffic call. She’s got a thing against guys with dangerous jobs.” I turn to Shay. “Did she ever tell you about Heath?”
“Heath?” My sister frowns and shakes her head. “That name doesn’t ring any bells.”
I hope Teagan won’t mind me asking, but it’s weird that she wouldn’t tell Shay, one of her best friends, about a man she thought she’d marry. “What about Rich?”
“He’s the ex she wanted you around because of, right?” Shay asks.
I nod. “Yeah, but do you know anything about him?”
“No, not really.” She takes the spot opposite Jake, and we all lean against my car, in no hurry to get inside. “It’s weird, now that I think about it. An ex bad enough to merit a fake boyfriend at her sister’s wedding, and yet she’s never talked about him.”
“I met him inside,” Jake says, shrugging. “He seemed okay.”
I grunt. “Her whole family loves him, and he seems nice enough, but . . .”
“But what?”
I cut my eyes to my sister. “I swear this isn’t a typical case of ex avoidance. I have a bad feeling about him. It’s like he’s too nice. Too much of everything her parents want him to be. And I think . . .” I shake my head, trying to piece it together—Teagan’s terror when Rich was in town, the way he seems to still know her so well even though they haven’t dated since high school, and the text she got today. The way she immediately looked at him afterward and then shut me out. “She’s scared of him.”
“Think he was abusive?” Jake asks.
“That’s the only thing I can come up with,” I say. “She’s admitted he was very controlling, so it’s logical he may have been physical about that need to control her. But even that doesn’t completely make sense. Why wouldn’t she tell her parents? Or at least her sister?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Shay asks.
“Because when I agreed to do this for her this weekend, she made me promise I wouldn’t ask about Rich.”
Jake lets out a long breath and squeezes my shoulder. “I need to get back in there before Cindy threatens to cut my dick off again, but let me know if I can do anything to help.”
“I’m going in too,” Shay says.
I arch a brow. “Girls’ night tonight?”
“No. I’m avoiding the dissertation.”
“Ah, yes, I hear that’s the best way to finish it.”
She smacks my arm. “Shut up. Writing is hard.”
I laugh and wrap an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her. As crappy as I feel about what happened with Myla, I’m glad I got a chance to talk to Jake and Shay tonight. I needed that.
We all head in together through the back door. Shay and I cut through the kitchen and leave Jake to deal with the latest food order while we make our way out to the bar.