“I’ll get over it.” I release a breath. “I don’t blame you for Shay’s games. You didn’t know.”
“It’s not all on Shay. I realized Sara was the one you told me about last night, and I didn’t like it. I’m so sorry. Tell me what I can do to fix it.”
“Why didn’t you like it?” Sixty seconds ago, all I wanted was an excuse to leave so I could go home and be alone, but now that Molly’s standing so close, all I want is an excuse to keep her here.
“What?” Her expression changes to an unreadable mask, and she backs up a step and then another until she’s against the building.
I follow and rest my hands above her head, leaning into her as she tilts her face up to meet my eyes. “Why didn’t you like my ex talking to me?”
She swallows, and her cheeks flush pink. With cold, or embarrassment? “I don’t like that she hurt you.”
“I never said she did.”
“You didn’t have to.” She wraps her fingers around my forearm, not pushing me away but locking us in place. “I know you, Brayden. Better than you realize.”
My gaze drops to her mouth and her lips part. The pulse in her neck flutters faster. “I’m not sure you do.” I swallow hard and make myself back away. “I’ll see you at home.”
When I get home, my sister’s car is parked in the driveway, and I realize I’m not done talking about Sara tonight. Even if I want to be.
I park in the garage and come in the side door. Shay meets me in the hallway and hands me a tumbler of amber liquid. I sniff it, and my eyes go wide. “Dad’s?”
She nods. “Seemed appropriate.”
Sara is back and wants to talk to me, and Molly is living with me and falling asleep in my bed. I’d have to agree that tonight’s the perfect night to break out the good stuff.
Dad loved fine bourbon. When he died, we divvied up his collection between the siblings. By some unspoken agreement, we only dig into it on really bad days.
I take a small taste and let the warmth coat my throat and chest. “Thanks.”
“So, Sara’s back. What an awful surprise,” she murmurs, leading the way to the family room.
My mind’s been a mess since I left the tasting room: Sara, Molly, where I’ve been, and what I want, respectively. Every time I think about Sara showing up like that, I’m more embarrassed than anything. I loved her. Planned to marry her. Until she erased herself from my life without any warning.
Shay plops into a recliner. A glass of wine is already sitting on the end table by her chair. While I was taking the long way home to clear my head, my sister must have been here planning her ambush. “Are you going to call her?”
“I don’t know. She said she wants to explain.”
“Explain why she’s a heinous bitch?” Shay asks, and I shoot her a look. “I’m not sorry for how I feel about her. You deserved better than what she did.”
“Maybe what she did wasn’t about me. Maybe there are reasons we don’t know.”
Shay glowers. “She’d have to have one hell of a story for me to bite on that.”
“I’d finally accepted that I’d ever see her again,” I admit.
Shay sighs. “I think what worries me the most is that you might be able to forgive her, and the rest of us won’t. I don’t want to see you in that position—feeling like you have to choose between her and your family.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “Not that it matters, but I think everyone would deal with it if we did get back together—and trust me, I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here.” Honestly, in the months after Sara left, when I just wanted her back, whatever her explanation for leaving was, I worried about the same thing. What if I had an opportunity to make it work again, but my siblings and my mother could never forgive her? But the longer she was gone, the less of a concern that became.
“We might fake it for your sake, but things would never go back to the way they were.” Shay looks into her wine and swallows. “It would be hard to trust that she wouldn’t hurt you again.”
“I keep asking myself if I want to hear her explanation, but I’m not sure it even matters. I needed to know her whys ten years ago, and hearing what she has to say to me now isn’t going to change what not knowing did to me then.” Or how it changed me. “But maybe the explanation isn’t for me. Maybe it’s for her. Maybe this is something she needs to do.”
“You don’t owe her anything.”
I shrug. “I’m not sure that’s true.” I know Shay won’t ask about it anymore—at least not today. She knows me too well to push too hard.