I’m leaning back against the bar, watching Jules as she chats with my mom. There’s ease in the way they get along, my mom weing her into our family with open arms because she’s thrilled to see her son happy. This is exactly why I asked Jules to go along with this—I wanted to show my family that I’m fine.


    The difference between when I asked her to fake this whole engagement and now, is that I actuallyamhappy. I’m not pretending, and it’s almost entirely because Jules is here with me. Even the earlier argument with my brother where I finally admitted how much he hurt me, it felt like letting go in a way that freed me to finally be happy again.


    Tonight, Jules is wearing a ck jumpsuit with an open back covered in ckce. It dips low enough in the front that her cleavage is on disy, but not so low that it’s not still ssy. For someone who spends their days on a construction site, she sure cleans up well<span id="page_245">.


    I watch as she tosses those blond waves over her shoulder,ughing at something my mom said, and I realize that even as gorgeous and morous as she looks now, I’d rather have her in a tank top and shorts padding around the house barefoot with her hair in a bun and no makeup. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’vee downstairs for some made-up reason because the thought of us both being in the same house but not being together gives me hives.


    Watching my parents renew their vows earlier, all I could think about was how I never thought I wanted what they had—or at least, since Cheri and Gabriel betrayed me, Itoldmyself I didn’t want that. But today, with Jules by my side and her smile so genuine as she watched my parents together...I don’t know. I keep wondering what life would be like with her.


    I don’t know what to do about these feelings I have, and how at odds they are with the promise I easily made to my best friend a couple of weeks ago. I’m starting to wonder if he might be okay with us being together if he knew how real my feelings are—that this isn’t just because I’m desperate to get her in bed, this is me wanting and needing to be with her every minute possible.


    I’ve been viewing this situation as analogous to Gabriel and me fifteen years earlier. Jameson is asking me to look after his little sister, just like I asked Gabriel to look after Cheri for me. But is it really the same? Gabriel and Cheri getting together was a betrayal of my trust because she and I were dating. It’s not the same with Jameson and Jules...she’s his little sister whom he raised. Making things real between us, as long as we didn’t go behind his back,<span id="page_246">wouldn’t be betraying his trust or our friendship. I don’t think?


    “I never thought I’d seeyoulooking lovestruck.” My dad’s voicees from directly beside me, but I was so focused on Jules that I didn’t even notice he was there. His hair is grayer in a way I hadn’t noticed earlier.


    “I mean, look at her,” I say, as if it’s her looks that have me feeling all these conflicting emotions.


    “Yeah,” my dad says, “but it’s not the way she looks. It’s the wayyoulook ather—and the way she practically glows when you do.”


    I press my lips between my teeth, wishing I could ask his advice about this, about how to handle it with Jameson so I don’t break his trust, but still get what I want. But I don’t just want her—Ineedher in my life.


    However, I don’t have any reason to believe she wants me in the same way—for anything more than a physical rtionship. I also don’t have any reason to believe she doesn’t want more. Aside from the sexual frustration, she’s kept her feelings well-hidden as we’ve tried to navigate this engagement situation together. Clearly, we need to talk.


    “She’s pretty incredible,” I say, because my dad’s looking at me like he’s wondering why I’m lost in my own head. “She makes me feel...” I’m not sure where I’m going with this, so I say the first thing thates to my mind. “..plete.”


    “I think that’s how you know you found the one,” Dad says.


    I’m about to respond—to ask him how you can ever be sure that someone isthe one—but then Jules is walking toward us, a big smile on her face. When shees to a stop<span id="page_247">in front of us, she says, “Mind if I steal my fiancé away for a dance? This is my favorite song.”


    As she drags me onto the dance floor, Iugh and say, “Of course ‘Landslide’ is your favorite song.”


    She wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me close. “Why is that so predictable?”


    “Because Stevie Nicks wrote that song when her life was in upheaval. It’s all about self-reflection and going after what you want and the fear of making big changes, of letting go.”


    I feel the “Hmmm” she lets out in response as it reverberates between our chests. “It always makes me think of my dad.”


    “Is that a good thing?” I ask. I can’t imagine how it would be, given what I saw between them this morning, but I know she has good memories of him.


    “In a way. He used to y a lot of Fleetwood Mac on job sites. I definitely get my musical taste from him. Anyway, this song always reminds me of how choices have consequences—how they can be a turning point, or the avnche that does you in.”


    It urs to me then that in the two weeks we’ve been “engaged,” she hasn’t had a single panic attack...that I know of. “Is that how you feel when you’re not in control? Like an avnche ising?”


    “I don’t know, Colt,” she says as she looks up at me and winks. “I never lose control long enough to find out.”


    I nce up from my phone, where I was taking a second look at the photos of my condo that my<span id="page_248">contractor sent minutes ago, and Jules and I just flipped through. The electrical has all been redone, and the plumbers finished their work earlier today. Pretty soon, we’ll be ready for instion and drywall, and I suspect that once that’s done, the rest of the renovation will go pretty quickly.


    The thought of moving back to my condo has a thinyer of sweat breaking out across my skin. The only thing I miss about that space is the view, and even as spectacr as it is, it doesn’t have me wanting to move out of Jules’s ce.


    Next to me, she toys with the lime in her drink as she stares across the restaurant, where Cheri stands next to Gabriel at the bar. Her hair is the same shade of blond as Jules’s, ashy with some light brown undertones, though hers ends just below her shoulders while Jules wears hers longer. Cheri’s got blue eyes too, but they’re lighter and washed outpared to Jules’s.


    Cheri’s aged well—she has the natural look of a woman who’s spent a lot of time outdoors, doesn’t use much makeup, and has chosen to wear her age instead of trying to cover it up in an attempt to look younger. She also looks happy. Gabriel was right about the fact that they are better together than she and I ever were.


    “Is that why you were never attracted to me?” Jules asks quietly.


    My head snaps toward her, and she looks like she’s in pain, so I reach out, looping my hand around her hip and turning her toward me. Then dipping my head close to hers, I ask, “What are you talking about, Tink?”


    “Back when I used to have a crush on you. Is that why you weren’t attracted to me?” She nods her chin toward Cheri. “It’s pretty easy to do the math. I was neen in<span id="page_249">Vegas, the same age that you guys were when she slept with your brother. Did I remind you of her?”


    My other hand moves to her chin, my thumb on one side of her jaw and my fingers on the other as I tilt her face up so she’s forced to look me in the eye. “I was nevernotattracted to you. I just never let myself look at you that way. Partially because you have blond hair and, yeah, since Cheri, I’ve never been with a blonde. But also, because I always thought of you like a sister.”


    “Zero difference between Audrey and me, huh?” she asks, but her voice is taunting me like she wants to crack me open and figure out all my secrets.


    “Not back then.”


    “What about a couple weeks ago? If it had been Audrey at that dinner, and Jerome grabbed her instead of me, would you have ended up in that alley with her instead?”


    Jerome. That’s the asshole’s name. Noted.


    I press my lips together and swallow before saying, “No.”


    “Why not?”


    “Jules, why are you pushing me like this? Trust me when I say you don’t want to know the answers to these questions.”


    “Why? Because youcan’t do anythingabout your attraction to me?” She mimics my words back to me.


    “You are such a brat sometimes,” I practically growl. Why does it turn me on when she acts like this? “But yes, that’s exactly why.”


    “Tell me, if it had been Audrey . . .?”


    “It wouldn’t have been her.”


    “What does that even mean, Colt?” She rolls her eyes, and I step in close enough that I have to drop my hand from her chin because there isn’t room for my arm between us. God,<span id="page_250">she drives me crazy—the way she pushes and taunts me has me wanting to back her up against the wall and have my way with her.


    “It means that I wouldn’t have gone to that restaurant in the first ce for Audrey. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have let her practically fuck me through her clothes like you were doing in that alley.”


    Her gulp is so loud I’m d no one is around to hear it except for me.


    “Why not?” she asks, a challenge shing in her gorgeous blue eyes as they lock onto mine.


    “I don’t have the same protective instincts toward her that I feel for you, and I’veneverlooked at her the way I look at you.”


    “And how do you look at me, Colt?”


    “I’m starting to think you’re not just taunting me.” I shake my head as I stare down at her. “Now I’m pretty sure you’re trying totormentme.”


    “Torment you how?” She rolls her eyes again like she knows it’ll get a reaction out of me, and I clench my jaw so I don’t surge forward and invade her mouth like I want to do. The tension between us is ever-present, like a spark ready to turn into a ze.


    When I don’t respond, she says, “Because I’m reminding you that you’re attracted to me after you’ve told me you don’t want to feel that way? Sorry, I forgot I’m supposed to focus on your feelings and not my own.”


    My fingers curl around her lower back to rest on the curve of her ass as I pull her flush against me. “Are you saying you have feelings for me?<span id="page_251">”


    “Rx, Colt.” She lets out a sigh. “I got over my crush on you after Vegas.”


    “What?” I bark out the word so sharply she flinches.


    “What part of that requires exining?”


    My hand instinctively tightens on her hip, anchoring her to me. “All of it, Jules. Because it sounds like you’re saying that what happened in Vegas had something to do with me.”


    I’m expecting her tough and say that no, that wasn’t what she meant. But I’d know she was lying. Why else would she have gotten over her crush on me after Vegas if what happened there had nothing to do with me?


    Instead of giving me an exnation, she digs her heels in, asking, “Why doyousound mad about this? You’re not the one who almost ruined their life with their inability to control their own emotions.”


    “Because if you had feelings for me before Vegas and you went and married someone else while we were there, I have to wonder if it was because of something I did. Or didn’t do. I don’t know. But I haveneverwanted to hurt you—not now, and certainly not back then. So if I did, I deserve to know what happened. And to have the chance to make it right.”


    She looks away. “It was a long time ago, Colt. It can’t be made right.”


    “The fuck it can’t.” The words are low and feral, and I watch her shiver as they coast over her skin. “We need to talk about this, and we’re not doing it here. Let’s go.”