“Of course I was.”
“Then why all the secrecy?”
“Honestly?”
He nodded.
“This was bigger than I could handle. And the last thing I needed was you doing something crazy.”
“You’re my sister. Of course, I would’ve done something crazy.”
We both fell silent. I hoped he was considering what I’d said. He was the final obstacle standing in the way of our happiness. Everything would be so much easier if he was okay with it. “You’re going to have to forgive us, you know.”
“Says who?”
“We weren’t trying to hurt you, Kase. We just fell for each other. You can’t fault us for that.”
He was quiet again for a long time, but I waited him out. We weren’t finished. This was our chance to lay it all out on the table. “How long’s it been going on?” he finally asked.
“We had a moment after his mom’s funeral. And I screwed it up.”
“What’d you do?”
“He tried to kiss me, and I got all weird and rejected him. It’s been a long year of trying to ignore my feelings for him.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” he asked, the hurt evident in his tone.
“Well, I wasn’t even admitting it to myself, so there was no way I’d admit it to anyone else.”
“But you two got together,” he said.
“In Park City.”
“Right under my fucking nose,” he grumbled.
“I wasn’t even sure what was going on. I was still with Gino. My world just got flipped upside down. It was a lot to process. I finally decided to tell Gino it was over, and then Carlo happened. To say it’s been a bumpy road would be an understatement. We were just trying to figure it all out without you getting upset with us on top of it all.”
“And that’s exactly what I did.”
“I get it. He’s your best friend,” I said. “But he’s also an amazing guy. I would think you’d want that for me.”
“I do. I just…”
“What?”
“I just don’t want to hear anything about my sister.”
I laughed. “You know Thayer’s not one to gossip.”
“I can’t promise I won’t hit him again,” he admitted.
“I’m going to need you not to hit him.”
“But I’m so fucking pissed at him,” he said.
“Can’t you just be pissed at me?” I asked.
“Oh, I am. But when I think of the two of you together, knowing all the stuff I know…”