I nod. "Yeah. I haven't told him anything."
"Fuck.Beck," Zoey murmurs, and the way she says it, soft and aching, tells me she's thinking the exact same thing I am. "This is going to shatter him."
It will. Out of all of us, Beck's the one who still believes that somewhere underneath all that noise and chaos we lived with… that the family wasreal.
That this all means something. The fact that he lives with his brothers and idolizes his sister… all of this isnormal.
In Beck's eyes, he has the perfect life.
And when this finally breaks open, when he finds out the real reason, that our father's been finding his own source ofhappiness for thirty years while screwing it up behind closed doors—
I don't know what that does to him.
"We'll figure it out," I say, even though I have no idea how. "When we're back from this trip. We'll sit down, the three of us, figure out what Mom needs."
"Yeah." Zoey nods, even though neither of us believes it's that simple. "Yeah, okay."
She's quiet for a second, studying me through the screen in that way she's always done. My sister can see straight through whatever I'm trying to hold together on the surface, and I fucking hate it.
"Okay," she says, voice shifting, lighter now, deliberately steering us somewhere else. "So tell me about the girl."
I roll my eyes.
"What girl."
"Declan." She gives me a look. The exact look she used to give me in high school when I'd come home smelling like someone else's perfume. "Beck told me everything. The jersey. The bedroom. Thenaked bodies under the duvet."
"I'm going to kill him."
"His words, not mine." She grins. "Now… talk to me. This is new for you."
I rake a hand through my hair, looking anywhere but the camera.
Back in that conference room yesterday, watching Josie stand at the head of the table in that fitted blazer, rattling off about how much success she's bringing like she wasn't the same woman who screamed my name into my pillow four nights ago.
I sat across from her and told the room that the team was "fine" like she was just another name on my roster instead of the reason I actually give a damn about this season.
The whole time, all I wanted to do was cross that room, drag her into my lap, and kiss her senseless in front of everyone.
Instead I stared out the window like a coward, because what am I supposed to do… announce it? Blow up the one good thing in my life the same week my family's already blowing up?
I don't know how to hold both. So I've just been holding neither.
"It's complicated."
"It's always complicated with you. But with everything else going on, I think you should talk to me anyway. You're carrying too much."
So I do. Or I try to.
I give her the bare bones about Josie, the PR job, the chaos of the first night together and the way everything's spiraled since. I leave out the parts that are mine to keep, the parts I'll cherish for the rest of my life.
"So when did you last talk to her? Properly, I mean. Not texting."
I open my mouth, but the truth stays hidden.
Truth is, I haven't. Not since she cried against my chest and told me things she's never said out loud to anyone. I promised myself I'd be the one person who helps her prove her mother wrong.
I'd show up, stay present, give her what nobody else bothered to.