“No,” Hanna says forcefully. “That’snotgoing to happen. Rhys won’t let that happen. He’s negotiating with Weggers. Talking to another lawyer friend. He’ll get it sorted.”
“God,” I say. “I amso, sosorry. I ruinedeverythingfor you. For your family.”
“No, you didn’t,” Hanna said. “My grandfather and Arthur Weggers and this goddamned will did. You didn’t do anything wrong. You couldn’t have acted any differently from how you did. None of us wanted for you to go through with a wedding that wasn’t right for you. Not to a guy like that.”
The rest of the women are nodding and humming and being unbelievably kind and generous considering most of their jobs—or husbands’ or friends’ jobs—depend on the continued survival of Hott Springs Eternal.
Meanwhile something else has become clear to me. Why Rhys was so nice to me, so solicitous. Why he followed me every last step of the journey, right to Grace’s doorstep. Because he was still hoping I’d get back together with Paul, so he could save his family’s land and his sister’s business.
And I was so pathetically grateful.
Ikissedhim.
Oh, God, what anidiotI am.
“Where are you going?!” Hanna demands, but I’m already grabbing my coat and shoving my feet into my shoes.
“There are a few things I need to say to your brother,” I tell her.
29
Rhys
“Okay,” Shane says, poking the firepit. We’re sitting around it in the backyard of Quinn and Sonya’s new house. We’ve finished the hot-dogs-and-sausages and brews portion of the program and moved on to s’mores and bourbon. “You’ve heard how the filming’s been going, and I’ve heard about Quinn’s new drug and Preston’s endless soul searching?—”
“Hey,” Preston says, but it’s good-natured. As a fellow driven New Yorker, I never minded Preston in his uptight mode, and I almost don’t know what to make of his chill demeanor since he and Natalie got together and he moved back to Rush Creek. “I don’t want to jump into something unless it’s really what I want to be doing.”
“He’s doing that thing that most people do while they hike around Europe when they’re twenty-two,” Quinn says. “Finally discovering himself.”
“I think what most people do when they hike around Europe when they’re twenty-two is have a shit-ton of bad-idea sex,” Shane says. “Preston has never done anything that’s a bad idea.”
Preston scowls. “That’s not true. I’ve just never done anything impulsive. Well. Until recently. But they’re not the same thing.”
“What’s the difference?” Shane asks.
“You can slowly wedge yourself into a life you hate,” Preston says. “Which is a bad idea. Or you can impulsively finally let yourself be happy. Which is not.”
“Huh,” Shane muses. “That actually makes some sense.”
We’re all quiet for a bit, thinking about it. Or at least I’m thinking about it.
More exactly, I’m thinking about Matias and the job he more or less offered me, my life back in New York City, and how I feel about it. I don’t hate it. But neither would I exactly call myself happy.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felthappy.
Yes you have,a voice responds.You were happy on the road with Eden.
But that wasn’t real life,I tell the voice.That was…a fluke. An anomaly. A glitch in the matrix.
“I want to hear about this road trip of yours, Rhys,” Shane says. “And where things stand with Weggers and the will.”
Everyone turns to look at me, and I’m even more aware than I already was that I’m the first of four brothers to fail at his mission.
“He’sinvestigating,” I say. “Andtaking the situation under advisement. Fucking slowly.”
“Do we think a financial contribution might help him think more quickly?”
“Jesus, no,” Preston says. “It’ll insult his pride and his ethics, and he’ll fuck us on principle.”
