He shrugged. “I had a feeling that it wasn’t just about grad school.”
I hummed. Looking him over, I nodded. So, hehadknown. My mind flashed back to the way Cee broke down in tears, and I winced. Guiltily grateful that he did. “Thank you.”
“So, just how long has this been going on?” Tine asked, her arms crossed over herself, her gaze focused on me.
“A while,” both Ox and I said in unison.
She looked at him, “And you knew the whole time?”
“I guessed,” he corrected. “I mean, it’s hard not to notice how she looks for him in every room. How they look at each other.”
Tine’s quiet eyes moved to me, picking me over with a fine-tooth comb. It was hard to tell if she was angry, or upset, or just surprised. But after a while she just nodded, murmuring “You’re good for her, I think.”
Hell if that didn’t fill me up. But my smile was sad, “She’s gotta have me first, Tine.”
She looked over her shoulder at the hallway we’d all just been in. Probably remembering the scene, “She will. You don’t cry like that for something you don’t want with all of you.”
“I hope so,” I said absently.
Ox rose. His tall, lean frame coming up a bit higher than normal, making him look bigger as he moved to stand in front of me. He held my eyes, and it was different somehow. Almost threatening. Without turning toward her, he addressed his wife, “Clementine, would you give us a minute?”
Tine didn’t move, “I’m not going anywhere. That’s my brother and Ceci is my friend. I’m playing both sides.”
He nodded like she had a point and said nothing else. I swear she could tell him to dance on his head and he would. But then again, wasn’t it the same for me?
Squaring his shoulders toward me, Ox leveled a hard stare, “Do you love her?”
“Don’t you already know the answer?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You know, as her older brother I’m required to say something like, ‘if you hurt her I’ll kill you’…”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “If I hurt her,she’llkill me.”
A corner of his mouth twitched.
“And that isn’t necessary. This was a mistake. I don't intend on it ever happening again,” I said seriously.
He narrowed his eyes, “How so?”
Looking at my hands, I remembered what it felt like to have her in my grasp after going without for way too long. And I would gladly cut them off before giving that up again. I would go through this whole painful summer and another two years of loving Ceci in secret all over again if it meant I could keep being near her. In any capacity.
That would be kind of weird to say to her brother, though. To him I just sighed. “She’s got all the power here, man. She’s got me.”
Ox’s eyebrows raised, and he slid a single look to his wife before looking back at me. “And you’re okay with that?”
I tipped my chin decisively. “I’m okay with anything she gives me.”
“Then you had better get ready,” Ox said, peeking up past me to the door. “You have a visitor. And she looks like she’s ready to give you hell.”
Chapter Forty-seven
CONNOR
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I answered the form leaned up against the frame of the open door, her arms crossed over her body a little defensively. I felt my eyebrows pinch. “What's wrong now?"
A tear had slipped down the side of her cheek, even as the rest of her face seemed normal. Her voice was not as it broke immediately upon use, “You weren't there when I woke up. I thought you left again.”
