“You feel guilty because she did that and you didn’t?”
“I mean, I’m the oldest. It feels like it should have been my job.”
“Is your sister resentful?”
I snorted. “Hardly. She keeps telling me she would have moved home eventually anyway and that Portland wasn’t for her. She loves Coleman Creek. Got a job teaching at the high school we all went to. Yesterday, she mentioned getting a dog for her and my mom.”
He reached his hand out instinctively but pulled it back at the last moment. “I don’t want to keep you from beating yourself up if that’s what you want to do—we’ve all been there—but it sounds like maybe things worked out okay.”
I tugged absently on my sleeve. “Honestly, I don’t feel guilty about not being there so much as I feel guilty about notwantingto be there.” I’d only recently been able to articulate those feelings in my mind. Especially after the conversation I’d had three days ago with my mother, the one I’d thought about the entire way back to the city. “Sorry, I guess you drove me all the way to Denny’s to find out I’m kind of an asshole.”
This time, he stretched his hand across the table and laid it atop mine.
I shivered at the touch, our first.
“That doesn’t make you an asshole,” he said. “I bet a lot of people would feel the same in your situation. The thing that matters is that you visit and you’re there when she needs you. You do visit, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you accept her phone calls, answer her texts?”
“Yeah.”
“And if your sister was having some kind of emergency or needed help, you’d go?”
“Definitely.”
“Okay, then, I think you’re good. If you were an asshole, you wouldn’t do those things. I mean, you can post it on Reddit if you want to find out for sure, but every response is going to be NTA.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped, or the smile that followed. He kept his hand on mine, looking at me with hooded eyes as his thumb rubbed back and forth over my skin, across the handstamp I’d received at Musicbox. I bit my bottom lip, and his hot gaze landed on it. It was heady, breaking through his reserve. And the thrumming in my veins, coupled with admitting things I’d barely been able to tell my best friend, had my mind racing.
The air teemed with…possibility. Sitting and talking for hours with no sex involved—even though I was sure we both wanted to do dirty, dirty things to each other—I’d never had this before.
The server came by with the coffeepot, and the intrusion caused him to snatch his hand back. “You can’t help your feelings, the guilt over not always wanting to be there. I understand. I’d feel the same if it was one of my parents.”
It took me a moment, feeling the loss of his hand on mine, to re-engage. “You’re close with them?”
“Close-adjacent. Kinda depends on the day.”
“I bet they’re proud of you being at Wallingford Capital. For your MBA.”
He picked up the napkin in front of him and brought it below the table. I could tell by the way his biceps flexed, he was twisting it with his hands.
“It’s a steady job. And it makes my parents happy I work there. When I was a kid, I think they worried I would pursue art as a career.”
“They don’t like your art?”
“Not exactly. They just think finance is more sensible. It doesn’t excite me, but they’re probably right.”
That sucked for him. The only guidance I’d gotten from my mother in terms of my career was when she’d said, “Find something that makes you happy and do that.” She’d always supported my love of clothes and accessories and had taught me to sew. I still wasn’t one hundred percent certain I’d chosencorrectly with fashion merchandising, but I was at least in the right ballpark.
Despite my efforts not to, I eventually felt myself fading.
“Shoot,” Billy said. “I can’t believe it’s past four in the morning. Can I take you home?”
With our attraction clear but his behavior so hesitant, I doubted he wanted totake me home. Something he confirmed with his next words.
“I can drive you and make sure you get in safe.”