Page 147 of The Perfect Mistake

And he’s had none.

Nor has Connie.

She takes another deep breath and her expression turns chagrined. “I hate to admit it, but I was a little bit jealous, too.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “Jealous?”

“Yeah. Not of—God, no.” She chuckles slightly, and I smile, the tension between us starting to drain away. “No, but about your closeness. I’ve tried for years, with no success, to get my brother to open up, and I wanted to be there for you while you were upset… but instead you’d found each other.” She shrugs, and her voice turns careful. “That’s not very noble, perhaps. Not rational, either. But it was how I felt that first week. Like you’d bypassed me. And you’d kept it a secret!”

I laugh. “It was so hard to! I wanted to tell you, because I tell you everything, but I couldn’t!”

“You could’ve,” she says. But then she chuckles again. “Okay, maybe not. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if our first convo was you being like ‘I think this guy is pretty hot. He’s your brother.’”

I hold up my hands. “Which is exactly why we didn’t tell you. I’m sorry you had to find out that way, though. It wasn’t what I wanted. Nor Alec, I know.”

She nods. Spins her smoothie around. “I get that. I heard you were at Dad’s for Thanksgiving… and that it didn’t go well. I’m so sorry about that.”

“Nate told you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” I say. “You shouldn’t apologize for that. Alec does that too, apologizes for your dad or for circumstances that are neither of your faults.”

She laughs feebly. “A habit, I assume. With Alec it’s basically ingrained within his personality.”

“To apologize?”

“No, God knows he rarely does that. No. To take responsibility. He’ll do it for everything, for everyone. Like, the buck stops with him. It’s a great trait, but maybe it goes too far sometimes.”

I nod along with her words. “That’s exactly it. It’s driving me nuts, because I think he believes that if he can’t ensure… sorry, do you want to talk about this? I don’t want to make you feel weird or anything.”

She shakes her head, and a lock of auburn hair falls over her forehead. “No, no, go ahead! I feel like I may have some actual insight this time, which I never did when a fellow ballet dancer asked you out before. And for the record, I’m always okay talking about my brother’s flaws. His sex life? Absolutely not.”

I laugh. “Good to know. No details.”

“Not even a teeny one,” she says. “Okay, now shoot.”

It’s not so easy to “shoot.” “I don’t know where to begin, really,” I say. “It’s like he believes that if he can’t ensure that things will go one hundred percent perfectly, they’re not worth doing? I don’t think he believes that when it comes to his work,” I say quickly, “but maybe with relationships? Like if he can’t be certain that people won’t look at us sideways for being together, or that I will never… be hurt or leave him, or even die, then it’s not worth it.”

Her expression softens. “Yeah,” she says. “I can see that.”

“We do have odds against us,” I say. “I know that. He’s older, and he has kids already. There will be some adjustments. But I felt like I wanted to try.”

“Wanted? Past tense?”

I shrug and try to keep the emotion out of my voice. I’m not sure I’m succeeding. “Maybe, yeah. If he doesn’t… want this enough to give it a shot, then where else are we supposed to go?”

Connie puts a hand over mine. “What if—”

My phone rings, lying facedown beside us on the wooden table. I give her a smile and reach for it. “Sorry, it could be the school or something with the kids.”

“Of course, take it.”

But it’s not the school or about the kids.

It’s the newly formed Seattle Ballet Company, and they’ve heard from esteemed choreographer Antoine Dubois that I’m rehabbing an injury but looking for work.

And just like that, life throws yet another wrench.

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