Page 42 of Somewhere You Belong

“Not so fun to be ridiculed about your crush, is it?” he calls after me, stopping me in my steps.

I spin to face him once more, striding back up to him, poking a finger at his chest. “This isn’t the same thing. I barely know this woman, and the situation is completely different.”

He straightens his spine, locking his eyes with mine. “No, it’s complicated, and so is the shit between Astrid and me. So maybe you’ll finally leave it alone because now you know what it feels like.”

I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose, taking a step back. “I don’t want to fucking fight with you today, all right? I slept like shit and I’m just…frustrated, with a lot of things. And I went and saw Mom today.”

He softens his stance instantly. “Is she all right?”

“Yeah. She’ll be okay, but she was crying, man. The invitation to the veterans’ dinner came in the mail.”

“Jesus.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Is she going?”

“I think so. I think we all should, actually. It would mean a lot to her, and to Dad.”

He nods. “Yeah, I agree.”

“I just hate seeing her like this, you know? She’s alone, and it fucking kills me.”

Penn stares off to the side. “Same. I don’t know what’s worse sometimes—loving someone and losing them, or never letting people in and dying alone anyway.”

Fuck. I hate that my brother’s words hit me so hard.

The older I get, the more I wonder if I’ll ever settle down or have a family. I always envisioned that being the end goal, but as each day passes, that vision gets blurrier. It’s hard to accomplish something like that when you live a life of solitude.

By your own choice, Dallas.

“Since when did you become philosophical?”

The corner of his mouth lifts, easing the seriousness of the conversation slightly. “I don’t know. It’s just been on my mind a lot lately.”

An image of Willow standing in front of me with her hand on her hip flashes in my mind. “Well, whatever is meant to be will be, right?”

“You sound like Mom,” he says with a grin. “Why don’t you just try to talk Willow about the house again, Dallas?” he asks, shifting the subject back to where we started.

“It’s pointless. I got a flat-out no.”

He shrugs. “Maybe because you were acting like an ass to her every time you crossed paths.”

“I wasn’t…”

“Uh, yeah, you were. But maybe making things right with Willow will help your cause.”

“What makes you think I need to make things right?”

“She kept bringing you up today, asking questions about why you act the way you do. I think she was trying to be casual about it, but I saw right through her.”

“And what did you say to her?”

“I said she should ask you herself. She didn’t like that reply very much.” He grins.

“I built her a chair yesterday,” I admit, which has his eyes bugging out.

“Oh, shit. How did that happen?” I relay the details of our encounter, which only makes him smile more. “That’s a good start to smoothing things over, I guess.”

“I’m not sure that it’s enough.”

“Look, Dallas. You act like a dick most of the time, but that’s not who you really are. And if you want any hope of this woman selling this house to you eventually, you need to kiss her ass—both figuratively and literally, if you want to.”

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