Page 30 of The Bridges I've Burned

He laughed. “You’re not wrong about that. But I’ve got other options. Just give me a little bit of time. I’ll figure something out, okay? We’re family,” he said, his warm gaze meeting mine. “We take care of each other.”

Family…

That single word made my heart squeeze, and as much as I wanted to argue with him, I simply nodded, remembering Elena’s plea. “All right. Whatever you want.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I’d been in Ocracoke for only a handful of hours, but I was already racking up an alarmingly long list of regrets.

Number one on my list was saying yes to dinner with a smoking hot mystery man who turned out to be Marin’s future brother-in-law.

A close second was choosing to tell her about it.

“I can’t believe the guy at the bar turned out to be Zander!” she nearly squealed as we sat, huddled together, on one of the plush velvet sofas in the coffee shop, waiting for our order.

“You already said that,” I muttered.

She’d said it more than once actually. In the car. On the way here. In the line before we ordered.

It’d taken her a few minutes to get over the roller coaster of emotions she was riding in regard to her fiancé’s long-lost brother returning, but once she processed all of those, the focus had quickly shifted to me and the long-winded story I’d told her just an hour earlier about the hot guy I’d ditched at karaoke night.

“So, wait,” Marin said, her back turned as she scooped coffee grounds into her fancy coffee maker. It was a gift from Macon. Coffee was kind of their thing because it reminded them of their meet-cute. It was adorable as hell—in a barf-inducing sort of way. “I thought you went to the rental after you left here.”

“I did,” I assured her, already knowing where this train of thought was leading. “But a girl needs food, Marin.”

“We could have fed you.” She looked a little forlorn as she turned back around, having set the machine to brew.

“I know that, babe. But I am going to be here for three weeks. I don’t want you to get sick of me right off the bat.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to get sick of you,” she promised, leaning against the cool granite.

I smirked as I took in her long black leggings and oversized blouse. Only she could pull that off and still look put together.

“We’ve been friends for half our lives. Pretty sure if I was ever going to get sick of you, it would have happened during those years we shared a bathroom.”

I grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

To save money, the three of us—Marin, Daniel, and I—had thought it’d be a brilliant idea to share an apartment.

Spoiler alert: it was not.

Sharing a space with a couple, especially a couple that included my brother, was like willingly subjecting myself to torture every night.

Or day. Or mid-afternoon. ’Cause those two fucked like damn bunnies in heat.

I’d heard things. So many things.

“So, you went to get food and ended up at Gavin’s place? On karaoke night of all nights?” Marin asked, rerouting the subject back to my crazy night.

I’d come over here to help her with the seating chart for the wedding, and we were both doing an A+ job of avoiding it.

“Yeah, well, Macon said the food was good,” I lied, not wanting to explain my weird need to be surrounded by people when I wanted to be alone.

She shrugged. “Billy’s is better than Taps, but go on.”

Billy’s was better, but it was also familiar. There was no way I could disappear at a restaurant owned by her next-door neighbor.

“Anyway,” I went on, “I took a stool at the bar and ordered a glass of wine, and this guy came up to me and started talking to me about music, and eventually, we got a booth.”

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