Page 97 of Theirs

She looked me in the eyes.

“I can tell you that now I?—”

“No, you think about it, if we do this, then we do this together as a group,” I said not knowing what to call us. “That means you are mine and Luke’s, I am yours and Luke’s, and Luke is yours and mine. This means we are all in because if you do this shitagain, Genevieve, I swear you won’t hear a word from us ever again. So, you better think long and hard about what you want.”

She looked shocked, but also looked a little proud.

“I understand, Camila,” she said confidently.

“I hope so because if you do this to us again further down the road, I don’t know if we would survive it, and if you aren’t all in, I have to protect Luke and I.” I sighed. “He doesn’t need to feel more guilty.”

I closed my eyes wondering if continuing whatever this was a bad idea.

29

Luke

My siblings and I were not prepared for losing our parents. We didn’t know what to do because losing them had never crossed any of our minds. There was no will, there was nothing to indicate what they wanted, and the necessary paperwork was awful.

We were all unprepared and even a week after their deaths we were still trying to figure out what we needed to do with the insurance and the farm. Doing farm work again was therapeutic in a way, but it also made me realize that my choice to leave was the best one for me. I realized then how much work we had left for our parents and a little bit of guilt would set in every morning when I would work with my brothers.

I thought I was in shape, but doing farm work made muscles I didn’t know about hurt. The one good thing was that my brothers and I were together. We didn’t speak much, but it was nice to be with them, and even better when our sister brought us snacks and lemonade while we worked. It let me picture what it might have been like if I had stayed on the farm, but if I had done that, I wouldn’t have met Camila, and I would never regret her.

“Should we talk about the farm?” my brother Theodore asked as we sat around a fire outside.

“Seriously?!” my sister Iris snapped. “Our parents just died and you want to sell the farm already?!”

“It’s the next logical thing,” he said softly, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“We haven’t even put them in the ground and?—”

“Izzy, he didn’t say that,” I said, trying to calm her down as I felt Camila squeeze my hand.

Since we had gotten here, Iris had been hurting the most out of all of us. She still lived with my parents and was the closest to them.

“The farm needs someone to run it, we need to figure out everything because they didn’t have anything written down,” Theodore said calmly. “We don’t know what needs to be paid or who needs to get paid. The farm can’t go on like this.”

“I can handle it,” she said, getting up. “I don’t need your help.”

“Izz,” Jude said, getting up and hugging her.

She sneered.

“He’s just trying to help,” he said, as she pushed him away.

“Just like he helped take over the ranch instead of the farm?” she spewed.

I tensed at her accusation.

“You know why I did that,” Theodore said softly.

We all know why he moved to Sterling Ridge. It wasn’t a secret that my parents didn’t know how to raise my brother who was neurodivergent. My father had no patience for him and when he mentioned that he might like men, that didn’t go over well.

She glared at him like he had betrayed her, like what he went through was his fault. I knew it was her grief talking, she was the closest to our parents and she was the only one who had stayed.

“We are not selling it,” she snapped. “You might not love it, but I do and if you had been less selfish and come visit moreoften, you might have seen that mama and papa were trying to do better.”

“The phone works both ways, Iris, and if I remember correctly.” Theodore stood up, “I never received an invite for Christmas ever again and I did call for Christmas and no one answered. I’m going to sleep.”

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