Page 40 of My Ex's Brothers

I stare at Richard across the table. He looks as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

The bowl of chips and salsa in the center is tempting, though I’m so anxious I don’t know if I can eat. But Richard wouldn’t take no for an answer, so here I am.

“Worrying on an empty stomach isn’t good for you,” he says, pulling me out of my daze.

I move to grab one chip, dipping it in the salsa and biting off a tiny corner.

“Happy?” I ask, my tone defeated.

Richard’s eyebrows furrow as he sighs. “Amelia, I’m not?—”

“It’s fine,” I say, not wanting to sound ungrateful. “I’m just…”

“Stressed?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I breathe out. “I just feel like…everything is falling apart.”

Richard shifts closer to me in the booth we’re sitting in.

The chili lights cast an ambient glow on us, and I have to fight looking at him. I don’t want to see the look of pity of his face.

Poor Amelia. Whatever will she do?

“I know the feeling,” he says, and his words make me stop. I turn to look at him.

“What?”

“I said, I know the feeling. Like the world’s been ripped out from under you?”

I nod as reality hits me. Of course, he’s talking about his divorce.

“Your divorce, you mean?”

He nods. “That…among other things. Like losing my dad.”

Dex never spoke about their dad, and I didn’t ask. I only know that his mother and stepfather have been married for about nine years, together for ten.

“Dex never talked about him, you know. Your dad.”

“The twins were thirteen. It was…hard on them. Not surprised he’s never really talked about it.”

“And you were twenty-five, right?” I ask carefully. Looking at Richard, it’s hard to believe that he’s in his forties. I swear, if it wasn’t for the grey hair he’s rocking nowadays, he could easily pass as a man in his thirties.

But I can also see the creases at the corners of his eyes.

Older men have never been attractive to me, but then again, I think Richard Rose would be attractive to a blind person. He’s just got this…aura about him.

“Yup. Just started playing with the Badgers. Suddenly I became the stand-in, whether I wanted to or not. I had a mom and two brothers to take care of. So I get it, Amelia. I really do.”

I watch the light shift in his eyes, and his words strike me in the heart like a knife.

Because there’s a truth there that I think Richard has never spoken before, perhaps in front of anyone.

But he’s tellingme.That should mean something, right?

“I’m sure that was difficult for you.”

He shrugs, dipping a chip in salsa.

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