Page 66 of Tourist Trap

“That’s June’s college roommate,” Grant said. “She comes down occasionally, hangs with Lainey and June.”

Paul always could tell when my interest was piqued.

I turned to ask Grant something, to try and change the subject, but I saw it even then, the look on my brother’s face. A new prize for him to win. Because any time he saw I might want something, he had to have it first.

The next morning, I went to my mom’s for breakfast, not seeing either of them for the rest of the night, and a shy, smiling Claire walked in on Paul’s arm. That was the first time I ever really wanted to punch my brother in the face, but Claire looked happy, and that was all I ever wanted for her, so I let it go. I lethergo.

“He did it on purpose, you know,” Grant says, snapping me back to the present.

“I don’t think—” I lie.

“I do. And if you let yourself see it for what it is instead of with rose-colored glasses, you would too. I’ve watched it a million times over, Miles. Every time you get something, he either wants to take it from you or ruin it for you. It’s been that way since you were kids.”

“Look—”

“When she stopped coming down without him?”

My body stills, and Grant nods like he knows I know what he’s talking about.

Claire spent nearly every weekend down here for the first two months of the season to hang out with June. She even came on weekends when Paul was in the city or out with some record exec trying to get a deal. She’d come and spend time with June and Lainey on the beach, and more often than not, Grant and I would tag along under the guise of trying to keep them in line. But really, the three of them, and occasionally Deck, were just a blast to hang out with.

And then she stopped coming out of nowhere toward the end of July. That’s when June started going up to her place on the weekends instead.

“He told her that you thought she was annoying. June confessed it to me a week ago or so.”

My body stills. “What?”

Grant takes a sip of his beer before he answers.

“The way I see it, he didn’t like the idea of you two spending time together. Everyone knew that despite your constant bickering, you two were close. You would have fun talking, picking on each other, walking on the beach, whatever bullshit you two did. I don’t think he liked it and knew exactly what to say to get her feeling self-conscious.A master manipulator who knew her soft spots,is what June called it.”

Nausea fills me as I realize that even though she was nervous about my thinking she was annoying, she asked me for a place to stay. And then I continued to confirm that was how I felt once she was back in town, making it seem like she was irritating me at every turn.

And yet, she still made an effort. She still made that fucking list to try and convince me to give myself some time for myself, to have fun this summer. Still told me she wanted something with me, only for me to tell her I couldn’t give her the time she needed from me.

You never bothered to ask, Miles, but if you had, I would have told you all I would need is to be yours.

That’s what she said. Telling me straight up that she didn’t need any of the millions of things my brain had convinced myself she needed in order to be mine.

She just neededme.

“I fucked up,” I whisper.

“No shit.”

“God,I fucked up. This whole fucking time, she’d been giving me a chance.”

“Uh-huh,” Grant says like he’s waiting for me to continue to come to terms with my idiocy so I can move to the next step in some master plan I don’t have.

But don’t I? She handed it right to me.

She doesn’t need some grand gesture—she just needs me to want her.

Which I do. I always did.

I stand, my stool scraping along the worn wooden planks loudly so all eyes in the bar turn to me, but I don’t care. I swipe my keys and phone off the bar top and slide them into my pocket.

“Where are you going?” Grant asks, a sinking smile on his lips.

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