Page 23 of Hang the Moon
“Facebook tell you that?” she teased.
He stared at her. “I don’t need Facebook to remind me of your birthday, Annie. I’ve known you half my life.”
Knownwas a bit of a stretch, but she knew what he meant.
“When Darcy was still in Philadelphia, we’d usually go out to celebrate at a restaurant of her choice, a fancy place she heardabout on Food Network.” Her eye roll was fond. “And if my birthday fell on a weekday, she’d have my favorite bakery deliver a dozen cupcakes to my office.”
“Sounds like Darce.” Brendon smiled.
Last year on Annie’s birthday, she’d ordered an obscene amount of sushi and eaten it all by herself while bingeing her favorite French reality show. Darcy had still sent her cupcakes to the office, but it hadn’t compared to spending her birthday with her best friend.
She could feel her smile slipping, wavering at the edges, melancholy threatening to overwhelm her, because next December Darcy would still be here in Seattle and Annie would be across the world and who knew if Darcy could even have cupcakes delivered from that far away? She clenched her back teeth together and grinned, reminding herself that Darcy was happy here and that was what mattered. “You must’ve been thrilled when Darcy moved to town. And then your mom?”
“Darcy, sure. Mom...” Brendon made a vague, frazzled gesture, his hand sweeping out in front of him before his fingers twitched and he ran them through his hair, leaving it sweetly disheveled. It was longer than she remembered it ever being. Notlong, but nothing like the crop he’d had when he was a kid. His auburn hair was thick, lush, the kind of hair you could sink your fingers into. “I’m sure you know how my mom is.”
She knew enough from Darcy. Gillian Lowell was, well—mercurialwould be putting it kindly. Her highs were high and her lowslow. She’d checked out following her divorce, leaving Darcy to care for Brendon until their grandmother stepped in.Her heaping loads of undue responsibility on Annie’s best friend would forever make Annie look at Gillian sideways.
“It seems like she’s happy here,” she said. “Darcy, I mean.”
He cracked a smile. “All thanks to Elle.”
She bumped his arm with hers. “All thanks to your matchmaking.”
His shoulders rose, his shrug lazy as he sank back against the bench seat, slouching. The cocky smirk curling his lips should’ve been totally unappealing but instead it made her insides twist. The fuck? “There you have it. Proof that romance isn’t dead.”
Oh, Jesus. She laughed. “This again?”
He tsked softly. “Did you think I forgot?”
“Here I was hoping,” she joked, crossing her legs.
She really should’ve peed. The pressure in her abdomen abated with the shift in position, the shouting of her bladder subsiding into something she could ignore... for now.
“Well, I didn’t forget.”
Of course he hadn’t. Because that would be too easy and completely unlike Brendon. Pigheaded was right. “Look, I didn’t say people couldn’t fall in love. I just think true love is rare. The kind that goes the distance. Most people want easy. But every rule has an exception.”
“Most people,” he repeated, eyes locked on her face, studying her closely.
She dipped her chin.
“And this rule.” He sat up straighter. “You’d say Elle was the exception for my sister?”
“I guess?”
“So it would stand to reason that maybe you haven’t met yourexception yet.” He looked smug at his deductive reasoning, his twisting of her logic.
She wasn’t going to hold her breath. Maybe every rule had an exception and maybe there was someone out thereperfectfor her, but while Brendon might’ve found the prospect of seven billion people promising, she found the odds bleak. Bleaker than bleak. “The exceptionsprovethe rule. The fact you can enumerate a finite list highlights the rarity of the exceptions.”
“The exceptions prove the rule?” The arch of his brow screamed skepticism.
“It’s athing.”
He threw his head back, laughter filling the glass-enclosed gondola. “Sure.”
“Shut up.” She pressed her hand to the cool glass. “Shouldn’t we be moving?”
He shut his eyes, lips curling in a lazy little grin, his empty coffee cup resting against his flat stomach. “You’re not scared of heights, are you?”
