Page 126 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
I’ve long stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now I’m just trying to keep my laces tied so I can keep up.
Thane is my future, and my future is finally looking bright.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
THANE
Even custom-madetuxedos are uncomfortable as hell. Tugging on my collar, I stare out over the city that never sleeps.
My penthouse has always been my sanctuary away from prying, judging assholes. I’d never even brought a woman here until Kara moved in, and she doesn’t exactly count as a woman yet.
Does she?
“Drink this.” Rafe hands me a tumbler of clear liquid I know isn’t water. “It’s a gin and tonic.”
“I don’t care to be intoxicated tonight.” I continue to stare at the city that was my home for most of my life.
I ate, slept, and breathed here, but I never truly lived. Not the way I do in Sweetbriar.
I hid in plain sight here.
There’s no hiding in Sweetbriar. It’s something I started off hating but have grown to tolerate because I’m comfortable there. Initially I thought it was Lottie who gave me that sensation, but she’s here with me now, and my skin is crawling across my bones with the need to retreat to our quiet little town.
“It’s not to get you drunk. It’s to relax you enough that you’ll stop pulling on your tux before you ruin it.”
“Take the drink, Brad. You look good, and you’re going to want to be relaxed when Lottie walks out here, otherwise your head might explode.”
I spin toward the sound of my sister walking down the hallway.
She’s different here too—stiffer, anxious—and I hate it.
“Is it strange being back here?” I take the drink from Rafe, but my gaze remains on my sister. Her shoulders are up around her ears. She called me Brad, but it didn’t have the same punch I’ve come to associate with it. She’s the exact replica of the flashcard for sad.
She sighs heavily and enters the room by dramatically hunching over at the waist. “Yes.” She drags out the s sound as though she’s a snake. “I’m so glad you noticed.”
That surprises me.
“You are?”
She flops her whole body onto the sofa. “Yeah. It’s like Dad is going to jump out at me any moment here. You know, like walking through landmines after someone dumped a bucket of spiders on you.”
“That’s very…descriptive.”
She taps her forehead. “See, I’m learning how to express myself in a way you understand.”
“Kara.” The word is harsher than I intended. “Sorry.” I swallow and try again. “Kara, Dad is not allowed within a hundred feet of either of us at the moment, so you can rest easy about that. He won’t be jumping out at you anytime soon. And you don’t need to change anything about yourself to make my life easier. That’s my job. I will learn.”
She rolls her eyes but then graces me with something that’s becoming more familiar as time goes on—happiness. It swims in her eyes that are the exact same shade of green as my own. “I know you will. But Rafe also told me that teenagers are notoriously—that’s a vocab word from last year, by the way—hard to read. So if you can work on it, so can I.” She grips her hands in her lap so tightly, her knuckles turn white. “We’re a team, right? So we both have to try?”
Her gaze jumps from her hands to Rafe before very carefully dragging to me.
“It means a lot to me that you’re trying, Kara, but I’m going to warn you, I suck at being a teammate. Just ask my employees.”
Her expression lights up the room, from the way her eyes crinkle to her cheeks that puff out before expelling an infectious laugh.
“Hey, at least you said it and not me. We can be the best bad teammates ever. I got kicked off the debate team last year because I, well, debated too much with Abigail Jones. She’s a suck-up, so I’m the one who got into trouble, but still.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh, a full-body experience that doesn’t happen very often.
