Page 89 of One and Only

Her face smoothed out, the disappointment hidden, but the color still high in her cheeks.

“Josie asked if I’d bring her over a day early,” I told her. My voice had lost that ragged edge to it, steadier now that I’d been able to wedge some distance between us. “I think she just needs to see for herself she’s okay.”

Greer nodded. “Should I come with? I’d like to apologize to Josie too.”

I held her gaze but shook my head. “That’s okay. If you want to call her while I’m driving over, that’s fine. I don’t plan on staying long.”

A gust of wind kicked up in the yard, and a few stray pieces of dark hair flew into her face. She tucked them behind her ear, eyeing me warily.

I didn’t blame her.

I was all over the place, and that wasn’t like me.

It was unsettling, something I couldn’t quite trust.

Greer must have been able to read that in my face, must have been able to see something in my eyes that betrayed how conflicted I was. Because she gave a slight nod of concession.

“I’ll bring our stuff in and say goodbye to Olive,” she said. “She won’t be back with us until after Josie’s wedding, right?”

A solid week of just the two of us.

No interruptions.

But no reason for her to stay in my bed either.

My chest clenched as I nodded.

“I’ll go say goodbye to her then.” Her lips hooked into a crooked grin. “She has a lot more to pack now,” she said, pointing at the art bags.

I watched Greer walk into the house with a growing emptiness under my ribs, an unsettled gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach.

Dropping off Olive only took about ten minutes—mainly because Josie and Micah were waiting out in the front yard, shifting some boxes from the inside of their house to the moving pod they had in the driveway.

Greer had called Josie while I drove Olive over to the house, and Micah laughed when he heard what she said.

Josie gave him a chastising look, but even she was fighting a smile. “Not funny,” she said.

“It’s a little funny,” Micah replied.

“I’ll see if the dean needs us to do anything else,” Josie said. “I told Greer I wasn’t mad, but remind her when you go back home. There are worse things in the world than you marrying someone who’s really protective of our daughter.”

Too many things were knocking around inside my head. The rage I’d felt at the idea anyone had dared hurt Olive. The helplessness at not being able to do anything about it. The wildly inconvenient timing of my attraction to Greer. And now, Josie’s absolute trust. That one had an immediate sinking effect on my stomach, like she’d dropped an anchor down my throat.

All of it left me exhausted.

Weary down to the bone.

I gave Olive another hug, told her I loved her, and I reminded Josie and Micah to call if they needed any help leading up to the wedding.

As I drove back to the house, knowing that it was just me and Greer for the next stretch of days, I tried to make sense of how we’d gotten here.

How I was supposed to move forward. And I had no one to talk to.

Except my wife who wasn’t my wife.

And her brother, I realized. When I was at a red light, I tugged my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts to see if I’d saved his number. I sighed heavily when I found it.

Cameron Wilder.

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