Page 42 of Thanking Her Brother's Best Friends

Ben would always get on the ride with me because he didn't like letting me do things alone, and then he'd regret it because it gave him motion sickness.

I absolutely adored the beach because it was so clean and different from the Riviera. We'd feast on hot French fries generously sprinkled with salt, served in bright little boards with a tangy, hearty tartar sauce and coleslaw.

Mom would be lenient on these occasions, and I got to taste the fizz of soda pop. I'd never forget how surprised I was the first time I tried it and it went straight up my nose. The years were long gone, but the happy memories helped.

And I guess this was what Chloe had meant when she tried to get my mood to improve this morning.

"D'you ever feel like we sabotage ourselves?"

"How?"

"Like sometimes, when I'm really happy or proud of something I've done, I experience this urge to counter the joy by forcing myself to think of something unpleasant. I used to think it was a coping mechanism."

We had reached the Rotunda, an observation deck in the center of the Quincy market. As we walked up the steps, we were greeted by the gentle glow of a setting sun that graced everything around us with the warmest gold.

The deck was an open-air space with wrought iron railings from where we could get an unobstructed view of the city skyline and Boston Harbor.

"I feel like we don't let ourselves be happy because we're too scared of what'll happen when we're not. It makes us think in numbers, Sel." Ben and I looked at the sun descending toward the horizon, painting the sky in oranges, pinks, and purples.

The skyscrapers of downtown Boston stood, silhouetted against this fiery spectacle, their long windows reflecting the last of the fading daylight.

"How do we stop doing it?"

"By accepting that all we can control is right now, and if something in this moment, here and now, is making us happy, then we should let it."

He angled his head in my direction as he spoke, and unwittingly, he showed me that everything was going to be okay.

We stood for a few more minutes, watching boats glide in the distance, their wake trailing behind like liquid ribbons.

"I'm really glad I got to see you today," I said, wrapping my arm across Ben's shoulders. I had to stand on tiptoe to do this. He returned my half-hug with one of his own.

"I'm really glad too. Are you heading home now?"

I had some time to kill before the nanny would bring Oliver back. And I didn't want to spend it at home. "I need to do some shopping for tomorrow, and yes. Home after that."

Ben and I said our goodbyes, and I got into my car, not to go home, but to visit Harvest and Hearth. And that brought me to this moment, where I sat in front of Niall, my heart and head swimming in the same sea of uncertainty.

Up until now, I'd understood my body was responding in funny ways to both Aiden and Dominic.

Ways that involved a lot of heat. I thought that was enough.

Apparently not, because I happened to have decided that Niall was just as gorgeous.

And that he canalsoplay me like a fiddle. Niall's charm was in his distinctive, drop-those-panties smile and the messy bun he wore with such ease.

I looked like a frumpy mess when I tried to do a bun like that.

The irony of it all. The world's three hottest men had to be best friends with my brother. They were all forbidden territory, so far as Ben was concerned.

And here I was, venturing freely just where I wasn't supposed to.

I asked him the same question that I did the others because I wanted to know if, by some odd twist of fate, he'd also felt something for me in high school.

Funny, because this fed into such a stereotype. I'd normally never forgive it, but if he groveled enough and looked this cute doing it,maybeI'd make a third exception.

"I—I kind of had no idea what I was doing back then," he mumbled as I set the spoon down after finishing the rice pudding.

Every meal I'd had today, from the marketplace to here, had been committed to my memory. And my belly, of course.

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