Page 18 of Owen Bailey Needs Advice

“All right… so maybe I already called Levi.”

I groan, and my head starts to throb again. She means well. I can’t get mad at her, not when she doesn’t know better. Not when she only wants to help me.

“You don’t need to beat the door in, sweetie,” I hear Meredith say on the other side of this door. She and Levi have been together as a couple just four months now. But I wouldn’t be shocked to hear my brother had popped the question—he’s never been so smitten or so happy in his entire twenty-nine years of life. It wouldn’t surprise me if Meredith poppedthatquestion first either—she likes trying new things, and I wouldn’t put it past her.

I couldn’t be happier for my brother. I wouldn’t want him with anyone else. And yet, it’s another testament that I might enjoy torture. I refuse to give Annie up—torture. I am happy and even proud watching Levi move forward with his life, to have found his person, yet at the same time, it’s kind of like adding lemon juice to an open wound—torture.

I truly am happy for him.

I’m not selfish.

So, I happily suffer in silence.

I don’t bother getting up; Levi will eventually just walk in. But before he can, Coco is at the door, opening it for them.

Immediately, she pokes our brother in the belly and whispers, “Be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Levi grunts back.

“Levi might be the nicest person I know,” Meredith says with all the sincerity of a priest taking his sacred vows.

Miles smothers a laugh beside me, but Coco doesn’t hide her scoff.

“You’re right, Meredith,” I say. Leviisthe most selfless of us all—even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

Another scoff from Coco. “Owen, we all know you are the kindest person on the planet. So—”

Levi’s grunt interrupts her speech. “Kind or just annoyingly agreeable.”

Coco pokes Levi in the belly again. “Not annoying. He’s kind, he doesn’t judge others, and he’s got good intentions—always.”

“Maybe,” Levi says, pulling a folding chair from my entry closet. He opens it up and taps the back. “You can sit, Mer.” Then he grabs another for himself.

Coco sits on my other side. We’re one big happy family—having an Annie intervention.

“But,” Levi says, “when those good intentions make him lose himself, I don’t like it.”

“Excuse me?” Coco’s narrowed eyes dart from me back to Levi. “What does that mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed?” Levi says, lifting an ankle to his knee. “Owen changes around Annie.”

A vein in my forehead throbs. I don’t change. Not really. I just like having things in common with her.

Coco’s furrowed brow tells me shedoesn’tknow—and Miles doesn’t speak up to defend me, which means he probably agrees with Levi.

“How?” Coco crosses her arms.

“Owen, what do you think of the Dallas Cowboys?”

I swallow. “You’re confusing fun with preferences.”

“Wait,” Coco says, turning my way. “You don’t like the Cowboys?”

My mouth opens, but I sound more like a motorboat than anything. “Ah—not really. I do like watching them play.”

Her shoulders stiffen. “But you bought tickets to a game. You bought Dallas Cowboy T-shirts and foam fingers and—”

“I took Annie. They’re her favorite team.”

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