Page 11 of Where I Should’ve Been

With one final pet, she waves to the rest of the herd that’s managed to surround her. “Bye, cuties,” she tells them lovingly, their role switching quickly to beloved pets from what I know them to be—woolly terrorists.

“Bye, Tad.” She leaves me with a wink and a smile, and the pit in my stomach collapses even deeper.

I don’t know what happened last night. Hell, when I woke up this morning, I didn’t even know she was in my house.

Probably because you drank your weight in whiskey—and Randy’s weight too.

She’s on the move, heading across my yard and straight for Bennett’s house, walking through snow and ice and obstacles she wouldn’t have to if I had the wherewithal to do the gentlemanly thing and offer her a ride, but I’m fucking frozen, mind swirling with foggy memories. Drinking. Snow. Breezy Bishop. At my house. All night long.

Surely she slept on the couch. Or in the guest room. Or…

The more I think, the less I know.

I’m not an expert in much these days—and I don’t pretend to be.

But I’ll be damned if two plus two on this one isn’t adding up to a four-by-four to the head when Bennett Bishop finds out I slept with his sister and have zero memory of it.

4

Breezy

It’s been years since I’ve taken a nap—or even slowed down enough to consider it—but at a little after five in the evening, I’m already yawning so much I’m seriously considering it.

Last night wasn’t exactly restful with Tad Hanson, in all his drunk, gentlemanly glory, popping in on me every five minutes for the first hour after we arrived to make sure I had enough blankets and pillows and knew my way to the bathroom. Even after he was done and passed out in his own bed, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling for another full hour, my body heavy with travel, grief, and too many thoughts.

By the time I unlocked the back door of Bennett and Norah’s house this morning with a key I’ve had since before the two of them got together, I’d only slept a whopping two hours, and exhaustion was a second skin. But Norah was already in the kitchen with Autumn, and the sweetest smell in the universe—coffee brewing, toast in the toaster, the faint pureness of baby shampoo and sugar clinging to my niece’s curls—was enough to soften all my rough edges and give me a second wind.

Now, the late-afternoon sunlight slants through the windows of Bennett and Norah’s house, and I press my cheek into Autumn’s hair and breathe her in. She smells like innocence. She smells like hope. She smells like the breath of fresh air I need right now, and I cling to the feeling by tightening my hug.

She giggles and wiggles like a worm in my arms. “No squishes, Bee!”

God, those curls. Glossy brown spirals that frame her round cheeks and startling blue eyes that grab ahold of your chest and suck you inside, heart first. I swear, if her hair were blond, she’d be Summer’s twin. The thought makes my whole body ache. I miss her so much.

I kiss the crown of her head one last time. “You sure make cute kids, Ben. Goodness, Summer would’ve adored her.”

Norah’s eyes are warm, her hand resting on Bennett’s, and my brother’s mouth tugs into a ghost of a smile, though his eyes hold a little moisture.

“She would’ve,” he agrees. His voice is quiet but certain.

I set Autumn down, and she toddles off toward the basket of dolls in the corner. The silence she leaves behind is thick but tender, full of love and loss braided together.

Forever seven, that’s our sweet Summer. We lost her two years ago, and sometimes it still feels like yesterday.

“Here,” Norah says, handing me a cup of coffee as I sit down across from Bennett.

Immediately, I wrap my hands around the mug. The warmth helps steady me. We don’t have to have the toughest conversation about my dad’s final fuck-you—I already called Bennett after the will-reading and had it, so that wound isn’t fresh anymore, but it’s certainly bruised and pulsing in the background.

Still, I find myself filling him and Norah in on the rest. “Logan showed up at the gallery yesterday,” I say, my voice weary. “I was already packing up my shit and ended up telling him I quit. He looked panicked and begged me to stay and run things for him. Apparently, he knew about Dad’s will before he died. He knew the galleries were going to him.” I shake my head. “God. After everything Dad did, after all I sacrificed…and he just…cut me out of it all. And Logan knew and agreed to it. It’s all so awful. I don’t even have words.”

“I hate to say it, Breeze…” Bennett pauses, his jaw flexes, but his eyes hold no surprise. Which, frankly, shows how fucked up our family is. “But that sounds about right for Logan. Thinking you’d just run the galleries for him. You’re seeing the side of him I’ve been privy to for years.”

Bennett and Logan’s relationship has been strained for more than a decade. I don’t know if there’s anything that would have brought them back together after all that’s happened between them, but I’m sure Logan’s role in Dad’s will planning and the galleries being taken away from me are only serving to nail the coffin shut.

“And the money,” I add carefully. “I didn’t tell you before, but…it wasn’t just the galleries. He left us twenty million each.”

Bennett’s expression hardens instantly. “I don’t want a dime of it. Not from him. Not after everything.”

“I figured.” I nod, affirming that his message is the one I conveyed on his behalf. “I told Logan that. And I said the same thing for myself.”