Page 32 of Brother in Law with Benefits

"I called David Kowalski," Grant says.

I go still. "What?"

"Yesterday. Told him I needed more time before I commit to the Brazil contract. He needs my answer by end of the month."

"What are you going to tell him?"

"I don't know yet." He runs a hand through his hair — the gesture I've catalogued as his version of anxious. "I've been taking every contract for twenty years. Never questioned it.Never thought about what I was leaving behind. This time I'm thinking about it."

"Because of me."

"Because of you. Because of Mom. Because I'm forty-three years old and I keep asking myself what I'm actually building." He looks at me. "Not in some country I'll leave in eighteen months. Here."

I want to hope. I'm trying to manage the wanting-to-hope, the way you manage anything you know can hurt you badly if you let your guard down even a fraction.

"What do you want me to say?" I ask.

"What do you want. What you actually want."

"It doesn't matter what I want. You're the one who has to decide."

"Yes, it does."

"No." I meet his eyes. "You have to want this for yourself. Not because I asked, not because your mom asked. Because you want a life here. And I can't make that decision for you. I wouldn't try to."

"What if I want it for us?"

My chest aches. "There is no us, Grant. Not officially. We were friends with benefits. That was the deal."

"The deal was a bad deal." His voice is rough. "I'm falling for you, Sophie. I have been since the moment I saw you on that porch five weeks ago. Maybe since longer."

"Don't say that."

"Why not?"

"Because it makes everything harder. Because now when you leave—" My voice catches on something I wasn't planning to say, and it comes out anyway, quieter than I mean it to. "Because I've spent my whole life being the reason people almost stayed, Grant. Almost isn't the same as staying. I don't think I can survive one more almost."

Something in his face shifts — like I've handed him a piece of information he didn't have, which, I realize, I haven't given him before, not this directly, not out loud.

"I'm not going to leave."

"You don't know that. Not yet." I stand up, needing to move. "Two weeks. You have two weeks to decide. If you can actually build a life here. Not for me. For yourself. And if you take the contract—" My voice catches. "If you decide to go, I need you to leave clean. No dragging it out. No promises you can't keep."

"Sophie—"

"Promise me."

His jaw is tight. "I'm not going to leave."

"Promise me anyway."

A long silence. "Okay. If I take it, I'll leave clean."

"Thank you."

We sit on the porch swing as the sun finishes setting. His arm comes around me and I let myself lean into him and have this moment, because I have learned to take the moments I'm given without trying to engineer them into something permanent.

In two weeks, I'll know.