Page 20 of My Brother’s Best Friend

“What?” I snapped, wondering what else I’d managed to fuck up in the past ten seconds.

“Thank you.” His voice was gentle. “That’s all I was going to say. Just, thank you.”

He was out the door before I had a chance to apologize. I groaned. Now I looked like the asshole. Somehow, that always seemed to happen.

Maybe it was just that Levi had it all together, plumbing mishaps notwithstanding. He’d had The Roastery for years now. He and I had the same messed-up childhood, but he’d made a life for himself on Summersea despite that. A good life. A stable one. People loved him, counted on him. And he never let them down.

Me? All I’d ever done was run away from the past, and then fail to make something of my future. There was freedom in New York, in no one knowing who I was or what circumstances I came from. But it was amazing how much freedom felt like loneliness.

Amazing how I could miss things I never thought I wanted.

I grabbed some rags and floor cleaner, and got to work. I would show Levi I knew how to do this properly. Show him that this, at least, I could handle. That I wasn’t just his idiot little brother who still needed hand-holding.

“Oh, Jordy, you didn’t have to do all that.”

Levi’s voice startled me, and my head snapped up—right into the underside of the sink.

“Fuck.” I rubbed my skull as I backed out from under the sink more carefully, then looked at Levi. I hadn’t realized he’d come back inside. “I’m sorry, did you not just tell me where the rags were?”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean you had to do it all yourself.” Levi shook his head. “You could have asked for help, you know.”

I made myself smile. “It’s fine.”

It was. I was drenched in saltwater, and had been crawling around on my hands and knees long enough to have developed a backache, and I hadn’t asked for help because I didn’t want a twenty-minute lecture on the proper way to wring out a washcloth, but honestly, it was fine.

“I just came in to tell you that all the businesses on our side of the block had this problem,” Levi continued. “It sounds like they were doing something with the water mains down by the harbor, and some dumbass—”

“The harbor!” My mouth dropped open. The harbor, where The Port Hole was located, where I was supposed to meet Quincy—I glanced at the clock on the wall—twenty-five minutes ago. I’d completely forgotten.

Levi looked at me in confusion. “The harbor?”

“I have to go!” I scrambled to my feet. There was no time to shower again. No time to even change. I was going to smell like a tidepool to Quincy, and that was assuming he was still there by the time I arrived.

“Where?” Levi asked. “What are you—”

“No time!” I yelled, heading out into the hall, waders wobbling with every step. “I’ll be back later!”

I was halfway to the bar when I realized I hadn’t even grabbed my phone. Fuck. If I went back for it now, it would only make me later. Better to just get there and check for Quincy as soon as possible. I could always apologize later if he wasn’t there.

I was running by the time I got to The Port Hole. Not the smartest thing to do in general, and even less smart when you’re wearing waders that jiggle with every step, throwing you off-balance. I pivoted towards the door and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the sidewalk, looking up at Cam.

Did I have a concussion? Was I dead? Those were the only two reasons I could think of for why he would be staring down at me, his blond hair haloed by the setting sun.

Though if I were hallucinating, surely I would have imagined myself wearing something less ridiculous. And possibly more naked. Come to think of it, if this was the last, desperate dream of my dying brain, why wasn’t Cam naked too?

“Why am I not naked?”

Cam cocked his head to the side like he hadn’t heard me quite right, which meant that I probably wasn’t dead after all. A shame, since I now very much wanted to die of embarrassment.

“Are you okay?” he asked when I didn’t reply.

I could just see myself from his point of view, all red-faced and rubbery, babbling like a crazy person.

“I—yeah—” I shook my head. “Sorry, I—I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, which was a relief, because I had no idea how I was going to finish that sentence.

He stuck a hand down to help me to my feet. I took it, and I swear to God, a jolt of electricity ran through me. I actually shuddered a little. Like the mere touch of his skin was enough to render me boneless, when in fact, it made one very particular part of my body bone-full.