Page 2 of Emerson

“Feelings?” he rasps, and I can’t make eye contact. The sad is radiating off him, and it’s making me sweat. This feels different from other times. I don’t know what I’m going to do in a world where Warren and Morgan aren’t a thing. They have been a constant in my life. A sure thing. An expectation, if you will. I expected them to outlive us all just so they could continue fighting and fucking and driving each other crazy. I expected a wedding. Babies with his hazel eyes and her freckles. I expected to know that love doesn’t have to exist for everyone because it exists for them, and that’s enough for me.

If they aren’t in love, or their love wasn’t enough, it feels impossible for the rest of us.

For me.

I looked up to them, even if they were fucking toxic one hundred percent of the time.

I rub my chest and wrinkle my nose at the feelings brewing there. Morgan was like the sister in the otherwise male dominant Bennet family. Well, sister for the rest of us. I definitely hope she wasn’t like a sister to Warren. I side-eye him and watch him down his second beer the bartender silently delivered. She didn’t even give him a sexy smirk this time. I think she can smell the heartbreak now that he’s been sitting here long enough for it to permeate the stale air.

Ugh.

“Yes, brother dearest, your heartbreak is making me feel ill. So, am I here to encourage you to get positively hammered? Because I can do that. But if you need to cry it out, I think we should call Ian…”

“I need you to do something for me.” I’m grateful that he’s trained his sad eyes somewhere across the bar where I don’t have to see them. I eye his bruised face and, shit, has it gotten darker since he got here?

“Do what?” I ask, and maybe I am a bad brother because it comes out a tad bit hesitant.

Warren scrubs one of his big hands over his face and sighs.

“Dillon and I have been working on the cabin.” My spine straightens at the mention of Morgan’s older brother, Warren’s best friend. God, that’s messy. What happens to their friendship now? “Morgan has decided she doesn’t want anything to do with it. We had a few weeks of work left to do, but Dillon made it clear today that I am no longer welcome to be there if he’s there.”

Warren snorts and sips his beer. I lean in, waiting to hear what the fuck I have to do with any of this.

“Warren, before you continue, I would just like to remind you that I am your small, very gay brother. I get weekly manicures and don’t own a single pair of sweatpants. I drink iced coffee and sleep on silk pillows.”

“So?”

“Soooo, if you’re about to ask me to help Dillon with renovations, you’re asking the wrong brother. Pick literally any of the other ones you have.”

“Gay people can’t do renovations now? That’s homophobic, bro,” Warren mumbles and a startled laugh shoots out of me.

“Oh? Are you the guardians of the gays now, brother?”

He side eyes me.

“Are you going to report me to the gay police? Will I get a trial before they slap me with a gay but still homophobic charge?”

“God, you’re fucking ridiculous. It’s like it gets worse the older you get.” Warren rubs his temples, and I snort.

“Fine. What do you want me to do?”

“Dillon can handle the heavy lifting, but he sure as fuck can’t be left to pick out cupboards or wall colors.” He scrubs his face again and leans his bent arms on the bar, looking over at me. “I was going to sell but decided I’d furnish it and rent it out. One of those short stay places or some shit, I don’t know.”

I blink several times and cross my legs. The leather of my pants is so buttery, it barely makes a squeak. “So, you want me to do the designing and decorating?”

“Yeah, basically.”

A slow smile pulls my lips. “’Cause I’m gay?”

Warren rolls his eyes. “Here we go.”

“Come on, baby, you can do it.” I rub one hand over the dash of my Volkswagen Beetle as we slowly make our way up the steep driveway. If it even can be called that. It looks like a half-assed cleared path that just so happens to be wide enough for a car to drive down. I quickly grasp the wheel with both hands and bite down on my lip to keep a startled squeak at bay as I run over a bump in the ground that jostles my whole body.

Fuck.

I can see where a much larger vehicle has driven up here when the ground was muddy, leaving behind massive tire tracks. I dated exactly one man with a big truck and decided quickly that if you date one, you have dated them all.

Is that a fair assessment? Absolutely not. But life isn’t fair. He reminded me too much of the boys in school who wanted to kiss me in the dark and make fun of me in the light of day when their friends were around. That’s why, when I see the truck parked in front of the cute cabin, I narrow my eyes.