“We’re a unit,” he said. “The three of us. We’re all we have left because our parents are gone. And I get it, that very fact forced you to become the Fixer, and don’t get me wrong, you’ve always done the right thing by us. You put your life on hold to make sure we grew up okay, but you’ve never liked it. Even now I can see you panicking on the inside, scrambling to figure out how to get us gone again.” He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice was unusually solemn. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be a burden to someone you love?”

God. He was right. As awful as it was, there’d been times when she’d felt overwhelmed and out of control, and had looked at them as a burden, and that was all on her. She wanted to reach out, hug him, say something to ease the pain in his eyes, anything, but they’d never been a huggy sort of family. And now she knew that it was her fault they weren’t.

“You were my mom, my dad, my friend, and oftentimes also my enforcer,” Gavin said. “But you’ve never been my sister. You’ve never let me be your brother. You’ve never let me be there for you, Piper, not once. You need to stop protecting me. I’m grown, I’m good, and that’s all thanks to you. But I want to be siblings. I want to be equals. I want to be the one to help you for a change.”

“I don’t need help.”

He nodded. “Yeah. You’re an island and an army of one, believe me, I get it. But do you realize we’ve never even grieved together for all we’ve lost?”

Her biggest fear. If she let out the grief, it’d consume her. So she shook her head, her mind dark with memories. “I can’t.”

“I know,” Gavin said. “Because you never could. Not even when I needed you to.”

She opened her mouth, to say what, she had no idea, but Winnie started shoving them out the bathroom door, face green. “Oh God, hurry. Get out. Get out, get out! Save yourselves!” she yelled, and slammed the door on their noses to throw up again.

Chapter 19

“You mean other than your sweet, sunny nature?”

Midmorning, Cam sat in the tiny marina business office, staring at the ancient metal filing cabinet. Up until today, it’d been filled to the brim with paperwork shoved into each drawer so tightly, he’d had to pry them open one at a time.

His dad’s filing system.