Good to know Dylan has no respect whatsoever for Ellie and her fake relationship.

“I really wanted to tell them everything!” Andrew dejectedly drops his head onto my shoulder. “But there’s this feeling in my chest, this… fear, I guess. That I’m going to mess it up or let them down. That if I tell them the whole truth, then there’s nothing left for me to hide behind and I’ll just have to… to let them love me.” Andrew lets the weight of that decision settle across my skin. “I couldn’t even tell Dylan I’m in love with them.”

I realize that I’d used the L-word in regard to Jack with Meredith and again now with Andrew, but I hadn’t even remotely dared to cross that bridge with Jack. Maybe because I’m afraid she won’t say it back.

Or maybe because I’m afraid she will.

“Wait. You didn’t tell Jacqueline the truth? About our engagement being fake?”

“No. I didn’t think it was my secret to tell.”

Andrew pulls away from me and rises from the bed. “Wait, are you telling me Jack doesn’t know our relationship is fake? You slept with her, but she has no idea about the trust fund?”

I shake my head. “No, you told me I couldn’t—”

“Okay, on the one hand, I’m pretty hurt that my sister would sleep with someone she thought was my fiancé, but on the much larger, more important hand.” Andrew’s brown eyes go shock-wide in his handsome face. “My sister… she’s a self-righteous, stubborn motherfucker. You should have told her the truth.”

The dread trickles down my insides like beads of sweat, pooling in my gut. “But the money. The Butch Oven. You said—”

“Do you love my sister?” Andrew demands.

“Y-yes, I—I think so…?”

Andrew reaches out for my hand. “Then we need to come clean right now.”

It’s apparently pertinent that we run, not walk, through the hallways and down the stairs, Andrew dragging me back to the family, but even running, we’re too late.

As soon as we enter the living room, still hand in hand, everyone looks up at us. There’s a stillness draped over the room, a creeping sense of wrongness. I take in the tableau of the family and try to understand it. Jack is sitting on the couch with her laptop open, the grandmas flanking her on either side like stone statues. Meemaw looks guilty as she sips her sangria. Lovey looks furious as she stares down her grandson. Dylan is sitting on the arm of the couch, chewing on the skin around their thumbnail. Katherine is a few feet away, pacing the carpet, and Alan is behind the couch, looking at the computer screen over Jack’s shoulder.

Alan sees us, sees our joined hands, and glowers.

“Everyone, Ellie and I have something we need to say,” Andrew starts.