My sister sat up and grabbed my hand. She didn’t have to say it. I was already struggling to admit it. Dean wasn’t some casual hookup, and we weren’t discussing this over FaceTime, multiple states and time zones away. It made the truth more glaringly obvious even though my first instinct was to skirt around vulnerability and pretend.

I squeezed her hand back—three times. Her smile widened.

“I like him a lot,” I admitted. “More than a lot and more than I should. Last night, our chemistry being so instant, only proved a few things that I’d been avoiding. Mostly that you shouldn’t have mind-blowing sex with someone who’s also a friend. And incredibly kind and humble and charming and slightly broody and very, very cute.”

Her eyes softened, and I almost couldn’t take it. My gaze wandered over to my pack, still leaning against Lin’s bookcase. I used to dream about packing you girls up and hittin’ the road too. Just to escape.

“Are you worried about hurting Dean if things don’t work out?” she asked, drawing my attention back to her and Eric.

I nodded. “Always. And I don’t really know how to do any of this anyway. Or even if Dean’s interested. Besides, I’m moving to Austin in a week. And, just between the three of us, Dean might be moving to Las Vegas for a job opportunity. There’s a lot of complicating factors. Especially if he takes that job.”

Eric moved to the couch and squished in next to Alexis. He held the bag of marshmallows open without her needing to ask. And she reached in immediately without looking. They’d had an effortless intimacy for as long as I’d known them together. I didn’t believe I’d ever been privy to an intimacy like that.

Though thanks to Dean, I was beginning to understand it.

“I get it, Tab,” Alexis said. “It was hard for me to trust when Eric and I started dating and hard for me to be fully honest with him. Dad hadn’t met Kathleen yet, and so I only had memories from the Bad Year stuck on loop.”

Eric reached between them and entwined their fingers. “We got through it though. It took a lot of patience and a lot of communication.” His lips quirked up at the ends. “That wasn’t super easy given that we were only twenty-one but it was different between the two of us. I recognized that from the very beginning of our relationship. So fighting through whatever was trying to hold us back was worth it in the end.”

I could feel all three of us tense up on the couch. I chewed on the end of my thumbnail. “Does Juliet ever ask about Mom?”