Is she on to me?

“Harry will be here in the next few days.” I latch onto the only safe topic: the constant reminder of why I can’t let myself weaken around Josie Martin. The reason I’d be the worst kind of man to give in to these needs, not that she’d want them anyway. “You can stay together in the barn. It’ll be like old times.”

Josie’s quiet. When I glance over again, she’s frowning at the table top.

“Or I could make up another bed for him somewhere else,” I offer slowly. Still no dice. Josie’s gnawing on her bottom lip, like she’s biting back something she desperately wants to say, and maybe that’s why I keep going without thinking. “Or you can take my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa. Harry can have his barn back.”

At that, Josie lights up like a fucking Christmas tree.

Ah, shit.

Can’t read into this. Can’t let myself hope.

Of course she’d find it weird staying over there with Harry. Sure, they hung out there together that summer, but they still used to date. That’s got to be strange.

It’s nothing to do with me. She doesn’t want my bed in particular.

Josie wets her bottom lip, and my coffee spoon rattles against the mug. “I would love to stay in here with you if that’s okay, Mr Bray. I won’t kick you out of your bed though,” she says, as if I’d ever make her take the damn sofa, “and I’ll keep out of your way, I promise.”

It’s no use.

I’m going to hell.

I turn back to the cutlery drawer, way too pleased with myself. “It’s Everett. No problem.”

* * *

“Harry?” The line’s crackly, but I hear a muffled thump and a low curse. I stifle a smile, rubbing my jaw as I stare at the kitchen wall. The scrape and crunch of a shovel against the dry soil floats through the open barn door, and I fight the urge to lean back in this chair and try for a glimpse of Josie getting started on that patch.

Is the soil too hard? Should I help her get it going?

“Ev?”

Even though I took my nephew in when he was only six years old, he’s never called me Dad. I never suggested it, and he never tried. On some level, I think we both understood and agreed: it would be too much like erasing my older brother. Too much like trying to forget Harry’s real dad, the one who died with his mom in a car crash and left the two of us alone, muddling along as best we could together.

I don’t think I did a terrible job—my obsession with Josie Martin aside. I’m proud as hell of the man Harry’s grown up to be.

“Hey. Josie’s here.” I’m no chatterbox in person, and even worse over the phone. Harry’s used to me cutting straight to the point. “You should come back sooner if you can.”