I grunted as he yawned, then lit one up. “I forgot you smoked.”

My stomach knotted. I knew why he’d come out, and the somersaults were going.

He breathed in, his arm resting on his knee. “Yeah. Just when I’m drinking.” I felt his gaze. “If we were teens, I’d offer you one. You stopped, right?”

“I only had a few that one summer with you. And they were cigars.”

I’d gone a whole summer thinking I was badass, sucking in, holding, then exhaling. I never actually inhaled the cigars, and I’d had no clue I was doing it wrong until a friend realized what I was doing. She’d laughed so hard that I gave up cigars after that.

My voice was hoarse now, from the yelling, cheering, laughing, drinking—just from all the hoopla I’d learned defined a party at Grant and Sophia’s house.

“I think I’m in love with your fiancée and her family,” I added.

He grinned, taking another drag, then lifting his beer. “I know. Why do you think I’m marrying her?”

I grinned, but I didn’t look back to meet his gaze. We were side by side, and it felt right, like old times, though I was still certain he’d come out for a serious talk. And fuck me, but I was going to beat him to the punch.

“I don’t want an apology.”

There. Take that.

“Good.” He put his beer down, coughing once. “’Cause you ain’t getting one.”

I gave him the side-eye now. “Excuse me?”

He grinned, then took another drag from his cigarette. “You heard me. This is what you reap. You don’t let your friends in, and this is what you get. They can’t know if you don’t tell them shit.”

I grunted. “Touché.” And a second grunt. “Hadley and Owen were fawning over him in the car coming over here.”

“As they will.” A sip of beer. “They don’t see it the way I see it.”

I groaned. “I hate when you bait me.”

He laughed softly. “Fine. I’ll take the bait myself. How do I see it? Well…” He was quiet a moment. “Are you using him? How invested are you?”

“You’re worried he’ll hurt me?”

“I have reason to be worried.”

Damian.

Dementia.

Early-onset dementia that was supposed to be so rare it never happened. But it did. It had happened to him.

I took Grant’s cigarette. “I don’t know what to tell you—”

He plucked it back out of my hands. I didn’t even get the chance to bring it to my mouth.