Chapter One

Sophie

 

       “Uh, Otis?” I ask, waving the phone screen at my twenty-one-year-old cousin. My hand is jittering, causing my two-carat diamond ring to sparkle in the light streaking through the kitchen window. “Can you come take a look at this? I need a second opinion.”

       Otis sighs as he sets down the toast he was preparing, spilling a glop of jam onto his grandmother’s granite counter. If I don’t clean it up, it will probably remain there until we both die. My cousin is sweet, mostly, but cohabitating with him has not been the highlight of my time in Asheville. He has shaggy hair because he forgets to get it cut, and he once found—and ate—a chocolate bar that had been wedged between the couch cushions for an uncertain amount of time. Now, though…

       I’ve never been a lucky woman. Bad luck follows me around the way other people are trailed by loving pets. I know better than to tell anyone this—my childhood therapist had a lot to say about my superstitions—but in my lowest moments I worry I’m cursed. But while I fear the worst, I’m hoping against hope Otis will be able to explain away the text message that just ruined my life.

       My pulse thunders as he takes the phone in his sticky hand and peers at the screen.

       “What the…?”

       He glances at me in disbelief.

       I feel my hope shriveling like a raisin. So, the text says what I thought it did…

​

BigCatchBabe: I can’t wait to see you this afternoon. I’ve been thinking about it all week. After I suck your cock, you can bend me over that barrel again. ;-)

​

       “Uh, Soph.” Otis returns the phone, which I nearly drop, clumsy from nerves. “Doesn’t this person realize you don’t have a cock?”

       “It’s not my phone,” I snap, slapping it down on the counter with a resonant crack. Hopefully, it broke.

       Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.

       But panic has already cracked me down my middle, heartache seeping out. This is bad. So bad I have to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen to describe it: it’s a ruinous affair.

       “You stole someone else’s phone?” Otis asks, his forehead furrowing. “But why?”

       Without looking at him, I respond in a gush of words. “It’s Jonah’s. He just bought me a new one, and he set the wallpaper so it’s the same as his. They’re basically identical, and he took mine by mistake this morning. When I realized what happened, I thought it would be funny to text him from his own phone—he always uses his birthday as his password—but then this text popped up, and…” I swallow the rest of the run-on sentence. “You think someone’s playing a joke on him? Like one of his buddies?”

       His mouth falls open, closes, and then opens again. I’m hoping some brilliant explanation will spill out. Instead, he rubs his chin and says, “Yeah, guys don’t joke around like that, Soph. Not unless they’re secretly blowing each other.”

       “So you think…?”

       He looks like he does every time I ask him to do something around the house—panicky. I can see sweat beading above his upper lip as he shifts his weight. Avoiding my eyes, he stammers, “You know what? I gotta go. I forgot, but I have this thing. It’s pretty important, and yeah…I’ll see you later. Sorry.”

       “For what?” I ask numbly as he edges away, abandoning his toast.

       He lifts a shoulder, shamefaced. “For…you know…being a guy.”

       “You don’t have anywhere to be,” I accuse, the words sharper than they should be. He is lying, obviously, but he’s not the one who did this to me.

       Jonah is.

       Jonah Price is my fiancé of four months.

       He told me he wanted to marry me after our first date and bought me an iPad for my birthday three weeks later, loaded with my “favorite songs.” Truthfully, it was his favorite music, but it was still an attempt at thoughtfulness. So was the way he proposed, with a bouquet of handpicked flowers.

       My great-aunt Penny would point out that he’d woven poison ivy into the arrangement, but he’s not a florist. How was he supposed to know?

       Jonah has been my silver lining for months, my proof that my life isn’t as hollow as it sometimes feels. But if this text means what I think it means…   

       My knees go weak.

       It’s like twelve years have been rewound and I’m sixteen again, stuck in the worst moment of my life. Rinse, repeat.

       “Can I leave?” Otis asks as he scratches his head violently. “I think that might be better for both of us. I mean…Jonah hates me anyway. He’s definitely going to find some way to blame this on me.”

       “How could it possibly be your fault that he’s running around town getting blow jobs at other breweries?” The thought is distressing enough to reduce me to a puddle, and I grab the phone and sink down to the floor. It’s sticky, suggesting the toast isn’t the first snack Otis made today. I mopped it last night, and I’m going to have to mop it again later. Only this time, I probably won’t be able to tell myself, Only four months left before the rest of your life begins.

       I was supposed to move in with Jonah after the wedding. We’d picked out new curtains together, and he’d surprised me with his very particular opinions about those and the bed linens. Why would someone with very particular opinions about such things cheat on his fiancée?

       He and his mother had also insisted on being involved in every stage of the wedding planning. I’d wanted to DIY the invitations and favors, but his mother had thought I was joking—and then responded with genuine horror when she realized I wasn’t. She’d chosen the invitations. Jonah had selected the venue, after rejecting my idea of holding it at Buchanan Brewery, where I work as a taproom server and part-time manager. I hadn’t felt like I was in a position to argue, seeing as I couldn’t contribute financially after blowing most of my personal savings on my wedding dress. My parents weren’t helping either, given we weren’t on good terms, and I wouldn’t accept a dime from my great-aunt.

       The woman’s family was supposed to pay, or so the ancient social laws proclaimed, so I couldn’t be anything but grateful for the arrangements, whoever made them.

       “What am I going to do?” I ask. “What am I going to do?”

       Otis makes a worried sound, then opens the fridge and removes a beer. He pops the top with the bottle opener fridge magnet and hands it down to me. It’s from the six-pack of Hair of the Dog IPAs I brought home from work last night. I’d gotten the beer for Jonah, but he’d turned up his nose and insisted Big Catch’s IPAs were superior.

Now, that seems doubly insulting.

       “It’s 9 a.m.,” I say numbly.

       My cousin pops open a second beer for himself. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to make a mimosa. The proportions always get messed up.”

       “You’re staying?”

       He sighs and settles onto the sticky floor beside me. “Yeah. Sorry I tried to leave. I know you don’t have any other friends. Grandma would have been disappointed in me if I’d left.”

       One of the pieces of my shattered heart digs into my chest, in danger of metaphorically puncturing a lung. He’s right. I don’t have any friends here. I moved to Asheville less than a year ago, after Otis’s grandmother, my great-aunt Penny, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

       At the time, she was living alone, and she’d refused to move in with Otis’s parents, who’d vacationed in Florida five years ago and stayed. Otis had moved in with her, but he frequently forgets to feed his goldfish, so the family had insisted she needed someone else to take care of her—and everyone knew I was the most in debt when it came to Ginnis family karma points. So I’d ditched my plans, left Greensboro, and moved into this house.

       For the first time in my life, I’d felt necessary to someone. Being of service had felt good. But Aunt Penny had pushed me to get out of the house, insisting I needed to meet other young people or I’d “wither on the vine.” It was true that she hadn’t needed help around the clock, so I’d gotten the job at Buchanan Brewery.

       To be clear, I don’t have a huge interest in beer, but our next-door neighbor’s family runs the brewery. She’d agreed with my great-aunt that it would be unthinkable if “a sweet young thing” were left to wither, and the next thing I knew, I was working in the taproom.

       I met Jonah that very first week, after accidentally spilling a beer on him. (Don’t ask.) He’d been wearing an expensive suit, because he’d been there in an official capacity. He was a distributor and spent most of his time traveling to breweries, bars, and stores. He helped breweries get wider distribution for their beer, and guided stores and bars in choosing the local, or local-ish, beers that would sell well for them. Basically, he made a profession of being charming. He joked that he was the best middleman money could buy.

       Instead of flipping out about his ruined suit, he’d asked me out on a date.

       I’d never had a charmed life until that moment. In my experience, bad luck usually led to more bad luck, not a date with a man in an expensive suit. So obviously I’d said yes.

       Meeting him had felt like a turning point.

       Right around then my aunt, who’d been reacting badly to the chemo, had started drinking a tea blend our next-door neighbor, Dottie, had made for her, which helped her tolerate the treatments. My first date with Jonah had gone shockingly well, and he’d asked me out again, and again.

       For the first time in a long while, I’d felt useful and wanted.

       True, Aunt Penny had never really taken to Jonah, whom she’d called a huckster, but she thought every salesperson was a huckster and refused to talk to any clerks who approached her in a store, even if she needed help.

My aunt’s cancer officially went into remission last month, thank goodness, and she left on a three-month long European vacation with her best friend to celebrate “kicking death in the balls.”

       For all intents and purposes, my role in Asheville is over. I could quit my job at the brewery and start working toward my dream again, but the thought makes me strangely anxious, as if it’s a balloon lost to the wind.

       And now this…

       I take a sip of the beer, then a glug of it.

       That’s the spirit,” Otis says as I start coughing. “So…I can’t think of a chill way to say this, but we both know what’s going on here. If you tell Jonah, he’s going to make up some excuse. Maybe he’s already on his way over here to switch the phones back. He’s got to be panicking.”

       I take another glug of beer, trying to dampen the panic. “He…he’s got a meeting this morning, at one of the breweries he distributes for. He won’t be able to leave without offending the owner.”

       “Is it at the blow job place?” he asks.

       I flinch. “No. Big Catch is owned by one of those megacorps. They do their own distribution. His meeting’s at Silver Star. The owner is really touchy about technology. He doesn’t let any of the employees use their phones while they’re working.”

       “Well, Jonah’s going to panic when he realizes he messed up, and he’ll have some explanation, and…”

       “You’re worried I’m going to believe him,” I say flatly.

       “Yeah. I mean, he’s persuaded you to go along with his BS before.”

       Just then, the phone buzzes again. I drop it like it’s a hot potato and the music just stopped.

       Otis meets my gaze, sighs, and grabs it.

       He checks the screen and flinches. “Uh. I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s another one.”

       “What?” I squawk.

       He hands it over, and I take it with a shaking hand.

​

SilverStarBabe: Do you have time to get breakfast after your meeting? I know you’ve been busy, but I’ve barely seen you for weeks.

SilverStarBabe: My therapist says we need to find ways to reconnect.

​

       I glance at Otis in disbelief. “How is this happening? Is this a bad dream? Jonah told me just this morning that he can’t wait to wife me.”

       He grimaces.

       “He was being sweet,” I say automatically, because defending Jonah to Otis and my aunt has become a reflex. Shaking my head, I say, “No, it was stupid. But…seriously. Is this a dream? I don’t understand…”

       He reaches out, and I’m about to hand the phone to him so he can take a second look when he pinches my arm instead.

       “Ow,” I cry out. “What was that for?”

       “Sorry,” he says, nearly fumbling his beer. “Just wanted to make sure. You know, I’m surprised too. I never would have thought Jonah had this much game. He owns five pairs of Crocs, and he thinks Africa’s a country.”

       “So did you,” I point out. I was the one who’d filled them both in. Otis had taken it with his customary easy acceptance, but Jonah had given me the cold shoulder all day.

       You don’t need to correct people, Sophie. You’re not a teacher. It was a barb he’d known would hurt, since the dream I’d abandoned was to open a crafting business with classes for young children.

       Jonah’s like that sometimes. He can be sweet and so adoring, but he can also be a bit of…

       Well, a jerk.

       I’ve told myself he’s just not good at reading other people’s emotions. Some people are naturally empathetic, and others need to be reminded, constantly, that other people have feelings. I’m a type one, and he’s a type two. No big deal. But maybe I was making excuses for him because I was desperate to hold onto the only silver lining I had.

       I swallow, trying to regain control of my emotions. “So, we think…it seems like Jonah has been cheating on me, right? Like…possibly with more than one person. There’s no other explanation?”

       That would mean the man I’d fallen in love with didn’t exist. That he was a fantasy created to fool me.

       But why would he do that?

       If he wants to flounce about town screwing everyone, why have a girlfriend at all, let alone a fiancée?

       Otis gives a sympathetic shrug before admitting, “I don’t think so, but maybe you should, you know, see if there are any other babes saved on that app.”

       I look and gasp, because there’s one more.

       “There’s another,” I choke out. “GingerBeerBabe.”

       “Oh man, that’s shitty. I think you need to text them.”

       “The women?” I ask, my voice quavering. “What would I even say?”
      He shrugs again, then runs his hand through his shoulder-length light-brown hair. “I don’t know, but you deserve the full story, and that dude’s not going to be honest with you. When he found out I like disc golfing, he claimed he held a local record, but he doesn’t even know what disc golfing is. He saw my pack and asked me why I had so many frisbees.”  

       “He does like to be the best,” I say on an exhale.

       “His own brother hates him,” he adds.

       “His brother’s a dick.”

       Rob is Jonah’s half-brother, from their father’s first marriage. He’s only a year and a half older than Jonah—thirty-one to Jonah’s thirty. His mother went to rehab for the first time when he was eight years old and afterward she only had visitation, so Jonah and Rob basically grew up in the same house. They didn’t get along growing up, and they barely speak to each other now.

       Rob’s a musician—a “free spirit,” Jonah’s mother always says with a pinched expression. I’ve only met him half a dozen times, including at Christmas last year. I tried to be kind to him—and even sewed him a new guitar strap as a gift—but it’s obvious his dislike of Jonah extends to everyone connected to Jonah. He calls me Pollyanna. At first, I figured he got my name wrong, but my great-aunt clucked her tongue and told me to use “that Google you’re so fond of.” “That Google” informed me that a Pollyanna is a woman who puts a positive spin on everything. It was obviously intended as an insult.

       He’s not entirely wrong about me. After my life blew up when I was sixteen, I made a promise to get along and play nice. I’ve lived up to it, even though life has been full of more downs than ups. But Rob isn’t right about me either, dammit, and every time I see him, I feel an inexplicable itch to prove it.

       “Rob’s not all bad,” Otis says, scratching his nose. “We bumped into each other at Buchanan Brewery one time, and he bought me a beer.”

       “You only enjoyed yourself because you were both bad-mouthing Jonah.”

       “Maybe. But I’ve seen him at a couple of his shows, and he was nice then too.” Otis takes another swig of his beer. His gaze lingers on my face. “You’re not crying.”

       “I must be in shock,” I say.

       “Or maybe the glass is shattering,” he says. “You’re realizing what Gram and I have known for months: that Jonah is a controlling douchebag. A liar.”

       I feel Otis symbolically tugging at my silver lining, and part of me is tempted to protect what’s left of it. “There could still be an honest explanation.”

       “Text them,” he says, acting surprisingly invested. “Do it now.”

       Hand trembling, I click on the SilverStarBabe chat.

​

Me: This isn’t Jonah, but I have his phone. Who are you?

      

       Three dots appear instantly.

 

SilverStarBabe: Did you kidnap my boyfriend????? What do you want?

​

       I glance at Otis, who is unabashedly reading over my shoulder. “She says . . .”

       “Tell her.”

       Finger shaking, I type: I’m Jonah Price’s fiancée, Sophie. We’re supposed to get married in four months. Who are you?

       She starts typing, but I switch to the chat with BigCatchBabe, because I know my cousin is right. I took one of those personality quizzes a couple of months ago, and it informed me I was an ostrich. If I stop digging now, before I have irrefutable evidence, Jonah might be able to talk me around. Because I really, really want to believe this isn’t true.

       Taking a deep breath, I send her a message too.

​

This is Jonah Price’s fiancée, Sophie. Who are you?

​

       There’s a knock on the front door, and my eyes lock with Otis’s.

       “Hide the phone, man,” he says. “Put it in the freezer, or stuff it in your boobs or something.”

       I look down at my flat chest, distracted for half a second before I shake my head. “I’m not hiding from this.”

       A surge of anger breaks through the shock and hurt. Jonah is always talking about the pressures of his job. He’s always gone. Working, he says. But it’s starting to look like the only thing he was working was me.

       The phone buzzes in my hand, and I glance down.

       It’s SilverStarBabe.

​

That’s not funny, Jonah.

​

       So she doesn’t know. It makes her blameless and him worse. Do the others know? I haven’t texted GingerBeerBabe yet, but it feels like I’ve run out of time.

       Another knock lands on the door as the phone buzzes with a new text, this one from BigCatchBabe.

 

Well, shit. I didn’t know, but I should have. All the trips. The unavailability. I’m Hannah. Want to cut his balls off together?

​

       A sound escapes me that’s half sob, half laugh.

       “Sophie.”

       I glance up at Otis as the knock lands again.

       I hand him the phone.

       His expression firms up. “I’ll guard it with my life. He’ll have to fight me for it.”

       It’s a sweet offer, but I have a feeling Jonah would only have to look at him funny for Otis to hand it over.

       “I’ll handle this,” I insist through a dry mouth.

       I pick up my beer bottle, surprised to find it empty, even though I don’t remember drinking more than a sip or two. Then I get up off the sticky floor and prepare to do something abnormal for me. I’m going to make a stand.

I try to harness the fire of BigCatchBabe while I make my way to the door. Inside, I’m teetering between devastation and fury. I want to latch onto the fury. I need it.

       But when I open the door, Jonah’s not standing on my stoop. It’s his brother, Rob, dressed in a black band T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans. His dark hair is shaggy, his face unshaven. His eyes are hazel, like Jonah’s, but more yellow than mossy green. He always looks like he’s heading home from a bender or some woman’s bed. He looms over me, several inches taller, even though I’m five foot six, hardly tiny.

       Right now, he feels like the embodiment of his brother’s sins. It’s not fair, but I hate him. I loathe anyone with the last name of Price. I’m unimpressed by most people in possession of a Y chromosome, although Otis is currently exempt for being sweet and helpful. I want Rob to sink into the earth and drag Jonah with him. Their cold, intimidating father can go with them.

       I press a bracing hand on my hip and give him a cool look. I can feel the tears pressing at my eyes now, and I refuse to give into them in front of Rob, of all people. Swallowing all of the awful feelings down, I ask, “What are you doing here?”

​

Chapter Two

Rob

 

I don’t make a habit of doing favors for my half-brother. Jonah is and always has been a momma’s boy. A complaining, self-aggrandizing baby. A user. A taker. An asshole.

       He’s still the kid who broke my stepmother’s standing mixer and blamed it on me. The boy who ran down the family dog with his bicycle, breaking her leg, because he “wanted to see if he could.” Did he cry afterward? Sure. He also cried after he ruined my life a decade ago. Minxy walked with a limp for the rest of her life, and Jonah’s apology didn’t do me any damn good either.

       He’ll never be able to give back what he took from me—and even if he could, I’d probably refuse on principle. I wouldn’t willingly give him any more excuses to think well of himself.

       But my father recently made a point of asking me to make nice with Jonah, so when my brother sent me an SOS text from an unknown number, saying he’d accidentally swapped phones with Sophie and was worried his wedding surprise for her would be ruined, I figured I’d come through for him.

       My job doesn’t start until afternoon, something he knows and likes to remind me of. I played a late set last night, and his text this morning woke me with a jolt, my heart hammering until I saw it was just him. Waking me up early was his first sin, and that moment of panic was the second. I wanted to tell him off, but I came anyway.

       Partly because I feel bad for Sophie. Sure, she’s joined the Cult of Jonah and thinks he burps perfume and shits rainbows, just like his mother does, but Sophie comes off as an innocent. Naïve. Sweet. So accommodating she’d give someone her parking space at Trader Joe’s.

The world isn’t built for people like Sophie Ginnis. I should know—my mother’s a bit like her.

       A generous man would say it’s to Jonah’s credit that he wants to marry Sophie. She’s pretty in a girl-next-door way. Wholesome. My first impression of her was that she probably thinks needlepoint is a fun way to waste a couple of hours and has a favorite pie she likes to bake. Her thick honey-brown hair is always pulled back primly, and she wears generic clothes that neither compliment her appearance nor take away from it. She’s not a woman my brother would normally “honor” with a second glance. But I’m guessing he sees what I do, a girl next door with a sunny smile, a compliment for everyone, and the deductive reasoning skills of a smiley face drawn on the dirt of someone’s windshield.

       I don’t admire or respect her for it.

       Still, I like her a hell of a lot more than I like him. That’s not saying much, though. I’d like a broken marionette more than I like my little brother.

       So, here I am, on the doorstep of a blue Arts and Crafts style house that has seen better decades but bears a bright red door and shutters that reek of Pollyanna. I’ve come to do the decent thing, yet Sophie is glaring at me like I’m the spawn of Satan.

       “Well?” she presses when I don’t immediately explain my presence at her elderly relative’s house at 8:30 a.m. on a Friday morning.

       Okay, fair enough.

       “Yeah, Jonah told me where you live,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets. “He said there’d been some mix-up, and you have his phone. He—”

       “Did you know?” she snaps. Her sharp tone is like a jolt of caffeine to the system. I stand a little straighter. Look at her more closely. Sophie usually looks soft, like the kind of woman an enterprising guy might pick up in the baking section at a grocery store, but there’s something different about her today. Her hair is pulled back in the same ponytail as usual, and she’s already dressed in a Buchanan Brewery shirt and khaki shorts, even though her shift is probably hours off. The look in her eyes is almost feral, though, and her posture isn’t gentle and accommodating but confrontational.

       She also smells a little like…

       “Have you been drinking?” I ask.

       It was clearly the wrong question, because she bristles and spreads out her arms, taking up more of the doorway, as if she’s worried I might barrel my way into the house. “Yes, Rob, I’ve been drinking. The last time I checked, it’s perfectly legal for me to drink in my own home whenever I please. What are you going to do, tell on me?”

       “Uh…no.”

       Her cousin Otis appears in the doorframe behind her and gives me a cautious wave. “Hey, what’s up, man? Nice day, huh?”

       It’s not overly hot for early June, but he’s practically sweating through his shirt.

       Sophie’s lips firm, and she shifts in the doorway, keeping her hands extended. “Rob has come for Jonah’s phone.”

       “I know we weren’t gonna give it to Jonah,” he says, scratching the back of his head. “But what about Rob? He’s a solid—”

       “Rob is here on Jonah’s mission of sin,” she hisses.

       A single bark of laughter escapes me. It’s the phrase more than the meaning. Mission of sin. I’m guessing it’s something her great-aunt says, and it’s funny coming from a woman who hasn’t clocked thirty.

       Her eyes swivel to me, full of anger but also…

       Shit. I’ve seen that look in a woman’s eyes before. Sophie’s sad. Heartbroken, even.

       Suspicion bites in between my shoulder blades. It probably would have come sooner if I weren’t still tired.

       Jonah would only ask me for a favor if he were truly desperate. Would he care this much about ruining a surprise for Sophie? Sure, he likes making his big gestures and getting the ego stroking that results from it, but I’m guessing Sophie would normally do him the favor of still acting surprised.

       No, now that my brain’s more fully awake, I can tell something else is going on here. My half-brother did something bad, again, and now he’s panicking because he got himself caught and cornered.

       “What’d you find on his phone?” I ask, my voice sounding harsh.

       My anger is directed at my brother, but she turns back toward me and plants a hand on her hip. Otis is frozen in the background as if he’s forgotten how to move.

       For a second I’m distracted by the sight of Sophie’s hand curled around her generous hip. Then she clears her throat, and I meet her gaze. “Are you pretending you don’t know exactly what’s on there? This is why you’ve been such an asshole to me, isn’t it? You knew what Jonah was doing. You’ve probably known all along.”

       “He’s cheating on you?” I ask. It’s not the only shitty thing I could imagine him doing, but I doubt she’d be this worked up over him lying on his taxes or stealing something from the grocery store to get a dopamine rush.

       “You did know.” The hurt in her gaze overpowers the anger, and she slumps against the side of the doorframe. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

       I open my mouth to say something, maybe sorry for the Price men. I hate all of them too, mostly, but she saves me from myself by adding, “I would have warned you.”

       “I don’t have a girlfriend right now,” I point out. Again, the wrong thing to say.

       “Of course you don’t,” she says tightly, shaking her head. “I’ll bet you’re out with a new woman every night.”

       I lift my eyebrows, letting her realize it herself. Jonah’s apparently the one who’s been stepping out.

       And I instantly regret it, because her lower lip trembles. Shit. I can see tears welling in her eyes.

       “Sophie?” Otis says, and when she turns toward him with teary eyes, he takes two steps backward, colliding with a wall and nearly taking down an aggressively ugly painting of a shepherd herding sheep that look like llamas. “Oh no. We need to get you back to the anger thing. The anger thing was good.”

       “I am angry,” she insists in a wobbling voice.

       I might not think much of her judgment, but seeing her like this is like a gut punch. It makes me want to deliver a gut punch to the man who’s responsible.

       My hand starts to form a fist as I think about punching Jonah. Something I have absolutely done before, and for good reason. I keep all of the times my fists have met his flesh in my memory bank to take out on special occasions.

But I remember something my mother said to me once. Sometimes people don’t want you to fix things for them, Rob. Sometimes they just need a hug. So I step forward and wrap my arms around Sophie instead.

       She’s soft, and exactly the right height for her ear to be pressed to my heart when she’s against my chest—a weird thing to notice, but let it never be said I’m normal. Her hair smells like flowers, and…

       She stiffens as if I’d thrown a bucket of icy water over her. “Oh, no. You do not get to hug me.”

       I pull back, fighting a smile for half a second, because at least I got her pissed off again. That’s better than sad and defeated. Shaking my head, I insist, “I didn’t know, Sophie. If I’d known, I would have warned you.”

       “Me too,” Otis pipes in.

       “So you were just being an asshole because you’re an asshole?” she asks me, studying my face. I’d thought her eyes were brown, inasmuch as I’d given them any thought at all, but they’re actually a deep, dark blue, surrounded by thick black lashes. It’s a revelation so surprising that it takes me a second to remember she asked me a question. I decide to keep things simple and nod. It’s not necessary to burden her with my side of the Price family drama. I’m guessing she’d like to shut the door on all of us permanently, and I wouldn’t blame her. It would probably be the best thing that ever happened to her.

       I glance at Otis, who looks like he’s not sure where he should be but would prefer to be somewhere other than where he is. “So, where’s the phone, bud? Seems like Soph should bring it back to Jonah personally.”

Sophie flinches. “He’s in a meeting with an important client—”
      “Exactly,” I say pointedly. “Wouldn’t it be a pity if someone barged in and let the world know what an absolute waste of life he is?”

       Otis gives a cheer. “I’m gonna go grab it from the freezer.”

       I don’t know why the phone is in the freezer, and I’m not interested in asking. My focus is on Sophie.

I notice she hasn’t agreed yet—and also that she still has Jonah’s engagement ring on her finger. My gaze shifts to the little bungalow next door, where an elderly woman with purple hair is openly watching us from behind gauzy curtains. I wave, and she pops down as if to hide. I can still very much see her, but I let it go because I don’t want her to break a hip trying to get fully out of view.

       My gaze returns to Sophie, who looks to be in the thick of some internal agonizing. She seems to be waffling, and I don’t want her to give up. I don’t want her to give Jonah the chance to put one of his legendary spins on this.

       “Follow your instincts,” I tell her in an undertone as Otis appears with the phone, clutched in an oven mitt.

       “She doesn’t need to do that,” he says, waving the phone. “She has evidence. Remember the evidence, Sophie. Don’t let him dismiss what we saw. I took screenshots of everything before I put the phone in the freezer.”
      I’d like to know what they found. Then again, there’s a possibility it’s a photo of my brother’s dick, and I already have trouble sleeping at night.

       I also don’t want to say or do anything that might unintentionally make Sophie cry.

       Maybe this is a sign that I’m yet another Price man who’s a selfish asshole, but I can’t handle tears right now. It still isn’t my normal wake-up time, and it’s already been a crap day.

       Her chin lifts as she takes the phone from him, immediately flinching from the cold.

       “Sorry, sorry,” Otis says, taking the glove off and handing it to her. She frowns at it. I’m hit with a sudden vision of her storming into Jonah’s meeting with an oven mitt on her hand and dropping the phone into his lap. It’s enough to make me smile—but as soon as I do, Sophie glowers at me.

       “This is no laughing matter.”

       “Agreed,” I say, wiping the look off my face.

She straightens her spine and hands the oven mitt back to Otis.

       “Do you want me to come with you?” he asks in a tone that suggests he desperately wants her to say no.

She considers for a few seconds before shaking her head. “Just don’t drink any more of those IPAs in case you need to drive.”
      “Is someone going to offer me a drink?” I ask, earning another dark look from Sophie. I lift a hand. “Kidding. Let’s go.”

       “Wait, you want to come with me?” she asks, her expression shifting with shock. “But why?”

       “Consider me your designated driver,” I say pointedly, even though I doubt she drank enough to need one. Truth is, this is my way of ensuring she sticks to the course.

       “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Otis says. “You definitely shouldn’t be driving right now, Soph, and not just because of the beer. Remember when Grandma was so upset by that episode of The Young and the Restless that she hit a fire hydrant? I told her it was just a rerun, but she hadn’t seen it before, and—”

       “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself.”

       “So maybe I want to see this go down,” I say, lifting my eyebrows. “Jonah pulled me into this, and I’d like to see it bite him in the ass.”

       She watches me with suspicious eyes, but then her expression shifts. “You’re worried I won’t go through with it if I don’t have someone with me.”

       I shrug.

       “But are you sure you want to be involved in this? He’s your brother.”

       “Yeah,” I say. “That’s exactly why I want to do it. If I don’t help teach him a lesson, who will?”

       I’m lucky I’ve learned to lie without flinching. Truth is, I don’t think any kind of consequence exists that will transform Jonah Price into anything other than what he is.

       Maybe I just want to see the look on his face when he’s confronted with the truth of who he is, the way we all are at least once in our lives.

​

​

Chapter Three

Sophie

 

Conversation with BigCatchBabe

Me: I’m bringing him his phone. He’s in a meeting with the Silver Star owner.

BigCatchBabe: Oh, yeah. It’s going down. Spill a beer on him for me, will you?

Me: There are more of us. He also has a SilverStarBabe and a GingerBeerBabe on his phone.

BigCatchBabe: Ho-ly shit.

BigCatchBabe: I can’t believe I have to miss this.

BigCatchBabe: I’m sure I’ll probably feel disappointed later by this proof that all men really are full of shit, but right now I’m amped up on self-righteous adrenaline.

BigCatchBabe: Hey, can we meet up so you can tell me how it all went down?
 

I turn the phone face down in my lap. I should probably answer her, but I don’t know what to say—or how it’ll feel to come face-to-face with these women who have been living lives parallel to mine for who knows how long.

       My conscience tells me I should also message SilverStarBabe, especially since I’m going to Silver Star and will probably see her, but she seems to genuinely care about Jonah, and if we start talking, we might both end up sobbing. Right now, I need to feed the other emotions festering inside of me. Because I have spent the past twelve years trying to avoid confrontation, and here I am, driving toward it.

       Rob gives me a sidelong look as he cuts through downtown to get to the brewery. His car is a surprisingly clean Subaru, not an Outback like nearly every other person in Asheville possesses but a WRX with circular headlights. It looks like it has a smiley face—not that I’d ever tell him that, because I know what he’d say and think if I did.

       Not everything has to smile, Pollyanna.

       What a tool fictional Rob is.

       We pass a couple of buskers, a group of lost-looking tourists with their phones out, and very little else. This is not a town known for its early risers. It is a town where people stay out late on Thursday nights.

       The tasting room is in the South Slope, close to Buchanan’s tasting room, so after I ruin Jonah’s meeting, I can walk to work. Regrettably, I would be several hours early, but maybe they’d let me sit at the bar and stare off into nothingness for a few hours. Or scream into a pillow in the event room.

       “So…” Rob says. I glance at him, taking in the dark circles under his eyes. No doubt he was out living his own life of sin late into the night. For all I know, their father was doing the same. Maybe being a cheating jerk is a genetically inherited trait.

       “Whoa, what’s that look for?”      

       “Nothing,” I say, wiping the disapproval from my face. Those are exactly the sort of sentiments that could lead to an argument—and it’s easier when everyone is acting the way they’re supposed to.

       Rob takes a turn, his gaze fixed on the road. Probably a good thing, since a couple of tourists just stepped out into traffic, their eyes glued to their phones. He honks his horn, and one of them, a woman wearing oversized sunglasses and bright white sneakers, casts him a bewildered look, as if he’d just exposed himself in her living room.

       Rob coasts past the tourists, giving them an ironic wave before turning his attention back to me.

       “That look wasn’t nothing,” he says, glancing briefly at me with his golden eyes, tawny like a cat’s.

       My first instinct is to hold my tongue, but it occurs to me I’ll have no reason to ever interact with him again after this morning. Maybe my thinking is addled by my slight beer buzz, but why not be honest? “I was just thinking that I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you were out carousing last night, too.”

       His lips twitch. “Carousing, huh? Don’t you work at a brewery?”
      “You know I do. The taproom always closes at ten, and I never drink on the job.”

       “Sure,” he concedes, rubbing his chin.

       We reach the brewery, and he parallel parks in a tight spot with enviable precision and no obvious anxiety. I never would have attempted that.

       He glances at me as he activates the emergency brake. “I had a show. So, yeah, I was up late. Working. I don’t drink on the job either. Not even when the nerves hit.”

       “You get nervous?”

       He snorts. “I know, radical, isn’t it? It feels good, playing for an audience, and it also feels like shit. Life’s like that sometimes.”

       I know all about Rob’s band. They’re called Garbage Fire, and they were voted best of Asheville twice in a row.        Honestly, I haven’t ever felt the need to listen to them, partly because of the name, and partly because Jonah told me they sound like a bunch of stoner teenagers. They’ve played at Buchanan Brewery before but never during one of my shifts.

       “Never heard your band play. I guess I probably never will,” I say, and he raises a brow at me.

       “Sorry,” I apologize automatically.

       “Are you?” he asks as he cocks his head, watching me. There’s a challenge in his eyes, and it occurs to me that he’s purposefully revving me up.

       “I’m not sure,” I admit. “It’s what I was taught to say when I upset someone.”

       “Do I look upset?”

       “No,” I admit.

       “I’m not. Doesn’t bother me if you think I’m a loser. I know my brother does, and I couldn’t care less.”

       “Why don’t you like each other?” I ask. It’s a stupid question—I know it, he knows it, the man dancing on the street corner probably would know it too, should we describe the situation to him. But I need to say something. I have to distract myself from what I’m about to do.

       Rob smiles sadly and looks at the low-slung ceiling of the car as if he might find the answers written there. He looks enormous in the car, a giant stuck in a box. “I’m guessing he’s told you why he doesn’t like me. You’re one of the people who knows him best. Can you guess why I might not like him?”

       “Yes,” I admit. I pause. “But why don’t you like me?”

       He glances at me, eyes wide. “I’m surprised you went there.”

       “Well?”

       He shoots me a look, which is a welcome distraction from the dancing man, who is now urinating against the side of a brick building in broad daylight. “I wouldn’t say I dislike you.”

       “But you don’t like me.”

       “Jonah doesn’t need another person telling him how good he is at everything. He already thinks that.”
      “But he is good at a lot of things. And I try to focus on the positive. No one wants to be around people who keep pointing out everything they’re bad at.”

       “No, but then they’ll keep being bad at them. He thinks he’s a god because his father’s rich and he’s a successful distributor, but—”

       “You have the same father,” I point out.

       He snorts again. “Now you tell me. It’s my dad’s money. It’s never been mine. Never will be.”

       I’m not sure what he means by that, or how his situation is different from Jonah’s. Their father is a wealthy financial planner, from a wealthy family. I know Jonah gained access to a small trust fund when he reached eighteen, and I’d assumed the same was true for Rob but that he’d blown it all on booze, blunts, and women, or whatever eighteen-year-old boys like to spend money on.

       “Sorry,” I say again, somewhat meaning it this time.

       “There you go again.”

       “There you go being a dick again.”

       I cover my mouth after the words come out, which doesn’t do any good.

       Rob looks amused, though. “Well, at least we know you have no trouble being honest with me.”

       I watch as he runs a hand over his stubbled jaw. The coverage of the stubble is as perfect as if someone had painstakingly plotted it out on graph paper. Curiosity makes me want to brush my fingers over it, although of course I never would. Jonah’s beard doesn’t grow in like that—his is patchy, which is why he always shaves first thing in the morning. I used to think that sliver of self-consciousness was proof of a sweet vulnerability. But maybe that was something else I’d romanticized, making it into an endearing quality rather than a show of vanity.

       “I think I never really knew Jonah at all,” I reflect morosely.

       “It’s my turn to be sorry,” Rob says with a sigh. “I suppose my brother’s like all of us. He tries to put his best foot forward. He cares what people think.”

       “You don’t,” I say before I can think twice about it.

       He laughs, but I can’t tell whether he’s offended or genuinely amused. “The world could benefit from a little more honesty, don’t you think?”

       “A little more honesty,” I repeat, letting the sentiment seep in. A little more honesty.

       Yes, why yes I do.

       I firm up my posture and exit the car. Rob gets out, too, but I don’t look at him.

       “I need to do this part by myself,” I say.

       There’s a heavy pause, like he’s preparing to object, but he says, “You’re right. But I’ll wait out here in case you need a ride. Or a getaway car.”

       Maybe he’s only sticking around to make sure I actually go through with ruining his brother’s morning, like he said before, but I’m not going to complain. It makes me feel less alone.

       I suck in a breath of the warm summer air, then regret it, because it smells a bit like hot trash.

       Garbage Fire.

       The thought makes me sneak a surreptitious glance at Rob, who has returned to the driver’s seat, though he’s left the door open as if he’s ready to jump out at a moment’s notice. He winks at me, and  apparently shock does crazy things to a woman because I feel something inside of me wink back. Metaphorically, of course. I have never possessed the ability to close only one eye upon command. It’s like the universe solely bestowed that talent on men who would misuse it to make women feel things they shouldn’t.

       I glance away quickly, thinking of BigCatchBabe, Hannah, and kind of wishing she were here with me. Oh, who am I kidding. I wish she were dealing with this instead of me. She’s clearly as addicted to conflict as I am allergic to it.

       Gulping in another breath, regretting it again, I cross the road and approach the building for Silver Star…and realize the flaw in my plan when I see the “Closed” sign on the glass door. It’s only nine a.m., at the lastest, and they’re not open for business yet. They probably won’t open until noon, like Buchanan’s tasting room.

       I almost turn back. I have a valid excuse for not going in there. But I can practically see the look Rob will give me if I go back to that car without even talking to Jonah. Disappointed but not surprised, like he was hopeful but didn’t really think I had it in me. So I continue walking toward the building and then stand against the outer wall, next to an oversized potted plant that looks on the verge of death.

       I consider my options.

Option 1: I could text Jonah, pretending to be Rob, and ask him to meet me at a side entrance so we can exchange the phones. But he probably doesn’t have my phone on him if he’s in the meeting. It would also eliminate my opportunity to embarrass him, and if I don’t make a scene, he might be able to use his persuasion super power to get me to change my mind.

Option 2: I could text SilverStarBabe.

       I pull out my phone, hands shaking, and send her a message.     

​

Jonah: I know you don’t believe me, but this is Sophie. I’m here at Silver Star to give Jonah his phone back.

Jonah: Will you let me in?

Jonah: If you’re here, I mean.
Jonah: You’ll see how he reacts when he sees me, and then you’ll know.    

​

       There’s a pause, and I’m contemplating reverting to Option 1 when she writes back.

 

SilverStarBabe: How do I know you’re not some psychopath stalker?

​

       I send her my Facebook profile. It says I’m engaged but not to whom. Jonah told me months ago that he has no social media presence and would like to keep it that way. He said he prefers to have real, in-person interactions.

       I’ll just bet he does.

​

SilverStarBabe: This tells me nothing other than that you work at Buchanan Brewery. We HATE Buchanan Brewery.

 

       I look through the photos on Jonah’s phone. He doesn’t take many of them, but there’s a photo of the two of us taken at his parents’ house a few weeks ago. It was at an all-hands-on-deck family dinner, attended by Rob, who took the photograph with a smug grin on his face. Jonah has his arm around me, and my engagement ring is clearly visible. A pained sound escapes me. We look content in the photo, and now that kind of happiness feels impossibly far away. To think…all this time, my silver lining was made of the kind of metal that turns your finger green.

       Three dots appear and then disappear in the chat window. A passing car honks at me, and the man who urinated against the building walks past the brewery, muttering to himself loudly enough to set a very pale pigeon into flight. I glance over to check if Rob is still there—in his perfect parallel parking spot—and some of my unease filters away when I see that he is. He’s closed the door, but his window is open.

       The phone buzzes in my hand.     

​

SilverStarBabe: I’ll be there in two minutes.

​

       The next two minutes are probably the longest in my life. I almost leave, twice, to return to the safety of Rob’s car. Finally, a woman in a bright green and blue wrap dress with feather earrings ducks across the street—not using the crosswalk but actually paying attention to oncoming traffic. She has thick golden hair down past her butt, and a gnawing feeling grows inside of me, because she’s beautiful. Next to her, I feel like a mouse, perfectly average in every way.

       Five minutes ago, the question was why Jonah would want someone else when he already had me, but now I wonder why anyone would want me if they could have her.

       She walks up to me, her expression wary, and as she reaches me, her gaze drops to my engagement ring. Hurt ripples across her features, and I realize that this gorgeous woman probably feels the exact same way I do. The thought stokes the rage inside me again, thank God, and I firm up my jaw.

       “SilverStarBabe?” I ask.

       “My name’s Briar,” she says cautiously. “You’re Sophie.”
      I nod.

       “And you’re really his fiancée?”
      A ball of emotion lodges in my throat. When I break up with him, there’s a chance she’ll step in to pick up the pieces. Or maybe BigCatchBabe or GingerBeerBabe will. They could slip right into the role I’ve been playing and take over the wedding that never really felt like mine…

       It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve tried so hard to become a respectable person, and I’m not going to give up on it now.

       “I was,” I say. “How long were you—”

       “About five months.”

       My mouth gapes open, and fresh indignation washes through me. “He proposed to me five months ago.”

       Her lips part, and I halfway expect her to call me a liar again. But she whispers, “That jerk. He…he told me he wanted to be exclusive. That he didn’t have a lot of time to date, but he preferred to focus on forming a soul connection with one person at a time.”

       “He said ‘soul connection’?” I ask in disbelief. The Jonah I thought I knew would never talk about soul connections.

       She gives a wobbly nod.

       “That jerk,” I repeat, feeling it so deeply in my bones it might as well be part of my marrow.

       I want to tell her about the two other women. But that can come later. I need to confront him now. I need to do it while I’m feeling strong.

       “I have to give his phone back to him, Briar.”

       She glances nervously at the building and bites her lip, and I remember what Jonah said about the Silver Star owner. How he’s allergic to technology, even though his entire operation is reliant on it.

       For a second, I think Briar is going to turn me down. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, but she takes my hand and leads me around to the back of the building to a door she unlocks. We step into an office space with a couple of desks left out in the open like islands, a kitchenette, and a closed office door. I can hear a man behind it, laughing in deep gusts.

       Then I hear Jonah’s voice, so familiar but so wrong, and a shudder runs down my spine.

       Briar and I exchange a glance. “You could just throw the phone in the trash,” she suggests. “He’d be able to find it with the Find My Phone app, probably, but he’d have to go through the trash. He’d hate that. He doesn’t even like scraping dirty dishes off.”

       She’s right, of course, although it’s still hard to wrap my head around the reality that Jonah has spent so much time with other women, enough that they’ve eaten home-cooked meals together. Does he travel for work at all? Or did he make phone calls to me while crouched on other women’s balconies or in their bathrooms?

       “I’m going in,” I say, stiffening my spine.

       “He had your phone when he showed up?” she asks.

       “Yeah,” I say through my dry mouth.

       Her lips press together. “I’ll get it for you. I know where they’re kept during meetings.”

       She walks away, and I can’t help but notice that even the way she walks is elegant. It doesn’t make me dislike her, though. None of this is her fault, or BigCatchBabe’s fault, or even the fault of the mysterious GingerBeerBabe. There’s one person behind this mess, and he’s in that office.

       That thought is enough to get me moving. I swing the office door open and walk in with Jonah’s phone outstretched as if it has offended me. Both Jonah and the tall, rotund man behind the desk turn to stare at me. Each of them is drinking from flights of beer, the small glasses arranged in labeled wooden carriers.

       A sense of indignation washes over me. Jonah must have known there was a chance I’d discover his lies, yet he still took this meeting. He sent Rob, whom he doesn’t even like, to retrieve the phone. That’s how much he cared. He’s not just a cheater, but a lazy cheater.

       I glare at him, my fingers squeezing the phone.

       Surprise flickers across his face, followed by worry and then a fake wide grin. He’s so handsome, with his big hazel eyes and closely cropped dark hair, that perfectly shaved jaw, but his looks feel offensive now.

       “This is my fiancée,” he tells the big guy, who’s scowling at me. “What a nice surprise, honey, but we’re not quite done in here yet.”

       “Oh, I think you’re done,” I say, my voice thrumming with anger. “I think you’re very done.”

       “Sophie?” Jonah says, reaching for my hand. “If you have something you need to talk about, we can grab breakfast in ten minutes. Why don’t you wait for me outside? It won’t be long.”

       Outside, like a dog.

       Outside, like an umbrella abandoned after a rainy day.

       People have treated me like that almost my whole life. I’ve spent my adulthood trying to absorb it like a sponge or making excuses for them, but no more. My fingers squeeze tighter around the phone.

       I try to remember the breathing exercises I was taught in therapy. But I can’t remember whether I’m supposed to breathe fast or slow to calm down, and—

       “No phones allowed in here, sweetheart,” says the man behind the desk as if he doesn’t notice the chaotic energy thrumming through the room. “Bring that out there with you, will you?”

       Something inside of me snaps, and I drop the phone on the floor and stomp on it. Once, twice. And again, feeling the glass crack satisfyingly under my orthopedic sneaker. Jonah’s mouth drops open. He stares at me as if he’s just this moment realized that he doesn’t really know me.

       I know what that feeling’s like. Normally this is when my empathy would kick in, telling me to save someone else from something that has hurt me, but it doesn’t happen.

       I smile at him, probably looking like an insane person, and swing my gaze to the big boss. “Is that better, sir?”

       He opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything. Then he lifts one of the small glasses of beer and drains it.

       “You’ll apologize, Sophie,” Jonah says, getting to his feet. He’s five foot ten but consistently writes six-one on forms when asked for his height. He’s capable of looking down at me, but not as much as he’d probably like.                        “You’re so much shorter than your brother, you know,” I sneer. “I think he might actually be six-one. Maybe even six-two.” I grab one of the little glasses from his display. I was going to throw the contents at him, but I notice at the last second it’s their Elderberry Breeze, and I down it instead.

       Surprisingly refreshing.

       Jonah watches me with stupefaction now. Like he can’t believe I’m the same woman who accepted his ring.

       “Sophie,” he finally manages to say. “Did you hear from your great-aunt?” He gives the big boss a women will be women look that infuriates me. “Sophie’s elderly aunt just went into remission from a very serious illness. She’s doing better now, but it’s been a stressful time.” Swinging his gaze to me, he adds, “But it’s no excuse to make a spectacle of yourself, sweetheart.”

       “You have made an ass of yourself,” I say. “What’s your excuse?” I pick up another one of the small glasses of beer and face the boss man. He recoils a little as if he’s afraid of what I might do, and for a second I quail. I know what usually happens when I break the rules. My mind pulls up a familiar memory. Sitting in the police station under the snapping fluorescent lights, my clothes smelling like smoke. But I swallow the fear down. “Do you know this man has a girlfriend at every brewery in town? Every brewery.” I gesture with the cup on the last two words, and a tiny slosh of beer splashes on his desk.

       “There must be over a hundred,” the boss man mutters, gazing at Jonah. Does he look impressed?

       I’m tempted to add that one of them is here, in this brewery, but I don’t want to unmask Briar, who’s been nothing but helpful and sweet.

       “He’s also a liar,” I say bitterly. “Do you want to work with a liar? You’ll never be able to trust him.”

       He purses his lips. “I suppose it depends on who he’s lying to.”

       I shake my head and down the beer in the little cup. This one’s not as good. “You should go back to the drawing board for the tropical IPA,” I say. “Ours is better at Buchanan Brewery. Way better.”

       The big boss slides his wheeled office chair back a couple of inches, looking like I just slapped him across the face.

       Jonah, who’s been staring at me in shock—a broken machine of a man—clears his throat and tells the big boss, “I think she’s in the middle of some kind of breakdown, sir. I’m so sorry. We’ll get her the help she needs, and it’ll never—”

       I slip off my engagement ring and throw it at Jonah’s face. It bounces off the bridge of his nose and lands directly into one of the still-full cups on the tasting board. My lips part in surprise. I’ve never had good luck, but this is astounding. It’s a hole in one. It’s the kind of beautiful moment that will carry a person—for at least as long as it takes me to get out of here.

       Not wanting to miss the chance for a perfect exit, I say, “I hope you choke on it, you…you…ignoramus. I never want to see you again.”

       Then I turn on my heel and leave the office, nearly colliding with Briar, who has been standing just beyond the doorway witnessing the whole thing.

       To my amazement, I see that she’s been recording it on her phone.

​

​

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