“No. And we’d prefer to stay it that way,” I replied. “Until we’re ready to tell him.”
“He’ll not hear it from me.” He paused and looked at the duck. “The duck looks ridiculous, Mabel. He shouldn’t be wearing a dress.”
“It’s a she!” Mabel argued.
“No, she’s a he,” Grandpa continued. “Trust me. He doesn’t quack as loud as the other girls, and I requested a brown drake.”
“Why would you have a male duck?” Josh asked. “They don’t lay eggs.”
“To get ducklings.” Grandpa grinned brightly.
“Why else would he have a male duck?” I turned to Josh.
“To eat him?”
All three pensioners gasped. “We are not eating our ducks!” Mabel shouted.
She really needed a nap.
“I’d eat them,” Grandpa said, but I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just stirring the pot. “And take that godawful dress off Benjamin. He looks ridiculous.”
Vicki shook her head and settled onto a bench. “It’s like living in a preschool. Except the preschoolers are all geriatric and need a concoction of drugs three times a day.”
I wasn’t going to argue with that. Old people were an awful lot like toddlers—they required constant supervision, placating with bribes, and tried to run away.
And dress up ducks.
Yep.
Oversized toddlers for sure.
They settled into arguing about the gender of the duck and the functionality of the clothing they’d made for the ducks, and Josh and I took a few steps away from them so we could talk.
“Do you think we need to tell Colton?” he said in a low voice. “You know what Mabel’s like.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied just as quietly. “It’s pretty out there, and both our grandparents will say it’s not true. If she does, I think he’ll just brush it off as Mabel being, well, Mabel.”
Josh grunted. “I have to go back to work tomorrow and I have no idea how I’m supposed to be around him all day long.”
“How do you think I feel? He’s my brother. I can’t lie to him.”
“We don’t have to.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t lie to him. I’m terrible at it. If he asks me, I’m going to break.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say to you, Kins.” Josh ran his hand through his hair. “This is so fucked up.”
I dragged him a little further away to where we had more privacy. “Well, what do you want me to do? We agreed to keep this secret until we had it all worked out.”
“I know.” He averted his gaze. “Guilt is a shit thing.”
“You started this,” I reminded him. “When I went to leave your house, you’re the one who came after me.”
“Because feeling guilty doesn’t change how I feel about you.” His voice was low, and he met my eyes once again. “It doesn’t mean I regret what we’re doing or wish it would change, all right?”
“Then we tell him,” I said after a moment. “Tonight.”
Josh stared at me for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
“You can’t say all that and ask me if I’m sure. No, I’m not freaking sure, but you clearly need to clear the air for your sanity, so we have to tell him.”
“Fine. Tonight, then.”
I nodded.
Great.
***
Spoiler alert: we did not tell him.
We’d planned it out and everything. I would be the one to break the news, and we’d deal with it from there. Halfway through dinner, I chickened out and told Josh it was up to him.
He hadn’t said it, either.
So all our issues had been for nothing. We were back to square one.
Right now, I was at the bookstore picking out baby shower gifts for Ivy and Kai while Josh was at work with my brother. Saylor had been rearranging the new release table ready for tomorrow’s new release display, and Holley was taking stock in the non-fiction section.
My mind was whirling at one thousand miles an hour. It wasn’t like Josh was the only one keeping a secret from his best friend. Hell, Holley had walked in on us kissing in the storeroom and I hadn’t told her more.
She hadn’t asked, granted, but still. If he were anyone else, she and Say would know everything by now.
I really hated that I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this.
Well, I did, but Ivy had enough on her plate with her due date coming in a month or so. She didn’t need to be babysitting me.
Look, it wasn’t like I thought Holley or Saylor would tell anyone. In fact, I was absolutely certain that they wouldn’t, but that didn’t mean I felt like it was something I could talk about to them.
To say that I was in a relationship for the first time in four years, I was feeling pretty damn lonely.
Because of it.
I guess it was my own fault for getting feelings for someone I shouldn’t have.
I selected the final book I wanted and took them to the register to set them aside. Saylor had eventually decided on buying some baby clothes in the next sizes up, which had meant I could circle back to my original idea of baby books ready for this weekend.
I blew out a long breath and perched on the stool behind the register.
Saylor glanced over at me with a frown. “What’s up?”
“Tired,” I replied, fiddling with the magnet stand to straighten up a few that had been put in the wrong places. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
She grunted. “I feel that. I was up all night.”
“Why?”
She waved a hand and sat on one of the armchairs by the window, slumping back into it. “I’ve been seeing this guy for a few weeks and ended it last night.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, Say.”
“Don’t be.” Her eyes sparked with anger. “He was a jerk. Turns out he had a girlfriend I didn’t know about until last night when I stumbled on them together at dinner.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
“Not as ouch as it was for him,” she said smugly. “When I say it turns out he had a girlfriend, I mean he had a girlfriend.”
“Oh no. What did
