Page 116 of Thirst For Me
I just nod.
“You hooked up with her, didn’t you?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to get a hold of myself. My head is scrambled. “I did more than hook up with her, Layne.” I take a deep breath. “And now she’s gone. She went back to the city, early.”
“Well, shit.” Now he looks sorry for me. “How did you fuck it up? What did you do?”
“I don’t know if it’s what I did or what I didn’t do.” I drop onto a stool. “She wanted me to find a way to work with June. To go into business together. Open a restaurant at the pier, together.” I swear again, press my fingers into my eyes. “I think ... maybe she hoped we’d ask her to stay. You know, be a part of it.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” my brother says.
And hearing him say that ... Jesus.
“I know. But June ... she wouldn’t go for it.”
Why didn’t I come talk to him sooner? Layne would’ve told me to just ask Sierra to stay. We could’ve let her sell smoothies at the bar or set up a smoothie truck in the lot or something.
Fuckinganything.
If I wasn’t so fucking afraid.
“Did June give you a reason why?” he asks.
“The only reason she ever gives is Grandpa. She refuses to do business with Tommy.”
Layne kind of snorts. “I’m not surprised. Imagine it. You’ve lived next door to Sierra for your entire seventy-plus years of life. All that time, you’ve loved her, and you’ve had to watch her marry someone else, live a whole life without you, right in front of your eyes. Sounds like a goddamn nightmare.”
I watch him scrambling eggs as if he didn’t just blow my world right open.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Grandpa. And June.”
“You think helovesher?”
“I think he’ll never admit it if he does. He married someone else, too. Who knows where the heartbreak started. But I guarantee you, those two have wounds. Of the amorous variety.”
Jesus Christ.
Mind blown.
“How do you know this?”
My brother, who is admittedly more sensitive than I am, just shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not that hard to see thatsomething’sgoing on. Usually you hate someone because deep down you fear something about them, right? So, ask yourself. What would make Grandpa afraid of June Spencer?”
Fuck me.
Sierra fucking scares you.
That’s what Jace said to me, and he wasn’t wrong.
“Fuck, Grandpa.” I lean on my elbows, rub my hands over my face. “You’re telling me that his unrequited crush on our next-door neighbor is why I can’t buy that goddamn building?”
“Hey, I didn’t say it was unrequited.”
I consider that. “June said she wanted Grandpa to apologize to her. That she’d never consider negotiating with us until he did. Do you really think that’s all it would take? ‘Sorry I hurt you’?”
“Hey, it couldn’t hurt. A lot can be mended with the right words.” He glances at me as he plates eggs. “If they’re sincere.”
