Page 77 of Her Rival

"That's a lot. Give me a minute."

"Okay."

She didn't move. She stood with her hands flat on the counter and her eyes on the bowl of fruit and her face very still. She was, I knew because I'd watched her do it for eight years, processing. Brynn didn't process out loud. Brynn processed in silence, and what came out at the end was a complete sentence that did the work of an entire paragraph.

I waited. Jett waited. The kitchen waited.

She breathed in for what felt like a very long time. Breathed out. Lifted her eyes from the fruit bowl and looked at me.

"You're telling me," she said, "that you've known the man in my kitchen since you were sixteen."

"Yes."

"And he's known you since you were sixteen."

"Yes."

"And when I introduced you to him three weeks ago in a conference room at my mother's arena, neither of you said anything."

"He said nothing because he didn't want to lay out who he'd been. I said nothing because I was at the mercy of his choice."

"And every conversation I've had with you in the three weeks since, when I asked if you were okay, and you said you were tired, and I knew you were lying."

"Yes, Bry."

"And every conversation I've had with him in the three weeks since, when I watched him perform fine and asked him at the bar if he was going to hurt you, and he said no, and I believed him."

"Yes."

"You've both been lying to me for three weeks while I actively chose not to push, because I told you I wouldn't push."

"Yes."

She closed her eyes.

She didn't say anything for what felt like a minute and was probably eight seconds.

When she opened them, she looked at Jett.

"Sturgill," she said.

"Yeah, Bry."

"I've known you for two and a half years. You've been a brother to me. I've been at your house. You've been at mine. You've eaten dinners at my table cooked by my husband-adjacent partner. I introduced you to my mother. I introduced you to my best friend three weeks ago thinking I was introducing two people who'd never met, and you let me. You stood in that conference room and let me do that to her, and to you, and to myself."

"Yes."

"Why."

"Because if I'd told you the truth in that conference room I'd have had to tell you who I was at sixteen. I've spent eight years and a lot of money making sure nobody in this life ever had to meet that kid. I wasn't going to introduce you to him on a Monday afternoon in a media room with a magazine reporter watching and no warning. And I've been trying since Thursday night, when you saw something across the table and asked me a question at your bar, to figure out the right way to tell you. I didn't figure it out fast enough. I'm sorry, Bry. I'm genuinely sorry. I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I was trying to figure out how to give it to you, and I ran out of time."

Brynn took that in. She looked back at me.

"Dani."

"Yes."

"You were cruel to him in high school."