Page 39 of Catcher's Lock

He shifts uncomfortably, scrubbing a hand through his strawberry curls.

“Look, I know I was a little shit when he first came out. I was a confused kid, and Josha was one of the few reliable things in my life. But I got over it. I grew up. Looks to me like you’re theone still fucking with him.”

“I’m not.” My “bed” is as made as it’s gonna get, so I turn to offer my sincerity. “I promise that’s not what this is.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t blame him if he doesn’t believe you either.” He crowds into my space, and though he’s not as tall and bulky as his brother, he radiates warning with all the testosterone-fueled menace of an eighteen-year-old guy with a grudge.

It’s kind of cute.

“I don’t know where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing, but I know it hasn’t changed the fact that you don’t deserve him,” he continues.

And isn’t that the bitter truth.

“I know.” When he starts to turn away, I grab his arm. “Iknow, Jeremy. I’m trying to change.”

He shakes me off.

“If that were true, you’d leave him the fuck alone. You didn’t see what he was like after you left the last time, so maybe—maybe—you get a pass. And he might kill me for telling you this, but youdestroyedhim. So if you really want to be a better person? Stop dragging him into your shit and let him go to Colorado and have an actual life.”

Colorado?What the actual fuck?

“Go to sleep, Gem. Or better yet, pack up your crap and be gone by the time he wakes up. We all know you’re gonna do it eventually. Might as well get it over with so we can all go back to blissfully ignoring your existence.”

“You seriously think it would be better to disappear on him again?”

He gives me a look so full of disgust it rocks me back a step, and I sink onto the couch.

Would it?Not for me, obviously, but for Josha?

I didn’t imagine the heat in his eyes tonight, and the soundhe made when he grabbed me is gonna live in my spank bank for a long fucking time. But…attraction isn’t alwayswant. Or trust. Or forgiveness.

It’s not the same as love.

Just because I still have the one, doesn’t mean I’ll ever earn back the other.

“What’s in Colorado?” Maybe not the best opener, given the varying degrees of shock on the three Garrity faces around the breakfast table, but I’ve never handled awkward silences all that gracefully. And Josha hasn’t said more than two words to me since he entered the kitchen fresh and dewy from his shower. If I need to stir the pot to get his attention…well, I’ve always been very good atthat.

Now he favors Jeremy with an exasperated look before calmly helping himself to another pancake. “A job.”

“Agoodjob,” Jeremy adds, the warning clear when he locks eyes with me across the table. The Doberman puppy act doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“When does it start?”How long do I haveto make him change his mind about me?

“As soon as I’m done with tour.”

“And it’s…permanent?”

When I was five years old, we stayed at the farm of some friends in Tuscany for a few months between gigs. They had an old slackline set up by the goat barn that I used to play on every day. I was too small to use it properly, but I had just figured out how to invert and loved to hook my bare knees on the webbing and try to swing like I’d seen my parents do on the trapeze.

One day I must have built up too much momentum, because it broke right at the height of my swing. Later, my dad showed me the knot that had weakened the strap and explained why it was dangerous to use knots for rigging, but at the time, all I felt was the shock of betrayal. That something I loved, something Itrusted, could disappear in an instant, knocking the wind out of me.

I wasn’t hurt. The ground was soft with spring grass. But lying on my back, staring at the frayed end of the strap hanging from its tree, tears sprang into my eyes. I couldn’t name the emotion, but looking back later, it was easy to recognize.

I waslonely.

MaybeI’mthe pathetic puppy.

Maybe my abandonment issues didn’t start with my mom.