Page 94 of Fourth Wheel

The fall is inevitable. There’s a beauty and a simplicity to someone falling off the wagon. At least then they’re meeting your expectations. But this is the part I hate—being stuck in limbo, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It’s a cycle I know well because it’s the cycle we lived in with her. Things will be good, great even, for a while. Then it’ll all come crashing down.

The bar isn’t busy yet—just a few regulars sipping their usual white wine and whiskey sours. I’m looking over the schedules for the next month and making sure we’ll be covered when a few of our guys head back to school in two weeks.

“Done,” my brother announces with a flourish as he hits a key on his keyboard harder than necessary.

“Done?” I question.

“Done.” He smirks and bobbles his head with excitement, like he’s bursting to tell me something and can’t wait to see my reaction. He’s got that mischievous twinkle in his eye.

I sigh, knowing I’m walking straight into one of his games. “What did you do?” I ask, already exasperated.

“I registered to take the MCAT in the spring.”

My brain short-circuits. What he just said does not compute.

“Come again?”

“I’m going to take the MCAT again. I figure I need some time to study since we’ve been out of school for half a decade, but I’ll take a few prep courses online and order the same workbooks I used in college. If I do as well as I did the first time, I’ll have my pick of schools to choose from.”

If he does as well as he did last time, I’m probably going to have to talk him out of getting his score tattooed on himself.Again. Who in their right mind wants “518” on their body forever?

“I’m—I mean—I think that’s a great idea, bro,” I stammer. But I’m reeling from the revelation that he has any plans whatsoever beyond bumming around this town for the next few decades.

Here I am, working at a local watering hole, planning my whole damn life around the fact that my brother needs me.

And yet, he’s reclaiming his dreams and talking like he’s ready to move forward with his life.

I’m flabbergasted. After being stuck in this town for so long, repeating the same cycle, I assumed this was our forever.

I turn away from him and wipe down the bar, the motions familiar. I thought this job and this place were my fate.

This wasn’t my dream. But I was willing to stick it out for him. How the hell did he just flip the script?

If Fielding’s not planning to stick around town, then what the hell am I doing here?

Chapter 50

Maddie

Itakemyseaton the plane and pull my hat down lower, desperate for privacy as I continue to cry.

The tears haven’t stopped flowing since I closed his bedroom door.

Everything about leaving Dempsey was harder than I expected. I can’t explain my compulsion to sob, even as I run through all the logical factors of the situation in my mind.

He can’t leave. I can’t stay.

Any compromise would end with one of us miserable.

Any compromise would ultimately be our demise.

I thought I was in control when I kissed him goodbye this morning. I thought I’d feel empowered when I walked away from my summer fling and stepped forward into the future I’ve always dreamed of.

But I can still taste the tears that silently tracked down his cheeks when I leaned in to give him one final kiss. And every part of my body is in a state of cranked-up awareness, adrenaline blasting through me and urging me to go back.

It hurts because he was my first. Not myactualfirst, but he was my firstrealanything.