Made for You (The Best Mistake 2)

Spontaneity is overrated.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #7

Where’s Will?” Marnie asked, setting a platter of avocado crostini in front of them. “These are his favorite. He’s usually here by now.”

Brynn nearly opened her mouth to answer her mother’s question. To tell Marnie that she didn’t give a flying bat where Will Thatcher was because the guy was an irrational jackass who seemed to think that just because she slept with him, she was supposed to be fawning over him.

But then she realized that her mother hadn’t been asking her—nobody ever thought to ask Brynn about where Will might be. Because nobody knew that Brynn had seen parts of Will that Sophie never had. Intimately.

Stop. Thinking. About. It.

Sophie snagged a piece of avocado off the plate and slurped it off her thumb noisily. “Will moved to Boston.”

Dimly Brynn heard the sound of shattered wineglass, absently noting that shards of wineglass would be hell for someone to pick up.

It took several seconds to realize that it was her wineglass that had shattered.

Marnie came bustling over to fuss over the broken glass, but Brynn’s eyes never left Sophie’s face.

“What do you mean he’s moved to Boston?” Chris asked, looking nearly as stunned as Brynn felt. “We just saw him last Sunday and he didn’t say a word about it.”

Sophie shrugged and explained that he’d simply had a new work opportunity come up, and made a last-minute decision to move to Boston.

Brynn wanted to shake her sister. Why was there not more detail? Like when would he back? What was he doing there?

And why?

“He’s sorry he didn’t say good-bye,” Sophie was saying.

Brynn had thought she’d known just what a selfish, thoughtless prick Will was, but looking at her parents’ wounded faces, and the unmistakable sting of hurt on Sophie’s, made her livid.

The Daltons had always treated him like family.

Apparently he didn’t think of them as the same.

“Well, that’s just…just….I don’t know what to say,” her mother sputtered, speechless for once.

Me neither, Brynn thought.

“He said he’ll be back someday, Mom,” Sophie said gently. “And I’m sure he’ll come visit.”

Marnie gave a little head shake and went back to tossing the salad, her motions more violent than before. Brynn’s dad had turned back to the baseball game, but he too looked crushed. Probably because nobody else in the family could talk Mariners stats the way Will could.

Brynn finished picking up the last of the big chunks of wineglass before absently getting the broom and sweeping up the worst of it.

Blindly, she turned to the sink, her eyes fixed unseeingly on her parents’ backyard landscaping.

She didn’t know how long she’d stood there with the water running before her sister came over and put a hand on her arm.

“You okay, Brynny?” Sophie asked.

No. Not even close. And I don’t know why.

“What? Oh, sure,” she heard herself say. “Did Will say why?”

Sophie shook her head. “Nope. Maybe he just wanted a fresh start.”