“I’m not so sure.”
“You’re wrong if you’re not sure.”
“My mom seems to think that the two of us have been—how did she put it— ‘tiptoeing around each other long enough, and why won’t we admit what everyone else already knows.’”
“Get the fuck out.”
“She really said it.”
“Not Knox. He isn’t part of everyone.”
“No. He’s not. This will blindside him.”
I could feel Tackle’s sadness about my brother’s reaction as much as I could feel my own.
“He’ll think we betrayed him.”
Tackle pulled me close and kissed the side of my face. “I don’t know about that. He’ll be angry and probably hurt, but at the end of the day, he loves both of us.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m sorry about the whole ‘getting married’ thing. I seriously blew that one too.”
I started to giggle, and once I had, I couldn’t stop. Pretty soon, Tackle was laughing too.
“It was so Neanderthally.”
“You’d love what my mom said about that.”
“Did you tell her everything?”
“About our conversation? Yeah. She kind of pulled it out of me. She said it wasn’t a surprise that you weren’t speaking to me.”
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle my yawn.
“You’re tired. I should go.”
What I was about to do was probably monumentally stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Stay.” I’d rarely seen Tackle speechless, but he was now. “Please stay.”
“You really want me to?”
“A lot.”
He laughed and then got serious. “What about Halo?”
I picked up my phone that sat on the coffee table. I held it up for him to read my brother’s text.
Staying in the city. Didn’t want you to worry.
“That’s a good sign. For him, I mean.”
“I thought so too. Also good for us.”
“You really want me to stay?”
>
“Oh my God. Yes. How many times do I have to say it?” Perhaps equally stupid was the next thing I did, and that was to stand and remove every stitch of my clothing.