“I’ll be waiting,” Callan says.

“Olivia.” Tahoe rakes his hands through his hair as we head out of Callan’s home and toward Tahoe’s Hummer in the driveway.

“I love him!” I cry.

“Jesus!”

“I fucking love him!” I climb into the car and once I’m in the passenger seat, I start crying.

He gets behind the wheel and pulls me to him, growling, “He’s not what you need.”

“He’s your friend.”

“I wouldn’t give him the time of day if I were a girl like you, who wants the things you do.”

“I do and I did and I will.” I punch his chest.

“What the hell was that for?”

“You’re . . . Stop treating me like a baby. I’m a woman! He treats me like a woman.”

“For how fucking long!”

He glares at me, and suddenly he gets out of the car and charges for the front door. I run after him and my chest literally hurts when I’m back inside and I notice Callan’s mega-pissed-off expression as he stares at my brother.

“You’re either all in or you get out now,” Tahoe says. “Do you hear me? She’s not your plaything, she’s my sister.”

“Get out of my face before I break you in half. She’s got a mind of her own, and so do I. I might not be what you wanted for her, but I’m what she wants and she’s what I want.”

“For how fucking long?! Tell her that now.”

Tahoe shoots off the dare but doesn’t even wait for an answer, angrily pulling me back outside.

I cry all the way to my apartment. My brother doesn’t say a word. He’s stewing. I can feel his anger and his frustration. But most of all I sense his disappointment and the feeling that I betrayed him.

I’ve never felt so low.

Callan had wanted to talk to him; I had insisted that I’d do it, but had I meant to? Not really. Now their friendship might be ruined forever.

“Don’t hurt him. I was the one who started it,” I say stiffly, then I get out of the car to dead silence and peer back inside, mad now. “If you touch him I’m going to hit you, Tahoe! Really hard!”

“Oh, I’m gonna hit him,” he stews. “I’m going to fucking break his damn nuts!”

I slam the door shut and march up to my apartment, stewing too.

I’m frustrated, wandering restlessly around the apartment, cursing my life and cursing both men and then cursing myself for not telling Tahoe sooner. I keep calling both numbers and neither of them answers. I finally lie down in bed but it takes forever for sleep to claim me.

I dream I’m lying on a hill in our Hill Country home, the sun warm to the point I’m almost hot. But there’s a breeze rustling by, cooling my skin. I hear footsteps and raise my head, and Nana is there, looking like about a million bucks.

“Nana? You look amazing!” I gasp.

“I feel excellent, Livvy, EXCELLENT!” she says.

She’s wearing a big crown on her head. I squint at it. “Where did you get that crown?”

“What do you mean? It’s mine. It’s always been mine. We’re the queens of effing everything, remember?”

She takes it off and comes set it on my head, looking at me with the biggest smile and warmest eyes ever.

I wake up to a knock on the door, and open it to see Tahoe. He looks like shit. He drags a hand over his beard, growls low and painfully, “Grandma passed.”

We fly back to Texas in Tahoe’s jet, my brother and his copilot at the controls.

In the car, the three of us—he, Gina, and I—are all quiet. My brother has a black eye, and he keeps rubbing it in frustration. Gina keeps her hand on his thigh in silent support. I want to cry but something blocks the tears. Shock. I stare out the window as Tahoe drives us to my parents’ place, the familiar Hill Country cityscape rolling past us, knowing I won’t see Nana again.

“You okay, Liv?” Tahoe asks when we park in my parents’ driveway.

I’m silent as I step out of the car.

He grabs my wrist and stops me, looking down at me with brotherly concern.

“You and she were very close. Why aren’t you crying?” he asks me, frowning.

“Because I’m mad.” I sweep away and head to my parents’ home, where Mom and Dad open the door and hug me.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I tell my father, because Nana was his mother, after all. But I can’t hold the hug too long, my throat is on fire and my whole body feels as tight as a ball with no way to crack open.

I let go and head up the stairs, straight to my room, and I sit on the edge of the bed and just stare at the ground, wondering if Nana felt any pain, wondering if she was scared, wondering why I wasn’t here, wondering why I’m so angry.

I feel numb, robotic after the funeral, receiving a thousand and one hugs, one after the other—I’m so sorry, our deepest condolences, the world lost someone very special—and I only nod, and nod, and nod, until I’m engulfed in a pair of familiar arms, and my lungs fill up with the distinctive, addictive smell of Callan Carmichael.

His lower lip is split—right in the middle—and his gaze is the rawest I’ve ever seen it. A scrape in my heart, that’s how the sight of him feels.

We ease apart. His timbre is low and partly questioning. “I didn’t like that you didn’t come to me. That you didn’t let me hold you.”

“I had to leave. I couldn’t think. But I wanted to.”

He gives me a look that implicitly tells me how much he wants to be here for me now. “So are you going to rob me of comforting you now?” he asks me.