“Take me home,” Ellie whimpers. “Mom? Take me home. I want to go home.”

“Honey, it’s late,” Mr. Ryder says.

Headlights flash again, but instead of a firetruck, it’s a fire engine red sports car.

Fucking hell.

“Ellie—” I start again while I hug my son and my best friend steps out of his car and the closest people I have left to parents gape at me in utter confusion.

“We can’t, Wyatt,” she says, her words muffled against her mom’s shoulder but still clear as day to me. “We. Will. Die.”

“We—”

“When’s the last time you ever accidentally set a towel on fire? Never. Ever. Because it’s you. You don’t make mistakes. We are not supposed to be together.”

“Ellie, sweetie, what’s all this?” her mom says gently. “Honey, everyone makes mistakes. The house is fine.”

Beck looks up. “My house is on fire?” he asks.

Curiously. Not mad. Just confused.

Despite the alarms still blaring inside.

“No,” I tell him.

“Burned to the ground,” Ellie sobs.

“It’s not—” I start.

“IT WILL BE. Mom. I want to go home.”

Beck looks at me, shrugs in bewilderment, and then saunters to his sister. “C’mon, Ellie. I got you.”

“She’s in a bathrobe,” I say.

“I’m commando,” he offers.

Tucker’s still crying. The sirens are getting louder. And when Beck helps Ellie shuffle past us, she doesn’t look up when she whispers, “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”

Having my arm gnawed off by a bear with dull teeth would be less painful than the searing ache shredding my heart. “Ellie—”

Beck shuts her in the car, and he, too, doesn’t look at me as he walks around to the driver’s seat. The engine roars back to life, and he pulls out of the driveway thirty seconds before the fire truck screeches to a halt at the house.

“The fire’s out,” I tell the firefighters, but the words are hollow. “Kitchen accident.”

They still file inside.

Mrs. Ryder wraps her arms around both me and Tucker, and I wish I was seven again so I could fucking cry too.

Because it’s Ellie.

She’s strong. She’s smart.

And when she’s fucking determined, there’s nothing in the world that will stop her.

And she’s determined that I’m not good for her.

I grip Tucker tighter, because fuck.

One day, he’ll grow up and leave me too. And we still have the teenage years to get through, when he’ll probably hate me.

“I love her,” I whisper to Mrs. Ryder.

“I know, honey,” she says softly. “I’ve always known. She’ll come around.”

I shake my head, but I don’t answer.

Because she won’t.

She’s made up her mind.

And thirty minutes after I thought I was finally in, finally right, it turns out I’m out.

Twenty-Seven

Wyatt

It takes less than an hour for us to get the all-clear to head back inside, but it feels like weeks. Especially with a sleeping Tucker in my arms. He’s dead weight once he drifts off.

“Watch those towels,” one of the firemen tells me as they depart.

“Yeah. Got it.”

I get Tucker put to bed, and I’m about to collapse into my own bed in the next room when I realize I left my phone in the master bedroom downstairs before the fire. On the off-chance Ellie’s willing to talk to me, I don’t want to miss her. I hit the bottom of the stairs and realize Beck’s back.

He’s lounging in the living room. Alone.

“Where’s Ellie?” I can’t help it. The question rolls out.

“Cooper’s place.”

“In her bathrobe?”

“Doesn’t really need clothes for sleeping, does she?” He grins at me, like nothing in the fucking world is fucking wrong, and I consider decking him. He might have two inches on me, but I have more muscle.

Plus, hitting something would feel damn good right now.

Maybe.

Probably not.

But it’s worth a try.

“Want a beer?” he asks me.

“No.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Yes.”

“Awesome. What’ve we got? Smells like toast. You hungry?”

“That’s burnt dish towel.”

“Eh. Never liked that one anyway.” He leads the way into the kitchen, digs into the fridge and emerges with two bottles of Sam Adams. “Ping-pong?”

“You know I’ve been sleeping with your sister, right?”

“Yep.”

“There a reason I’m still standing?”

His blue eyes flicker over me, and for half a second, I think he’s going to deck me. “Looks like she already got you.”

“She sneezed.”

“Son of a bitch.” He gets me with a jab to the shoulder. “Keep that shit to yourself.”

I recoil. “Fuck, you do that—never mind. Don’t want to know.”

“Exactly, motherfucker.”

He shoves the second beer at me. “Ping-pong. Now.”

We troop down to the basement, and he flips on the lights. If I wasn’t watching, I wouldn’t have noticed him casting a glance at the water stain in the ceiling.

“Didn’t mean to break your house,” I mutter.

“Fuck, man, it’s just a house. I’ve got more.”

In the game room, he claims the far end of the ping-pong table and tosses me a paddle. “Talk.”

I set my beer aside and serve a ball.

And while we battle it out for superiority in ping-pong—he’s winning, because I have no heart left to put in it—I tell him everything.

Everything.

Starting with Christmas.

He doesn’t say anything for three games after I’m done. It’s past two in the morning. We’re just standing here, hitting a fucking ping-pong ball back and forth, beers gone, the ball hitting the table and our paddles the only sound.

Finally, he tosses his paddle to the table. “You love her?”

Fuck. My chest threatens to cave in. “Yes.”

“Huh.”

A Beck Ryder huh can mean anything from you’re in my seat to clogged the toilet again to oh, good, meatloaf leftovers. “Huh what?”

He shrugs. “All she’d say was Tucker needs him alive more than I need to bang him again. I think you’re fucked.”

“Thanks. Helpful. Real helpful.”

“And Mom’s making pancakes in the morning. Told me to tell you to sleep as late as you want, she’ll make you more.”

I dig the heel of my palms into my eye sockets, because I don’t want pancakes.

I want Ellie to have some faith that we can do this.

But I’m supposed to leave to drive back to Georgia in a few hours, because I go back to work Monday.

“You believe we’re cursed?” I ask Beck.

“Nah. Met too many witch doctors over the years. Your case is too boring.”

He was always unpredictable even before the boy band days. Now, he’s unpredictable with a worldly bent, which is mildly terrifying at times.

“Can you convince Ellie?” I ask.

“You want me to convince my sister that I know more than she does about something? Dude. It’s one thing to say you love her. It’s another to act like you don’t know her at all.”

“The Ellie I know would say fuck the universe.”

His smile drops. “Yeah. Fucking Blond Caveman.”

I start. “You—”

“Her ex. The douche-nugget.”

“Didn’t know you called him that too.” A thought strikes me, and I squint at him. “Was this your plan when you asked me to annoy her?”

“That you break my dishwasher and burn my house down?”

“To hook me and Ellie up.”

“Nah. That was Levi.”

I owe another buddy a text. “Levi,” I repeat doubtfully.

“After you showed up at the hospital, he said the only other time he’s seen that look on a man’s face was Tripp, when Jessie had all those complications with delivery.”

“You miss the part where it was my fault she was on the road?”

“Oh, go shove your responsibility complex up your ass. You weren’t the drunk shitbag who hit her, and you weren’t the fuckweasel who dumped her on Christmas Eve. She made up her mind she wasn’t staying at Mom and Dad’s that night the minute she saw you, and we both know it. She just wanted to pick a fight, just like you wanted to pick a fight. It was shitty timing, but it wasn’t your fault. Got it?”

“Yeah,” I mutter.

I don’t know if I believe him yet, but I hear him.

Maybe Ellie’s right.

Maybe we are safer apart.

Twenty-Eight

Ellie

My leg is pounding like a mother, there’s an annoying light shining directly at my eyelids, something smells faintly like moldy gym socks, and there’s a godawful racket coming from outside the doorway.

Sounds like—

Oh, dammit.

Sounds like my brother trying to hit those falsetto notes Levi can reach but Beck most definitely cannot. He’s not bad, but they didn’t add him to the band for his musical talent.

Nope, they added him for the eye candy.

Blech.

He bursts into the room, and I remember I’m not at his house.

I’m at Cooper Rock’s house half a mile up the road. Because Wyatt and I tried to burn down Beck’s house last night.

“Is your house still standing?” I ask, realizing I’m croaking like a frog, and also that I don’t give two fucks.

The universe spoke.

I listened.

And it hurts like hell.

“Damn straight,” he says. “C’mon. Get up. They haven’t found the peg leg yet. I want to go look, but I can’t go without a disguise.”