I do want it. I want it really fucking bad.

“Well, thanks for your sexual expertise, Tessie. It’s been quite enlightening, to say the least.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just listen to me. Listen to someone, for once. Open up, trust someone. Get out of your own fucking way. That shit is getting tired.”

I grin, feeling slightly better. “Not bad advice, little sis. I may even let you keep that two grand.”

She kicks me playfully. “I’d rather you keep it and come visit me sometimes. And visit Mom. Can you do that? Stop punishing yourself and the rest of us. We all miss you. We’ve all put the past behind us. What’s done is done, Ty. You had an accident, you did some bad shit, and you let yourself fall into a really bad hole. It’s not too late to climb out. God knows everyone in our family has tried to dig you out. You have to get your head together and do it yourself.”

21

Holly

He’s different today, and I’m silently analyzing him from my wooden stool even though I know I’m not supposed to examine people. His hands shake as he picks out the tools he needs from the old red chest, and he’s on his sixth cigarette since I got here.

“What’s wrong?” I finally ask him, after almost an hour has gone by and he’s barely said a word or even looked at me. It’s been a week since our disastrous kiss and, up until today, I thought everything was okay between us. Now I’m not so sure.

“Nothing.” He continues to hammer a piece of metal around a thin cylinder until I get up and grab the tool from his hand and lay it on the workbench.

“You’re lying.” I try to say it as unaccusingly as I can.

“I have work to do,” he says gruffly.

“Why won’t you look at me or talk to me today? Do you want me to leave?”

His eyes close for a long moment, and his hands grip the edge of the workbench. “No,” he says under his breath. “Not at all.”

“Then can you please tell me what’s bothering you? You can tell me anything.”

His head snaps up, and he looks at me with a strange, unnerving smile on his face. “Really? Anything?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Fine.” He picks up a rag and wipes his hands on it then tosses it onto his tool chest. “I almost fucked my sister last night.”

I take a step backward and wait for him to laugh or tell me he’s kidding, but he just stands there.

“Oh,” I say. “That’s unexpected.”

“You have no fucking idea. Last night was the first time I’ve seen her in a few years.”

I close my mouth when I realize it’s hanging open. “I’m a lot confused.”

He touches my cheek with his thumb and then quickly pulls his hand away. “Join the club, sugar. I’m a lot fucked up.” I love it when he calls me sugar, but my insides are all sorts of twisted up over him and his sister and how strange he’s acting. Maybe he really is sick mentally, and it’s taken this long for it to come to light.

“This is coming out all wrong,” he says, reaching up to tie his hair back.

“I hope so.”

“Let’s go sit.” He grabs my hand and leads me outside to the garden bench. Boomer and Poppy trail after us and look at us expectantly, waiting—just as I am—while he lights up a cigarette.

“Everything about you is driving me fucking crazy. Your perfume, your voice, the shape of your lips, how you make me smile, how you look cute and innocent one minute and all fucking sexy as hell the next.” He swallows and coughs. “I can’t deal with this shit.”

“Oh.” I push my hair out of my face. I had no idea he felt this way. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I like it.” He takes a long drag on his cigarette. “Too much.”

I hang on to that space between him liking it and too much. The contradiction confuses me. Boomer nudges my hand with his black leathery nose, and I pet his head while I try to make sense of what Ty is saying.

“Is it possible to like something too much?” I ask.

“Fuck yeah.”

“I didn’t know that.”

He flicks the flame of his lighter on, then off, then on, then off.

“So last night…I contacted an escort.”

I narrow my eyes at him, my confusion mounting. “An escort?” Have I seen those on TV? I can’t remember.

“Upscale fuck-for-hire, basically. Like a professional hooker.”

“Oh.” My vocabulary has greatly dwindled during this conversation.

“So I went to the hotel room, and the girl came in. And as soon as she started to talk, I recognized her voice.”

The puzzle pieces instantly form a vivid picture in my mind, and my stomach turns. “The escort girl was your sister?”

Nodding, he leans back against the bench and stares up at the clouds. “Yup. Seriously fucking embarrassing. Just my luck, though.”