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“What gives with you and my brother?”

Climbing into the back seat of the car, Sophie grinned at me. She’d packed a small bag, saying she wanted to get the rest of her stuff next weekend, to collect everything she’d left. Every time she’d thought about it and made an effort to go over to Shaun’s, she’d ended up doing something else. I think she’d finally made up her mind the moving in was permanent, and there was no way any of us were letting her go back to where she came from.

I squirmed in my seat as she scrutinised me from the back, lunging forward so her head was between both front seats. Any avoidance of the subject of her brother didn’t look like it was going to go down well. “What do you mean?”

“You’re like chalk and cheese, yet together you look like you were meant for each other.” I simply stared at her. When had she seen that?

Shoving the keys into the ignition, I started up the car. “What do you know?”

Then was as good a time as any I supposed, to have this conversation. Jake wasn’t paying attention anyway, his face firmly stuck in his phone playing one of those stupid app games. Boy was an addict.

“I see a little something in him when he’s around you. He seems calmer. Especially this morning.”

Well duh, I knew why that was. Coming three or four times the night before would be enough to mellow anyone out. “Yeah?” I grinned, hoping I’d made him smile this morning, made his day a little easier, the same way he had for me. A lot of what got Shaun going was guess work but if Sophie had seen something, I was on the right track.

“Don’t you see it?” she insisted.

Sometimes I did. The gruff man I’d met at first had taken his time to thaw. I’d caught him lost in his own world a time or two, when a subtle smile would grace his face and I’d wonder what he was thinking about. It’d be gone almost as soon as it appeared, the small glimpse enough for me though.

“You’re sleeping together,” Sophie stated the obvious.

“Well, yeah. Neither one of us are monks.” Had I said too much? She had promised she’d be fine with the idea of me and Shaun, maybe she didn’t like it so much now that she’d seen it with her own eyes. I worried my lip between my teeth as I shifted the car into gear and concentrated on pulling out into the clear road. “What’s going on? You said you’d be cool.”

“I am,” she replied immediately. “I mean, he’s my brother, I want him to be happy, but he has this whole other world he lives in. It’s not good. I don’t want you getting caught up in it, or him dragging you into it. I don’t want to see either of you hurt.” Her voice got quieter and she cast her eyes toward Jake. “Where can the pair of you go with this?” Sighing, she sat back in the seat and proceeded to buckle herself in.

“Is your brother and Ayden together going to be awkward for you?” Jake ignored his phone and looked over at Sophie, half twisting in his seat.

“Hell, no! It just gets complicated. If I’m your friend and he’s your boyfriend. If things go tits up...” she trailed off. Hearing the doubt come from her unsettled me.

“It doesn’t need to be,” I assured. “Besides, we’re just screwing around.” The lie slipped out easily, even as Jake scrunched his nose. I wasn’t messing around with Shaun, and I didn’t think he was messing around with me either.

“He needs someone. You might just be it. I’m not enough.” I caught her face in the rear-view mirror and scowled until I saw the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Those big blues held a lifetime of sadness that I wanted to whisk away.

“Oh, come on, Sophie. Of course, you are. Bloody hell, he’d do anything for you. Don’t let me hear that tripe come out your mouth again. You’re more than enough.” I said with a touch of anger.

Jake had turned all the way around by then, regardless that I was driving at a fair speed. “Sophie...” he reached out his hand, grabbing for her fingers.

“You misunderstand. Both of you! I can’t love him like that, the way you could. Differently.”

Jake eyed me, a look I couldn’t decipher, one I wasn’t used to seeing on him. A distance had opened between us since Sophie’s declaration, since he’d gotten his head around the fact he was going to be having a baby with her. It wasn’t a humungous crack by any means, but it was a shift. How it played out, we’d have to see.

Sophie was possibly right. I could be just what Shaun needed. Certainly, those deep-seated feelings had come thick and fast for him and were taking root, burrowing down. I couldn’t think on it right then.

We continued to Beaufort in silence, Jake turned back around in his seat and Sophie with her earbuds in, presumably listening to whatever bit of smut she’d managed to find the audio version to. Me - I tried to swat away notions and ideas of Shaun and concentrate on the road. The last twenty-four hours had been overwhelming and sexy as fuck, leaving me confused. I wouldn’t see Shaun for some time, and I hoped he could straighten out whatever it was he needed to. Tendrils of fear snaked through me every time I dared to think of his safety.

He’d come back to me - he said he would - I had to believe him.