I thought you’d like a cupcake.” Sophia smiles at me as she shuffles through the front door.

I rush over to grab her bags. She’s got a tray with two coffees in one hand and a load of cleaning supplies and kid-friendly wall decorations in the other. Plus, there’s a plastic bag of cupcakes hanging from her wrist. I set everything down on the dusty table in the corner and she sighs with relief.

“How are things going in here?” she asks as she settles on top of a huge box of vinyl floor tiles and hands me a drink.

I lean against the counter and let my eyes sweep the place again. I resist the urge to tell her that this place is a shit hole. “We have a lot of work ahead of us,” I tell her, “but we can get it done. I’ll do most of the painting today and I’ll work on the flooring. Then tomorrow, I’ll come back to install the shelves. And you definitely need a few more smoke detectors around here, too.”

“You’re actually gonna get all this done?” she asks skeptically.

“I’ll lock myself in this building until the job is complete.” I give her a lopsided smile.

She punches the air jovially. “That’s the spirit! I like the way you think!”

True to my word, I’m here at Sophia’s would-be daycare center to help her set things up. The place is falling apart but this job is exactly the kind of challenge I need right now to distract me from all the noise in my head. My mom, Clyde, work and, of course, Angie. I make a valiant effort but the last item on that list can’t easily be swept under the rug.

I’m going crazy.

Saying that things have been shaky between us ever since I revealed my secret to her is an understatement. And to add to that, she’s in New York with that creepy doctor right now. I’m going crazy.

“Hey, Ben…Are you there?”

My attention snaps to Sophia and I see that she’s got a chocolate cupcake stretched out to me. “Oh, sorry.” I take it from her. “Just a little distracted.”

She greedily licks frosting from her fingers. "You know I wanna know what the heck is going with you and my sister, right?"

I laugh. I haven’t laughed in a while, I realize. "Is that so?"

"Yes, it is so." She nods resolutely.

I really do need to talk this through and Sophia is the right person. There’s no point in hiding it. The two of them are sisters so I’m sure that Sophia’s up to date on all the details. Maybe she can fill in the gaps in my understanding of what’s going on in Angie’s head.

"I fucked up again. I’d been hiding the truth from her about why I broke up with her. And when I finally worked up the nerve to be honest, it all blew up in my face."

"Mmm. I heard." Sophia turns up her nose and gives me a blatant side eye. I deserve it.

I blow out a breath and rake my fingers through my hair. "I know, I know. I should have been straight with her the minute she came back to town."

“You should have been straight with her seven years ago.” Sophia’s voice lacks even an ounce of compassion.

My shoulders slump because she’s right. “I should have…”

She snatches another cupcake from the box in her lap. “The way Angie sees it, if you’d been honest with her from the beginning, from the day our dad caught you with the drugs, from the day you made the decision to sell the drugs—that would have saved all affected parties from a lot of heartache. She went around for years thinking she wasn’t good enough for you.”

I throw my head back and glare up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. “She had so much going for her. She was about to go off to college on a full scholarship. I was some drug-dealing asshole whose world was falling to pieces. I knew that she would throw it all away for me if she knew the truth. I couldn't let her do that.”

Sophia exhales heavily. "What did you expect would happen, Ben? You can't expect her to hand over her heart if you can't even be honest with her."

"Guess you're right."

“You hurt her.” I hear the echo of resentment in her tone. That’s to be expected. We’re talking about her sister.

“I felt like I had to do things the way I did them. Your dad threatened to ruin me if I didn’t stay away from his daughter. But that’s not what tripped me up. The one thing that stood out in my mind that night was when he said that I didn’t love her if I was willing to risk her future just so I could have her. He was right. I was about to fuck up my life. I couldn’t take her down with me. If I’d decided to fight for her, your father would have turned me in to the police. And Angie would have fought for me, she would have thrown away her future fighting for me. So I lied. And I broke her heart. And today, she’s a doctor. And that’s the only small comfort that I have to hold onto. Maybe I made the right decision, after all.”

Sophia pushes tears from her eyes. I reach into one of the bags and hand her a napkin. “Wow. I don’t even know what to say…”

"Damn—look at me. Unloading all this drama on a pregnant lady and making her cry."

She laughs a little. "It’s not you. I’m just a hormonal, emotional mess in general.” She reaches across and taps me on the hand. “I'm glad you told me. I just never understood why things ended between you two. You were perfect together…But you know what the good news is?"

My heart twinges, grasping at the smallest sliver of hope. “You and Angie are older and wiser now. You’re adults. All the secrets are out in the open. And you can make a choice to be together for real this time.”

“Yeah, well, I think that Angie may have already made her choice.” My gaze drops to the floor. “She’s in New York with Dr. Fuck Face Elliot.”

There’s a beat of silence. And then Sophia bursts into laughter. I look at her with furrowed brows, more than a little irritated that she’s entertained by my plight.

“What’s so damn funny?” I question.

Her chest heaves and her belly jiggles as she tries to swallow down her laughter. “What’s funny is that you think there’s something going on with Angie and Dr. Elliot.” More laughter. “Dr. Elliot likes boys. It’s why his marriage fell apart.”

I lift a brow in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“It’s supposed to be a secret but Angie says that he misfiled some personal documents with the research notes. There were all kinds of salacious tidbits in there—sexy notes from his lovers, screenshots from CheekyChat, the works!”

A shiver of relief moves through me. Maybe I do still have a shot at fixing things with my girl.

Sophia seems to agree. Her voice comes out soft and encouraging. "It's not too late, Ben. You can make things right with her. I know it."

I turn and give her an earnest look. "Thank you, Sophia. Really." I’m glad we had this talk and I can’t wait to have Angie back in my arms. But while she’s gone, I need to get this place in order for Sophia. “Now, you can’t stick around while I paint. You go home and rest. Leave all the hard work to me.”

“I’m fine with that.” She gives me a weary smile as she gathers up the empty boxes and cups before waddling to the door. “Oh and by the way, all that gossip about Dr. Elliot—you didn’t hear it from me.”

I nod and throw her a wink. “Your secret’s safe.”