“Lexi will kill me if I don’t ask,” Luke says, browsing a display of dolls set up around a table eating rather realistic-looking plastic lasagna. I pick up a box containing the food along with dishes. Luke shakes his head. “Paige already has that.”

I set the box down and run my eyes over a wall full of doll clothes. I met Luke downtown on my lunch break so he could help me pick out something for Paige’s birthday.

“Kara, Lexi’s sister, has this single friend and Lexi wants to set you two up.”

I raise an eyebrow and give my brother a dead stare. “Are you being serious?”

“Yes. I’m only asking because if—no, when—she asks what you said, I don’t want to disappoint her or lie to her and say I asked you when I didn’t.”

I nod, feeling that twinge of jealousy hit me again. He’s so fucking good to Lexi, and she’s even better to him. “You don’t have to lie. You asked, and I’m saying no.”

“You didn’t even hear the details.”

“I’m not interested.” I point to a plastic bathtub filled with fake pink bubbles. “This?”

“We have two. And two of those as well,” he goes on before I can ask about doll-sized salon chairs. “And two of the caddies that go with it. Mom’s having more fun buying doll stuff than the girls. I don’t know what I’ll do when Harper is old enough for this too.”

“Right. She’s loving being a grandma.” Our mother was prepared to become a grandma since the day Luke and I graduated college but was even more excited when we all thought I was getting married. Children come after a wedding, she said.

Luke shakes his head. “She still says she needs to make up for lost time, which doesn’t make sense. I told her we’re going to run out of space for all this shit, but it makes everyone happy, so…whatever.”

Our mother is rationalizing lavish gift-giving by saying she would have spent the money on Luke’s stepchildren if they’d been his from the start. The whole subject seems a little touchy to me, so I happily avoid it. Our mother loves Grace and Paige like her own, and I know Luke thinks of them as his own daughters as well. He told me he wishes their biological dad—who’s a complete ass to Lexi—would drop out of the picture so he can adopt the girls as his own.

“How’s work?” I ask, trying to divert the conversation. I’ve removed myself from romance and don’t want to get into it with anyone, let alone Luke, who never left the honeymoon stage in his relationship with Lexi. He went from a life of bachelorhood to an elaborate proposal and then married with a family in a short time, claiming love changed him.

“It’s work,” he affirms shortly, knowing I’m trying to change the subject. But then he turns and says, “It makes Lexi worry. A lot. She doesn’t say anything, and she never will because that’s how she is, but I know how stressed it makes her. And the girls. Grace is old enough now to realize how dangerous being a firefighter is.”

“Are you thinking about a career change?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to do anything else.”

“Have you talked to Lexi about it?” I ask.

“Yeah, and she’ll support whatever I decide. Said she wants me to be happy. She’s really fucking amazing. I still don’t know why someone as incredible as her is with someone like me. She’s so much more than I deserve.” He gets a starry look in his eye and now I think I might puke.

“I know. She’s great.” I don’t mean to snap, but, dammit, I do.

Luke raises his eyebrows. “You know, if you went out with this chick and got some action, you might not be such an asshole.”

My breath leaves in a huff. “Does Paige have this?” I ask, motioning to a pop-up camper.

“No. She’ll love it.”

I pick up a large box along with a package of coordinating accessories.

“Lexi tells me this friend likes to drink and hookup. I’ve seen her, and she’s pretty good looking. With big tits,” he offers.

“I’m not interested.”

“Come on, man. How long has it been since you got some pussy?”

I look around. We’re in a children’s store for fuck’s sake. But that’s classic Luke, not giving a shit about what people think. My whole life I’ve admired and hated that trait.

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is when your dry dick makes you even more uptight than you already are. You need to get laid and loosen up. Pull that stick out of your ass and go out with this girl. Buy her dinner and have a few drinks. Hopefully you can be decent enough for an hour or two that she’ll want to go back to your place and fuck your brains out.”

“You’re so crude.”

“You’re such a prude.”

“I’m not.” And really, I’m not. I don’t like talking about sex, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like having sex. The thought of taking a woman to bed is almost enough to get my blood pumping. I miss fucking. I miss throwing a lover down on the mattress, holding her hands above her head and fucking her so hard she leaves a puddle beneath us as she screams my name.

Ignoring Luke, I make my way through the store to pay for the overpriced doll stuff. Luke falls in stride next to me, and I know he’s not going to lay off this shit. He knows it bothers me, and I think a small part of him likes pushing my buttons just to piss me off.

Not that I can really blame him.

I was an asshole. There’s no way around it. I let my ex-fiancée lie and manipulate me until I couldn’t see anything but red, and I wanted revenge no matter what. On my mission to hurt Luke like he hurt me, I got Lexi involved, not caring if I hurt her as well.

It’s a fucking miracle she even talks to me. And if it weren’t for her, Luke wouldn’t be talking to me either. Lexi wants us to get along. We’re family now, and family is important to her. Family forgives, she says. Luke is right: she really is fucking great. For her sake, Luke tries to get along with me. Tries to let go of the shit I did in the past. It’s awkward, hanging out and talking with my brother, and it makes me feel really fucking shitty for all the wasted years. The last time Luke and I got along, we were still watching morning cartoons in our PJs, passing a box of cereal back and forth.

“Don’t you want some action?”

“I don’t have time for dating.”

“I’m not talking about dating,” Luke counters. We get in line at the register. “Hookups don’t have to take long. It’s been years since you’ve been with anyone, right? Unless you pull that stick out of your ass from time to time to get some. Though I have to question why you’d ram the stick back up there. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. Which is fine too. Get it whenever, however, you want. You just need to fucking unwind.”

“I unwind.”

“Rosie and her four sisters get the job done but it’s not the same.”

I shake my head and move up in line, putting the boxes on the counter.

“I love this one,” the girl working the register says with a broad smile. “It’s so cute.” Her eyes move from me to Luke and back again. “Your daughter is going to love this!”

It hits me that she thinks Luke and I are a couple. “I don’t—we—we’re—” I stammer. Luke and I don’t look all that much alike for being brothers. He has blue eyes and mine are brown. His hair is styled to look like he just rolled out of bed, and he’s wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and has tattoos up and down his arms. I’m in an expensive suit, well-groomed and manicured. We’re complete opposites.

“Oh, they’re not for our daughter.” Luke steps close, flashing a smile. “They’re for him. He loves playing dolls, right sweetie? He has a whole room just for this stuff. It’s not really my thing, but it makes him happy.”

I grit my teeth, glaring at Luke. “Right.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet!” the cashier squeals. “I wish my boyfriend shared my love of dolls. You’re so lucky!”

I finish paying and take my bag. Luke is laughing as we leave, and I just look at him and shake my head.

“What?” he asks, falling in step with the busy foot-traffic along the storefronts. “That was harmless fun. Like I said. You desperately need to get laid. Going this long without touching a woman isn’t natural.”

“I’m fine.”

“Keep telling yourself that. If you change your mind, let me know. I’ll even be your wingman if it means you stop being such an ass.”

“That’s never going to happen. One-night stands aren’t my thing.”

“You say that now…and you never know what could come out of a one-night stand.”

All this talk about fucking and pussy makes frustration build inside me, and my mind flashes back to that dark romance and the mysterious author. To Ana’s pretty face…and her erotic words. I couldn’t stop thinking about her after dinner last night.

“Oh, shit,” Luke exclaims and stops dead in his tracks. He tries to turn around and head the other direction but it’s too late. She’s already spotted us.

“Luke?” she asks, and of fucking course she sees him first. “Cole?”

“Heather,” I say in a level tone, eyes landing on my ex for the first time in a long time. We spoke for the first time since the breakup three years ago, after Lexi confronted her and convinced Heather to fess up to the truth. Luke never touched her, never gave her the slightest hint he wanted anything to do with her. She left me thinking he wanted her, coaxed her into leaving with a promise of being together, when really, she’s wanted him for years and settled for the next best thing: his brother. This woman pitted us against each other, lied to me, and disappointed everyone involved in canceling a wedding at the last minute.

“I’ll see you later,” Luke says to me and starts to walk away. I can see the anger in his eyes.

“Wait,” Heather calls. “I never got to say I’m sorry.”

“You’re batshit crazy to think sorry is going to fix the fucked-up crap you pulled,” Luke spits out.

“Stop,” I tell him, finding it so easy to go back to my ways of thinking he betrayed me and Heather was the innocent victim who fell for his playboy charm. Fire burns in Luke’s eyes, and his nostrils flare. He thinks I’m defending her.

I shake my head. “It’s not worth it.”

Luke gives me a curt nod and pushes his shoulders back. “Right. Not worth it at all.”

“I really am sorry,” Heather murmurs. Her eyes meet mine and I can feel the echo of heartache all over again. Not that I have feelings for her, but pain that deep never fully heals. “I never meant to hurt anyone, let alone either of you. I think about this all the time and feel so bad.”

It’s fucking weird, standing here, looking at this woman who I loved more than anything, who I wanted to marry and share my life with.

Now she’s a stranger.

“We’re fine,” Luke snaps.

“I’m glad. And I’m glad to see you two out together, getting along.” She smiles, but her eyes linger on Luke. She’s still hung up on him? “You’re married?” she asks, spotting his wedding ring. Wrinkles form between her eyes and a frown pulls down her face.

Well, fuck. She is.

“I’ve been happily married for a few years now. And we have a baby,” he says it definitively, trying to drill the message to Heather that she’s never going to have him.

“Is it Lexi? The pretty girl who works at Black Ink Press with Cole that came to see me, right?”

“I’m not telling you fucking anything about my wife.” His voice gets louder as he speaks.

“So it is her. Congrats on the wedding. And the baby.”

“Luke,” I say, trying to diffuse the situation. Luke won’t hold back when it comes to defending his family, and the last thing he needs right now is this. He’s always had a hard time dealing with emotions, with a tendency to ignore them completely until things blow up in his face. And it seems like something’s about to explode.

Standing here, looking at Heather and then my brother, who’s married to a good fucking woman, a woman who carried and birthed my nieces, makes me realize that Heather is crazy. She’s been in love with Luke since high school and Facebook-stalked our mother to get information on him. She showed up unannounced and uninvited when Luke was injured and in the hospital, lied to hospital personnel to get into the ICU, and lovingly sat by Luke’s bedside while he was unconscious, playing the part of his doting girlfriend until he woke up.

Batshit crazy sounds like an understatement.

“Let’s go,” I say. He nods and takes off in the other direction, opposite from where we need to go, but fuck, it’s better than a confrontation with my crazy ex.

“Cole.” Heather reaches out and wraps her fingers around my wrist. I look down at her skin against mine. I feel nothing. “I made a mistake leaving you. I miss you.”

I shift my gaze to her eyes. “No, you don’t. You really need to stop lying.”