I woke up alone in a bed that clearly wasn’t mine. I knew the feeling of my glorified futon quite well at this point, but this bed was something quite different.

The bed was cold, though. When I finally opened my eyes and turned over, I saw that Taran was nowhere to be found, the other side of the bed empty.

It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, and the sky outside was still a deep, dark gray. I slipped out of bed quietly, going to the bathroom, the apartment still as could be.

For a moment I wondered if Taran might have left his own house. But when I headed out to the living room, quietly padding down the hardwood floor of the hall, I saw him. He was perched on the leather chair that sat right by the big glass windows, with a cup of coffee in hand, just looking out at the city below.

I coughed quietly to announce my arrival, but Taran didn’t turn toward me. I cleared my throat a little louder—I didn’t want to scare him by sneaking up on him—but still, he didn’t turn my way.

“Good morning,” I said softly, walking over toward him.

“Hey, Patrick,” he said, finally briefly glancing my way before turning back toward the window. I saw his phone on his lap, opened to his emails, but he wasn’t bothering to look at the screen. “I made some coffee. You’re free to grab a cup.”

I paused, glancing over him. “Thanks,” I said, “I think I’m fine for now, though.”

He looked back at me and gave one nod, a polite smile on his face. The type of smile you’d give a stranger walking by on the street.

Not at all the type of smile you’d give someone who you’d slept next to the night before—not sex, but just romantic cuddling and a little making out. Not the kind of smile you gave someone who fell asleep in your arms. Everything had felt right in the world just a handful of hours ago, and now Taran was completely closed off.

I felt like a startled animal stuck in headlights, standing there in only my underwear, staring over at a man who now seemed to have no interest in me at all.

“Okay,” Taran said, picking back up his cell phone and scrolling through his emails. “Well, if you’re not going to have a coffee, I think I’m going to go out for a run now. I’ve got a mountain of emails to respond to from yesterday. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Don’t mind what?”

He was silent for a moment as he glanced my way. “Don’t mind parting ways for this morning?”

I realized then what was happening. Taran was trying to find a polite way to get rid of me. I recognized it a little too late—the cold stare, the cell phone, the euphemism “parting ways,” which really just meant “going away.”

I felt like every wall that I’d seen crumble earlier with Taran was now being systematically put back in place. Dividing us invisibly.

But what could I do? If that’s what he wanted, I knew I couldn’t change it.

“No problem,” I said finally. “I need to get over to Brew for You soon, anyway. Well, don’t need to, I guess, Owen and Emmett probably have it handled, but… I’ll head over there.”

He nodded once before turning back to his phone.

Of course, I understood that people needed space sometimes. There was nothing wrong with Taran needing alone time, needing time to take care of his business stuff. Hell, it wasn’t like he had any obligation to me at all—we weren’t boyfriends.

But something about his demeanor was off-putting. It was so different from how he’d been last night. What had changed? Had I done something? Screamed in my sleep, or sweat too much in the bed?

Or maybe the answer was much simpler. Maybe Taran just wanted a warm body in his bed, just like he’d wanted a dick to suck the other night. Maybe I had assumed too much, thinking that the relationship we were forming was something special.

He was the Casanova, after all. Why would I expect anything different?

My clothes were still strewn in a pile on his bedroom floor, and I headed back in to tug them on as fast as I could. My stomach had started to do somersaults, and I knew I’d need to eat something before it turned into a full-blown anxiety ache. I pocketed my phone and headed back out into the living room.

“See you later,” I said to him, giving him a quick wave from across the room. It felt so transactional, so cold, compared to how we’d been before, but it was the only thing that felt right at the moment.

“Bye now, Patrick,” he said, only giving me a quick glance and wave as I went out his front door.

It was no longer raining outside, but the air was still heavy with mist. The sun may have been coming up at that point, but I wouldn’t have known from under the dark blanket of clouds. The walk to Brew for You was short, and I got there twenty minutes earlier than needed, but I had nowhere else to go so early in the morning.

I started up the machines and put out the pastries and bagels ahead of schedule. I needed something to do with my hands, needed to occupy myself, and I knew that Emmett and Owen would appreciate the help when they arrived.

But when the front bell jingled and Emmett walked in, I was just standing there, staring down at the espresso machine, and I realized I’d been cleaning the same metal tamper for about three minutes straight.

“Hey, Patrick!” Emmett said, his voice bright and cheery. “Damn, you’ve already got a lot of stuff out. You’re a rock star this morning!”

I put down the tamper, forcing a smile at Emmett. “Yeah,” I said, “Got up and out a little earlier than normal this morning, so I just figured I’d… get things started.”

“Everything alright?” he asked, re-emerging from the office after dropping his bag inside. “You seem a little… distracted, I guess. Did you get enough sleep last night?”

“You know I never do,” I said. “My sleep was actually fine. I don’t know, Emmett… maybe it’s the gray day, maybe it’s… I don’t know what.”

“I gotcha,” Emmett said. “Well, I’m sure Owen will be here in a minute, and we definitely can take over from here. You can take it easy this morning. Hell, go ahead and go home, take a nap, if you need to. I mean it, Patrick.”

I shook my head. The thought of going home right now sounded like the worst thing possible—I never knew what to do at home anyway, and right now, I knew it would be a recipe for anxiety spiraling. I couldn’t seem to get my mind off how Taran’s eyes had looked this morning. They were so cold, so dispassionate. Like I was nothing to him.

“Not gonna go home,” I told Emmett. I heard the back door beep. “Shipment’s here,” I said. “Let me give you a hand with all the boxes.”

For the next fifteen minutes, I helped Emmett haul in crates full of milk jugs, soymilk, and various syrups for flavored lattes. When we finished, we took a quick break, and Emmett made me a double espresso.

“Is Owen coming in late today?” he asked me, leaning against the back counter. Brew for You was set to open its doors in just a few minutes, but Owen still hadn’t showed.

“He didn’t mention anything like that to me,” I said. “If he had, I would have let you know. I actually don’t know where he is.”

I tried to quell the small alarm going off in my head saying that Owen must have gotten himself into trouble, must be off somewhere lying on the pavement or still out at some club and doing a bunch of drugs. It was a fear I often had with him, but it was something I was trying to get rid of. It wasn’t fair to him to keep assuming that he would relapse. He had been doing amazingly well at this job, and I needed to build trust in my brother again. Just because he’d had a troubled past didn’t mean he was going to do that again.

But on top of the worry I already had that morning about Taran, the fears about Owen crept in.

Emmett and I opened the shop by ourselves a few minutes later. There were a few regulars that came in every day right at opening to get their coffee—a few getting ready for their morning run, a couple professors, and a couple elderly people just on the lookout for the newspaper and a coffee.

We’d been open for a half hour when Owen came through the front door. He casually walked behind the bar, tossing on his apron.

“Hi Patty, hi Emmett,” he said, clocking in on the register. “I’m sorry for being late—didn’t even hear my alarm. It was really weird. I knew I had set it for the same time I do every day, but when I woke up, it wasn’t set at all. Maybe I dreamed it. Anyway, what’s up? Want me to brew the big batch of iced tea?”

I just stared at him, my gaze hard, watching as he evaded eye contact with me.

“Owen, could you come into the back office with me for a second? Emmett’s got the iced tea handled.”

“Oh,” Owen said, finally looking up at me. “No problem.”

When we got back into the office, I sat down on my chair, and Owen sat casually on the arm of the small couch along the wall.

“Why were you late, Owen?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“I told you,” he said. “My alarm. I didn’t hear it.”

“Is that the truth?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “You don’t believe me?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Should I believe you?”

Owen let out a long sigh. “I couldn’t sleep last night, Patrick. It was raining, and I had this weird insomnia, I really was craving a cigarette, but… I’m keeping strong to quitting. So I just… couldn’t sleep. I thought I set my alarm, I really did, but I only fell asleep around three in the morning, so… I must have just slept right through it.”

I watched him as he spoke. I wanted to believe him, wanted to trust him, with all of my heart.

“And it’s not going to happen again, right, Owen?”

“Of course not. I feel terrible about it.”

I let out a long sigh. “Okay. You know I just worry about you. I want… I want you to do well. Not just for me, but for Mom and Dad.”

He nodded. “I want that too. Everything’s fine, Patrick. I promise. Things aren’t gonna be like they were before. Even if I did start drinking again, it wouldn’t be like it was in the city.”

“But you’re not going to start again,” I said.

“Absolutely not. But still, the point remains. I had bad influences there, but here, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

I gave him a small smile. “You know I can’t help it.”

He smiled back, flashing me a wide grin. “I know you can’t. Worrying about me is practically a hobby for you and Mom and Dad.”

“Come on. You know I have other hobbies. Like…”

Owen blinked at me, still smiling. “Can’t even think of a fake example hobby, can you?” he said. “Basket weaving? Knitting? Extreme cycling?”

“Yeah, all those things. That’s what I do in my free time.”

“You don’t have any free time,” he said. “I know that. But maybe once I get good enough at this job, you can trust me and Emmett to hold down the house. And then you can take up basket weaving.”

I cracked a grin. “Can’t wait,” I said.

“I’m here to help,” Owen said.

“Alright, enough already. I have to look over the cash flow reports from last month. Go help Emmett. You know Loretta is probably here and giving him a hard time that her coffee is five degrees colder than it should be.”

Owen gave me a warm smile. “Thanks, Patty. It won’t happen again.”

* * *

The talk with Owen had gone fairly well, but an hour later, the panic that had been building inside me all day had only constricted into a tighter knot.

It had not been a good idea to look over the finances of Brew for You on a morning like this. The past month had been the worst financially since the beginning of Brew for You. The sales for the first half of the day were pretty much unchanged—people were still coming in for coffee and pastries, but the nighttime sales were in decline.

I could have known it just from witnessing it with my own eyes—far fewer people were coming in at night, I wasn’t even always filling up the main bar, and I hadn’t had to order as many cases of liquor. But seeing the data, plain in front of me on a data report, was something else entirely.

It was a slap in the face of cold, hard reality. And while it didn’t mean Brew for You was in danger of closing its doors anytime soon, it meant that I couldn’t realistically think about hiring another night worker at this point. I would have to keep working nights at the bar.

And it certainly meant that I was no closer to paying my parents back for the loans they’d given me. I hadn’t even seen them since the night Owen had come back to town, I realized, the anxiety in me twisting just a little tighter.

They had so much on their plate with Owen, now, and I knew they had medical debts of their own.

When I peeked back out of the office and to the front of the store, I saw Owen and Emmett handling a small morning rush with ease and grace. Owen was fully trained now, and he didn’t even have to ask Emmett for help with most things. The back bar was clean, the pastry case looked organized, and the customers seemed happy.

I thought about what Emmett had said earlier—that I should take the morning and go home, get some rest.

And seeing them working so efficiently together, I knew he was right. I didn’t need to be there this morning. I wasn’t going to go home, though. I had a better idea.

I went out front and grabbed a box, filling it with a few various pastries. After saying goodbye to Emmett and Owen, I headed across the street to the mini-mart and got a bouquet of flowers and some of the local fresh-squeezed orange juice they carried.

I loaded everything into my car, climbed in, and headed down the hill to my parents’ house. It had been too long since I’d talked to them—really visited and talked to them, without the tense atmosphere of Owen’s return earlier that month.

“Patty!” my mom said when she opened the door. “Oh, it is so good to see you! I thought it was going to be a solicitor at the door—these damn people keep coming by trying to sell us a new washing machine… I tell them we already have one… oh, what beautiful flowers—Patty, you’re really working on that Son of the Year award, aren’t ya?”

My mom had still been inside at the kitchen table this morning, nursing her morning cup of coffee and reading the paper. Dad was in the backyard working on fertilizing the plants, and Mom told me he’d be inside soon to have some of the pastries.

I sat across the table from my mom, taking a few bites of a cheese Danish, my first food of the day. She caught me up on the latest neighborhood gossip, including a story about a family of birds that had taken up residence in their backyard. My mom had named them all, whereas my dad had been searching online for natural, humane ways to get them to go away.

It was a good few minutes before my mom brought up Brew for You. A concerned but hopeful look fell over her face.

“How is Owen doing there? I mean really, how is he doing—don’t just tell me what you think I might want to hear.”

I nodded. “You don’t have to worry about that. Because he really is doing well, Mom.”

“He is?” she said, her face looking like she could burst into tears of joy at any moment. “Oh, I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. I try to stay neutral around him, of course, but… you know how it is, your dad and I worry about him every single day.”

I nodded. “I know. I do too, actually.”

“But you’re looking out for him,” she said, nodding quickly. “He’s in good hands with you, Patty, I know it.”

“He is. I’m sure he’s told you by now, but he’s practically an expert at making the drinks now. He can do lattes, macchiatos, cappuccinos; you name it.”

“This has been such a great thing for him. He needs this structure in his life.”

“He does. He isn’t perfect, but he’s doing really well. I’m sure you weren’t already up this morning when he left—he was a little late, but to tell you the truth, I understand. It’s not easy getting up around four in the morning no matter who you are.”

My mom shook her head. “I didn’t see him this morning at all, no. He was at Mason and Travis’ apartment last night.”

“Mason and Travis?” I asked. Mason and Travis were Owen’s best friends from back in high school, but I distinctly remembered him telling me that they no longer spoke to him. “Is he still friendly with them?”

My mom shrugged. “Well, I sure think so. He said they were going to a movie and that he was just going to spend the night there. They live pretty far out on the edge of Rose Falls.”

I nodded, listening as my mom talked about how good Owen had been around the house, how he’d been helping with chores and gardening and pulling his weight. But I couldn’t get rid of a nagging feeling I had at the back of my mind.

Owen hadn’t told me anything about being at Mason and Travis’ place. He hadn’t said he was at home, either, so it wasn’t necessarily a lie. But it definitely could have been a deliberate omission.

Sure, Owen’s story may have still been true—maybe he was at their apartment when he missed his alarm.

But I couldn’t help but worrying that it could also be something else. That he could have been somewhere else entirely, that he was back to his old lifestyle, that nothing had changed. I was supposed to be looking out for him to the best of my abilities, but as always, work occupied most of my headspace.

And now Taran. Even though Taran had been helping me detach from being a workaholic, he was also distracting me from important things, like my family. I hadn’t even told Taran anything about Owen’s past problems—there had never been a time that seemed right. But maybe it was time for me to let him know what was going on. If Taran even wanted to still maintain a “casual” relationship or friendship with me, he was going to have to find out eventually. I didn’t always like telling people what was essentially Owen’s business, but anyone close to me was going to have to find out.

I didn’t want this to be another repeat of the last time Owen was in Rose Falls. Already I could feel myself being too detached from family, and I needed to vow to make it right. I had to be there for them. And this morning was just the start.

* * *

When I got back to Brew for You, I made sure to be present and available for anything Owen needed. He was mostly independent at the job by this point, but during lulls in the day, I made a point of talking to him.

“Mom told me you were at Mason and Travis’ place last night,” I said casually while Owen was counting the register near the end of his shift. “You were really there, right?”

His eyes flew up to mine. “Yeah… I was there,” he said, furrowing his brow. “Why, you didn’t believe Mom or something?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that, I just… I remember you telling me that they wouldn’t hang out with you anymore. They don’t hate you like you said they did?”

He smiled at me. “They don’t hate me. I guess they’re trying to give me another chance. We went and saw a movie. Then I spent the night on their couch. Mason’s got this cute little Yorkie puppy that he just adopted… it was great.”

I nodded, looking out the window. I felt a pang of guilt, hearing it from Owen—he was telling the truth, and there didn’t seem to be anything strange about his story at all.

“You thought I fed Mom some lie, didn’t you?” he asked, his tone not accusatory, but just tired.

“No, no, no—nothing like that—” I started, but he just waved a hand through the air.

“It’s okay, Patty. I get it. I get why you… wouldn’t trust me. I haven’t earned it.”

“It’s not that, Owen, I….”

“You want to make sure I’m doing okay,” Owen said, leaning against the counter and turning toward me. “I understand. I’m not exactly deserving of anyone’s trust at this point.”

I frowned at him. “You are, Owen. Don’t put yourself down like that. I just… worry about you.”

He let out a slow sigh, looking off into the distance. “Everybody does,” he said. “Worry about me, that is.”

“It’s because we love you. You know that, right?”

He bit his bottom lip. “Even Mason and Travis seemed… hesitant to hang out with me last night. By the end, it was fine, but they very purposely did not bring out any alcohol when we got home from the movie. They have a whole stocked bar and dozens of beers in their fridge, but they didn’t crack a single one. I’m sure it was because I was there. They’re usually all over Facebook talking about their favorite new local beers.”

“Well, I guess that’s kind of respectful of them,” I said. “They know you’re trying to stay sober, so they won’t drink around you.”

Owen shrugged. “I know. But it really did make me feel like I was a burden. Like people can’t even hang out with me without… treating me like a fragile thing. They could have been drinking. It’s not like it would send me over the edge, seeing them do it.”

“Sounds to me like Mason and Travis are good guys, like they were back in high school,” I said. “I know it might have felt weird last night, but you should keep building that friendship back up. I think it could be really good for you.”

He nodded, but I could see the sadness on his face. It would be imperceptible to anyone else, but I knew Owen. He was trying to be strong, to act like nothing bothered him. But it did.

“Wanna know something?” I said.

“Hm?”

“When I came back here from Mom and Dad’s, Loretta was leaving the coffee shop. And you know what she said?”

“Oh God,” Owen said, rolling his eyes, “was she complaining that the coffee was too cold again? I tried so hard—I literally had the thermometer in there—”

“No,” I said. “In fact, she stopped me right outside the shop to tell me how great our new worker Owen was. She said that no one else has ever been able to get her coffee so perfect. Which, honestly, was a little insulting because she was basically saying you’re better than me, but….”

Owen’s face finally broke into a smile. “Oh, shut up. She really said all that?”

I nodded. “She really did. She likes you, Owen. You’re good at what you do.”

A blush, an actual, full-blown blush, came over Owen’s face. That was a rare sight if I’d ever seen one. Owen kept all his emotions so cleverly disguised, but here, he was clearly proud.

“Well, just because one customer is happy doesn’t mean they all are,” he said, straightening his back and heading toward the stockroom. “Anyway. Gotta make sure the straws and napkins are stocked out front.”

He disappeared into the back, diligently getting back to work. I was proud of him. I really was. He was taking to the job so well, and I felt nothing but relief about his last night with Mason and Travis.

Owen was doing well, with or without my guidance. He was a good person, no longer the “kid brother” I once had. It had been a long time coming. Owen still clearly felt massive guilt toward me and my parents, but I trusted that it was something he could cope with in due time.

He was learning to let go. And I was learning to trust him.

And maybe that was all I had to do with Taran, too. Maybe Taran had just been in a bad mood in the morning. Maybe everything would be okay the next time I saw him, and I was letting my own unfounded fears get in the way. It was easy to forgive my younger brother, but I had to work at forgiving Taran.

I would just have to be honest with him. Tell him how I felt in the morning, let him know that his demeanor felt cold to me.

Everyone had their reasons for acting how they did. And all I needed was for Taran to be honest with me.