Written in the Stars(8)
As soon as the door was open, Brendon shouldered his way past, eyes wide, frazzled, gaze bouncing around the living room before finally landing on her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes?” Aside from the near cardiac arrest.
Brendon shut his eyes and pressed a hand to his chest like he was the one who’d been panicked. “I called you four times, Darce.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Sorry. My phone was on silent.”
For a reason. Brendon loved dissecting her dates like some sort of postgame interview. Tonight, she’d wanted to skip that. She didn’t want to talk about it, definitely not what she did or didn’t feel.
The furrow between his brows deepened as his gaze slipped down, noticing her pajamas. “Darcy.”
“What?” She spun on her heel and returned to the living room, bending low to pick up her spilled chocolate chips before they wound up ground into her nice white carpet.
Brendon collapsed into the armchair, long legs splaying in front of him as he pinned her with a stare that knotted her stomach. “What was wrong with Elle?” He barely paused, didn’t give her a chance to enumerate all their many, varied differences. “She’s sweet, she’s hilarious, she’s—she’s fun, Darcy. And God knows you could use some fun in your life.”
The scoff bubbled up before she could stop it. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it sounds like.” Brendon spread his arms wide, gesturing around them. “For one, it looks like West Elm and the Container Store had a baby and that baby vomited all over your apartment. Neatly vomited, because heaven forbid there be a mess.”
That was a shitty non sequitur. “I like my apartment clean. I’m failing to see how my preference for organization somehow correlates with my ability to have fun.”
“Look.” Brendon ran his fingers through his hair, tugging hard at the ends. He was in desperate need of a haircut. “I love you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t waste my breath. God, Darcy, you’re not even trying to have a life here in Seattle. All you do is stare at spreadsheets and numbers all day, you come home, you stare at spreadsheets some more, you eat out of color-coordinated Tupperware. And how could I forget?” He gestured to the TV. “You’re invested in other people’s scripted lives.”
No. Heat crept up the back of her neck and wrapped around her throat. She needed to sit down. “Excuse me?”
Brendon’s lips twitched. “You thought I didn’t know about your thing for daytime soaps? Come on. I’m a lot of things, but oblivious isn’t one of them.”
“It’s not a thing.” A thing would be writing Days of Our Lives fanfiction and she hadn’t done that since college.
“What, did you think I’d judge you? Me? I’m the king of nerdy obsessions. Proud of it, mind you.”
Darcy bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling. “The king, huh? Awfully pretentious to crown yourself, isn’t it?”
Not that it wasn’t true, or that she wasn’t proud. He was her baby brother. Gone were the days of shuttling him and his friends to summer STEM camp. Regardless of her feelings on love and dating apps, Brendon had turned his passion into an empire before he’d turned twenty-five. Of course, she was proud.
“Eh, I think the whole nerd bit balances it out.” His self-effacing chuckle trailed off, his smile dropping. “Seriously, Darce, don’t feed me that line about not being interested in a relationship. I’d respect that—I really would, I swear—if it weren’t obviously a load of crap.”
She opened her mouth to refute that, but he kept going.
“You sure as hell were interested in a serious relationship two years ago when you were engaged.”
Her heart stuttered. “Don’t go there.”
“You refuse to talk about it, so maybe we need to go there.” The way he winced screamed pity and she hated that. Hated it so much it made her stomach ache. “Not everyone’s like Natasha.”
Swallowing suddenly required effort. “I said, don’t go there.”
Brendon shook his head, jaw hard and expression fierce. “You’re my sister, and you’re also one of the greatest people I know, and you’re . . . you’re amazing, Darce. You’ve got so much to offer and there’s someone out there for you, the right person for you. I know there is. I just . . . I don’t want you to wind up alone and miserable because you’re scared of getting your heart broken again.”
Darcy blinked fast and crossed her arms, staring past Brendon at the iridescent oyster shell wall art over his shoulder.
Last she checked, she couldn’t get her heart broken if she never put it on the line. That didn’t make her scared, that made her realistic. Was she terrified of getting hit by a bus? No, but that didn’t mean she had any intention of stepping out into traffic.
Brendon might’ve been a romantic idealist, and if that made him happy, great. More power to him. But she knew the truth. Life was not a fairy tale and she was not the exception.
Darcy’s heart threw itself against her sternum as she gritted her teeth, pasting on the smile she’d perfected since . . . since. “I’m not scared. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Brendon cut his eyes, head tilting, studying her, so obviously appraising her for chinks in her armor. The muscles in her face twitched, smile wavering. Shit.