I nodded slowly.
“How romantic.”
“Kevin—”
“And what was the plan? You would tell everyone my marriage was over, then hold hands over the dessert?”
Molly whispered, “We thought you would understand eventually.”
I stared at her.
“Understand what? That my wife and brother had been auditioning for my replacement?”
Kai lost his temper.
“You’ve never been happy anyway!”
The words hung in the air.
I looked at him.
“Did I tell you that?”
He folded his arms.
“You complain about everything.”
“I complain about your habit of borrowing my tools and returning them broken.”
“You’ve always been jealous of me.”
I laughed again.
There it was.
The family explanation for every disagreement, every disappointment, every moment I’d ever objected to being treated like an afterthought.
Jealousy.
It was a convenient word. It turned betrayal into competition and made the injured person responsible for feeling injured.
“No, Kai,” I said quietly. “I wanted a brother. You wanted an audience.”
