“He didn’t—”
“Yes, he did!”
Kellan sighs and I resume my anger march. He follows in silence. It’s now so dark on the beach that our only light comes from the moon and stars. The water is black and loud, no longer magical; the sand quiet against my bare feet. I have no idea where I’m going, I just know that I need to keep moving or I will fall apart.
At one point I veer left and storm directly into the water. I keep going until I’m up to my waist. The water crashes all around me, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“We didn’t do anything,” I whisper. Like Jonah can hear it. Like it would matter in the long run. I think back to how he reacted when he’d found out Kellan and I had ended up in a hotel room bed together, drunk out of our minds. How he’d been blinded by fury so overwhelming I didn’t know if he’d ever get past it.
But he had. Or so he’d told me. Maybe not.
Kellan’s grip on my shoulders keeps me from falling over when a wave threatens my balance. “Do you mind if I ask something?”
I don’t turn around, but I shake my head.
“Do you two fight a lot?”
I shake my head again.
He says, “Jonah’s at the house right now, but I’ve told him that he needs to wait until you come back.”
I walk out of the water and continue my march in the opposite direction of the house.
“Why do you think he never told me?”
Kellan shrugs. “I really don’t know, C.”
“I tell him everything.” I don’t need to see Kellan’s face to feel his disbelief, so I correct, “Almost everything, anyways. I tell him the important stuff.”
“Realty is important?”
I sigh and finally stop walking. “It just feels like the sort of thing that would be shared, you know? With—” I can’t say fiancée, so I choose a safer, uncontestable, “one’s Connection.”
He scrubs at his hair, sending the longish front pieces haywire. “It’s not that Jonah hides things, it’s just . . . some things don’t register as important to him, so he doesn’t think about them. Our properties—”
“Wait,” I say, making a tee with my hands. “Plural? Properties?”
Kellan bites his lip before sighing loudly. “We own eight houses, all left to us by Joey when he died.”
“Eight,” I repeat dumbly. “Where?”
“Maybe this could be a specific question you can ask Jonah when we get back, one that he can answer for you.”
I give up and change direction, back towards the house. “There’s one in Australia,” I call out. “You went there with Callie before moving to Annar. Am I right?”
He matches my pace. “Yes.”
I kick at the sand in front of me. “Callie knows these things.”
Kellan doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t have to. I’ve made my point.
I search around once we’re back in front of his house, and Kellan knows why, because he hands my cell phone over. He must’ve found it before chasing after me earlier. “I want to make something clear before we go in there,” he tells me quietly.
I look up into his face, dark in the moonlight’s shadows.
“You do not have to defend me, if the occasion arises. In fact, I’d prefer if you don’t.”
“If he dares to say—”
“I mean it.” And it’s obvious he does.
The unfairness of the situation is almost too much. “We didn’t do anything wrong!”
“I know. But right now, before we go in there, I want you to stop and try to think about this from Jonah’s point of view. What if you found out that he and Callie came here, while you were still in Annar?”
“That’s different,” I insist, but he shakes his head.
“Not really. They’ve both told you things are over between them, right? But he’d also said that prior to what happened last year. And something happened, and it was awful, and it tore you apart. Yet here you are; time has gone by, and there’s been distance, and look—you’re even friendly with Cal now. But you have to admit, there’d still be that horrible, nagging feeling that if they were alone again, far away from you, something could happen. They could swear up and down that it wouldn’t, but you’d still worry about it anyway. Worse yet, if they came here without letting you know about it—”
“I don’t have to report back every single move I make!” My blood boils. “Plus, I left a note!”
“I know that,” he says gently, “but don’t you think that maybe, when it comes to me, you might have to at least let him know some things?”
My fists clench in and out. “He talks to you, doesn’t he?”
“It’s different, coming from me. I’m not the one he’s engaged to be married to.”
“Why are you being so logical?” I demand, and he smiles sadly, because he knows I finally understand. And I hate that I do, because it’s true. If the situation was reversed, I’d be beyond angry and hurt.