Anth squinted and made a face. “Eh. It’s been more like six years.”
“Jesus,” Vin said, putting his elbows on the table and dropping his face into his hands. “What is it you’d have me do? Hire an opera singer to serenade her? Hold a boombox over my head outside her window? Set up a scavenger hunt that leads to all her favorite kinds of tacos just to show I care?”
“Wait. She has multiple favorite kinds of tacos?” Luc asked. “That’s either hot, or weird, I can’t decide.”
“I don’t think Jill cares so much about what you do,” Anth said quietly. “I think she cares about how you feel.”
Vincent lifted his head. “I’ve never been good at that stuff.”
“Nobody is,” his father said gruffly.
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” Tony interrupted. “You think that because you’re quiet and a loner, that because you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, and that because you sometimes overthink things to death—”
“I’m next in the naming Vin’s flaws game,” Luc whispered to Anth.
Tony ignored his youngest son and pressed on. “You think that because you’re hyper-rational and prefer facts to fancy and data to whimsy that you’re not capable of love. That you don’t deserve it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Vin saw his brothers exchange a glance, but Vincent never looked away from his father, torn between wanting to argue and desperately, desperately wanting to believe what his father was saying.
“Dude, is that what this is all about?” Anth asked, his voice kinder than Vincent was accustomed to. “You think that just because you don’t show feelings that you don’t have them?”
“This conversation is ridiculous.” His voice was gruff. He started to push out of the booth, but Luc grabbed his forearm.
“Stay.”
Luc had abruptly shifted from Luc, charming younger brother, to Luc, badass cop, and Vincent found himself doing exactly as he was told.
Vin swallowed, oddly nervous. “I guess I’ve always just figured that something was missing. That some part of me was dead. Or was never alive, or something.”
“Why the hell would you think that?” his father asked.
“I don’t know how to connect with people. People don’t… I don’t know how to make people like me.”
What Vin really meant was that he didn’t know how to make people love him. It was an uncomfortably vulnerable moment, and judging from the way his father and brothers looked away for a moment, as though to give privacy, he suspected they knew what he meant.
Luc cleared his throat. “So just to be clear… you don’t think you can love Jill, because you don’t think she’ll ever love you?”
They’d shifted verbs. Like to love. But Vin didn’t bother to correct his brother. Nor did he confirm his brother’s assessment.
But it was spot-on.
It was the reason he froze when she’d asked if he could love her. If he could ever do forever with her.
He wanted that. Of course he wanted it. Had always wanted it just about as long as she’d been a part of his life.
But he didn’t know how to put it out there. Because he knew that if it was one-sided… if she didn’t love him back, or changed her mind…
He didn’t think he could bear it.
“Vin, listen—” Anth said, sitting forward.
Vincent groaned. “You’re going to go Big Brother on me, aren’t you?”
Anthony ignored this and shifted attention to Luc. “Luca. When you told Ava how you felt about her. How’d it feel?”
“I nearly shit my pants,” Luc said cheerfully, shoveling in another bite of chili.
Anth nodded. “Same with me and Maggie. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, putting myself out there like that. And the best. Easily the best. Dad. What about with you and Mom?”
Tony blew out a breath and looked away. All three of his sons looked at him, waiting.
“It was a long time ago,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“Dad,” Luc said in a coaxing tone. “Do it for our emotionally stunted Vinnie here…”
His father’s eyes flicked to Vincent’s for a fraction of a second. “I threw up. Before I told her how I felt. And after.”
“There you go, big guy,” Anth said with a clap on his dad’s shoulder. “You see, Vin, there’s no such thing as easy. You’re not damaged. You’re not broken. You’re just male.”
Vincent scratched his cheek. They made it sound so easy.
Also, terrifying. Lots of body functions involved.
“If you can’t tell her, how about you start by telling us?” Luc said. “Do you love Jill?”
Vin forced himself to look his brother in the eyes. “Of course.”
Luc smiled. “See? Easy.”
Vin glared.
“Look,” Anth said, “the worst that can happen is she guts your insides. Leaves you a hollow shell of a man, but according to you, you’re already there, so—”
“Okay,” Vin said, standing before Luc could stop him. “Good talk, guys.”
“You going after her?” Luc called after him.
Had his father not been there, Vincent would have shot the finger over his shoulder, but instead he just kept walking.
“I better see that girl at brunch on Sunday!” Tony bellowed.