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Silence. Beautiful, blessed silence. I turned around.

My brother had gone completely still. And speechless. Interesting.

"What about Dani?" he finally asked.

I almost laughed. Almost. "Seriously?"

His expression hardened. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Mmm, I think I do."

"Shut the fuck up," he warned.

Holy shit. He’d played the f-card. Which meant he was losing this war of words. Honestly, I'd been grabbing at straws. I’d always sort of thought he had a thing for her, but I'd only brought her up to get him off my back.

But now?

Now my brother looked like I'd caught him burying a body. Well, hell. There really was something there.

I folded my arms. "How long?"

He stared at me with the kind of suspicion usually reserved for criminals and toddlers with permanent markers. "How long, what?"

"How long have you been in love with your best friend's girlfriend?"

The color drained from his face. And just like that, I knew. It wasn’t a joke, or a crush. It was real.

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

That was two f-bombs. He had it bad. "Yeah, you already said that."

"Because it's true."

"Then why do you look like you're about to punch me?"

"Because you're being a dick."

"Also true. Doesn't answer my question."

I stared at him in disbelief. My brother. The guy who'd spent years giving me shit about my love life. The guy who acted like relationships were a disease best avoided. The guy who, to my knowledge, had never been on a second date.

He was in love with someone he couldn't have. Someone who belonged to his best friend. But unlike Annie, he hadn’t acted on it, because he wasn’t a selfish asshole. It actually broke my heart a little.

"Does she know?" I asked quietly.

Dylan's jaw flexed. "Drop it."

"Dylan—"

"I said, drop it."

For a second, neither of us moved. Then he scrubbed his hands over his face. "You might want to get your own romantic shitshow sorted out before you start hosting an intervention for mine." With that nugget of advice, he turned and walked away.

I watched him go.

And for the first time in my life, I didn't have a smart-ass comeback.

Because he was right. I'd spent two years chasing Mikayla. Two years flirting, teasing, showing up, and trying to convince her that what I felt wasn't some passing attraction.