Page 15 of Only and Forever
“Morning,” I tell him.
Then he turns to Viggo. “You thinkI’mdelusional about favorite-uncle status? Consider the facts, Bergman. Does Linnie play magical unicorn and sorceress withyou?”
Viggo blinks, clearly thrown by this. “Not as such, but—”
“I didn’t think so,” Gavin says, wrenching open the sliding door leading inside. “Enjoythatdose of reality with your tepid light-roast hipster coffee.”
The door slides shut, unexpectedly quiet.
Viggo smiles after him. “Man, he gets under my skin, but I love that asshole.”
I glance between where Gavin was and where Viggo sits. “You are a very strange family.”
“No doubt,” he agrees. “But we do love each other.”
Damn that word, itching like a nettle dragged across my skin. I tug up my sleeve and scratch around my CGM—the continuous glucose monitor secured to my upper arm that keeps track of my blood sugar. The adhesive itches sometimes, and when it does, I can’t help but scrape my nails around its border.
Viggo glances at what I’m doing, then tips his head. “Don’t remember that from freshman year.”
I tug my sleeve back down over it. “Unlike you, I wasn’t making best friends with everyone. No one needed to know I have type 1 diabetes.”
“So you’d already been diagnosed?” he asks.
“Freshman year of high school.”
“That had to have been kinda tough. Especially going through it as a teen. High schoolers can be buttheads about things like that.”
“They were,” I say offhandedly, staring into my coffee, plucking out a bug that decided to dive-bomb its surface. “But I got over it. I moved on.”
“Sure. But just because we’ve moved on doesn’t mean some hurts don’t linger.”
I throw him a flat, chilly look. “I don’t need your empathy. We’re here swapping secrets, not becoming friends.”
Viggo smiles at me slowly, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Uh-oh. You didn’t know, did you?”
“Didn’t know what?”
His smile widens, and he leans in. “Once you swap a secret with a Bergman, you’re bonded to them for life. We’re friends now, Lulaloo. Like it or not.”
“I do not like. I unlike. Unsubscribe. Unfollow.”
Viggo laughs. “Tough cookies. We’re friends now, and that’s that. Heck, I bet by this time next year, we’ll be duetting karaoke at the wedding.”
My throat turns desert dry. “Wh-whose wedding?”
“Theirs.” He points past the shrubs surrounding the deck, where I see Charlie and Gigi emerge from a thick cluster of trees, clasped hands swinging, sunlight glinting off a pair of sparkly engagement rings. Gigi’s got a wildflower tucked behind her ear, and Charlie’s short dark hair is covered in petals. Their smiles are incandescent.
Something very close to tears springs into my eyes.
“She did it,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” Viggo says. “She did.”
I tear my gaze away from my sister. There’s something about the way he said it that makes it sound like he was in on this, too. “You knew? That Charlie was going to propose?”
“Course I did. I’m the one who suggested proposing here in the first place.”
“You and Charlie... are that close?”