“You never told him?” Taylor whispered quickly, but loud enough that both guys heard.
“No, she didn’t,” Declan answered for me. “You were there looking for another guy?”
It took all of my energy to keep my eyes from going back to Jentry as I silently pleaded for Declan to understand. I tried to keep my voice from shaking and my tone nonchalant. “It was nothing, really. I’d just talked with him the week before—”
Taylor snorted.
“And when was this?” Jentry asked.
“Beginning of September,” Declan answered without taking his eyes from me.
“So about the time I was there,” Jentry said with a guessing tone.
I wanted nothing more than to shoot a glare in his direction.
Declan finally looked at Jentry as he thought for a second, then shrugged. “Yeah, I think I met Rorie a week or two after you visited me at Duke.”
“Huh.” Jentry sent me another challenging smirk. “Guess I’d just missed meeting you back then.”
“Guess so,” I bit out with a smile. At that same instant, Taylor’s hand slapped down on my thigh and squeezed.
Declan looked back at me, his brows pulled low over his eyes. “If it wasn’t a big deal, why didn’t you tell me why you’d been there? I thought you’d been there for Taylor.”
“Well, hey!” Taylor interjected—her hand was squeezing my leg so tightly, I didn’t know if I would have feeling when she let go. “If we hadn’t gone back to find him, she never would’ve met you. Right? Right. Moving on.”
I glanced quickly at Taylor as she told the story in a rush, and saw in a brief, shared look that we were going to have a long talk later.
“So I’d just given Rorie a huge Jolly Rancher, and this massive naked guy ran into her and she started choking. I thought he was going to kill her with the way he was trying to do the Heimlich maneuver on her. Anyway, while he was helping her, her shoes flew off, and both hit Declan in the head. He came over after and called her Cinderella, and it was super-romantic . . . and the end! Love at first sight and all that.” Taylor was breathing hard, and I was pretty sure my breaths matched each one of hers.
“That’s awesome, man,” Jentry said after a beat of silence, and bumped Declan’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you. Cinderellas losing their shoes, love at first sight, happy ever after. It’s what you deserve.” Gone were the taunting tones, the challenging smirks, and heated stares. His focus was solely on Declan, and he seemed genuinely happy for Declan . . . for us. Hard and soft, just as I remembered.
Declan’s confused expression melted, and he rolled his eyes at the sappy words coming from Jentry, but then those clear green eyes settled on me and warmed. “I got lucky.”
My lips had been pulling up into a smile but froze halfway when Jentry called my name. I looked in his direction but wouldn’t make eye contact. “You take care of my brother.”
My eyes shot to his, and a foreign feeling slid through my veins and gripped at my chest. It was like being hot and cold at the same time. Being able to look into the eyes of a man I had fallen for, and who I knew without a doubt loved me . . . only to turn and look into the eyes of a man who had consumed my mind and fantasies for more than ten months. My chest hurt as my heart stumbled over differently paced beats. Hard pounding connected with a pair of dark, sinful eyes—light fluttering with pale green. As my heartbeat settled into a familiar flutter, I whispered, “I will.”
“You can’t be serious!” Taylor yelled as soon as we were in my car and driving out of the parking lot an hour later.
The air whooshed out of my lungs, and my hands tightened on the steering wheel as my entire body began trembling. I was sucking in air so fast that I was afraid I was going to make myself pass out, and was worried that possibility was a little too close when the street in front of us went blurry.
“No, no, don’t cry,” Taylor said quickly, and placed a hand on my shaking arm.
I blinked quickly, forcing the built-up tears to stream down my cheeks, and took the smallest bit of comfort in the fact that I was crying rather than about to lose consciousness. “This isn’t happening.”
“It really is him, isn’t it? The guy we went back for. I mean . . . the way he looked at—”
“Maybe he doesn’t remember me!” I said in vain, and a sharp laugh burst from Taylor.
“Oh no, he definitely remembers. There was no way not to know what had happened between the two of you.”
“Damn it.” I muttered, and tried to focus on the road in front of me. “This isn’t happening.”
“You need to tell Decl—”
“Are you insane?” I yelled, and whipped my head to the side to look at Taylor. “You saw how hurt he was just finding out that I’d been looking for another guy before I met him. There is no way that I can tell him I slept with his brother, Taylor!”
Her hands flew out to the side, and she made an exasperated noise. “Declan isn’t stupid, Rorie. He’s going to find out! The tension between you and Jentry alone is a dead giveaway, but then Jentry kept giving you looks, and you were being rude to him and ignoring him in the most obvious ways tonight. Declan isn’t going to remain in this oblivious, I’m-just-so-happy-to-be-with-my-brother phase for long.”
I exhaled heavily and gripped the steering wheel over and over again. When I spoke, my voice was barely above a whisper. “I also won’t be caught off guard again. Declan can’t know.”
“Ro—”
“It would ruin our relationship, Taylor, and possibly his friendship with Jentry. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be the same, at least. I can’t—I can’t do that to him. I love Declan, and it was just a night with Jentry.” There was no denying my love for my boyfriend, but Taylor and I both knew my encounter with Jentry hadn’t just been a night. That night . . . it had been everything.
“If you’d just gotten his real name—”
“Well, I didn’t. And I don’t know what it would’ve changed other than having prepared me for seeing him. It would still be a night Declan couldn’t know about.”
“Wasn’t he wearing dog tags? Couldn’t you have looked at those?”
I looked at Taylor’s exasperated expression and made a face. “I would have probably had a clue that he didn’t go to Duke if he’d been wearing any! We probably wouldn’t have even attempted to go back looking for him if I had thought he was in the military.”
“And if I disappeared tomorrow?”
My eyes shot open to find his dark ones staring intently at me, and my head shook once. “As long as you don’t disappear tonight.”
“Oh my God. He told me he was leaving. He told me, but I had figured it was a line he was feeding me.” Somewhat, I mentally added.
I’d heard enough from Declan to know that Jentry went through girls like they were nothing. It was why Declan had told Taylor not to get her hopes up for any kind of commitment, because Jentry would be with a girl only for a night. I felt so stupid for ever hoping that there could have been something between Jentry and me beyond that first night.
“What?”
I glanced over to see Taylor’s confused expression, and wondered how long I’d been thinking about that night. When I looked back at the road, I told her what Jentry had asked that night at Duke all those months ago. “I should’ve known he wouldn’t have been there when we went back the next weekend.”
Taylor’s face pinched. “Seriously? A guy used something as douchey as that, and you obsessed over him that much?”
My face fell. “I didn’t obsess.”
“Whatever, it was enough that we went back to look for him. But back to my point: he used that line on you, and you didn’t immediately walk away from him?”
I wanted to defend that night. I wanted to try to explain that Jentry’s words had rung with a sadness and truth. But I knew in trying to get her to understand, I was just showing her the opposite of what I needed her to believe. That it had only been a night—a night I never thought of anymor
e, and a night that I’d rather forget.
Instead, I shrugged. “I don’t know. It was my one attempt at being rebellious, and it obviously ended with bad decisions.”
“Clearly,” she huffed. “Incredibly hot decisions, but still. I can’t believe you always left that douche part out.” She mumbled the last sentence to herself. “And I still can’t believe the one night you decided to be all crazy was the night I had a family dinner I couldn’t get out of. What kind of friend are you?”
“The best?” I said uneasily, and gave her a wary look.
Her eyes slid over to meet mine, and a few seconds after I went back to looking at the street, she asked, “So you really aren’t telling Declan?”
“I can’t,” I said weakly. “I can’t risk losing him. Not over a night that was a mistake before I’d even met him.” I forced my breathing to remain steady, and hated that the words felt wrong as they fell from my lips—like every part of my body knew I couldn’t label that night as a mistake.
“Mistake?” she asked skeptically. “You better be sure about that, Aurora Wilde, be—”
“Don’t call me that.”
Taylor huffed in annoyance. “Well, it’s a serious conversation. And serious conversations call for your full name! Anyway, if there is even a part of you that isn’t over that night with Jentry, then this could only get worse from here.”
My brow furrowed, and I turned slowly to study her. “Well, I already had to deal with you being insecure. Don’t start being vague for the first time in your life now, too! What exactly are you getting at?”
After a moment of hesitation, she said, “This weekend is just the start. Once he gets out of the Marine Corps he’ll be in your life even more. He’d Declan’s best friend. He’s his brother. Do you realize how often you’ll see him? Do you realize the kind of temptation that will be in your life? You’ll be playing with fire.”
I already have. I’d lain in the flames that we created, welcoming them as they burned brighter. “There won’t be any temptation.” Lie. Lie, lie, lie.
From Taylor’s expression, she didn’t believe my words, either. “You need to tell Declan, and you need to do it soon. Because if your relationship with him continues and he finds out about your past with Jentry sometime down the road, it is going to be a lot worse for you when Declan thinks about all the time you and Jentry spent together.”
My stomach twisted nervously, and guilt spread through me slowly, mockingly. “I can’t do this,” I said when I parked next to Declan’s truck in the driveway of the rental house. “I can’t—I have to tell him. He’ll understand, right?”
Taylor’s eyes widened slowly. Her lips pursed and her tone was suddenly hesitant. “So, about that. Yes, you have to tell him. No, he isn’t going to understand.”
A rush of air left my body, sounding like a whimper of pain. It didn’t make sense. The night with Jentry had been before Declan had entered my life, but the guilt I felt over it was consuming me.
Grabbing a fistful of my hair, he wrenched me up off the bed until my back was flush with his chest. My surprised gasp faded into a soft whimper when he bit down on my shoulder, then placed a soft kiss in the same spot.
Hard, soft, hard, soft. The contradicting combination never ended, and I didn’t want it to. I wanted more.
My breath caught, and I knew in that brief flash of a memory why . . .
Why this was wrecking my heart just thinking of telling Declan. Why I felt the guilt of an adulteress. Why I’d wanted to crawl under the table at dinner and die.
Because after all this time, I hadn’t forgotten Jentry, or the way it felt to give myself to him. After all this time, my skin still tingled with the remembrance of his lips and fingers on me. After all this time, he was who I saw when I closed my eyes during every passionate time with Declan. And after all this time . . . I wanted to experience it again.
5
Present Day
Aurora
This was what it felt like to breathe.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d just breathed. Not this fully, anyway. Without worry or stress pressing down on my chest, always a reminder that I was in a constant state of unknown. That there was something missing from my life. That I wasn’t happy.
But this, being in my new classroom that was somehow chaotic and organized all at once, was giving me a strange sense of peace. Now that it was decorated and ready for school to begin in four days, I felt more at home than I did in the apartment I shared with Declan. That place was beginning to feel like a prison. A spotless prison.
I reveled in the feel of another deep breath, then slowly looked over to my phone and let the ache and uncertainty come flooding back.
My fingers stretched toward it as if they had a mind of their own. Before I could stop myself, I had the phone pressed to my ear and was holding my breath as I waited. . . .
And waited . . .
And waited.
My eyes shut and tears slipped down my cheeks when Declan’s voice mail picked up.
“Where are you, Dec?” I asked softly, speaking over his voice.
I hung up without leaving a message, and tried to find the peace that I’d had just moments before. But I wasn’t seeing my classroom, I was seeing dozens of other things that made that peace impossible to grasp, and was thankful when my phone chimed.
Taylor: Got coffee for you. Be at your place soon.
I tapped out a response, then gathered up my things and left before I could ruin this place with regrets.
“I need to get to work,” Taylor said a couple of hours later, but didn’t make an attempt to move from where she was lying next to me on the floor of my living room.
I hadn’t made it to my couch once I’d finally gotten back to the apartment. I don’t know if it was exhaustion, or if messing up the vacuum lines in the carpet seemed like a better idea than messing up the perfectly puffed up pillows, but I hadn’t moved since. Thankfully Taylor hadn’t questioned my placement when she’d shown up; she had just joined me and handed my coffee over.
I loved her.
“You could always ditch and stay here.”
She scoffed at the offer even though it was something she did often lately. “Nah. What are you doing tonight?”
“I think I’m hanging out with Declan.” My voice was hesitant, as it was so often recently.
“Watch out now, Linda might get mad that you’re trying to steal her time.”
I huffed in annoyance and rubbed at my eyes. “She makes my life miserable no matter what I do. I can’t win with her.”
“I don’t know, I think she’s a pretty pleasant person.” Taylor sent me a teasing grin, but her mouth fell, as did my stomach when we heard a key in the lock.
We scrambled over so we could have a clear view of the entryway, and I found myself holding my breath as I waited for the front door to open.
All the air rushed from my lungs, and I forced a smile on my face even though I felt defeated just at the sight of her.
“Well speak of the freaking devil . . .” Taylor said on a breath, her already soft voice trailed off until it was inaudible. “Definitely not staying now.”
“Hi, Linda!”
There were no fake smiles from her now since there was no family around, just a calculating eye as her lips pursed with her disapproval. “Rorie, go make me a sweet tea. I’m just parched, it’s so hot outside.”
“No ‘hello’ then,” I mumbled toward the floor as I pushed myself up.
“This place is absurd,” Linda said as I passed her.
The fake smile that had been plastered on my face from the moment Linda had walked into the apartment fell as soon as I hit the kitchen and heard her words.
I opened the fridge and grabbed the pitcher of sweet tea I’d made that morning—as I did every morning specifically for this type of unannounced event—and walked to the cupboard for a glass. My body tensed when I heard a tsk behind me, but I didn’t turn around.
“It
’s just devastating for you, I’m sure.”
I glanced to the side when Linda leaned against the counter I was at. “What do you mean?”
“Well, honey, if I wouldn’t have been the one who sent you off to the kitchen, I would’ve been sure there was a little boy standing in here with a wig on! A woman needs curves, and you just don’t have them.”
I laughed uneasily and ignored Taylor’s furious expression from where she now stood at the bar that separated the kitchen and living room. This wasn’t new with Linda, and Taylor knew it; I got this most often. “Well, maybe one day.”
Linda just looked away. “I came to check on your décor. I would have thought you’d change the couches at—”
I shoved the glass in her direction and cut her off. “Here you go, Linda.” Once she took the glass, I snuck a quick, annoyed look at Taylor before fixing my expression again. We all knew Linda wasn’t here to check the décor; she just wanted to be mad for a few minutes.
“Oh dear.” Linda’s words were distorted, and one hand waved frantically in the air for a second before she took off for the sink.
I watched in stunned silence as she spit out a mouthful of sweet tea. She looked at the remaining tea before dumping the contents of the glass down the drain.
“Oh, Rorie. First you can’t bake, and now this? Your tea is getting worse every time I try it. You need to learn how to make sweet tea; that tasted like somethin’ awful. How old is it?”
I ground my jaw and bit out, “I just made it this morning.”
Linda tsked again, and studied the glass before setting it down and going to the cupboard to pull down another glass. “Bless your heart, didn’t you ever listen to your mama? You need to wash dishware between uses. These are filthy. Who knows what kind of dust mites and old foods I just ingested.”
My eyes widened and I bit my tongue as I took careful steps toward her. Taking the unused glass from her, I searched it but found nothing. “I always wash—”
I See You Page 4