Unbreakable: A Salvation Society Novel

by Georgia Coffman

  “Thank you so much for the coffee and everything, Sage.” I purposely emphasize her real name instead of using her nickname to see if—and how—she reacts.

  I have every right to be mad at her, but my tone is demeaning and harsher than I intended.

  For one brief moment, hurt crosses her features, and she doesn’t say anything. She merely nods and turns around, her files clutched to her chest.

  I’m such an asshole.

  Westin and I head out of the conference room together, when Taylor pops back up. “There’s one more talking point I think will help. We need to hit your brand more on the head…”

  The rest of what she says is muffled as Sage moves in my periphery toward the hallway.

  “I need to run to the restroom,” I say to them, inching toward the direction where Sage disappeared, then point to Westin. “Fill me in on the way back to the office.”

  I exit the suite and reach the hallway, but it’s empty. I have half a mind to barge into the ladies’ room for her, but I wait, running my hands through my hair.

  I peer around the corner toward the suite. It’s quiet and empty out here.

  I should go.

  I can escape without anyone seeing me.

  This is her workplace, and I’m chasing her down like an immature teen. I’m an adult, and this isn’t cool.

  But I don’t move. My feet remain planted.

  I know it’s wrong to confront her here, but the urge to clear the air is too strong. I can’t make myself walk out of here without at least asking her to meet me later—anything to move past this tension that seems to only grow stronger every time we see each other.

  I lean against the wall, exhaling as I tilt my head toward the ceiling. After a moment, Jersey emerges, stopping in her tracks when she sees me. “What?” She puts her hands on her hips.

  “It’s cute when you’re mad. Your cheeks blush like you’re shy when I know you’re anything but, and”—my gaze flicks to her forehead—“there’s the angry vein.”

  She lets out a humorless laugh and tries to side-step me, but I block her way out.

  I want to pin her to the wall, hold her to me, be close to her.

  But fuck… I can’t.

  I’m caught in limbo. Trapped in a constant loop of mixed emotions, and I’m losing my grip on reality.

  “What the hell is this?” she asks, peering behind me for onlookers, I assume. “Another secret meeting? This is my work, Aiden. Any of my colleagues could see me. Perhaps you should book a meeting next time.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic. You said to keep things—”

  “Professional? Yes, that’s what I want. I love this job and don’t want to lose it.”

  I grind my teeth, then bite out, “You’re the one who’s making this more difficult than it has to be.”

  “No, you’re the one being an ass, so excuse me for not wanting any part of it.” She slips past me, her back hunched as she slinks away.

  I am being an ass.

  How the fuck does she keep doing this to me?

  I work my jaw back and forth, slowly deflating.

  “He’s going to ask you out.” My voice is barely above a whisper as I turn to face her and become even more defeated.

  She visibly stiffens, then faces me too. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Westin.” I stuff my shaking hands in my pockets, keeping my voice low. “He wants to take you to dinner. Will you say yes?”

  “He hasn’t asked, and I doubt he will.”

  “When he does, will you say yes?”

  She takes a purposeful step toward me, her eyes on fire. “I told you I’m none of your business. We’re not even friends, let alone anything else.”

  “We are friends.”

  “No, we aren’t, Aiden.” She throws her hands up. “Friends don’t ask each other not to date other people.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking. I’m not fu—” I exhale with frustration, spinning in place. “I’m not jealous.”

  “It sure sounds like you are, and it’s not fair.” When I face her again, she visibly steels herself, and it’s like a punch to my dick. “You have no right to ask me about Westin. No right to pretend like you’re mad if I do say yes. You have a girlfriend.”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “It’s always about you.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I grab her arm to keep her from walking away, finding it hard to keep whispering. “Unless…”

  “What?”

  I search her eyes for any indication that I misunderstood. Does she still have feelings for me? Is she not over what happened between us, either? Is that why she’s mad at me?

  That can’t be right, but even if it is…

  “It’s too late.” I let go of her. “Too late for us.”

  “Good thing I don’t want you,” she says, but her voice is weak.

  “Keep telling yourself whatever lies you need to in order to sleep at night.” I step toward her, then lean down to whisper, “I have.”

  The last thing I hear is her gasp before I walk away.

  I leave her behind me, without looking back, like the time I told her I had feelings for her, and she put Dave before me.

  Will she chase me now? Show up on my doorstep to tell me she needs me?

  Do I even want her to?

  Before I round the corner, Westin appears.

  “Hey…” His voice trails off as his gaze falls from me to Sage behind me. “Everything okay here?”

  Forcing a smile, she nods. “Just fine.” As she passes us, she glares at me.

  How the hell did we get here?

  All I did was try to be there for her all those years ago. To win her over as her friend and more. I fought for her love, while Dave merely demanded it.

  He never deserved her.

  Yet, somehow I’m the one being punished now.

  “Ready?” Westin asks me.

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here,” I grumble.

  In the cab back to our office, Westin remains silent. It’s not until the elevator drops us off upstairs to our cubicles, where Jared is surely hiding, that Westin finally speaks.

  And I wish he hadn’t.

  “I was never going to ask her out.”

  I snap my head at him.

  “Sage. I was never going to ask her out because even though you say you’re with Raven, part of you is stuck in the past. With Sage.”

  “That was a dick move,” I say, purposely ignoring the end of his statement.

  “Maybe, but it’s not worse than what you’re doing. Even though you and Raven haven’t seemed to be on the same page lately, she doesn’t deserve this.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “It is, though.” He tilts his head, peering at me like he pities me, and it pisses me off. “You’ve been different since the first time you saw her. More on edge. Tense. Not as focused.”

  I hang my head, disappointed in myself.

  “In all the years I’ve known you, nothing, not even when you started dating Raven, took your focus. We need you, man. Jock Stock is so close to making it big. We’re so close.” He’s pleading again.

  Westin doesn’t plead. His mere presence exudes dominance—the kind that urges those around him to put their best efforts forward without him having to beg—and I’m letting him down.

  I’m letting our team down.

  “Take the rest of the afternoon off. Get your head together. Be ready for our future because, Aiden, it’s going to be difficult, and we need you.”

  I nod, then grab my bag. I don’t want to leave them hanging, but I’m no good to them like this. Wound up. Broody.

  A mess.

  I need to get my shit together, starting with Jersey.

  There’s so much left unsaid and unexplained between us, and no matter how badly I want to avoid the mess we made all those years ago, I have to face it. I have to face her.

  My heart races merely at the thought.

&
nbsp; I need a fucking drink first.

  Chapter Eleven

  SAGE

  “Westin said you’d be here.”

  “Why are you talking to Westin?” he growls.

  “I was looking for you.” I sit on the barstool next to him and glance around Hemingway House. “I didn’t realize this was your regular hangout spot.”

  “It serves the best beer. And the company is all right.” He raises his mug toward the bartender. “Thanks, Joey.”

  Joey turns to me. “What can I get you?”

  “She’s not staying,” Aiden says at the same time I ask for a glass of Merlot.

  “Merlot, please,” I repeat, then glare at Aiden. “We need to talk.”

  He sighs, his shoulders slumped. “What about? Work? God forbid we talk about anything else.”

  “Would you stop being an ass for one second?”

  “Can’t. This is my fourth beer, around about the time the asshole in me comes out.”

  “How many times a day do you drink your fourth beer then?” I counter as Joey sets my red wine in front of me. Thanking him, I cringe when Aiden laughs humorlessly. The sound is cruel, and my stomach hurts like he punched me there. Ignoring him, I say, “I think we need closure. If we’re going to continue working together and be successful, we need to get over the past. No more secret confrontations after meetings. No more snarky comments. Closure.”

  He turns to me as if in slow motion, as if I told him someone died, and he’s so anguished he doesn’t believe me.

  “Aiden, please…”

  His frown is so pronounced, it seems painful. “Stop. Just… stop.”

  “We can’t continue like this—”

  He shakes his head. “It’s been a long fucking week. I know we need to talk, but can we please… sit here and enjoy our drinks first? The music? And the fact that Joey’s had a receipt stuck to his shoe for the last half hour?”

  Joey’s stops in his tracks and lifts his shoe. “Shithead. Why didn’t you tell me?” He stares at Aiden, who shrugs.

  “Easy. That’s all I want for us for a few minutes.” Aiden turns his pleading gaze to me. It makes him seem young. Innocent. Fragile. He doesn’t appear to be the Aiden I know. “Please.”

  I nod and sip my wine, accepting that this is what he needs.

  When I first stepped in here, I was ready for a fight. Ready to unleash my pent-up tension on him. After all these years, I was finally ready to use my truth as punches, kicks, and blows. For him to feel half as broken as he’s made me.

  But seeing him like this, I decide to wait. To be patient with him because he’s obviously dealing with his own demons, and for whatever reason, I don’t want to hurt him worse.

  “Do you remember the poetry readings we went to in college?” he asks, his expression morphing to one of wistful nostalgia.

  Almost happy.

  The poetry readings were our cheery memories, for the most part. The only reason he and I went alone was because they weren’t Dave’s thing. So, Aiden and I went while Dave was at his evening class one semester. We’d share a basket of cheese fries, and on the ride home, we’d talk about our favorite poems.

  He never wrote any of his own, and I always appreciated that he indulged me by going. After he confessed his feelings for me, I realized the time alone was probably all he wanted.

  “Yes,” I whisper, the glass to my lips. Once I swallow my sip, I say, “I still tear up when I think of the poem one of the girls shared. The one about her car wreck with a deer?”

  “She was sadder that the deer died than the fact she broke her arm and doesn’t have full functionality.”

  “That’s the one.” I pause. “It scrutinized our existence. How one unintentionally harms the other. How timing can be everything—create fortune or devastation. Tragically beautiful,” I muse.

  “Do you still write?”

  “No.” I inhale deeply and let it out slowly, keenly aware of my chest deflating as the breath leaves my body. “I haven’t written anything in years. I actually found a box of old notebooks the other day filled with random notes and half-poems from college. They made me want to start writing again.”

  “You should. You always had a unique talent for it.”

  “Not sure magazines would agree, but thank you.”

  “Did you ever even submit them?”

  “Some. Most were never finished, though.”

  “Were they not? Or were you scared?” he challenges.

  He angles his body toward me and furrows his eyebrows, watching me, keeping me in my seat as I fight my urge to flee the bar so I don’t have to answer.

  He steals my breath with his questions, but I know underneath the few words, there’s so much more.

  He means more than my poems.

  Us.

  I squirm under his pointed scrutiny as the air shifts.

  “Were you scared of putting yourself out there to be rejected? Of opening your heart only to have it smashed to pieces?” he continues, his voice rising with every word. When he says the last part, there’s so much pain and regret in his eyes, and I fight my own tears. “Because I know the feeling, and I did it, anyway.”

  “What happened to us was…” I choke on the word us, then clear my throat to avoid causing a scene for the few patrons around us. “What happened to us wasn’t entirely my fault, no matter how much you blame me. You left without a word and never came back. You left like I didn’t mean anything to you.”

  He searches my expression as a lone tear falls down my cheek, and the flash of guilt is replaced with anger. “You left first.” He slides off his barstool, giving me his back.

  I take a few deep breaths, watching after him, feeling like the floor will swallow me whole if I step down to follow him.

  But I do it, anyway.

  I need this. We both do.

  I march after him, my feet heavy but determined, and I shove the door open harder than is needed. I catch a glimpse of him as he rounds the corner to the alleyway, and I take off in that direction.

  Once I catch up to him, he stands still, facing away from me. His shoulders are high and tense, and all I want to do is grab them and shake them.

  “The night we were together… I had to leave the next morning.” I approach him, my deep breaths matching my steps. “Not because I wanted to leave you, but because Dave found out his grandfather died. What was I supposed to do? We were broken up, but I’d been part of his family for years. I still cared about him—and his grandfather—and he was in shock. Grieving. His grandfather practically raised him. What the hell was I supposed to do, Aiden?” My voice is loud. Enraged. Desperate.

  “Be with me.” His voice is soft, and I barely hear him with his back still to me. He slowly turns, and his troubled gaze finds mine.

  “I wanted to.” I drop my hands to my sides as my chest heaves like I can’t breathe in oxygen fast enough. “I wanted to be with you, but you didn’t even give me the chance.”

  “I saw you at the funeral.” His lips twist, his expression tortured. “You and Dave. I saw you together, and I couldn’t stand by… I couldn’t be on the outside anymore, not after I was finally with you.” He rams his hands over his hair. “I couldn’t watch you go back to him. I couldn’t fucking take it.”

  “But I wasn’t going to. I didn’t have any intention of taking him back, Aiden.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” He drops his voice low.

  “I’m not.” I hold my arms out, ready to beg for him to listen.

  “You kissed him!”

  His outburst stops me in my tracks—my whole body freezes.

  “I saw you.” He points at me and takes measured steps toward me, his body rigid and enraged.

  And underneath it all… hurt. He’s so hurt.

  “You kissed him that afternoon after the funeral. I went looking for you, and I wish I hadn’t. I wish now that I hadn’t had feelings for you at all.”

  “You don’t mean that.” I wrap my arms around my stomach l
ike I can keep myself whole when all I want to do is crumble.

  He throws his head up to the sky, a satirical laugh strangled in his throat as darkness washes over him. “Tell me, why did you and Dave split up?”

  I narrow my gaze at him.

  “You two were such a happy fucking couple, right?” he says, sarcasm dripping from every word like the tears I shed when he left. “So, what was the problem? Why the divorce? What happened to you now that’s different than it was back then? Because the way I remember it, he was always a dick.”

  “Why were you even friends with him if you hated him so badly?”

  “It wasn’t exactly him I cared about.” He stares at me pointedly, as if I should know by now that it was me he wanted to be close to.

  I realized it when he confessed his feelings for me, but it was hard to keep believing his motivations after he ran away and made me question myself.

  “How did you know we divorced?” I ask. How long has he known? Why hasn’t he asked about it until now? I have questions to last a lifetime.

  “I heard whispers from mutual friends, but I didn’t believe them until I saw you. At the first meeting, I knew you left him because you’re here. You wouldn’t be if you were still married to him.”

  He’s right. Dave didn’t want this for me, or us. But Aiden… he always rooted for me and every desire I had.

  I swallow the lump in my throat and rasp, “You.”

  He stands straighter.

  “We broke up because he found out about you and—”

  “Hey,” a female voice sounds from beside us.

  Aiden and I both turn our heads. Raven stands to our side, her arms crossed, her gaze pinned on Aiden and the little space between us. How did we miss her approach?

  “For someone you barely knew, you’re very close, history and all,” she spits.

  Oh God—she’s been listening.

  But before I can think of an explanation, her words ring in my head.

  “That’s what you said to her?” My mouth falls open in shock, feeling like he slapped me.

  My heart stings.

  All our memories together—the ones I’ve clung to over the years—are clearly a joke to him.