by Lindsey Hart
Rin pours us each a glass of wine and doles them out. Cassie sits down next to me. Rin takes the overstuffed chair. We even look casual. I’m not wearing jeans, but I do have pink yoga pants and a pink pullover sweater on. For me, it’s as casual as I get. Rin is dressed in jeans and a cropped sweater even though it’s freaking freezing. I know it’s summer, but god, it’s Denver. Cassie went for jeans, a black tank, and a black leather jacket.
I wait until everyone is settled in, until the glasses of wine have been drunk and topped up.
“Aiden—he knows we have a girl’s weekend. He said he’s fine uh—staying in a five-star hotel that I booked him.” Rin finally remembered that I asked her something. She laughs at our shock. “Hey, it was his idea. He’s living in the lap of luxury. Going to the sauna every day and getting massages. I’m jealous.”
“Get him to give you a massage when he gets home,” Cassie snickers. “I’m sure he’s good for it.”
“Hopefully, he’s good for more than just that,” I can’t resist adding.
Rin and Cassie know me. They know I’m mostly benign, and they grin back at me. Rin’s face goes delightfully pink. My eyes flick to the engagement ring on her left hand. She’s happy. I’m happy for her. Rin went through a lot of stinkers before she found Aiden, and she deserves to be treated well and loved. She’s an amazing person. Aiden definitely knows what a prize he has, and he treats her like it. I’m happy for them. Really, I am.
“You look so happy,” Cassie says like she’s reading my mind.
She guzzles back a good portion of her wine. It’s Friday night. Time to kickback. We haven’t unwound in a while. It’s been over a week since the showdown in my apartment. I honestly didn’t feel like going on the trip, but I knew how disappointed Rin and Cassie would be. I take a large swallow of my own wine and let it burn its way down. My head already feels like it’s going to float off my shoulders. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll reach the point of oblivion soon.
“You’re glowing,” Cassie continues. We flew here together, but she’s been oblivious to my turmoil all day. I guess I really am good at hiding what I feel. I’ve had a lot of practice.
“Does that mean you have a bun in the oven?” I’m rather tactless, and I know it. I nearly apologize, but Rin gives me a pointed look and laughs. She holds out her wine glass.
“No. No, I obviously do not have a bun in the oven.”
“For all we know, you could have been drinking grape juice to fool us,” Cassie titters.
“Do you guys call me Impossibella behind my back?” If silence could be lethal, I’m pretty sure we’d all be dead right now. It rolls through the room like a thick, poisonous cloud.
“Uhhhh—what?” Cassie finally breaks first.
“Where did you hear that?” Rin asks right on the heels of Cassie.
I casually sip at my wine while I maintain eye contact. The horror on Cassie’s face makes my stomach twist. Rin looks shocked. A little horrified, too. She’s trying but failing to compose herself.
“Well…” Don’t do it. Choke it back. Don’t let that shit out. I know better, but the normal Aria—the old Aria—who might have kept these kinds of evil shit-like stuff on lockdown, has taken a hiatus. Okay, maybe I’m still a little pissed about the whole nickname thing. “Lucas blurted it out right after he gave me the best orgasm I’ve ever had. With his mouth.”
Clunk, clang—the sounds of two jaws hitting the floor at the same time.
“Shit. Did I say that out loud? I guess maybe I really am impossible.”
“It’s a term of endearment!” Rin protests, recovering first.
“Lucas did what? With your what?” Cassie gasps. She’s scarlet. She looks like she just tangled with a hive of extremely angry wasps.
For the record, I feel really bad about blurting out what I just did. I was pissed. I’ve been brooding for a week. I was pissed for a week. I was like a big pot of nasty that finally boiled over. Cassie’s eyes are wide and sad. Her lips twitch. Not because she’s pissed. Oh no. Her lips are twitching because her eyes are tearing up.
She’s going to cry.
She’s going to cry because I’m a frigid bitch.
“I’m kidding,” I blurt. “Lucas just dropped it when I was pissing him off.”
“That’s not funny!” Rin hisses like a snake about to strike. “Even for you, that’s a crazy shady thing to say.”
Cassie turns her watery eyes my way. She studies me for a second, and then, she slowly, methodically, sets her glass down on the coffee table. She shrinks as far away from me as possible. “She’s not kidding,” she chokes out. “Look at her face! She’s not kidding. Oh my god! My brother’s mouth was on your box! You promised! You promised he was off limits! What is wrong with you?”
“Did you do that just to get back at us? We used that name as a compliment. Because you’re stubborn and bullheaded, and you don’t let anyone push you around! You refuse to take no for an answer, and you are tough as fucking nails. That’s why we came up with it. Not because we wanted to hurt your feelings or poke fun of you! It’s like a badge of honor!”
“Yeah?” I face Rin. “Why did you never tell me about it then? I feel like it’s a dirty private joke that you two shared. Well, three, because Lucas knows about it too.”
“He had his mouth on your vagina!” Cassie wails. “How could you do it?!”
“You better not have done it out of revenge,” Rin says, all hissy and snake-like again.
Since I seem to be on a roll, I just keep on rolling. Kind of like a piece of shit, rolling down the septic line. “Why would you assume I did it out of revenge? Because you think that’s all I can do? Because you think I’d actually stoop that low? That just because you hurt my feelings that I’d do something unspeakable to get back at you guys? That’s insane. Do you truly think I’m capable of something like that? I know you think you know me, the real me. You think you do, but if you think I’d do that, maybe you have no idea. The truth is, I wanted to tell you about Lucas because I don’t believe in keeping secrets. I wanted to apologize and say it would never happen again. We both agreed it was a mistake. End of story.”
“No!” Cassie leaps up and stamps her foot on the wood plank floor. “No! No, no, no, no, no! That’s not what happened. It couldn’t have! You wouldn’t have just…Lucas doesn’t even like you! I had to call in the worst of favors to get him to even agree to help you! He wouldn’t just…accidentally mistake your box for like a popsicle or something, or trip and go flying, and somehow land his lips on your naked nether bits. That does not just happen by mistake! You—you seduced him!”
“I didn’t.” I’m starting to feel bad. Very, very bad, and it’s not just the wine sitting funny in my empty stomach.
“You must have!” Cassie screeches. “He doesn’t like you!”
“You made that perfectly clear.”
“Then it was you! You—what did you do? Drug him?”
“Do you really think I’m capable of drugging someone? What would I have done with his unconscious form? Sat on his face?”
“Argh!” Cassie slams her hands up to her ears.
Rin leaps out of her chair and wraps Cassie in a hug. She turns her away from me and mouths over Cassie’s shoulder, how could you?
“Cassie…” I don’t get up. I don’t go near her. I’m scared if I try to offer any comfort, I’ll only make things worse. “I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted you to know. I don’t believe in keeping secrets from you. Either of you. We’re like sisters.”
“If we were like sisters, that would make Lucas your brother. Are you into incest now?”
“Nope. Fortunately for me, our ties run deeper than blood, and even if we were blood sisters, Lucas isn’t your real brother.”
“That’s not helping,” Rin points out. She’s rubbing small circles on Cassie’s back while Cassie sniffles.
“I really am sorry.” This time, I make sure I don’t mask the contriteness and shame in my tone. Or my face. Ca
ssie can hear me. Rin can see me. “I told myself to tell you rationally and calmly when the time was right. As usual, that didn’t happen. I’m sorry. I really am. I—at least for the way I told you.”
Cassie breaks free of Rin’s hold and whirls around, face contorted with anger. “You’re sorry for the way you told me? No! That’s not what you should be sorry for.”
“I know.” I don’t duck my head, even though I want to. I feel my face flame hot. “I know. I should say I’m sorry for what happened with Lucas, but I’m not. I’m never going to be. I—I’ve felt this way about him for a long time. Honestly, since the first time I met him.”
“You were fourteen! He was twenty! Do you have any idea how gross that is?!”
“Maybe not…sexually,” I amend. “I’m trying to tell you something here!” I blow out a breath. Trying. I’m trying, and as usual, making a huge fucking mess of things. That seems to be how I roll. Or should I say, how I steamroll. Because I seem to flatten everything and everyone in my path, and not for lack of trying.
“So, what you’re saying,” Rin says quietly, in a much calmer, more rational voice than Cassie just used, “Is that you’re…you have—what? Feelings for him?”
“She can’t have feelings! Aria doesn’t do feelings!”
“That’s not true,” Rin admonishes. “Is it? You like to pretend you don’t feel anything for anyone. Anyone but us. But you do. You feel hurt. You feel pain. You’re just as sensitive as everyone else. Stuff gets under your skin. Stuff bothers you. You might be strong and independent, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt.”
“You fucked my brother up!” Cassie switches tactics. “He was moping around all week. He was upset, but he refused to talk about it. Now I know why! He said you didn’t need his help anymore, and that’s why he was back at the office early. I took his word for it. But you—you—it was so much worse than that! You fired him because you couldn’t look him in the eye? Or maybe because he told you what happened was a mistake, and you lashed out at him?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Lucas is a good person!” Cassie practically screams. She’s winding up for the finale. I sit there and take it. I can be strong. I deserve her scorn. I could have told her like a calm, nice, rational person. But I didn’t. I brought this shitstorm on myself. “He’s a great person. He’s nice. Kind. He’d do anything for the people he cares about! You—you just had to…to stick your finger in the pie. You had to have a taste of the forbidden fruit! You had to go there! There. Where you swore to me that you’d never go! And you hurt him!”
“I didn’t hurt him.” At least, I don’t think I did. If anything, I made a complete fool of myself, ate some humble pie, and some crow—which by the way, tasted really terrible—and still gave Lucas enough money to do whatever he truly wants to with his life. I have no idea what Cassie is talking about. “I promise I didn’t. Lucas was fine when he left. You’re right. He doesn’t like me. He had a temporary lapse in judgment. I’m decently attractive, and he has eyes and a dick. Shit happened. He wasn’t the one who got hurt.”
“Argh!” Cassie claps her hands over her ears.
“That’s just really, really wrong.” Rin gives me a disappointed look.
“You—you don’t believe me?” My jaw nearly unhinges. My chest hurts. It hurts because this…this is so much worse than Lucas calling what we did a mistake and me telling him to leave. This is so much worse than not seeing him ever again. This…this here, these two people, they’re so much more than my sisters and best friends. They’re my life. They’re my heart. They’re my soul.
“I don’t know what to believe,” Cassie grinds out. She finally drops her hands away from her head. “I don’t want to think you’d do something so evil on purpose, but—”
“There shouldn’t be a but at the end of that. I thought you knew me. I mean…that you knew how to read between the lines.”
“Maybe there’s only so much reading we can do.”
“I know you’re pissed at me, but don’t for a minute think I would ever do something to hurt you intentionally. Or Lucas. I swear it.”
“Like you swore you’d never do anything with him? That kind of swearing?”
I guess I deserve that too. Again. Places. Time. Method. I could have approached this in a much better way. I shouldn’t have gone on the attack immediately.
“No. This is different.”
“I fail to see how it’s different!”
“It’s different.” Rin’s sure, steady words leave Cassie a little stunned. I stare at her, uncertainly. My chest squeezes, compressing in. This isn’t going to be comfortable. This is going to hurt. This might be the end of me. “It’s different. Isn’t it, Aria? Lucas? He’s different. Like Aiden was different for me.”
I stare down at the glass of wine still clutched in my hand. I really have no idea how or why it’s still there. My fingers are still curled around it. The nails still peeking around the curl of the glass and the red liquid. The diamonds on the tips still flash at me when I glance down. It’s all still there. Normal. So very, very, painfully normal. It’s weird. Because I don’t know how I got here. Right here. I’m twenty-nine, and I’ve never said these words before—never even truly admitted them to myself.
“Yes,” I finally admit into the stifling silence. “He’s different.”
“No!” Cassie stamps her foot again, like throwing a temper tantrum is going to change anything.
“Yes.” I lower my head and study the wine glass again. “It’s always been true. I think I knew it the first time I met him, even at fourteen. And no, it wasn’t in a creepy sexual way. It’s not—it wasn’t like that. I’m sorry. I really am.”
“So, you swore to me that you’d never do anything with my brother, knowing full well that one day you’d try to do something with him?”
“No. I swore to you, and I meant it. I knew I’d always let Lucas be because I wanted him to be happy. I cared about him. It wasn’t just some stupid crush. At least—at least not later. Not when I was adult enough to know the difference.”
“So, you really did slip then?” Cassie asks dryly, rolling her eyes. “You slipped, and your box just happened to fall on his face? Or maybe you thought that’s what was best for Lucas?”
“Stop.” Rin, very nobly, tries to keep the peace.
“There was a spark. A moment of attraction. It happened. It burned out. I told Lucas to leave because I really do want what’s best for him. I—it would…it would be unbearable to me for him to be unhappy. Especially because of something I did!”
“He’s unhappy, alright! Didn’t you hear anything I said? He was moping around. He looked completely lost. I could tell something wasn’t right. I’ve never seen him act like that! Or—or look like that! No wonder he didn’t want to tell me what was wrong.”
“He’s—I—I don’t understand…” I can’t take it anymore. I tip my wineglass and drain it even though there are a good few swallows left. Not even the burning fire of the wine hitting my empty, twisting stomach helps drown out the sorrow and confusion I feel. I’ve never felt this way either. I mean, not to this extent.
Thinking about Lucas before always hurt.
But it never hurt like this.
I feel a little like I fell into a zoo enclosure and was trampled by a very aggravated hippo. Or maybe like I was pushed into the tiger enclosure. By Cassie. She’s looking at me like she might be considering something equally nefarious at the moment.
“I don’t get it either,” Cassie mutters. “At least we’re in agreement there.”
Rin sighs. She shakes her head slowly like she can’t believe she’s actually going to have to spell this out for us. “I could be wrong, but it really seems like Lucas has feelings too.”
I’m glad I’m sitting down because seriously. As it is, my wine glass slips from my stunned fingers and tumbles to the floor.
The sound of shattering glass is the only sound that echoes through the house.
>
Cassie and I are struck completely speechless. Rin, wisely, decides not to say anything else.
CHAPTER 12
Lucas
It’s late. Not that late, but late enough. Nine. It’s dark out. I’m lying sprawled out on the living room couch because I can’t find the energy to actually roll my ass to bed. It doesn’t matter where I’m lying. I know I won’t get any sleep.
I’ve spent the past week tossing and turning at night and dragging my carcass to the office during the day. I probably look like a wreck. I seriously feel like those hedgehogs are eating away at me. I thought they’d finally pack up and move out, but they seem to enjoy their new residence and aren’t in any hurry to leave.
I know I’m pathetic.
Aria isn’t even here. She isn’t even in Miami. I know she left this morning, along with Cassie, to go visit Rin in Denver. I thought I’d get a little bit of a break, knowing she isn’t even in the same city, but things are worse. I couldn’t focus at work. When I left early, frustrated, to blow off steam, I couldn’t focus in the gym either. I just about killed myself. I wanted to work out so hard that I didn’t have the energy to even conjure thoughts of Aria. Unfortunately, all I did was just about drop two hundred pounds on my neck. Yeah. Not exactly the way I planned to go out. Thankfully, my spotter, Adam, acted fast and saved me from what would have been a very humiliating demise.
Death by weights.
Death by Aria Watson.
I don’t know which one is worse.
I’ve sunk so deep into my pity party that I think I’ve made a new, permanent dent in the couch. In the shape of my body. The TV is on, flashing sports news and replays that I’ve seen at least three times. There’s an untouched glass of stale soda and a half-eaten box of pizza next to three empty pizza boxes on the coffee table. I also didn’t shower after I hit the gym. That indent in the couch…it might actually be grease. Or sweat. I don’t know at this point.