“Hey,” I said, my voice hoarse with sleep.
“Morning.” He reached out and brushed my hair off my face in a tender action that made me snuggle deeper into my pillow. It felt nice, but my resolve from last night hadn’t deserted me just because I’d woken up to Mr. Sexy brushing my hair off my face.
“What time is it?”
“Just after nine.”
“Hmm. Give me a sec and I’ll get up, make you coffee. Breakfast, if you like.”
“Sounds good. Take your time.” He braced his head on the palm of his hand, his elbow bent into the pillow beneath him. “Tell me about your parents. About Nick and Gemma.”
My breath stuttered at the sudden demand. “Caleb—”
“You said some things that concern me, Ava. Put my mind at ease.”
I frowned, taken aback by the fact that he was worried about me.
He must have seen the confusion in my expression. “We’ve both made it clear that this is just a physical relationship, and after last night I am more convinced than ever that you’re not one of these women who tells you she’s happy with it just being sex but is angling for more. I get that now. Which means when we talked about being friends, we both meant that too. We can handle it. So I made up my mind that you’re my friend, Ava. And I’m worried about my friend.”
Affection for this man suffused me and I sat up, mirroring his pose, and reached out with my free hand to stroke his chest tenderly. “I’m good, I promise.”
“You aren’t going tae tell me, are you?” He scowled, like he couldn’t believe he wasn’t getting his way.
My amusement over how adorable that was made me pause as I began to ask myself why I couldn’t tell Caleb. Before Nick’s arrival I knew I didn’t want to tell Caleb anything personal because I was afraid revealing myself to him would only deepen my feelings for him. But I was now absolute in my decision to keep things on a friends-with-benefits level. And honestly, after last night, seeing Nick out of the blue like that, it might be nice to vent.
I stared into his searching eyes. “So I can tell you things now without you worrying it means I’m falling for you?”
“Aye.”
“Then I must tell you, Mr. Scott, that you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”
His lips twitched. “That wasn’t the kind of thing I was talking about.”
“Wolf eyes.”
“Ava.”
I chuckled, but the sound slowly died when I saw he was serious. Fine. “I really am okay. Nothing happened to me when I was a kid, if that’s what you’re worried about. It came close, but I escaped relatively unscathed.”
“Tell me about it.”
I sighed. “My parents are wannabe hippies. They love material things too much to be true hippies. My great-grandfather was an industrial giant and each generation since has taken care of that inheritance very well. My father has a hefty trust fund and impressive investment portfolio. It allowed us to live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and for my parents to not have to work,” I said, hearing the bitterness in my voice. “Growing up with them was exhausting. They were irresponsible about everything but money.
“I didn’t have it so bad. I know that now. I know that there are people out there who had it so much worse growing up. But my parents never treated me like I was their child. I got the same affection and attention that anybody did from them, and it was scarce because they were always living in their own little world. I took care of myself from before I could remember. Learned to make my own breakfast, got myself to school, made dinner when they were too high to make it for me. As I got older they started to have these wild parties at the house. It never even crossed their minds that they were putting their kid in danger by inviting strangers into our home.” I thought back to the night it all got scary.
“I was fourteen when shit got real. One night they had a party and I was in my bedroom, kept awake by the music and laughter. I was sitting by my patio door instead of in my bed when my bedroom door opened and a man appeared.
“I’d sat frozen in fear as he searched the bed for me, his eyes darting around the room until he found me. Then slowly he closed my bedroom door and locked it. I didn’t recognize him. I just knew what he wanted as soon as he started unbuckling his belt.”
I felt Caleb tense and gave him a reassuring but wobbly smile. “I launched myself out the patio doors so fast. Our house was all on one level—a huge sprawling bungalow. I’d used that door many times growing up and I just fled in my pajamas, running through the neighborhood until I got to Nick’s house. He wanted to tell his parents.”
“You should have,” Caleb bit out angrily.
“I wasn’t as scared about being taken away from my parents as I was scared about being taken away from Gem and Nick. They were my family. That became even more apparent when I confronted my parents about what happened and they insisted I must have been mistaken. They didn’t want to hear it. They never wanted to hear anything that would kill their buzz. Anyway, I convinced Nick and Gem not to tell anyone, but Nick was furious. He made me promise that I would stay with either one of them on the nights we knew my parents were having one of their parties. For the most part we could plan ahead and I only had to use that door as an escape a couple more times before I left for college.”
“Only?” Caleb snapped. “For Christ’s sake, Ava, don’t play it down. Your parents were … are negligent arseholes.”
I flinched but I couldn’t argue with him. “Yeah.”
Caleb flopped onto his back, heaving an exasperated sigh. “So what happened with Nick and Gemma?”
“We were all just friends until that night I escaped from the stranger in my room. Nick became my protector. Suddenly he wasn’t just Nick, the boy I grew up with. He was the really cute boy who seemed to care about me best in the world. I had developed an impossible crush on him but hadn’t realized how badly until that night. He was a year older, girls liked him, and I never thought he’d return my feelings. But that night when I’d snuck into his bedroom to stay with him, he told me he loved me.” I almost smiled at the bittersweet memory. “I told him I loved him too and he kissed me. For the first time in a long time I felt safe. But telling Gem was awkward because I didn’t want her to feel like a third wheel. She wasn’t too happy at first, worried about the same thing I thought, but Nick and I never left her out if we could help it.
“It got a little messier as we got older and Nick and I started having sex, something in retrospect we probably did when I was too young. But sex didn’t seem like such a big deal to me.”
“How young?”
“My fifteenth birthday. I know that probably doesn’t sound young to a guy, but I think it’s young.”
He turned his head on his pillow, his expression tender. “It is young. I’d lose my mind if I even thought my sisters had lost their virginity at that age.”
I shrugged sadly. “It was Nick. I thought he was my forever.”
“And Gemma?”
“Was pissed. She definitely felt left out after that. In fact, she promptly went out with the shadiest guy in school and lost her virginity to him in the back of his pickup.” I felt despondent at the memory. “At least with Nick I’d felt loved at the time. I think she secretly blamed me for that decision.” I pushed up into a sitting position, drawing my knees into my chest as I looked down into Caleb’s sympathetic gaze. Not once, when we’d first been on those flights together, would I have ever thought he’d look at me with such tender patience. “Things seemed to normalize, though. We grew close again, and she went back to being my family, like always. Gem more than anyone was my family. I think I always knew in the back of my mind that if something happened between me and Nick I’d still always have her, so I gave her more of me than I gave to anyone.” Tears filled my eyes.
“Ava.” I felt his hand on my knee, reassuring me.
I sucked back the tears, still feeling that pain deep in my chest, like a knife wound no one could heal. “But
unbeknownst to me she was in love with Nick. She finally confessed it to him after he proposed to me, realizing that if she didn’t it would soon be too late. She told me later that he admitted that he loved her too; he just hadn’t thought she loved him back in that way. So they started their affair, too afraid at first to tell me.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks before I could stop them. I looked away from Caleb, staring at the window as I struggled to control my emotions. “When I found out, I told her she should have confided in me years ago. That I’d always loved her more than I ever loved Nick when we were kids and if I’d known back then I would have stepped aside before it was too late, before I’d given him everything.” I wiped at the tears running down my face. “She cried so hard when I told her that, but I couldn’t see her pain back then. All I saw was her betrayal. Even if they’d just told me right away, you know, rather than having an affair behind my back. It would have hurt but not nearly so much.” I turned to Caleb, to find his expression dark, fierce. “I always wondered if she knew he’d sleep with me after being with her. Or did he tell her that he wasn’t sleeping with me? Because our sex life never waned in those months they were cheating.” My upper lip curled in disgust. “In fact, I remember afterward, after overanalyzing every little thing about that time, that he seemed insatiable in those months. I thought it was because we were engaged. He couldn’t keep his hands off me. Now I know that he was getting off on it—on having two women. Two best friends.
“Do you know what he said when he told me about the affair? When I asked him if he’d loved Gem the whole time, why he was with me? He said that I was the one he wanted when he was just a horny kid.” Anger besieged me at the reminder. “That I was so beautiful that he couldn’t help but want me. That he probably would always want me that way. But that was all I was. A pretty face. He said I was boring and uptight and I cared too much about the way I looked and what people thought of me. Gem wasn’t like that. She wasn’t vain. She was warm, he said. And while my beauty would fade, Gem would always be beautiful on the inside.”
Silence, heavy and still, fell over the room.
And through it I could feel Caleb’s anger, and it was gratifying.
“Do you want to know the sickest part? I believed him. Maybe I did care about my looks too much, of what people thought of me. After all, the only compliments my parents ever gave me growing up were on my looks. They made it seem like being attractive was my most powerful and positive quality.
“I drove myself crazy trying to think back and find evidence that Nick was right. It took me a long time afterward to realize that he wasn’t right. That what he said wasn’t true. I have my faults, but those weren’t it. He just wanted it all to be true because he needed not to be the bad guy in the situation. They both did. So somehow the blame fell on me. That all these years I’d stolen Nick from Gem and kept them apart. My parents just told me to get over it. Just get over it! The only people I’d ever trusted betrayed me, and I was just supposed to get over it.
“The one person who seemed to be on my side was my uncle. He flew me out to Boston and helped me find a place to start over.”
When Caleb spoke, his voice was gruff. “And then you had tae fly home for Gemma’s funeral.”
I let out a shaky breath. “All of our old friends just stared at me in disgust the whole time, murmuring behind my back that they couldn’t believe I’d had the audacity to show up. That was hard enough as it was … but Nick decided to humiliate me at the wake and direct all his rage and grief at me.”
“What did he do?”
“I was turning a corner in their house and I bumped into him by accident, spilling the drinks in his hand on the cream carpet. And it just set him off. He just started yelling at me, asking me why I was there. He told me that Gem died still thinking the affair was all her fault. That she’d never forgiven herself even though it wasn’t just her fault. He said that he and I were to blame too. But that I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t forgive her. I was too filled with hate and self-absorption. And he said that I could live the rest of my life knowing that he would never forgive me.”
Caleb shot up to a sitting position, his eyes blazing at me. “You didn’t actually swallow that bullshit, did you?”
I scoffed. “Of course not. But everyone else there did. I was practically shoved out of there with pitchforks while my parents watched on in embarrassment, not doing anything to have my back. I am not the woman I was back then, Caleb. Yes, I feel guilty that she died without my having forgiven her because I can forgive knowing that she felt responsible for destroying the future I had planned. But him? Never once could he admit that he was the guilty party. He always tried to make me the bad guy because it made him feel better. He’s a coward.” I shook my head in wonder. “I look back and I try to see it—I try to see how I could have missed what a piece of shit he is deep down.”
Caleb reached over and slid his big, warm hand under my hair, cupping the nape of my neck in a firm, reassuring grip. His eyes bore into mine, capturing me in place. “Dinnae do that tae yourself. People can be masters of deception because they are so complicated. You aren’t the first tae have not seen a person’s true character. And frankly, Ava, when you first started dating him he was just a boy. People can be nice kids and for whatever reason grow up tae be selfish wee shits. So dinnae put that on yourself.”
I nodded at his soft command and then gave him a wry smile to cover the fact that I wanted to burst into fresh tears. “Still glad you asked to hear about it?”
“Aye,” he replied firmly. “Because I can tell you now knowing the facts that I think you should talk tae Nick.”
Shocked, I jerked away from his touch. “Why would you even suggest that? Do you see this?” I pulled away, reaching over to my nightstand where I laid my jewelry. I picked up the tennis bracelet Nick had given me. “He bought me this. For my eighteenth birthday. I wear it to look good for my clients and I can’t afford to spend money on a freaking diamond tennis bracelet to replace it. I hate wearing it because it always reminds me of him. But I wear it anyway. And it’s as close as I ever want to get to him again.”
Caleb scowled at the bracelet, a dark look that melted away when he looked into my eyes. “Ava, you need tae tell him what you told me. Even if he is here tae apologize, he needs tae know before he says a damn word that you dinnae care what he thinks. That you know you aren’t the one in the wrong here and that he can live the rest of his life not forgiving you if he bloody well wants … because as far as you’re concerned he’s just a memory you dinnae care enough about tae offer forgiveness.”
My breath caught at his fierceness and the realization that Caleb’s advice was spot-on. Nick did need to know that he didn’t have power over me. Not anymore. I nodded slowly. “You’re right. You’re so right.” I grabbed his hand and placed a grateful kiss to his big knuckles. He’d been so kind, so generous, listening to me like that and not judging. But I thought about what I knew of his family and I wondered just how crazy he must think mine was. My thoughts blurted out before I could stop them. “You must think my family is insane. Yours sounds so perfect.”
Hearing the melancholy tone in my voice caused Caleb’s eyes to dim with sorrow. “Nobody’s family is perfect, Ava.”
I tensed, realizing the sorrow wasn’t for me but … my God, for him. “Caleb?”
He shook his head. “No matter. Breakfast?”
I refused to let go of his hand. “What happened to your family?” His hesitation made my heart pound. “You can tell me. After what I just told you, you must know you can tell me anything. Friends tell each other stuff.”
“It’s not a happy story.” Caleb refused to meet my eyes and it made my heart pound.
“What happened to you, Caleb?”
“Not me.” He shook his head. “Well, to me, aye. But to us all.” Finally he looked at me, his eyes bright with grief that made me squeeze his hand tight. “Quinn, my brother I mentioned earlier …”
�
�Yes?”
“He died, Ava. He died when he was eighteen. He was high. Got behind the wheel of a car.”
I wanted to wrap my arms around him so tight but I knew somehow that kind of physical comfort wouldn’t be welcome. “I am so sorry, Caleb.”
“Aye, well.” He gently eased his hand from my grip only to rub it through his hair in discomfort.
I didn’t know what else to say. Caleb felt far away somehow. He always did in a way, a bitterness underlying in his gaze, his demeanor, that I didn’t understand until now. It was grief.
Knowing what he needed now more than ever was for me to defuse the weighted moment between us, I forced out a cheeky smile. “Well … I should thank you for your advice about Nick. Pancakes?” I threw off the duvet and hopped out of bed, feeling his gaze on my naked body as I crossed the room to my dresser for some clean underwear.
“If there’s a prize for good advice giving, I should at least get tae choose it, no?” he said, sounding relieved.
I glanced over my shoulder at him as I pulled up my underwear. “Sure.”
His eyes smoldered. “Then lose the knickers, Ava, and get back in bed.”
I shivered at that look, my body anticipating the goodness that look led to. Curling my fingers into my lacy underwear, I shimmied them back down my legs. “You know, it was such good advice,” I said, kicking the underwear off my feet, “that I think it calls for an orgasm and pancakes.” I leisurely crossed the room and got on the bed on all fours, crawling over toward him.
Caleb bestowed on me a slow, wicked smile. “Did anyone ever tell you that you are a very good friend tae have, Miss Breevort?”
I smiled back. “When I’m done with you this morning, Mr. Scott, I’ll be the best friend you ever had.”
Fight or Flight Page 18