by Leddy Harper
Bentley was supposed to have been a stranger. The first time we met was supposed to have been an accident. But how could that have been if his cousin was Luke? Bentley had to have known of the connection. There’s no way he couldn’t have. And then I realized that I still hadn’t asked him how long he’d been in town. Had he been here since Clarissa’s wedding in October? Did he know?
How could he have kept this from me?
I decided to wait it out, wait for him to come back to the room so I could finally get answers—needing them more now with these new questions that popped up. So I sat on the edge of his bed and waited, not caring about the streaks of tears tracking my face.
Finally, the sound of his bare feet padded down the hall before he appeared in the doorway. He stilled, not walking all the way in, and regarded me with a questioning stare. The gig was up. He knew he couldn’t lie anymore, and he watched me as if waiting for the tongue lashing to start. But that wasn’t going to happen.
“How long have you lived here?” I kept my tone low, even, almost emotionless as I stared at him, silently daring him to lie to me again.
“Since October.”
I nodded and bit my lip, my gaze falling away from his. “So you’ve known all along. You knew about Luke and my sister. When you told me about how your cousin was screwed over by some chick he dated for two years…you knew that was Clarissa. You told me about how she strung him along after they broke up. All the while, knowing who his ex was.” I brought my attention back to his face—his still, hard face. “You’re such an asshole,” I whispered before standing up and walking toward him.
“Can you please let me explain?” He took two steps into the room, holding his hands up, palms out.
“There’s nothing to explain, Bentley. You lied to me. I don’t do well with that.” I pushed past him, grabbed my purse from the living room, and stormed out the door, not caring that my clothes and shoes were left behind.
Bentley yelled after me, but it didn’t stop me. I got in my car, slammed the door, and then threw the car in reverse. I stepped on the gas as the back tires whipped around. Once I was turned around, I put the car in drive and floored it out of the driveway, never once looking behind me.
Bentley
“Fuck!” I slammed my hand into the wall by the front door, frantically searching for my keys. But my mind had become muddled from watching Sarah leave me, and now I couldn’t remember where I’d left them.
“What did I tell you?” Luke’s voice came into the room and I spun around to find him standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. “I told you not to bring her here. And you didn’t listen to me. Now she knows about me, and she’s long gone.”
“Give me the keys to your bike,” I demanded, leaving no room for question in my tone. “I don’t have time for a lecture right now, Luke. I have to catch up to her. I have to stop her before she does something stupid.”
He rolled his eyes and reached into the front pocket of his jeans, pulling out the keys. I didn’t even say thank you as I caught them midair and tore out of the house. The only thought in my mind was that I needed to get to her before she made an impulsive decision, like head out to a bar. I hoped she wouldn’t do that, but her mental state would be sketchy after finding out the truth about Luke, and I couldn’t chance it.
I didn’t give two shits about the speed limit as I raced across town on my way to her house—a house I wasn’t even supposed to know the location of. But the secret was out, so there was no longer any reason to pretend.
I thought about Luke pulling me into his room after he found Sarah in the house. After Sarah found him when she’d come out of the shower. He was pissed, or more likely, disappointed. I could tell he wasn’t happy that the cat was out of the bag. He cared about me, and knowing that Sarah knew he was my cousin meant my time with her was more than likely over.
“Are you going to tell her everything?” he’d questioned me after closing the door, blocking my view from her. I didn’t want to lose sight of her. I felt like if I’d stopped watching her, she’d run away. Run out of my life forever, and that thought debilitated me, stole my breath from my lungs and left me incapable of breathing again. But Luke wouldn’t leave it alone. “Are you?”
“No. Maybe…” I’d dropped my chin to my chest in defeat. “I don’t know. I’ll fucking tell her anything I need to in order to keep her.”
“More lies?”
“No. Not lies. I just won’t tell her certain things. She obviously knows about you now, so that topic is fair game. The other thing, the most important thing, I can’t tell her.”
“Then it’s a fucking lie, cousin!” He’d shoved me in my shoulder, knocking me against the wall. “What do you think you’ve been doing? She knows now. She knows about me being your cousin. I’m sure she’ll consider this omission of truth a lie. Because that’s really what it is, just like you’ll still be lying if you don’t tell her the entire truth.”
He was right. She did call me a liar. She said I’d lied to her, and the way she said it broke me. I felt physically shattered, broken to pieces. But I needed to make this right. I wasn’t ready for this—what we had between us—to be over with yet.
Sarah made my heart beat, I could literally feel it inside my chest, pumping away as if she were my life support. Without her, there was nothing. No beats, no rhythms, no nothing. I felt lifeless without her. She once told me how she liked to press her ear to my chest to listen to my heart, that it calmed her. There had to have been a reason for that.
Fate. It had to be fate. There was no other explanation. No other reason why we’d lived through these things—this pain, fear, and hopelessness. No other reason why we were brought together. I only hoped we still had a chance. I hoped we wouldn’t be torn apart by the things I’d kept from her.
I pulled into her driveway just as she was walking to the front door. I must’ve been riding faster than I thought, because she hadn’t even made it up the steps to her front porch yet. She spun around and glared at me as I approached. The way her breath left her nose and her mouth gaped, I could tell she was pissed. But when my eyes met hers, my heart felt like it dropped in my chest. Her eyes were full of such intense pain it made me want to run to her and hold her.
My breathing was erratic, which wasn’t a good sign, but I couldn’t stop long enough to calm it down. I had to talk to her. I had to get her to let me explain, to make it right. I finally made my way to her, stepping so close, she had to lean her back against the front door, her head tilting back to find my eyes.
I cupped her face in my hands and panted through ragged breaths, “Let me explain.”
Sarah
I pulled out of his hold, opened the door, and walked inside without bothering to look behind me. I knew he’d follow me in, and honestly, I didn’t have the strength to tell him no. My eyes were red and puffy after spending the entire drive home in tears, feeling like a part of me had died. My mind was jumbled and foggy, trying to put everything together and have it all make sense…but no matter how hard I tried, nothing fit together. And then there he was, at my house—of course he knew where I lived, I’m sure he knew way more about me than I could even guess. The moment my eyes landed on him, an uncertain, unexplainable peace filled me. I was pissed that he could do that to me—easily give me peace—but even more pissed that he’d lied to me, so angry over it I never wanted to see him again. But just the thought of that happening, of not ever being in his arms, seeing his smile, or hearing his voice again, broke me—completely shattered my soul. My chest tightened and threatened to squeeze my heart until it stopped at the idea of not having him in my life. So even though I wanted to close the door in his face, I didn’t have the strength to.
“Yes, I knew Luke dated your sister. I’ve known all along. Hell, he used to talk about her all the time when they were together. But that doesn’t mean I knew her. Or that I knew you. Or that any of this between us has anything to do with Luke or Clarissa.” Bentley followed me t
o the living room and cornered me behind the couch, making sure I wouldn’t walk away from him.
“And that makes everything okay? You were here in October. Were you here when he tried to ruin my sister’s wedding day?”
He shook his head adamantly. “I wasn’t here for any of that. I came after the fact. I came here at the end of October. After all that happened. Luke told me about it after I came to stay with him, but I wasn’t here when it happened.”
I had no idea what to say, so I just didn’t say anything. Instead, I stood with my back leaning against the couch and stared at him, my stomach twisting with so many different emotions, I didn’t know where to begin.
“And I never said anything bad about your sister. I don’t know the whole story, only what Luke has told me. They were together for two years, he bought her a ring, but before he could give it to her, she left him.”
“He bought that for her after she broke up with him.”
“No. He bought it two weeks before. He called me the day he bought it. And then he called me the day she broke up with him. He had planned this big surprise weekend thing for her, and was going to propose there. But she left him less than a week before that.”
I fell against the couch, and then stumbled to the front to sit, my head spinning and leaving me dizzy.
Bentley followed me and sat on the coffee table, leaning in toward me with his elbows on his knees, crowding my breathing room. “Did you know that your sister called him a month before the wedding?”
My head snapped up, his words catching me off guard.
“I didn’t think so. She told him that the reason she broke up with him was because she wanted more from him and didn’t think he was ready to give it to her. That’s when he told her about the ring, and how he’d planned to ask her to marry him.”
“She told me that he called her. And he told her about the ring, but she thought it was a lie. That he didn’t have it when they broke up.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know who called who, but they talked. He told her he’d give her anything she wanted if she didn’t go through with the wedding and came back to him. I guess she said she wanted him to be more stable, so he went out and bought a house—the one we were just at. He bought it for her.”
I thought I needed to sit because I’d felt lightheaded, but the more I sat there and listened to the things he said about my sister, things I never knew about, I became jittery, unable to sit still. So I stood up and moved around Bentley on the coffee table. I began to pace the room, back and forth, biting on my thumbnail as my mind whirled with jumbled thoughts, desperately trying to make sense of it all.
“Did you know who I was when you sat next to me at the bar that night?”
He sighed behind me, and I could tell I wouldn’t like his answer. “Yes.”
“So it wasn’t an accident that we met? You came looking for me?” I turned to face him, needing to see his eyes as he answered me.
“I knew who you were that night, but it’s not what you think.”
“Just tell me the truth…was this some way for Luke to get back with Clari?”
He stood up and took two forceful steps my way. “I swear, it had nothing to do with them. Yes, I knew who you were, but everything else has been the truth. I stayed here because I hated to see you so sad. I knew about your mother before you told me, I knew your name and little things like that. But none of this, none of my reasons for being with you had anything to do with Luke or your sister. I swear. It has everything to do with you, and how I feel about you.”
I turned my back to him, needing space. Needing a moment to breathe and center myself. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I originally thought. If it truly wasn’t some kind of game for Luke to get to Clari, one where I was used as a pawn, then he at least deserved to be listened to. I had so many questions, but didn’t know where to start.
Bentley silenced my inner thoughts by pressing his lips to my shoulder, wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me so tightly against him, I could feel every bulge of his muscles at my back. It caught the air in my lungs and all words ceased to exist.
“Please don’t give up on me,” he whispered into my ear. “The reason I didn’t tell you was because I was worried you wouldn’t give me a chance if you knew. I didn’t want to chance losing you.”
I spun in his arms to fully face him, taking in his wild hair and clean face, the scent of a man’s shower gel—one that was now familiar to me—consuming the air around me. I shook off those distracting thoughts and took in his eyes, his deep, emotional eyes that captivated me and left me yearning for more. I leaned into him, taking his face between my hands before lightly pressing my lips to his. I didn’t know why I did it, but it just felt right. His worry had been real, and I could see it in his eyes. If what he said was a lie, I doubted he’d have this kind of reaction to the thought of me leaving him—the same reaction I had to the thought of him not being in my life.
I didn’t allow the kiss to linger, or transform into something more. No moans or aggressive hands made their way into the act, only soft, gentle, caring kisses. Then I pulled back, studying his contented gaze once more.
“I don’t know anything about you.”
He pressed his forehead to mine and slowly released a sigh, his breath fanning my face and soothing every quaking muscle in me. “Every night on the phone I told you things about me. They’re all true.”
“You told me funny stories of when you were a kid, things your brothers used to do to you. You talked about horses and growing up around them. All those things are nice to hear, but none of them tell me anything about you. About who you are now. Today. About your life past the age of sixteen.”
“What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything.”
“You’ve never opened up to me about anything important. Why?” My words sounded like nothing more than whispered air between us, but I knew he’d heard them loud and clear.
“I’m trying to help you overcome this tragedy in your life. I didn’t see how my life or where I come from would have anything to do with helping you. This was never about me. It’s not about my family or what I did for a living. It’s always been about you. I guess I never even thought to share things about me with you.”
With my eyes locked on his, knowing I had his full attention, I said, “It has everything to do with you, Bentley. You wanted me to let go. I did. You asked me to fall, and I have. I had faith in you, but now I feel like I’m falling for a guy I know nothing about.”
“When I asked you to fall, I didn’t mean for me.”
“Maybe not. But that’s what happened.”
His eyes roamed over my face, stopping just south of my nose, hesitating on my mouth. He licked his lips and then brought his attention back up to meet my gaze.
“Tell me, Bentley. Tell me you’re not the guy for me. That all this wasn’t some big cosmic force of fate. That meeting you—the cousin of my sister’s ex—on your last night in town, only for you to stay longer for me…tell me there’s another reason for that.” My desperate plea burned my throat, leaving my fingertips tingly and numb. I needed to hear something that would make sense and explain the things I couldn’t wrap my head around. I needed something concrete to tie myself to. And I needed it to come from him.
“You believe in fate?” His tone was light, soft, almost disbelieving.
I nodded, because there was a hard knot in my throat keeping me from responding.
“What about circumstance? Do you believe in that?”
“What’s the difference?” I felt a deep curiosity about where he was going with this, and I needed to hear what he had to say. I knew what I believed, but I wanted to hear him say it without me putting thoughts in his head.
He reached up and moved a strand of hair off my face, pushing it behind my ear and letting his fingers linger a few seconds, his touch scorching my skin. “Let’s just say fate put us together. It’s destiny that we end up in love, living our happily ever afte
r together. Circumstance is what either gets us there or holds us back. What if six years ago we were both on the same plane, headed to the same destination, only separated by three rows of seats? But as we disembark the plane, the man in front of me takes too long getting his carryon from the cubby. And by the time I make it off the plane, you’re already on your way out of the airport. Two years later, we could be in the same grocery store. But one of your items rings up wrong, causing the line to back up, forcing me to use another register, completely missing you in the process. What if six months ago, we actually did meet face to face? What if we passed each other going into the same building? So close our arms brushed against each other, but some other circumstance happened at the same time, and took that moment away from us?”
“How many chances do we get before we run out?”
His fingers entwined with mine as he bit his lip, considering his answer. “I don’t really know for sure, but I believe that fate trumps circumstance. I have to believe that if it’s fate, it doesn’t matter how many chances come and go, how many times it takes us to get together. We will eventually get there.”
My stomach flipped, dipped, and came to life with active flutters, sending trembles throughout my body like I’d been immersed in ice water. But they weren’t bad shivers, they were the good kind. The ones caused by anticipation and overwhelming hopefulness. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that it doesn’t matter what happens to us now or tomorrow. If this is truly fate like you say, it will happen one way or another. It doesn’t matter what I think, or what you think. You can find hundreds of things that can lead you to believe fate stepped in…or it could just be circumstance. Maybe there’s some other guy out there for you, and I’m the one that gets in your way. Maybe you’re my fate. No one knows.”
I closed my eyes, overwhelmed by his tragic declaration. A tear slipped past my lashes, trailing down my face, and then his warm finger wiped it away. I wanted to give in and let him comfort me like he’d done so many times before. I wanted to believe him and allow nothing else to touch me, only his sincerity and consoling words. But I didn’t want to believe that this had all been for nothing. That thought struck fear straight to my heart and left me empty and hollow inside. I needed the promise of something more to fill that void, that blank and dark space.