I nodded. Because, yeah. I understood him too.
“Look.” Matt stuffed his hands in the pockets of his suit pants. “I wish I could say that Corinne would have liked you, but she probably wouldn’t have. She was a tough woman, that one. Not always easy to get along with. So, I don’t know—she might have liked you, she might have not.”
“Okay.” I know I sounded confused. I was confused. It was an odd thing to say to someone, and I wasn’t sure where he was going with it.
“But even if she didn’t like you, Gwen, she would have liked what you are.”
My brow furrowed. “And what is that, exactly?”
He smiled as if the answer was obvious. “You’re the one who put him back together.”
“I…I’m…I don’t…” I knew the “him” that he meant was JC. But I didn’t think he was right, and I had no idea how he knew about my past with JC in the first place. Had I been important enough for him to mention me to Matt? And when? He hadn’t been allowed any outside communication while he’d been in hiding, so when had he even had a chance to tell Matt anything?
“Sorry. It’s not my place,” he said, obviously recognizing my discomfort. “I should get back in there. Are you coming?”
I couldn’t. There was no way. Whatever he thought I’d done, he was wrong. JC had never felt for me what he’d felt for Matt’s daughter. I’d seen how wrecked he was on that stand. There was no competition. I wasn’t even playing the same game.
“I loved her. And now I love you.”
God, I wanted to believe that. But now, so long after, they just felt like words.
“No pressure,” Matt said when I still hadn’t answered. “I wouldn’t be in there if I didn’t have to be. This trial has forced us to relive a lot of emotion and drama from the past.”
“I’m sure it’s unbelievably difficult.” I felt like such an asshole. My feelings were so insignificant compared to what he must be feeling. What JC must be feeling.
“It is. But, this is closure. We’ve gone on since then, and this gives us a chance to feel like that’s all right.” He squeezed my hand. “Good to see you. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”
He meant that he was sure he’d see me because of JC. I read it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. And I got it, I really did. He cared for this man like a son. He’d said it himself. He wanted to see JC’s life go on.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t know if that was possible.
***
It was a little after noon when I got back to my apartment, and all I wanted to do was fall into my bed and sleep for a thousand years.
I was planning to do just that until I found Chandler waiting by my door. I should have expected him. I’d ignored a message that morning and had turned my phone on in the cab to find two more waiting. I didn’t want to deal with him now, but I owed him some kind of explanation after my behavior the night before.
“Can we talk?” He looked so sweet and boyish despite wearing a suit and tie. He wasn’t taking any classes during the summer and Hudson had brought him in to work at Pierce Industries. Chandler wore business clothes well, but he’d never wear them unless he had to. He must have skipped his lunch to come see me.
And wasn’t that a kind gesture?
“Yeah. We can talk.” I knew I should suggest we go to a coffee shop or up to the roof. Somewhere less private. Not that I thought anything would happen, but I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea about us.
But I was exhausted. So instead, I invited him in.
He was quiet as I kicked off my heels, seeming to sense my need for this conversation to be on my terms, and for the first time since I’d started fooling around with him, I could truly see the man that he would become. He’d be strong like his older brother and powerful and respectful, but he’d also be gentle and fun. A lot like JC, actually.
The realization made my gut twist in a new direction. Was I an idiot to hold out for the man who’d stopped living when there was an amazing man in the flesh in front of me?
My stomach soured. I didn’t want to be making these decisions. Especially not today.
“I’m going to change real quick,” I mumbled to Chandler.
“Can I get you something?”
I peeked at him over my shoulder and saw him already in the kitchen.
“Lunch? Something to drink?”
Nothing. I wanted nothing but to go back to that day a year ago when JC and I had nothing between us but sweat, instead of murdered girlfriends and eager boy toys.
But I said, “Tea. Hot.” Maybe it would warm the insides of me that had gone cold earlier that morning.
In my en suite, I scrubbed my face and brushed my teeth then exchanged my skirt and blouse for sweats and an oversized T-shirt. I was planning to crash after Chandler left, but I also needed the few minutes to let things settle before trying to talk about any of it. Not that it helped.
When I returned to the living room, I found Chandler sitting on the couch. A steaming mug sat on the coffee table, along with a plate of shortbread cookies I’d forgotten I had.
I avoided the urge to put a large amount of space between us and sunk down next to him, pulling my legs under me. I brought the mug up to my lips and blew across the hot water before taking a sip. “Thanks for this.”
He smiled slightly and crossed an ankle over his knee, saying nothing yet. Watching me.
I let out a slow breath, knowing that I owed him more than explanations. I forced my eyes to his. “Chandler, I owe you an apology.”
His forehead crinkled, and he was his age again, a teenager on the verge of adulthood. “For what, exactly?”
“For a lot of things. For being a bitch last night. For not telling you about JC—about the man that I saw on TV last night.” I swallowed. “For letting us go on for as long as I did when there was never hope for more.”
The last was a concession—one I wasn’t sure was necessary since I’d been very specific about what our relationship was and wasn’t from the beginning. But it felt right to give because I’d been in that kind of arrangement with JC, and I knew how easy it was to fall in deeper than originally planned. It wasn’t fair to expect more from Chandler. The heart wants what the heart wants, after all.
He looked away, taking a swig from a craft beer that must have been left over from the last time my brother had been over for dinner. “If he wasn’t around, would things be different?”
“Well. That’s not jumping to the heart of the matter at all, is it?” I took another sip of my tea, letting it slip down my tongue, my throat, into the cold recesses of my chest before I set the mug back on the coffee table. “It’s a hard question to answer honestly, Chandler. And I want to be honest with you.”
“Then he’s the thing standing between us.”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know. I mean, yes. He’s who I want. He’s who I’ve always wanted. But if I didn’t want him, then…possibly I’d want…someone else.” I didn’t want to say anything that made him think he had a shot, but it was only fair he had the truth. “So, yes, he’s the thing that stands between us.”
His knee started to bounce, and his mouth tightened into a straight line.
“But also, no, he’s not. Because I would never have been with you at all if it hadn’t have been for JC. It’s a catch-22. So while I know you want to make him the enemy here, it’s not appropriate. If there’s any enemy, it’s me.” I attempted a smile. “And I hope that’s not where we’re at now.”
He held the tension a few seconds longer before his shoulders visibly eased. “No. That’s not where we are. At all.” His tone betrayed all the emotion he felt, even if he didn’t name it. He was in love with me. Or he thought he was.
And I felt like a big old piece of shit.
Chandler knocked his knee against my thigh. “Get over yourself, Gwenny.” He waited for me to peer up at him before he continued. “I’m really into you, but I’m not going to fall apart.
”
I raised a skeptical brow.
“I’m not going to lie—I’ll still try to weasel my way into your pants if you give me the opportunity.”
I groaned but with amusement.
“Will you tell me about…it?” He meant him. He wanted me to tell him about JC. And I knew that when he heard it, he’d feel the way I felt when I listened to JC tell a court full of people about Corinne. Perhaps it was cruel to put him through that, but if he were anything like me, I also knew that he needed to hear it. Because caring about another person like that means wanting to know everything about him or her—whether it’s painful to hear or not.
So I told him.
“JC and I had…” I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to put into words what it was we’d had. “Well, a relationship similar to ours. Except it evolved and became more.” I kept my eyes down, pinned to the remaining tendrils of steam floating from my mug, ignoring the awkward subtext of I evolved with him, not you. “And just as we were moving to the next level, JC had to go into protective custody because he was a key witness in a murder trial.” I ran my teeth across my bottom lip. “In his fiancée’s murder trial.”
I looked up as Chandler let out a small huff of surprise. When he didn’t say anything else, I went on. “Before the show last night, I hadn’t seen him in a year.”
“So you broke up?”
“Not exactly.” I propped my elbow on the arm of the couch and leaned my face on my hand. “Actually, he asked me to marry him.” I’d been irritated when he did. It was unpractical and rushed and I’d been so unprepared for it.
Now as I remembered it, I warmed inside. Tingled from the tips of my toes up through my belly, spreading through my chest. It had been a rash proposal, but with the insight of the circumstances he’d been under, I understood where it had come from. He’d known he had to go into hiding. He hadn’t known how long he’d be gone. And he’d wanted me with him.
Wherever his emotions were based—in love, in lust, in loneliness—at least that had been something I could hold on to with certainty. That he’d felt enough for me to want me with him. That was…a lot.
But was it enough?
“You’re engaged?” Chandler’s question tugged me from my reverie.
“No, no. I turned him down.” It had been the right thing to do, and I didn’t regret it. Mostly. “But we said we’d find each other again after the trial was over.”
“Hmm.”
It was one syllable and yet it was confirmation that he understood the whole of things now. Understood that I’d slept with him while I was “waiting” for someone else. While it would have been easy to defend my actions or explain that JC had not wanted me to stop living, I didn’t bother. Because I’d been selfish in my relationship with Chandler. Part of the consequences of that was enduring his bitterness now.
Again, I felt like an asswad.
“Anyway.” I ran my hand through my hair and tried to shake off the guilt. “Since he couldn’t communicate with me this past year, I had no idea he was finally testifying. It shocked me, I guess. I’d kind of given up on him coming back at all.” I smiled weakly, wanting exoneration and wanting wrath all at once.
I got neither. Chandler’s face was stone—another Pierce trait the boy had inherited. “Then you’re going to start seeing him again.”
Would it really be that easy? To pick up where we’d left off? To be in love and happy?
Until I’d seen him on the news, that was exactly what I thought would happen between us. It was naïve, I realized now. I hadn’t considered that we might not even be compatible long-term, hadn’t stopped to think that I didn’t know him well enough to have a firm grasp on that. Even if our relationship had been real enough to build on, a year had passed. So much could have changed.
And the decision wasn’t entirely mine. I couldn’t know what JC wanted or thought until I talked to him, and I wasn’t sure when that would be. His testimony would be over today, but did that mean that the risk for his safety was over? If so, maybe I’d hear from him later tonight. If not, maybe it would be the end of the trial.
Or maybe not at all.
Because it was possible I already did know what he wanted. The way he’d looked at me earlier. The way he’d looked through me. The declaration he’d made…
“I’m not sure what happens now, to be honest.”
Chandler’s expression eased into a playful smirk. “If you’re not into him anymore, you shouldn’t lead him on, you know. You need to be upfront.” He was teasing me. Acknowledging that was what I’d done with him.
I chuckled. “It’s not that.” Well, it was that too. But it was mostly something else, and even thinking about that something else made a switch flip inside me. So I wasn’t surprised that my voice cracked when I actually said, “I’m just not sure he’s still into me.”
Then the dam broke. My frozen composure was gone, and in its place, I was water. I was pain. I was sadness.
Chandler pulled me into his arms, and I didn’t worry about what it meant or what he might think. I just cried. I grieved. I mourned for everything that I’d lost and everything JC had lost and mostly for what I was afraid was so near to my grasp yet would never be mine again. Never really was.
Chandler stroked my hair while I sobbed on his dress shirt. And he said words that were probably very hard for him to say, yet were exactly what I wanted to hear. “He’s still into you. There’s no way he’s not. You’re beautiful and strong and sexy. And perfect. There isn’t getting over you, Gwenny. He’s still yours.”
I let myself be comforted by him. By a man who didn’t have a former love to compare me with. By a man who hadn’t yet found the “love of his life.” Or maybe he had.
As my chest rose and fell with shuddering breaths, exhaustion overtook me and I fell into sleep, reveling in how good it felt to be held. How warm. And, at the edge of consciousness, I wondered if it was really the worst thing to be loved by a nice boy. Wasn’t it better than competing with a dead girl?
Chapter Six
“You have to come,” Alayna said, with almost the right amount of pleading to make me give in to whatever she wanted.
It was Tuesday, the day I came in early so she and I could work together before she went home and I stayed to run the club. She and Liesl, a bartender we’d recently promoted to manager, were rearranging stock behind the main bar. I’d brought the laptop down from the office so I could be with them and still attack my to-do list.
Now I was regretting that decision. Not just because I wasn’t getting much done, but also because I didn’t want to be having this particular conversation. The one where Laynie and Liesl and Ben—another distraction who’d stopped by unexpectedly—tried to convince me that I’d rather be on Hudson’s harbor cruise for the fireworks than at home. Alone.
I was standing my ground. “You won’t even notice I’m not there. You and Hudson are so into the baby-making, I’m sure you’ll be locked away in a cabin somewhere all night.”
“As if babies have anything to do with it,” Liesl said from the floor where she was crouched. “They probably banged just as hard last year, and I’m guessing they never needed a cabin.”
The blush on Laynie’s face said that her friend had hit the nail exactly on the head.
Ben perked up. “Is this a free-love kind of an event? That will change what I’m going to wear. And if I wear what I’m thinking I’ll wear, you’ll want to be there to see it.”
I rolled my eyes, but inside I paused a moment to reflect how far Ben had come from the suicidal boy he’d been before. Now he was social and funny and happy. Was it all only because he’d found someone to love him through it all?
That was probably too simple. He was a strong kid and would likely have recovered eventually anyway. But having the right guy sure seemed to help.
Laynie’s eyes blazed as she pointed a stern finger at Ben. “It is definitely not a free love event. Keep it in the pants, Anders!”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, don’t embarrass me, little brother,” I teased. “Whatever you wear, you can take pictures. Trust me, you don’t need me. You’ll have Eric to keep you preoccupied. And Norma will have Boyd, even if they have to sneak around about it.” I nodded at Laynie. “And you’ll have Hudson. I’ll be a third wheel. Or seventh wheel. Ninth wheel if Mira and Adam are going to be there.”
“They are.” Laynie adored Hudson’s little sister, Mira, and while I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked to, I’d always enjoyed her company.
But even Mira wasn’t enough to draw me out for the holiday. “Besides, I really should be here instead. It’s probably going to be busy, and I’m not sure it’s really responsible to have both of us out on such a big night.”
Laynie turned and directed her finger at me. “No. You will not work. That is not an option. Nathan and Liesl can manage without us. And it’s not too late to find a date, if you want one. I don’t know a lot of people, but Mira could whip someone up.” She paused before adding, “Chandler will be there, you know.”
My shoulders tensed at the mention of Chandler. It had been just a little over a week since I’d fallen asleep with him on my couch. When we’d woken up, he’d made me something to eat while I got ready for work, then he’d walked me down to the street and hailed me a cab. He’d hugged me again but hadn’t even tried to kiss me goodbye.
His distance—which I’d asked for—was appreciated. But at the same time, I’d found myself thinking about him at odd times, wondering if I’d blown him off too soon. The thought hadn’t escalated into action—yet. He’d texted a couple of times, short messages asking how I was, but nothing inappropriate. He seemed to get that he and I were done. Or, he was simply giving me space before pouncing again.
Was it strange that I sometimes hoped it was the latter?
Whatever I was feeling about him, I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t ready to disrupt the status quo. “He’s another reason that I shouldn’t go. Thank you for validating my decision.”
Ben scooped a handful of peanuts from the dish on the counter. “Are you worried it will be awkward?”
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