I wanted to acknowledge that, admit who I was, and surrender my weary cynicism at her feet, but I didn’t have a right to. I’d left, leaving her to endure on her own without anyone helping her.
What kind of best friend had I been? It wouldn’t be right for me to swoop in and offer to resume our friendship after all the hard work had been done. When the goodness was all on her side. When she would be at a disadvantage. When I needed her as a friend far more than she needed me.
Dropping my gaze, I closed the latches on my guitar case. As I lifted it, I noticed a young, pretty blonde walk up to Cork. She smiled shyly at him, and he smiled encouragingly at her.
I returned my gaze to Lotus to see if she noticed. She did, but I couldn’t get a read on what she thought. She dipped her head too quickly, resuming filling drinks. But I desperately wanted to know what she thought about Cork, about the band. I wanted, needed to talk to her.
One of the Outside roadies appeared, and I turned my guitar over to him. Ash had enlisted several guys to bring over our instruments from the studio.
Determined to talk to Lotus, I jumped off the stage and headed in her direction. Unfortunately, Saber beat me to her.
She glanced up and frowned in response to whatever he said, then shook her head. He touched her arm and said something else.
I moved closer. I had to be closer, feeling as territorial about her as he was. Only I’d been dealing with that feeling since I was a teen. Besides that, it had been too long since I’d looked directly into her eyes, and her into mine.
Preoccupied with Saber, she didn’t notice my approach. Neither did he. They were deep in a conversation, one I was close enough to overhear.
“No, Saber. Just no.” Her eyes were a fiery reddish-brown. “You left me hanging all day while you deliberated on whether or not I was worth the trouble. That hurt. I think you meant for it to hurt. Retaliation for me having sex with Journey, even though you know we were broken up then.”
Tension whipped through me at the memory of how upset I’d been when he’d called her that night.
“That’s not love,” she said firmly. “Not any kind worth having. That’s possessiveness and manipulation.”
Saber’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just saying that because you’re angry at me. You know I love you. I’ve proven it to you time and time again. But you’re right, I was upset. I have a temper. I needed to cool off before talking to you again.”
“I love you,” she said softly, dropping her head, and I felt those three words like a blade piercing the center of my chest. “But I can’t allow you to keep treating me like that anymore.”
“Treat you well, you mean,” he said snidely, and her head snapped up, her eyes flashing. “I’ve been too understanding about all of your shit. Most girls—”
“I’m not most girls,” she said quickly, cutting him off, and she was entirely right. “I’m not your girl anymore.”
“Your brother’s in my band.” Saber’s voice was as cutting as a sword, and he wielded it like a weapon. “I can’t—I won’t—take responsibility for him if we’re not together.”
Lotus gasped as if Saber had plunged that sword into her heart. He couldn’t have chosen a worse thing to say.
“I can’t believe you brought my brother into this.” Color rose to pinken her cheeks. “You never took a genuine interest in him or my concerns about him until he suddenly became part of your band. I can’t believe I didn’t see sooner how selfish you’ve been in our relationship. That ends now. Tonight. No more, Saber. We’re done.”
Shocked, I stared at them with wide eyes as my brother recoiled.
“You can’t break up with me,” Saber said softly.
Her lips in a tight line, she glared at him. “I can, and I am.”
Lotus abandoned her post at the bar, rushing past me and the crowd of people who had been watching them. Her eyes filled with tears, she didn’t see me. I turned to go after her but stopped when someone grabbed my arm.
Spinning around, I wasn’t surprised to discover it was my brother.
“This is all your fault,” Saber growled.
“No, this is because of you and your actions. Fucking grow up and grow a pair. You screwed up with her. You didn’t treat her right, and you lost her. Total shit move bringing Cork into it.” I shrugged my arm free from his grip.
Saber’s eyes narrowed on mine. “What do you know about it? You don’t even know her or me.”
Staring into his eyes was almost like looking at my own in the mirror. The anger in them was familiar, and it wasn’t only anger at me. Some of it was self-directed, and that wasn’t unfamiliar either. Saber had been my father’s favorite son. I’d always assumed he’d had an idyllic childhood, but now I wondered if he’d had similar issues to mine growing up in the same household.
“Anyone can see how Lotus is.” I gave it to him straight and more gently than I otherwise might have, given how he’d treated her. “You have good qualities too. Your loyalty to Shield. Your talent. You have a temper, but you own up to it. You’re almost a cool guy when you’re not consumed by jealousy. But a woman like Lotus deserves better than the shit you’ve been giving her.”
Saber opened his mouth, then shut it. I could see the regret clearly in his eyes. He knew I was right, and maybe some of what I said got through.
He was older than me, but when it came to Lotus, I was wiser. I figured I was the same with my own shit. The hardest truth to see properly was the truth you knew about yourself but didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone change.
Giving that some consideration, I reached for him to try to offer some comfort. After all, he’d just lost Lotus. But he backed away from me.
“Fuck you, Journey.” His eyes shining, he lifted his chin and stomped off, having had the last word.
Fucking Saber. I shook my head.
But deep down, I knew I was fucked worse than he was.
And I’d done it to myself, just like he had.
Lotus
ALONE, I STOOD outside on the Deck Bar’s second-story deck. Taking an unauthorized break, I was trying to figure out where I went wrong with Saber.
There was no fixing us, because there’d been no us from the beginning. It was my own fault that Saber thought he could walk all over me, and that I’d let it go on for as long as I did. Outraged that he’d attempted to manipulate me using my brother, I realized that I should have broken up with him a long time ago.
I lifted my face into the wind. Salty from the ocean, it cooled my skin. Staring out at the dark waves, I lost myself in its inky expanse.
“Are you okay?” Journey asked, his rich melodic baritone rumbling over me.
“Not really. Not yet, anyway,” I said without turning around. “But I’ll get there, eventually.”
I concentrated harder on the ocean, on the rhythmic pattern of the waves. But it was pointless to attempt to focus on anything other than Journey when he was near.
“You sound upset. Is it because of Saber or Cork?”
Noting the sharpness to his question, I glanced at Journey over my shoulder. His gorgeous gaze met mine.
“Both,” I said truthfully. “But mostly the situation with Cork. Saber and I are through.”
We were through from the moment Journey first stepped onto that stage in front of me. My heart had raced and I couldn’t catch my breath, and that hadn’t changed.
Inundating my senses, Journey was an avalanche to my equilibrium. Even the wood beneath me seemed to bow to his command as he moved closer.
“I heard.” His intense gaze locked on mine, he stopped beside me.
“I imagine you weren’t the only one. We were loud. It got heated.” I narrowed my eyes. “What exactly did you hear?”
“Pretty much everything. I was on my way to talk to you myself when you two started arguing.”
“So you know there’s no chance of Saber and me getting back together.”
“Yeah.” Journey inched closer, and my legs trembled as his crisp, clean scent
washed over me. “He never should have brought Cork into it. I told him it was a dick move.” He placed his hands on the wooden rail. “Saw you come out here. Figured upsetting him upset you.”
“I’m too nice,” I mumbled. Journey’s warmth nudged me. I craved his touch, wanted those strong arms of his around me. I needed him to hold me, but I wasn’t brave enough to ask.
“You’re you,” he said, and the appreciative look he gave me made me suddenly think that being a people pleaser wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it was only bad depending on which people you tried to please. “For what it’s worth, I think Saber feels bad about how he handled things.”
“I don’t want him to feel bad. We were just all wrong for each other.”
“I have to agree.” Journey turned his face into the breeze like I’d done a moment before.
Did he find solace for his troubled thoughts looking at the water like I did? I shifted closer, watching the wind like invisible fingers combing through the thick waves of his hair like I longed to.
“I’m not unhappy you broke up,” he said, “but I can empathize with Saber. Having had, then lost you, that certainly stings.”
Did he mean he considered it a loss kicking me out after only having sex with me the one time?
I glanced at Journey. His profile, though handsome, didn’t tell me much.
Maybe he wanted to give it a go with me again. An additional one-night stand. After all, he’d invited me to his bed again. With Saber now out of the picture, I was free to take Journey up on the offer, but I feared the aftermath, knowing any visit to his bed would be temporary.
Journey turned his head, giving me a long, searching look. “Have I stunned you speechless?”
“A little, I guess.”
“You’re not the only one who can speak truths plainly.”
Had there been plain truth in his words? I tilted my head, replaying them in my mind, but I was still confused.
“So, Cork being in the band upsets you?” he asked.
“Oh yeah.” Sighing, I placed my hands on the rail beside Journey’s and returned my gaze to the ocean.
“Why?”
“The same reasons it was difficult for me to let him go with you today without me.”
“You’re worried about his judgment?”
“Yes.” My stomach churned. “I worry that he might make a choice without me supervising that could potentially put him in danger. But he’s so happy tonight. I can’t take that away from him. I know I have to let him have this chance to do something he loves on his own.”
“What good is life without hopes and dreams?” Journey said softly.
“Right.” I gave him a long look. “That’s it exactly. Well said.” Sadly, it wasn’t only my brother living a life without those things.
“That’s wise of you,” he said low. “And generous, given how you worry about him like you do.”
“I don’t feel wise.” My fingers on the railing curved into fists. “So many things can go wrong. I’m scared as hell for him.”
“That only makes it that much more generous and wiser, you supporting him.”
“Maybe.” I bit down on my lip.
“No maybe. Definitely.” Journey turned his head, and I could sense him looking at me, feel his gaze boring into me. “I told you that my parents weren’t supportive of my career choice.”
I turned my head toward him, a view that intrigued me as much as the sea. “And you’re estranged from them because of that?”
“We were estranged even when I was living in the same household with them.” Bitterness crept into his tone. “It put a wedge between us, an unbreachable one, them not even attempting to understand the things that were important to me.”
“I don’t want that for Cork and me.” I knew the situation Journey described wasn’t uncommon. Storm’s relationship with his parents had been similarly ruined.
“I know you don’t. Cork knows you don’t.” Journey dipped his bearded chin, his eyes going soft. “He loves you. He knows you love him, and he understands as well as a seventeen-year-old boy can that the decisions you make are for his benefit. You’re great with him. I had two parents and never had that kind of caring.”
“I’m sorry your parents were too closed-minded to see how talented and wonderful you are.”
“I appreciate that. I’m okay now. It’s in the past, behind me,” he said, yet the previous warmth in his eyes had cooled.
“Yeah, all right, sure.” I didn’t press, though I wanted to. I knew that sharing helped, but that wasn’t what we were. Journey and I were barely anything, but it didn’t feel like barely anything when I was with him, not from the very beginning.
My thoughts wandering, I turned my gaze back to the ocean, trying to reframe them.
“What do you see when you stare out into the night?” he asked, laying his large hand over mine.
My skin burned from the connection as if an electrical current sizzled and surged up my arm.
“I see the earth, water, and sky,” I said, deep truths spilling free as he caressed my skin with his thumb. “I see harmony. Infinity. An unchangeable cycle that’s always reliably there.”
“Maybe the unchangeable part is something you want but don’t have,” he whispered gently, and I went completely still, considering that.
“You’re right.” Sudden tears filled my eyes. “I wish some things would have stayed the same. I wish my mother had never left my father. I wish he was still here. I wish Cork’s accident had never happened.”
And I wish Storm had never left me alone.
“Your best friend growing up, the one you said loved music. Do you also wish he’d stayed?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Storm was Saber’s brother. He knew me well and paid attention to me. He was a wise, reliable, caring friend. He knew how to guide me.”
“You never heard from him again after he left?” Journey asked. “Never tried to find him yourself?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I spend most of my energy trying to forget the past and move on. It was a long time ago. I was young. I’m sure I’m just remembering our friendship overly fondly.” My throat tightened. Even now, I couldn’t convince myself that was true.
“Maybe you’re remembering your friendship exactly right. Maybe he felt like you understood him too,” Journey said, adding some additional things I’d left off. “Maybe he missed you too much to contact you. Maybe he thought you were better off with him out of your life.”
I let out a long, wistful breath. “He said something just like that when he left. I should let it go. I’ve changed, and I’m sure he has too. I probably wouldn’t even recognize him. We probably wouldn’t have anything in common anymore.” Shrugging, I said, “We were just kids then, but we’re all grown up now. It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does matter,” Journey said firmly. “Or we wouldn’t be talking about it right now.”
I gave him a sharp glance. He was right, of course. But I also knew the past was as unchangeable as the sea.
“Hey, guys.”
At the sound of my brother’s voice, I slid my hand out from under Journey’s and turned around.
“Hey,” I said, my cheeks burning as Cork’s gaze lifted.
He’d seen us holding hands. Well, not holding hands, really, but why was I so embarrassed? Journey and I weren’t doing anything wrong. But the discussion we’d had felt as intimate as sex.
“What’s up?” I asked Cork a little too brightly.
“Um . . . a lot, I think,” he said, glancing back and forth between me and Journey. “For starters, you just broke up with Saber. Plus, I joined OB Hardy today. Big changes in our lives. I thought you might want to talk about them with me.”
“I do. You’re right.” My little brother was wise beyond his years.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Journey said, squeezing my shoulder. He lifted his chin to Cork as he moved away.
My eyes followed him as he stepped back ins
ide and disappeared into the bar. When I returned my gaze to my brother, I found him grinning at me.
“I want to talk about Journey too,” he said. “But later.” His grin flattened. “Right now, your boss is looking for you.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty worked up. Ash is trying to settle him down. I told him I’d come get you and help bus tables for free for the rest of your shift.”
“I’m sure he liked that.”
“Yes, he did.” Cork threw his arm around me. “Everything’s going to get better, Lotus. Really better. For both of us, I believe.”
Nodding, I sank into him, hoping he was right.
After talking to Journey, I felt lighter than I had in a long time. Almost as good as I did when Storm had been around, and I’d shared with him.
Maybe my birthday wish was starting to come true, only without Storm coming home.
Lotus
CORK AND I stopped at Mike’s Tacos on the way home. We both got California burritos with barbacoa steak, chipotle mayo, veggies, the works, plus French fries. Gripping the ends wrapped in wax paper, we ate our burritos quickly as we walked.
Exhausted and starving, I didn’t even slow down to look at the clothes displayed in the shop windows. I couldn’t afford new clothing, and honestly, I didn’t really need any. I just wanted to get home so I could shower and put my feet up.
“So, you and Journey?” Cork threw his empty burrito wrapper into a trash receptacle near the crosswalk and gave me a look.
“There’s no we with him,” I said, disappointment burning in my chest. “He doesn’t do relationships.” If long term was even an option with Journey, I’d take him up on the offer to be in his bed tonight in a heartbeat.
“Who told you that?” Cork asked, glancing at me as we left Newport Avenue behind and turned onto Sunset Cliffs Boulevard.
“He did.” Sighing, I told my brother the truth. “Before and after I slept with him.”
“Sometimes people don’t mean what they say. A lot of the time, if they say it more than once with a lot of emotion, they mean the opposite.” Cork’s brow scrunched beneath his messy post-surfing hair. “Actions often speak louder than repeated words.”
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