I patted Cork’s hand, but before I could withdraw it, he clasped mine in his.
“You shouldn’t either,” he said, “if there’s something bad he’s keeping from you.”
“It’s too late. I’m already attached. I’ve fallen for him, Cork.”
“Oh, Lotus.” He squeezed my hand. “I think letting him tell you the truth would have been a better choice.”
“You’re probably right,” I said.
When did my brother get so wise? Or his hand so much bigger than mine?
Cork’s option sounded so easy to choose, in theory, but impossible to contemplate when Journey looked at me with storm clouds brewing in his eyes.
“But I have him, what I have of him, like this for now.” My stomach swirling anew, I decided a change of subject was best. “So, Sophia called me last night?”
“Yeah. She wasn’t making a lot of sense, but she was hyped up and really wanted to talk to you. I told her where I thought you were, and that seemed to calm her down some.”
“I should call her.” I leaned forward and snagged my cell from the coffee table. The display was filled with text messages, all from her.
As I sat back, I noticed Cork’s phone screen light up.
“Who’s Monique?” I asked, and his cheeks turned red. We were both cursed with blushing when embarrassed.
“Just a girl,” he said evenly.
“The blonde at the Deck Bar?”
“Yeah.” Grabbing his phone, he stood. “I’ll call her back in the bedroom, so you can talk privately to Sophia in here.”
In other words, he wanted privacy.
My eyes widened as I watched him walk away. Seeing him only wearing his boxers, I noted it wasn’t only his hands that were larger. His body was more man than boy now, his long strides surer than I remembered, and his shoulders confidently squared.
My brother was growing up.
Cork would never completely abandon me, but he was embarking on a new phase in his life, one that for the most part didn’t include me. The warm, bubbly feeling I’d had from being with Journey deflating like a balloon spilling air, I pressed call back on Sophia’s number.
She answered after the third ring, out of breath. “Hello?”
“You okay?” I asked. “You called last night. I was out.”
“Just a minute.” She covered the phone to mute it, and my brows rose. “Okay. I’m back.” She sounded more focused and also a little nervous
“Are you with someone right now?”
“No. I mean yes, I was, but he left. So not anymore.” Her words were rushed. “Cork said he thought you were with Journey last night.”
“I was.”
“All night?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes.”
“So it’s serious then. Saber and you are over, right?”
“I already told you that.” I frowned, sensing something was going on.
“So you did. My bad.”
“Why the rehash?” I asked.
“No reason.”
Her reply didn’t ring true, and in all the years we’d been friends, I could never remember her lying to me.
“What’s going on with you? Cork said you were drunk and upset last night.”
“I had a few beers.”
“And you took someone home with you? A stranger? Without telling me? That’s not cool, Sophia.” I used the same chastising tone on her that Cork used on me.
“I tried to call you last night,” she said, sounding like a guilty teenager trying to deflect punishment.
“I know you did.”
“The guy I was with wasn’t a stranger,” she said softly.
“Anyone I know?” I asked, my throat suddenly tight.
“Saber.”
Storm
“COMING!” I SHOUTED.
With a towel secured at my waist, I moved quickly through the apartment, dripping water on the carpet as I went. When I reached the front door, I yanked it open, anticipating Lotus but discovering Cork instead.
“Fuck you, asshole!” His blue-green eyes were the same as his father’s, only they didn’t contain gentle emotion.
“That’s not very nice,” I said carefully, narrowing my gaze.
This was the second time he’d taken me on, even though I was older than him and a lot bigger. Without a doubt, this was about Lotus again.
“You wanna continue cussing me out, standing outside with me inside only in a towel, or do you want to come in and wait for me to get some clothes on so we can talk civilly like friends. Friends who are grown-ups.”
“I’m grown up.” Cork’s eyes flashed. “It’s you who’s behaving like a child.”
“Inside it is.” Deciding for him, I motioned and turned.
Dripping a new path on the carpet, I returned the way I’d come down the shallow entry hallway. Hearing the door close behind me, I knew Cork followed me.
“Have a seat.” Inside the living room, I gestured to my new oversized leather couch.
“Whoa,” he said. “When did you get all the furniture and that photo?”
“Everything got delivered last night,” I said. “I bought some things a friend needed to unload. Make yourself comfortable. There’s an extra key for you on the coffee table. Your sister took off before I could give her one. Hang tight for a moment, I’ll be right back.”
Departing the living room, I entered another hall, passed the room that contained only my guitars, and ducked into the bedroom. I ditched the wet towel, throwing it on the bed. Moving to a stack of cardboard boxes in the corner, I opened the one with my clothes. Though I had furniture now and a kickass photo in the other room, thanks to Tess, I still needed a few hours of free time to unpack and put away my stuff.
Finding a pair of black Reef board shorts and a faded gray Volcom muscle tee, I put them on. On the way out the door, I spotted a pair of Oakley shades on top of the dresser and put them on my head.
When I returned to the living room, Cork glanced up. I noted he held the extra apartment key. That was an encouraging sign.
“What’d I do to piss you off this time?” I asked.
“Keeping shit from my sister. She says you have a secret. What is it?”
My eyes widened. “She told you that part?”
“We’re close. You know that. I’m all she has, and she’s all I have since Dad passed.” His eyes glistening with a sudden sheen, he swallowed. “She’s been through a lot. She deserves better than another bullshit relationship with a guy stringing her along like Saber did.”
“Cork, I’m not st—”
“Level with me, man,” he said, cutting me off. “I wanna know what you’re hiding.”
“I’m Storm.”
“Come again?” His eyes wide, Cork froze solid, like ice in the shape of a teenager on my new-to-me couch.
“Storm Hardy, your sister’s best friend growing up.” I pointed to myself. “That’s me.”
“Impossible.” Cork’s dark gold brows disappeared beneath messy bed hair. “You don’t sound like him. You don’t look like him either.”
“People change as they grow, like those plants your sister loves so much. I was younger than you when I left OB. Your body’s still changing, right? My voice change happened later than most guys. I have a lot of ink now, long hair, the beard and mustache, but underneath it all, it’s still just me.”
Cork shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true, whether you do or not.” My eyes narrowed. “I was here back when you first started speaking in complete sentences. I remember all the trouble your sister had trying to get you to eat vegetables. She had to mix them with sriracha sauce. When you got older, I gave you your first surf lesson. You took to the water back then like now. I think you’re more fish than man.”
“Your name is Journey,” he whispered, but I could see it, the disbelief giving way to wonder as the truth sank in.
“It’s a nickname. When I left here, I didn’t want to be Graham
Hardy’s son anymore. I moved around a lot. I journeyed from place to place, doing shit job after shit job, working during the day and playing my guitar in bars at night, until I finally got lucky and a producer gave me his card.”
“But Saber and Shield don’t recognize you. Lotus either.” Cork squinted at me. “You don’t look like the same person.”
“Nine years is a long fucking time.”
Suddenly feeling every one of those long, lonely years falling like a monster wave collapsing on my shoulders, I crashed into the leather club chair next to me.
“Most of the time, I don’t feel like the same person. My brothers are different. I barely know them anymore.” I propped my elbows on my knees and leaned forward. “But I know your sister. She hasn’t changed.”
“She was thirteen when you left,” Cork said.
“I remember like it was yesterday. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about her. The best times in my life were spent here with her. She’s a woman now, more beautiful than ever, but she’s still the same person inside that I knew then.”
“You’re wrong.” His eyes flashed again. “Your leaving crushed her.”
I recoiled as if taking a blow, and swallowed hard before I could speak. “I’m sorry. I did what I had to do. All I could do, really. I was just a kid back then too. Younger than you are now.”
His gaze unfocused, Cork kept talking like he hadn’t registered what I said. “Whenever the phone used to ring back then, she’d run to get it, expecting it to be you. The look on her face when it wasn’t killed her, and there was nothing me or my dad could do to make it better. Same thing with the mailbox and the computer. She did that for months after you left.”
“I didn’t know.” I shook my head sadly, my gut churning. “She’s shared some with me, but not that.”
“Then my accident.” Cork’s eyes refocused and narrowed. “You weren’t here then either. But she changed after that. She got quieter. Smiled less.”
“She blames herself,” I said, remembering her confession.
“That’s bullshit.” His hands clenched into fists.
“I told her it was.”
“It was my own fucking fault.” Cork’s gaze dropped to his lap. “I was showing off, not being careful like I should have been.”
“It could have happened to anyone,” I said softly, leaning forward more, wishing there was something I could do to comfort him.
“But it didn’t happen to anyone.” He lifted his gaze, his expression and his eyes solid stone. There were hard lessons in his gaze that a boy his age shouldn’t have to know. “Taking care of me, she takes on all the responsibility. She set her dreams aside. She never talks about college. I’m not even sure she does her poetry anymore, beyond the short little rhymes inside her cards.”
“Surely, she can still go to college if she wants to,” I said softly.
“There’s no extra money in the budget for college. Dad had a small life insurance policy. It paid for the funeral, but there wasn’t much left after that. Maybe Ash would help her, if she asked. But she won’t.” He ran a finger along his scar. “After Dad died, she lost something. Hope, I think. How can you dream without hope?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Growing up the way I did, I didn’t ever have much of that. I’d had some, but it wasn’t my own. It came from my best friend, who had enough hope in her bright heart to illuminate both my dreams and hers.
“Don’t tell her who you are,” Cork said abruptly, his features not just hard but sharp.
“It might not be up to me. Being here, surrounded by people who once knew me, who I really am won’t stay a secret indefinitely.”
“You planning on sticking around this time?” he asked, his gaze searching.
Have I made that decision?
I was in the band. I’d signed a contract with Outside. But even if I hadn’t done those things, I knew I didn’t have it in me to leave Lotus again. I was in from the moment I’d seen her at the concert. She was more beautiful, more everything than I could ever have imagined.
“If you’re in with her, go all the way in,” Cork said firmly. “But if you have any doubts, then I want you to end it with her now.”
Lotus
I OPENED THE door and walked into Journey’s apartment like I had the night before. Only now, unlike then, there was sunlight streaming in through the windows. When I entered the living room, I also noticed there was a beautiful photo of the Sunset Cliffs hanging on the wall above a leather couch that hadn’t been inside his empty apartment before.
“End what with who now?” I asked Cork. My stomach cinched tight. I was pretty sure he was recommending that Journey end things with me.
My brother didn’t answer me, but his lips flattened.
Getting out of my shower upstairs and finding him gone, I’d guessed he’d come downstairs to talk to Journey, but not to do this. He liked Journey, and he knew how I felt about OB Hardy’s new guitarist.
Cork avoided my gaze, condemning splotches of red on his cheeks.
I shifted my focus to Journey. He didn’t say anything. The continued silence to my question made my stomach churn.
“Cork is very protective of you,” Journey said.
His voice seemed overly loud after the protracted silence, but fixing my gaze on the warm brown and vibrant flecks of green within his eyes quieted the churn inside me. His gaze was steady, much like his presence. I didn’t question my decision or anything else when gazing into his eyes.
Journey frowned. “He doesn’t like the agreement between you and me. I don’t like it either. If—”
“But you agreed.” My hands curved into my palms as my tension returned.
“I did.” His handsome features firmed. “I’m not going to back out. My mind hasn’t changed. I want to make this work with you and me. But I have no experience with relationships. I told you about that at the beginning. And in your brother’s mind, there’s some doubt about my sincerity with me withholding information from you.”
“Cork.” I swallowed hard and turned my gaze to him. My eyes stung as his met mine. He was doing this out of love, but he was going to ruin this for me.
It hit me hard, the similarities in recent circumstances for both of us. I’d had to give Cork the freedom to make his own choice about being in OB Hardy, come what may, and he needed to do the same for me regarding my relationship with Journey.
“This is my decision. I don’t need you to protect me from Journey.”
“You need someone to protect you from you.” Cork’s gaze narrowed. “You’re too trusting, and far too often sell yourself short. You did that with Saber. I’m afraid you might be doing the same thing with S— Journey.”
Softening my voice, I said, “I love you, love that you’re looking out for me. You’re my brother and Journey’s friend. I know you think you have perspective and the right motivation to interfere with us, but you don’t.”
Even seeing in his eyes the hurt my words produced, I powered on. I rarely shut Cork out of any aspect of my life, but in this instance, I had to. Even if deep down I knew it was unwise, and that I might only be delaying getting hurt.
“Journey and I decide what happens in our relationship. Not you, not anyone else.”
Cork’s jaw tightened. “Dad would want me to protect you.”
“Dad isn’t here,” I said as my eyes filled.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” he said softly.
My lips trembled. “If so, it’s my mistake to make, and you’re going to have to respect that.”
I didn’t like being at odds with my brother. Did he know Journey’s secret? It seemed like he did, and knowing it, he feared it would end my relationship with Journey. Both of them did.
“This isn’t the way I wanted things to start for us.” Journey stood and came toward me, his expression soft, his eyes like freshly tilled earth with brilliant shoots of green. “But I can work with what I have. I will work with anything, through
anything, whatever I must to have you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
My life wasn’t simple. I came with a lot of complications, but Journey was recognizing that and saying I was worth the effort. His words were exactly what I needed to hear, at just the right time to make me feel secure. I’d never felt worthy or secure while with Saber.
“No thanks necessary.” Reaching for me, Journey brought me into him. He wrapped his strong arms around me, and I slid mine around his slim waist.
Laying my cheek against his chest, I breathed him in and absorbed his warmth. In his embrace, my reservations melted away. Something that felt this right couldn’t be wrong. Journey cared about me, and I trusted in that. It wasn’t a lie.
“You mentioned things you have to do today.” Journey’s voice rumbled into my ear. His thumb under my chin, he lifted it and eased back to gaze down at me.
“Yes. Ash’s place first to take care of his plants. Then the studio for a launch party, and bartending at the Deck Bar to end my day.”
Journey’s dark brows rose. “That’s a lot, babe.”
“It’s a typical day for me, except for the special event at Outside.”
Those paid a lot. I suspected Ash overcompensated me. But I counted on those extra jobs from him and my tips at the Deck Bar. Though neither were givens, those extra funds paid for food, electricity, and all the additional stuff beyond the rent for Cork and me.
“Will you eat breakfast with me before you get started, my treat at the diner downtown?” Journey asked. “I demanded before, and I apologize for that. But if you can fit me into your schedule, I’d like to spend some more time with you.”
“Sure, that would be nice.” I nodded, my heart melting from his gentleness, and my stomach grumbling as if to make its affirming vote heard.
“Cork, how about you?” Journey asked, shifting to face my brother. “I’d like you to come with us. After breakfast, you and I can head to the studio together while your sister does her thing.”
It must be said, I loved that Journey included my brother.
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