He whined softly but allowed her to crane his hands off her body this time, keeping his blue eyes locked to her as she crossed the bathroom to the tub.
Toes wiggling against the edge of the white porcelain, she peeked over her shoulder, locked eyes with him, and then undid the knot in her towel, letting it pool to the floor at her feet.
He groaned like a man in the worst possible pain—like a man who’d just been stabbed—while tilting his head with a frown.
“So dramatic…” Giggling softly, she climbed into the tub, her own moan parting her lips as she sank down into the bubbly water, already feeling on the verge of a nap mere seconds after her butt had hit the bottom. She laid her head on the back of the tub and let her eyes flutter shut, a tranquil smile on her face, not just because the water felt so damn good, but because she could feel his hot gaze burning her up for several quiet minutes after she’d climbed in.
He was acting like they hadn’t met in their secret spot in the forest every single day since the family had gotten home from their camping trip. Like they didn’t make love against the very tree he’d lost his virginity on so many years ago, along with every other inch of forest floor they touched. There wasn’t a single square foot of that stream that they hadn’t christened—twice—sometimes well into sunrise.
“You gonna meet me at our spot tonight, at least?” he asked.
She opened her eyes and tilted her head toward him, amused at the gruff annoyance still present in his voice.
“Have I not met you there, every night, since the first night I found you? Whether you liked it or not?”
“Okay.” Pouting, he turned toward the door, apparently thanking God for small favors. The moment he put his hand on the handle, however, he paused and then swiveled to face her once more. “Can I at least have a kiss?”
So relaxed by the warm water melting her bones and the bubbles tickling her skin, Viola wondered if the act of moving her bones was even possible anymore. By some miracle, she managed to lift her head and pucker her lips, inviting him in for a peck.
He moved across the bathroom, eyes locked to her lips like a man possessed, took hold of the edge of the tub, and puckered his lips too.
Viola turned her head a second before their lips were about to meet, giving him her cheek. She cut her eyes up at him, unable to stop the devious cackle that burst from her lips at the horrified look on his face.
“Oh, you gonna do me like that?” he asked.
Her laughter intensified, loud enough to crack the glass of the window next to the tub.
“It’s like that, huh?” Jon mumbled before standing tall, lifting his leg, and climbing into the water with her, fully clothed.
Viola screamed at the top of her lungs as his weight caused it to overflow and send buckets of water sloshing over the edge, splashing down onto the floor.
“Oh my God!” Her cries were muffled when he cupped her face and pulled her into a passionate kiss, one that was littered with her residual laughter every time he pulled away before being stifled once more by the softness of his lips and tongue. Soon, even her amused chuckles had died off as she fell victim to his incredible power over her, no longer worried about how the dirt from his clothes and sneakers were surely permeating the water encasing them, and sinking deep into the kiss.
She tilted her head and moaned as she spread her lips wide over his, clawing her fingers down the back of his soaking wet shirt before pulling him in closer.
Jon was the first to pull back, looking regretful as he did. He ran his hand over her curls and pushed the wet strands away from her face. His eyes followed every move his hands made as if he was trying to memorize the shape of her head, the arch of her eyebrows, and the curves of her lips. To file them away in his brain forever. Creating an image he could re-visit for years to come.
Viola swore she saw the very moment when it hit him. That, soon enough, she would have to become an image to re-visit. Nothing more. He could never fully have her, and she could never fully have him.
“This just feels… right…” He squinted softly. “Doesn’t it?”
Viola wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t speak, too busy tracing every dip and curve in his face as well, knowing she’d also soon have nothing else to revisit but the image of him in her brain.
He searched her eyes for a long, quiet moment. “Do you think I’m a terrible person?”
“I could be asking you the same question about me. No one is perfect, Jon. So no, I don’t think you’re a terrible person. If anything, as bad as this might sound, I think we’re both just victims of really unfortunate circumstances and really… really bad timing.” She slicked his soaking wet hair back, exposing his entire face before brushing away the water droplets that had collected on his skin. “If anything… honestly? I think I’m… I’m…” Just spit it out, Viola. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
His eyes softened as they searched hers, emotion flooding his face and making his chest swell.
Viola held her breath, swallowing thickly, slicing her hands into his hair once more and letting them stay there, deep inside the strands. She tried to grip them, but they were too slick and slippery. “In fact… I know I am. And not just because you’re Jon fuckin’ Baca…”
He breathed out a laugh, eyes still teetering somewhere between relieved and deeply pained.
She went on. “…Or because I grew up with a poster of you pinned to the wall over my bed for the whole of my teen years. But because… the way I feel when I’m around you? It’s a way no one in the world has ever made me feel before.”
The softness in his eyes hardened in an instant. “No one but Milo.”
“I don’t love Milo.” She said the words before she could stop herself, her eyes widening the moment they left her lips.
Fuck. It’d been a foolish slip of the tongue, but one she hadn’t been able to help. The thought of Jon believing that she could ever feel for another man the way she felt about him had forced her heart to speak the words that her mind knew she shouldn’t. Proving that her body belonged to him more than it would ever belong to her—or Milo.
Jon’s eyes widened the moment the words left her lips too. As their meaning continued waging war on him, a battle that appeared to grow more deadly every second, he held his breath. Looking just as stunned upon hearing those words as she’d felt having said them, he spluttered for several moments and then closed his eyes, presumably to find his center—a center that was probably crumbling to pieces inside him at a pace too rapid to reel in. After several trembling breaths, after his breathing had calmed, he opened his eyes once more.
“V, I—” The sound of the front door clicking open downstairs, followed by the muffled voices of the family as they piled back into the house, stole his words before he could finish.
Their eyes flew toward the bathroom door, and they gasped in time.
The water sloshed violently around them as Viola took the soaking wet cotton of his shirt in two fists and shoved him. “They’re home, Jon. Get out before they see us. Quick!”
Jon pushed himself up out of the tub, his arms flexing as his soaking wet clothes added what had to be an extra fifty pounds of weight to his body. Globs of water sloshed down from the hem of his shirt like a waterfall, causing sprinkles to ricochet off the surface and splash her in the face.
He stumbled out of the tub and raced for the bathroom door, leaving a trail of heavy puddles in his wake.
Viola waited until he’d raced out of the bathroom to cover her smiling lips, muffling the deep belly snicker that bubbled out of her lips a moment later.
As soon as the laughter was there however, it was gone, and her smile vanished shortly after, as well.
Soon, she was staring blankly at the open door of the bathroom, wondering when her heart had fallen out of her chest, sank to the floor of the tub, and hit the bottom with a dull thud.
——
Later that night, Viola was still at odds. She’d reclaimed the smile
that had fallen from her face in the bathroom earlier that day, but only because she was sitting at a dinner table with her two favorite people in the world. That very smile was seconds from disappearing from her face once more, however, because one of those people seemed to be on a one-man mission to destroy her life completely.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Milo demanded, snapping Viola out of her reverie. “You’re giving me that serial killer look again. Is there something you need to get off your chest, or is that just your new face?”
Viola clenched her teeth from across the round table at the upscale restaurant, convinced that the flickering candle sitting atop the white tablecloth was making the fury in her eyes flash with even more ferocity than they would’ve by nature.
“I’m not looking at you in any type of way,” she chirped. “Just taking note of how handsome you are. Perhaps the intense attraction I feel for you is incorrectly manifesting itself as deep, blinding hatred. But I have no reason to hate you, Milo… do I?”
Milo squinted at her.
Jon’s eyes dashed back and forth between them, leaning forward on the table with his hands clasped at his lips. When the silence that fell stretched on for a little too long, he cleared his throat and leaned forward.
“So, how did you two get around to fucking each other?” Jon asked.
Milo cut a look at him. “You already know how we met.”
“Yeah, you met at NYU, friends to lovers, blah, blah, blah…” Jon waved his hands around. “What I mean is… you two are so different. You don’t really make sense. So what was it? What was the straw that broke the camels back? A drunken college party where you both went home alone? The depressing feeling of facing another night in an empty bed? A moment of weakness, loneliness, where you both threw caution to the wind and gave into your foolish urges? Then woke up the next morning with regrets but too afraid to let go of the friendship, so you decided to begin a faux relationship instead?”
Milo curled his lip. “Watch yourself, bro.”
“Jon,” Viola whispered, tilting her head at him.
Jon shot her a look, and this time, it was her turn to wonder why he was looking at her like a serial killer. Like he was imagining all the different ways he could chop up her limbs and angle them into his deep freezer like a Tetris game.
“You have to forgive me if I’m overstepping my bounds, Milo, but I think we can all be honest with each other about the fact that something’s…” He motioned between Viola and Milo with a soft smile, shaking his head. “Off. I see it. Dad sees it. Grandma definitely sees it. I know you guys hear all the slick comments under her breath whenever you walk into a room. So what is this… really?”
“Viola is mine, and I’m hers,” Milo said. “That’s what this is.”
“See…” Jon craned his neck as if trying to crack it. “See, the way you just said that, though? That robotic tone of voice you’re using? That doesn’t scream true love to me. First girl you ever brought home? I’d assume that must be pretty serious. I’d assume you’d be screaming at the top of your lungs. Shouting it from every rooftop.”
“Jon,” Viola warned again.
“When have you ever known me to shout from any rooftop?” Milo grinned.
Viola shifted. How was Milo so calm? Apparently, he understood Jon more deeply than Viola had realized. She didn’t know why she was so surprised. He’d grown up with Jon after all. The casual observer would assume Milo was so even-keeled because he knew his relationship with Viola was a fraud, so he couldn’t find it in himself to get genuinely angry with Jon for questioning its legitimacy. The look Milo and Jon shared proved to Viola that this was a game Jon often played. One that Milo hadn’t just gotten used to, but had been waiting for.
She found herself eyeing Jon with her chest heaving, trying to hold herself together. Milo was clearly hip to his game, but she wasn’t. She was still getting to know Jon. All of his subconscious little habits and weird little intricacies. Was the game Jon was playing with Milo right then the same game he was playing with her? Was their budding relationship nothing but some twisted way for Jon to one-up his little brother? A brother with whom he shared a relationship that might’ve looked still on the surface, but clearly ran deeper than she could’ve ever imagined?
And most terrifying of all, was she just a pawn in Jon’s game? Just a way to get to Milo? To win whatever fucked up game the two of them were playing together? Was any of this real? Her heart squeezed a little tighter as every breathtaking question racing through her heart made it squeeze a little tighter.
“Frankly, you sound a little jealous,” Milo went on. “World famous rock star like yourself? What reason would you have to envy me?”
Jon’s eyebrows shot up as he gave a breathy laugh, muttering, “You have no idea,” before lifting his shot of Jack Daniels and downing it in one swallow.
Viola tried to take a deep breath, heard how badly it was shaking, and decided to hold it instead. Maybe if she held it for long enough, she’d drop dead from the lack of oxygen and be forever freed from the hellhole that was that table.
“Straight up,” Jon said, motioning between Viola and Milo. “Is it serious between you two? Or is she just a prop? Just a pretty face to flaunt around for a few weeks to get Mom and Dad off your back?”
Viola and Milo shared a look, equally as taken off guard by Jon’s perceptiveness.
Her eyes fluttered shut. Admitting her budding love for Jon—and her absence of love for Milo—in the bathtub earlier had been a mistake. It had been the truth, but still a mistake. A foolish admission that she’d believed would help Jon cope with their affair had only proved to further break him down. To the point that he couldn’t subsist. Couldn’t maintain a smiling face long enough to get through a dinner that’d been designed to make amends with his brother. He really had intended for this to be a nice meal. A way for him and Milo to bridge the gap and start repairing their broken relationship.
But those days were done.
And it was her fault.
“Is this really why you invited us to this fancy place tonight?” Milo asked, attempting to keep his voice low as not to disturb the high-end diners at the tables surrounding them. “Really, Jon?”
“Not sure what you’re insinuating. I’m just making an observation. Just trying to get to know my brother’s new girl, that’s all. Hey, if I’m wrong, call me out.” Jon held out his hands with wide eyes, feigning innocence. He went to say something more, but the waiter came up behind him before he could.
“Your entrees should be out shortly,” the waiter said while re-filling Jon’s water.
“Thank you.” Jon pointed to Milo’s empty wine glass. “My brother will have another.” He shifted his finger to Viola’s empty glass as well, his eyes intense as they locked to hers. “And so will she, please.”
“I’m good.” Milo covered the top of his wine glass. “I’ve had enough. Last thing I need is to get carried back into the house again for Dad to see.”
“I know it’s hard to cope now that there’s a big fat crack right down the middle of that prodigal son veneer, bro, but one more glass of wine isn’t gonna kill you,” Jon said. “At some point, you’re gonna have to stop giving a fuck what Dad thinks and start living your own life.”
“How ironic, Jon because I think you could stand to take your own advice,” Viola jumped in, meeting his eyes. “I don’t think there’s a single soul in that house who gives more of a fuck about what your Dad thinks than you. At least Milo is honest about it. You’re just full of shit.”
Jon held her eyes for a long moment, the deep ocean of emotion crashing through them enough to leave her breathless.
Running a trembling hand down his lips, he sniffled and motioned to their glasses once more, speaking to the waiter again. “They’ll both have another.”
“Right away, sir.” The waiter bowed and promptly left the table, clearly as eager to escape the suffocating, awkward vibe at that table as Viola was.
> “So, are we gonna have a nice dinner, or nah?” Viola’s lips curled down at the corners. She felt torn. On one hand, she was protective of Milo, who she knew only craved his parent’s approval so badly because he was suffering from a self-loathing so deep-seated even she hadn’t known the full depths of it until they’d landed in Utah. On the other hand, she was falling in love with Jon. She wanted Jon. She craved Jon. Every bone in her body wanted to wrap him up in her arms and protect him from the pain that never seemed to fully leave his eyes. She understood how badly he wanted to make things right with his family, even though he had no idea how. That dinner would’ve been a great start to making things right with Milo, but because of her—and her stupid mouth—it was well on its way to making things ten times worse.
She’d done this.
It was her fault.
And she had no idea how to fix it.
As the waiter came back to the table and re-filled her red wine, she didn’t waste a second after the spout had left the rim to seize the glass and empty it in a few swallows. She slammed the empty glass back down on the table, prompting the waiter, who’d just re-filled Milo’s glass as well, to circle back and re-fill hers again.
Her eyes shifted to Jon.
He was still watching her, blue eyes narrowed. Wounded. Ripe with betrayal.
She didn’t know how to fix him.
She didn’t know how to fix either of them.
It was quickly occurring to her that, if this went on much longer, she might very well die trying.
Twenty-One
Dinner with Jon and Milo had proved to be every bit as agonizing as Viola expected it would be, and she found herself thanking the highest God when the evening came to its much-anticipated end. She thanked that God a second time when, upon re-entering the darkened Moore house that evening, she didn’t find Robert sitting in the chair next to the door, waiting to catch them in the midst of another devious act. Exhaling in relief, she looked over her shoulder and waved Jon in from where he was lingering on the porch behind her. He stepped into the foyer with an unconscious Milo on his shoulder.
Refrain (Stereo Hearts Book 3) Page 26