“You are a freak.” Brynne’s voice is scathing, and the way she’s looking at me right now shreds my heart into a million painful scraps. “You’re no better than Jesse and Tara.”
I had been feeling wretched and ashamed over what I’d done and the pain it must have caused Brynne to see that, but comparing me to Jesse and Tara causes a wave of heat to sweep through me, followed by flowing iciness in my veins.
“I resent that,” I growl. “I went into a willing relationship with two people I love, and I didn’t do it behind someone else’s back. It’s not the same.”
“You can’t love two people that way,” she hisses. “It’s not right.”
“I agree,” I snarl, my anger continuing to rise. She’s making me feel like shit, while marring the beautiful memories I had with my two best friends. But I need her to understand, so I try to explain by emphasizing for a second time. “I agree that you cannot fully love two people that way, which is why I ended it. I love Avril and Dane as best friends, and when I realized they were falling into a different type of love, I. Backed. Away. A threesome… it’s kinky and taboo and it’s fine for getting your rocks off, but it’s not sustainable. Don’t you get that it makes you and me a lot more alike than you are admitting?”
“No, it makes you a lot like Jesse and Tara,” she seethes, finally unfurling her arms from across her stomach and taking two aggressive steps toward me. “They did it to get their rocks off, too.”
My anger takes away my rationality. “Tara did it because she was in love with your fiancé, and she wanted you to find that photo.”
Brynne blanches and takes a step back, her hand coming to her throat where it rests with a slight tremble to it. “What?”
I huff out a frustrated breath, dropping my head to silently count to three before facing her to confess what I’d done. “I had them investigated. I wanted some leverage over them to make Jesse buy you out. They’d been sleeping together behind your back for months. Tara wanted him and thought he loved her. I think he led her on, but she set that photo up for you to find to break you two up.”
“You’re lying,” she murmurs in almost a pleading tone. As if she wants me to take back that truth.
“I’m not,” I state. “And you can’t compare me to them. I did not cheat on anyone when I was with Avril and Dane.”
If I’d expected any of what I just said to penetrate Brynne’s anger, I’d have been wrong. She snorts, and her voice is bitter when she says, “When you were telling me about your friendship with Avril and Dane, I thought it was such a unique bond you shared with them. I mean, you told me that you three did everything together…and, wow, you really meant everything. How am I supposed to compete with that type of bond?”
“You don’t compete.” I step into her, put her hands on my shoulders, then grip them when she starts to pull away. “What I had with them is done, and it has been for a long time. We’re nothing but friends.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me?” she asks with an almost hysterical laugh. “Do you honestly think I could ever sit down to dinner with the three of you again without constantly thinking about what you did together? The way you know Avril’s body so much more intimately than mine?”
“Brynne,” I say softly, trying to draw her into me.
She jerks away, pushing my hands off her. “You lied to me.”
“I know,” I say wearily. “Again, I knew how you felt about threesomes and how much they disgusted you. I didn’t—”
Her face fierce, she puts her hands to my chest to shove me back from her. “No. You lied about Avril and Dane. I asked you how two people went from being best friends to falling in love after so many years, and you told me you didn’t know. But you did. You had an up close and personal seat to the entire event, and you lied to me about it.”
“Because I knew you’d hate me for it,” I bark, my patience at a complete end. “I was wrong to keep it from you. I should have told you about it, especially when you asked those types of questions. But I didn’t want to ruin what I had with you. It was fragile, and I was afraid. I made a poor choice—”
“You did,” she butts in, her voice dropping low. “You made a mistake in picking me up on the side of the road, and I made the bigger mistake for getting in your car. Why I ever thought I should put my trust out there again is beyond me.”
“Brynne.”
She turns away from me, stalking into the bedroom. I don’t follow her, figuring she might need a little space.
Instead, I’m shocked and then saddened when she exits a few minutes later with her rolling suitcase. She doesn’t spare me a glance as she makes her way to the kitchen island to grab her purse.
As she slings it over her shoulder, she says, “I’ll make arrangements to get the rest of my stuff as soon as I can.”
“Where are you going?” I ask, feeling helpless.
Her voice is cold and clipped as she beelines for the door. “Back home. I decided to accept a job offer I received from my old boss. Just emailed him to confirm it.”
“Please don’t,” I plead as I scramble to block her path. When she pulls up short and scowls at me, I hold out my hands in an appeasing gesture. “Please stay and let’s talk. I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
Her eyes blazing with determination, she vehemently denies me. “I think I’ve finally learned my lesson when it comes to men and love. It’s all a bunch of bullshit, but I guess I should thank you for proving that to me. I won’t make this mistake again.”
“Brynne,” I implore, her name coming out in a broken whisper.
Pain flashes briefly on her face, but she quickly masks the emotion behind cold indifference as she shoulders her way past me to the door. I watch as she struggles to open it and wrangle her big suitcase through, not moving a muscle to help her. I’ll be damned if I’m going to help her walk out of my life.
“You’re not being fair,” I say to her back as she steps through. That causes her to pause. Feeling a slight kernel of hope, I push on. “It’s not fair for you to compare me to the other people in your life who have hurt you. I’ve done nothing but love you and try to protect you.”
Brynne’s shoulders slump, and I think perhaps I’ve actually reached something within her that can help to rationalize this. But then she gives a tiny sigh of resignation and only says, “Maybe so. But you also hurt me, and that wasn’t done by mistake. You knew what this would do to me if I found out this way.”
Now my shoulders are the ones that slump, because there’s no defense to that. I knew the risk I was running by not being up front with her about my relationship with Avril and Dane.
It’s why I don’t try to stop her again as she steps fully over the threshold and the door shuts behind her.
Because maybe the reason I didn’t tell her the truth was because what we had wasn’t as real as I’d made it out to be in my head.
I know she can lay a breach of trust squarely at my feet and I accept that, but maybe—just maybe—I didn’t trust her enough to put it all out on the table either. And maybe that means Brynne wasn’t the one for me like I thought.
CHAPTER 20
Brynne
I trudge up the walkway to my front door, flipping idly through the mail I’d just pulled out of my mailbox.
Mostly junk, a few bills, and my monthly check from Jesse. It’s the second one I’d received since I returned to San Diego, and the shock of seeing it there is as strong as when I’d received one last month.
And that’s because it’s a visceral reminder of how much my life has changed in the last few months, and in such unbelievably bad ways.
That monthly salary check I receive from Jesse as part of the severance pay he gave me represents the complete failure of my own personal happiness. It’s a bitter portent of my fiancé cheating on me, my best friend plotting to steal him away, me falling in love with a handsome stranger who seemed to be everything I could ever want, and the realization I was not meant to be in love
with someone wonderful.
My phone buzzes in my purse. I juggle the mail and my keys as I come to the front door so I can grab it. When I have it in hand, I’m disappointed to see it’s a text from my new place of employment reminding me that my first appointment is tomorrow at eight AM.
I don’t respond back, trying to ignore the sadness that it’s not the text I’d been wanting to see.
Strangely, I’d been wanting to see a text from Avril, as she had been fairly diligent in harassing me over the last few months.
I have no clue how she got my number. Andrew would not have given it to her willingly, but with her wealth and means, I suppose she didn’t have a difficult time getting it at all.
Whereas Andrew had given up trying to talk to me—he’d called, texted, and emailed ruthlessly those first two weeks after I’d returned to San Diego—Avril has consistently been a thorn in my side. After Andrew stopped reaching out, Avril kicked it into high gear. She left me long voice mails attempting to make sense of the fucked-up relationship the three of them had, and her texts were no less preach-worthy. When I didn’t respond or indicate in any way that her words were starting to break through—and they were—her tone took on an aggressiveness that spoke of just how much she loved Andrew and wanted him to be happy. No longer trying to explain away their abhorrent behavior, she started blaming me for my shortsightedness.
For my lack of compassion and understanding.
She called me vain and judgmental, and once even a prude.
But through it all, she always ended with a plea that I give Andrew another chance because his heart was broken and there was never going to be anyone else who would ever replace me.
Ugh… that touched me deeper than anything else she had told me to date. Yet, I hadn’t responded or given her any indication I was doubting my rash decision in leaving the man I loved.
Still love.
God, I love him, but fuck if I can reconcile everything in my head. I keep getting things jumbled up, and I sometimes still lay blame for Jesse and Tara’s actions on Andrew’s doorstep because I can’t distinguish between his past actions and theirs.
The weirdest thing is that the more I replay Avril’s voice mails—yes, I saved them all—and read her texts, the more I start to find some beauty in their unique friendship.
Not in the sexual acts—that still sits in my stomach weirdly—but that they were able to move past it. That Andrew was keen enough to recognize Avril and Dane had something special, and, more importantly, that their friendship had survived the sexualized taboo part of it.
But yeah… I’m sad that when my phone just buzzed it wasn’t Avril. In fact, I haven’t heard from her in almost a week, which tells me she’s given up on me, too.
With a sigh, I slip my phone back in my purse and unlock my front door, prepared to face another lonely night where I’m weighed down with wondering just how great my mistakes really are.
The truth is I miss Andrew so much… and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who screwed things up.
♦
I knock incessantly on Jesse’s front door, not really caring it’s almost two AM. The noise of him stomping through the house, grumbling loudly, reaches me first, then he’s swinging the door open.
His glare turns into an expression of delighted surprise to see me there. “Brynne.”
Disregarding the fact he’s in a pair of boxer shorts, I hand the envelope I’d been carrying across the threshold to him. “I wanted to return this to you.”
Jesse’s eyebrows knit tightly in confusion, inspecting the envelope after he takes it from me.
“I don’t want you to continue to pay me the severance,” I say as I take a step back from his door.
He raises his head, jaw clenching with what appears to be frustration now. “And you had to tell me this at two AM, why?”
“I didn’t,” I say with a shrug. “But I did want to ask you something.”
“Something that couldn’t be done by phone or say, at a decent hour?” he asks, then leans against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest. It’s obvious he’s irritated at me, but he’s also not shutting the door in my face.
“Andrew forced you to accept my offer to buy me out, didn’t he?” I ask. Even though it’s a question, the confidence in my voice probably tells Jesse I won’t believe him if he denies it.
“He persuaded me,” he says tightly.
“He had something over you,” I guess.
Jesse refuses to answer, but I can see it in his eyes.
“How did he make you do it?” I press, hoping there’s still some level of care he may have for me or even a sliver of remaining guilt that would induce him into satisfying my curiosity.
He remains stubbornly silent.
“It must have been horrible,” I taunt, hoping to press a button that will let his emotions get the better of him. “Whatever he had on you.”
Jesse’s jaw locks, but I’m surprised when he gives me an answer of sorts. “It wasn’t horrible, but it put the issue of money and buying you out into better perspective. Let’s just say he appealed to me in a way that made me realize I couldn’t not accept your offer to buy me out.”
I purse my lips, not satisfied at all with that answer. As I consider another way around, Jesse pushes off the doorjamb and steps backward into his foyer. With his hand on the knob, he says, “Well, it was lovely catching up with you, Brynne. I’ll honor your request not to send any future severance checks to you, and wish you all the best. Bye now.”
He starts to shut the door, but I slam my palm into it before it can fully close. “Wait.”
Jesse peers out, but I can only see a sliver of his face in the open doorway. Regardless, I can feel his annoyance, so I make it quick. “I wish you the best, too.”
The one eye visible to me rounds with surprise as the corner of his mouth drops open in astonishment.
“Really,” I assure him. “I’m over what you did.”
And I realize… I am.
I hadn’t shown up at his house in the wee hours of the morning thinking I’d achieve a level of peace tonight with Jesse. I’d merely wanted to break all my ties with him, because I needed to fully be able to leave his betrayal behind. I had to let go of all the nastiness in my heart. The bitterness and wounded-bird mentality. I had to release the shock of what he did to me, and who he did it with. I had to forgive him, as best I could, if I ever wanted to truly open my heart to someone in the future.
If I ever wanted another chance with Andrew, which at this point, I’m still not quite sure I do.
Or that I deserve it.
But I need to clean my slate of all negative things.
I have to consciously rewire my way of thinking, so I don’t let future opportunities be swayed or colored by things over which I have no control.
In other words, I need to change the filters on my glasses and start looking at things a little clearer.
CHAPTER 21
Andrew
The knock on my office door irritates me, and I choose to ignore it. I hope my actions irritate the person on the other side, because I suppose I want people to feel as miserable as I do these days.
I try to focus on the article I’m reading on my computer screen about HIV, but none of it’s sinking in. That’s probably because I keep thinking of Brynne, and wondering what she’s doing.
Is she sad that we’re no more?
Does she even still think about me?
Is she still disgusted over what I had with Avril and Dane, which, by the way, has started to disgust me?
And that she managed to take an experience that was ultimately a cherished memory for me, and somehow tarnish it to the extent that I feel an oily, sludgy type of emotion in my gut when I so much as look at my friends now really pisses me off.
Knock, knock.
Ignoring the sound, I clench and unclench my fist a few times before leaning in to peer at my screen once more.
My office door opens, which me
ans it could only be one of two people who would dare to disturb me, and I raise my head to see Dane standing there.
I glare at him briefly before putting on a faux expression of deep concentration and returning my attention back to my laptop. “I’m busy.”
“You’re about to be,” he says ominously. “Let’s go.”
Shoulders tensing, I feel my temper start to boil. “Excuse me?”
“Let’s go,” he orders me with a supercilious smile on his face. “I’m your boss, and I’m ordering you to get your ass up from your desk and come with me.”
“Where are we going?” I ask skeptically.
“Away from the office,” he replies smoothly, gesturing I should precede him out the door he’s holding open. “For two months now, you’ve buried yourself in reports and research. No more. I need to discuss some business things with you, and I want to do it away from here. That way, I can be sure I have your undivided attention.”
I roll my eyes. “Not now. I’m right in the middle of something—”
“Now,” he barks. This Dane Hawthorne ordering me around so coldly is not my best friend. He’s not the man I’ve known for nearly two decades who has always had my back, and he’s certainly not the man I’ve shared carnal knowledge of his wife with.
“Dane,” I implore, because I know damn well he doesn’t want to talk about business.
He wants to talk about “me” and how I’m doing.
“Now,” he growls. “Or so help me God, I’ll fire you.”
“You won’t,” I assert confidently.
“I will,” he returns stubbornly. “But if you don’t believe that, then believe I’m deeply concerned about you and if you don’t give me the opportunity to assure myself that you’re okay, then that makes you a pretty shitty friend.
Asshole.
“Fine,” I mutter, closing my laptop and pushing out of my chair with a sigh of resignation.
Without a word, I follow Dane out of my office. I stop to tell my secretary I’ll be out for only a few minutes, but Dane tells her it will be longer and to cancel any appointments I might have for the day. Although she’s my secretary, she knows who ultimately pays her salary, so she says, “Of course, Mr. Hawthorne. Consider it done.”
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