Family.
He thought of me as family. I had started to see him that way too. Where were my loyalties supposed to lie?
I loved my family. It had never mattered that they weren’t blood; I loved them like they were. And when Calla met Kent freshmen year in college, he easily became a part of our family as well.
A family’s job was to protect one another. To protect those you loved at any cost. But… I loved Nick and Catherine, too.
Where was the justice in any of this?
The only way I could help one was to destroy the other.
He doesn’t need to know.
Kent’s traitorous words kept flashing through my head, and with each passing day they dug down a little further, cemented themselves a little more, until the idea didn’t seem as ridiculous as it had when he first suggested it.
But I knew—ridiculous or not—I wouldn’t be able to continue my relationship with Nick, not with this lie between us.
Our hearts were pounding fast. Unlike that dance in her kitchen months earlier, they were the same speed. Both living to the fullest. Both living with so much pleasure our hearts wanted to burst free.
I tried to get Iris to relax when we got here, but as soon as I walked through the door she pulled me into a thought-shattering kiss, and an hour later here we were. Sweaty and spent, and tangled in her sheets.
She was lying on her stomach, her head tilted my way with her eyes closed and a small, exhausted smile on her face. Her bedding was bunched around her waist, covering her legs and leaving her back exposed. My fingers itched to trace her spine, to feel her shivers as they dipped beneath the sheet and found her center, circling her clit until she was writhing and panting for more. Then I’d lift her to her knees and slam into her from behind…
Despite my fatigue, my cock suddenly thought that was a brilliant idea, sinking into the woman I loved…
Because I did. I loved her. More than anyone. More than I thought humanly possible. And I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“I love you,” I whispered. She stilled and her eyes slowly opened as I held my breath. I hadn’t said those words to a woman in four years. I hadn’t planned to do it tonight. But sometimes the right moment couldn’t be planned. It could only be seized.
“What?” she choked out, shocked.
Scooting closer, I rested my hand against the center of her back. “I love you.”
Iris sat up, my hand dropping in the process, and wrapped the bedding around herself completely.
I tried not to let my disappointment show when she didn’t immediately respond—especially since she looked troubled by the prospect. But the feeling was coursing through me as naturally as the blood in my veins.
Iris’s mouth opened and shut as she teared up. Regardless of my dejection, I didn’t want her to feel bad for something she might not be ready for. She deserved as much time to figure out her feelings as I did.
“It’s okay. Wait until you’re ready.” I smiled and ran my hand through her hair.
“Nick, I’m sor—”
“Don’t apologize. It’s okay, really.” Leaning forward, I gave her a kiss. She still seemed unsettled, and part of me almost regretted saying it. Maybe it had been too soon. We’d only been officially seeing each other for three months.
I pulled her into my arms, hoping to calm her turmoil. Unfortunately it did nothing for the mounting anxiety inside me.
I could see the naked vulnerability as he told me he loved me, anxiously waiting for me to return the words. But I couldn’t do it.
He told me he loved me.
And I was just sitting here.
Oh God.
But how could I say it back when I was lying to him? Keeping something so monumental from him? How was this ever supposed to work out in my favor?
My thoughts were spiraling, and I felt tears of frustration build in my eyes.
“Hey, hey,” Nick whispered, scooting closer. “Really, you don’t need to say it back. That’s not why I told you. I don’t expect you to return it. I took my time, you take yours.”
He interpreted my freak-out wrong.
I wanted to shout, OF COURSE I LOVE YOU! But I couldn’t.
“Seriously, I don’t need you to say it back.” And with a smile he leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. My hand curled into a fist around his T-shirt, my heart swelling and breaking all at once.
Everyone wanted to hear it back. I didn’t care if you were the nicest, most patient person on the planet, when you told someone you loved them, you wanted to hear it back. Even if you weren’t hurt, you were a little disappointed—you had to be.
So I tried to say it in other ways.
My hands said it as I caressed his chest.
My lips whispered it as I kissed him.
“Lie down,” I murmured. He obeyed, scrambling backward. I crawled after him, my hands brushing his legs every time I moved. I was midway when I paused. My left hand was on the mattress by his hip, while my right skimmed the inside of his thigh. My touch was light and teasing, and I loved watching his eyes heat as he looked at me.
“Iris…” he whispered, his hands forming fists to keep himself from touching me.
Flattening my palm on his leg, I moved up slowly until I was cupping his balls, gently rolling them in my hand. I felt my underwear become damp at Nick’s low moan. He sounded completely tortured.
I decided to put him out of his misery, leaning down and wrapping my lips around the tip of his dick.
“Shit.” His hand snaked out and gripped my hair, pulling me closer. I eagerly opened my mouth, taking as much of him as I could. “Fuck yes.”
My other hand fisted around the base of him as I slowly worked him over. I groaned as he grabbed my hair tighter and started slowly pumping, taking control. Nick’s pants echoed throughout the room and just when I thought he was close, he pulled me up and smashed his lips against mine.
“I wanna come inside you,” he whispered against my mouth before kissing me again. I had no complaints.
Then he pushed into me—the first stroke since saying I love you, and I closed my eyes at how perfect it all felt. But also because I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t cry. This kind of perfection just highlighted all I had to lose.
That night, I fell asleep with his kiss on my lips, and I knew I would wake up tomorrow with his love wrapped around me.
But for how much longer?
Lies were like a virus, touching everything, infecting everything… even the truth. I couldn’t find solace in a single thing I said to Nick. Everything was tainted because of a single lie.
I didn’t understand how people could do this so frequently; it felt like I was suffocating under the weight of it.
“Iris, are you okay?” Catherine asked as she placed a hand on my arm. Snapping out of my trance, I turned to face her.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I guess I spaced out.” I smiled and moved to step around her when she stopped me.
“Are you sure?” Her voice was low and concerned. “Maybe you’re coming down with something.” She put the back of her hand to my forehead. I felt like the small child she was treating me as.
I gently grabbed her wrist and pulled it away. Trying to give her a more reassuring smile, I said, “Yes. I’m fine. Just stressed with the end of school, I suppose.”
It was the middle of December, classes were wrapping up and it was a plausible enough excuse. But truthfully I was overwhelmed. I rarely felt this way, but surrounded by everyone I loved (minus Aster, who wasn’t flying in until the twenty-second), and with a black cloud hanging over us, I felt completely alone and incapable of handling what was to come.
My parents decided to have a Christmas party. They wanted Kent and Calla to have a do-over with Nick, and they also figured it was a perfect time to meet Nick’s mom. But they invited over other friends so it didn’t resemble the ambush from a month earlier.
Catherine brought Trevor, and that was who Nick was currently talking to. Kent
and Calla had done an excellent job steering clear of him, and every time my mother noticed she frowned and looked at me in question. I shrugged and downed whatever drink was nearby.
So now I was lying to my mom.
And every time Nick looked over at me, he seemed worried. Not for himself, but because, like Catherine, he thought I was getting sick. They had all this concern—all this love—for me and I was lying to them.
I spotted Calla across the room, bouncing Mirielle and staring at her husband with a faraway look, like she’d already lost him.
My hand laid flat against my stomach. I was truly going to be sick.
“Really, dear. Maybe you should go lie down…”
My eyes met my sister’s. She nodded—resigned—and inclined her head toward the bedrooms before disappearing down the hall. I looked back at Catherine. “That sounds like a good idea. Will you let Nick know if he asks?”
She smiled. “You mean when.”
“Huh?” I asked, already distracted by the conversation Calla and I were about to have.
“You mean when Nick asks about you.” Catherine pushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Because he will. I’ve never seen him like this with someone. Like he always wants to know where you are. Not in a creepy way,” she rushed to add, providing me with my first real laugh tonight.
“You’re just…” I held my breath as she thought of the word. “The sun. His sun. He orbits around you, like he has no choice. Like you’re necessary to his survival.”
My heart stopped. It was quite possibly the sweetest thing she could have said.
You’re lying to her. You’re lying to him.
That thought kick-started my heart, cracking it right down the middle.
“Listen to me.” Catherine blushed and waved away the words. “I start dating and become a sappy romantic.”
Leaning forward, I hugged her. “Thank you,” I whispered. I didn’t know what for, possibly for everything. For coming into my life. For bringing Nick into my life. Or just for being who she was.
We pulled away and with one last watery smile, I turned and left before I could blurt everything out. My steps were quick as I walked down the hall toward the room my parents had set up for Mirielle.
I stopped short in the doorway when I heard my sister’s soft cries. She had put her daughter in the crib and was standing above it, staring down at her. With one last glance down the hall, I stepped through and shut the door.
“I never wanted to put you in this position,” she whispered.
“I know, and I…” I stepped away from the door and went to her side. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I love you and Kent. But I love Nick, too.”
Calla sniffled. “I know you do.” She looked up at me with a small smile. “It’s in your eyes.”
I reached down and rubbed my niece’s cheek.
“He told me he loved me, but I couldn’t say it back. Not when…” I pulled my hand away when I felt it clench in frustration.
What did my love mean if he didn’t know? Like a tree falling in the forest when no one was around, was my love of any use if I couldn’t tell Nick?
“I’ve tried, Calla. I have, but I can’t do this anymore. It’s only been a week but I feel like I’m being ripped apart. I can’t lie to him. Every day he looks at me with so much love and trust, and every time I continue to say nothing, I’m betraying that. I love him. And I haven’t been able to say it because I don’t want to do it with a tainted heart. Please…” I started crying.
My big sister pulled me into her arms, holding me secure with one hand around my back and comforting me with the other as she ran her hand down my hair.
“Shhh… I already talked to Kent last night. We both understand. We’re… we’re so sorry, Iris. This wasn’t how any of it was supposed to go.”
Mirielle slept peacefully, her soft snores filling the room, while Calla and I held on to each other and fell apart.
Iris was acting weird. I tried not to read into it. I tried not to assume it had anything to do with me saying “I love you.” But nearly a week had passed and she was still fidgety.
I was standing with Trevor, talking about how I was looking into taking a couple business classes so I could start making owning my own restaurant a reality, when my eyes landed on my ma. She was standing by herself, staring down the hallway I knew led to the bedrooms.
“She’s worried about Iris.” I looked back to see his eyes on my ma as well, a frown pulling at his features.
“Me too. She…” I blew out a breath and grabbed the back of my neck. “I told her I loved her. I think it might have freaked her out.” But even as I said it, it didn’t feel right. I just couldn’t imagine what else was going on.
“Your mom told me what happened last time you guys were here,” Trevor said with a shrug. “Maybe she’s worried about a repeat.”
Nodding, I looked around for Iris. It was a possibility, but again, it didn’t feel like the truth. I frowned when I couldn’t find her—also noting that Calla was missing—before excusing myself to go talk to my ma. Trevor said he’d hit the bathroom and join us, but really I think he was just giving us privacy.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up. She turned toward me, throwing on a bright smile.
“Hi, dear.”
My lips lifted, trying to match her smile. “Do you know where Iris is?”
“Oh. She still wasn’t feeling well. I told her to go lie down.” My smile dropped as I moved away from my ma, but she stopped me. “Maybe give her a few minutes?”
I tried to relax as I nodded, but it was really just to appease my mother. When Iris and Calla stepped out of a bedroom door ten minutes later, I felt my muscles loosen. They were whispering, their shoulders hunched over like a painful weight rested on both of them.
Iris’s eyes met mine when they split up at the mouth of the hallway. My mother and Trevor had been talking amongst themselves for the past five minutes, so I didn’t bother saying anything before I made my way to Iris.
“Hi.” She smiled—nowhere near as bright as normal—in response, but didn’t say anything. “You feeling better?”
“A little.” I pulled her into a hug and rubbed my hands up and down her back. Her arms wrapped around my waist and settled on my lower back. And I felt her sigh in relief as she snuggled closer to me, assuaging some of my unease.
Iris stayed close to me for the rest of the night. I didn’t mind, but it felt like such a one-eighty from her pulling away that I felt a building dread in my stomach. One that told me I was about to be crushed.
The only good thing about my mind being this preoccupied with Iris was that I barely had any time to think about Kent. We exchanged a few tense nods, but other than that, it was like he didn’t exist.
Until the end.
Everyone else had cleared out. The only people left were Iris and her family, my ma, Trevor, and me. Kent and Calla were in the nursery, checking on Mirielle, while the rest of us said goodbye in the foyer.
“Nicky, why don’t you and Iris go say goodnight to Mirielle? Trevor and I will wait here,” my ma said with a wide grin. I knew what she was doing. She was trying to get me to have at least one conversation with Kent tonight. Iris seemed a bit taken aback, and she looked like she was about to let me off the hook. But I knew how much this would mean to my mother.
“Sure, Ma,” I said as I grabbed Iris’s hand. “We’ll be right back.”
It felt like I was dragging her down the hallway. We both stopped when we heard low voices and sniffles coming from the room.
“It’ll be okay. Please believe me,” Kent said. I frowned as Iris froze next to me.
“I’m scared,” Calla cried.
“Don’t be. We’re going to make it through this as a family. I promise.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Lily.”
Now it was my turn to freeze.
Lily?
“Lily, I don’t…” He sounded torn.
It couldn’t be…
This is the only way to and from their house…
Fertility treatments…
Lose her…
As the pieces fell into place, I felt myself being torn apart. But I tried to hold out hope. I turned my head toward Iris, ready to find her confused.
When my eyes met hers, my knees nearly buckled.
She wasn’t confused.
She knew exactly what had happened.
And like an idiot, I’d let myself fall… again…
I knew it. I fucking knew it.
That was the first conscious thought I had once I got over the shock.
“Nick,” Iris began, reaching for me. I stepped back and glared, swiftly shaking my head before I stormed past her and into the room.
“It was you?” I asked Kent as the door slammed against the wall. They both looked down into the crib as I felt Iris come up behind me.
“Can we talk somewhere else? She’s sleeping…” Calla whispered.
“Sure. Let’s go in the backyard and have some hot cocoa and sit around the fire pit while we discuss this,” I bit back.
“Nick—” Kent began.
“No.” I was tired of lies. “Did you run me off the road?”
He swallowed, running his gaze over his wife before looking back at his daughter. With his head still facing the crib, he said, “Yes.”
“We’re sorry. It was an accident—” Iris’s sister started before I cut her off.
“Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. I just… I can’t believe I was actually this stupid.”
“Nick, you weren’t—” Iris spoke up again.
“Don’t. Just don’t.” I shook my head. “I have to get out of here.” I about-faced and walked toward the front door. There had been no shouts, so when I heard their laughter abruptly cut off upon seeing my face, I wasn’t surprised.
“What’s wrong?” my ma asked as she stepped forward.
“Is Mirielle okay?” Iris’s mother immediately asked, looking ready to race down the hall.
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