Shattered Love

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “Well, you’re always welcome at mine.” The words fell from my mouth before my brain realized what I was saying.

  His blue irises glinted as he lifted his chin, catching my gaze. His lip hitched up. “You and I both know that isn’t true.”

  My parents didn’t want me hanging around him, but they’d never turn anyone away if they had no place to go. But I understood his meaning. I nodded and looked down at my blue-and-black striped socks.

  The door opened, turning both of our heads toward the entry.

  “Hey, honey, we’re home,” Chris’s voice hollered from the front door, echoing off the high ceilings. “You better have something to drink in this pitiful excuse of a house.” I heard Stevie snort at his comment, coming in behind him.

  Hunter headed for them. “Toilet water. It’s all we can afford here.”

  “And let me guess. Your toilet water is Evian.”

  “Perrier.”

  “Of course,” Stevie responded, taking off her coat, scarf, hat, and shoes, placing them with mine. She ventured into the living room where I was, her eyes growing a bit. “Wow.”

  “Wait till you see the kitchen and the pool,” I said.

  Stevie slanted her head. “Oh, right.” She nodded. “I forgot you’ve been here before.” Yes. I had been here before. I shifted, feeling the uncomfortable moment pressing down on the room, creating walls between Hunter and me.

  “Okay. Awk-ward.” Chris came up behind Stevie, wrapping one arm around her shoulder till his hand covered her mouth. “Think this one needs a drink. Maybe then she’ll stop talking.”

  “Hey!” She laughed, tearing away from his grip. “But I heartily agree with this sentiment. My mouth needs something to do.”

  Chris’s eyebrows went up, fully facing her. “I’ll give it something to do.” He stepped up to her with a grin.

  “Okay, wow. It went from awkward to nauseating.” Hunter twisted, heading for the kitchen/family room.

  I quickly followed him, but out the corner of my eye I saw Chris lean down and kiss Stevie. The Christmas lights dusted her face and cast a glowing light on her hair. My heart twisted in my chest. I was jealous. How easy it was with them. She liked him; he liked her. Simple. Sweet. No baggage or obstacles.

  Stevie and Chris came into the kitchen a few moments after me. “Holy shit. You were right.” Stevie slid her hands over the white marble worktops. “This kitchen is gorgeous. I could have sex on these counters.” She laid her head down on the surface.

  Chris opened his mouth, but Hunter pointed at him. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Too late. We had all thought of it already, and it wasn’t Stevie and Chris I imagined there. The image was so sharp I inhaled and walked from the room, heading for the family room. I curled on the large sectional sofa. What am I doing here? No matter how stupid I deemed being here, there was no way I would leave. The path may have been on fire, but still I took steps down it, knowing I was going to burn.

  “Are you kidding me?” Stevie went to the sliding glass door, looking out on the deck and pool area lit with path lights. The waterfall cascading into the pool and hot tub blazed with underwater lights.

  Hunter gave them each a beer and came over to me, handing me a bottle of cider.

  “Thanks.”

  He nodded and moved to the other side of the couch, putting as much space between us as possible.

  “How about strip Wii?” Chris jumped over the back, bouncing on the cushions.

  “No,” Hunter and I said in unison.

  “You guys are no fun.” Chris looked back and forth between us. “Normally you are all for it, Harris. What’s up?”

  “Denial of sexual tension.” Stevie came behind Chris, going straight for the hot button.

  “Speaking of.” He grabbed her and pulled her over his shoulder, onto the couch. Stevie squealed and squirmed, brushing her hair back into place as she sat up. Chris stretched out his long legs, watching her ruffle her hair, and though he didn’t make a move to touch her, his eyes said enough.

  Hunter and I didn’t look at each other, but I could see him shift in his seat.

  “All right, let’s play a game.” Stevie clapped her hands. By the time we finally decided on a bowling drinking game, Stevie and Chris were barely paying attention. It quickly lost its interest for all of us.

  “Show me where the bathroom is?” Stevie grabbed my hand, pulling me from the room. I knew this had nothing to do with her needing me to show her. Stevie was not the kind of girl who went to the bathroom in packs, unless she wanted to talk.

  I took her to the one on the first floor by Mr. Harris’s office. She closed the door and sucked in a breath.

  “What?” I folded my arms.

  “Is this okay with you?” She nibbled on her lower lip. “I mean are you okay with staying here tonight? Do you want to go? Because I totally will…”

  A snicker cracked from my throat, and I turned to the mirror, peeling off the bandage from my cheek. “I love you, Stevie, but leaving is the last thing you want to do.” I caught a glimpse of her in the reflection. A soft smile, one I had never seen, snaked across her face.

  “No. But I will.” She placed her hand on my arm, bringing me back around. “I will always pick you first.”

  The sentiment hit me, careening into heart. My arms circled around her in a tight hug. “Thank you,” I whispered. Sadly friends like her were rare. I’d hold on to her with all I had. “But, yes.” I leaned back. “I’m fine with staying here.”

  Her face grew into a bigger grin. “I don’t know what it is about Tarzan.” She fanned herself. “Thought of myself as more of a Jane kind of girl, but damn.”

  “I think you’ve met your match.” I winked and grabbed the doorknob.

  “So have you,” Stevie replied. I briefly squeezed my lids together but continued to walk through the door, not responding.

  Chris was strolling down the hall as I came out, pretending to appear lost. “Oh, is that the bathroom?” He pointed, progressing to the door I exited.

  “You’re not sly, Chris.” I shook my head, moving past him. Chris had been here before, and he knew Stevie was still in there.

  I quickened my steps so I wouldn’t hear anything coming from there. When I got back to the family room, it was empty. I stood, suddenly lost and alone. A picture of the family when the boys were young sat on the shelf. They looked happy, but I knew appearances could be deceiving. I looked fine on the outside but was a complete mess inside. My response to Stevie was not merely because I knew she wanted to stay, but because I did too. For Hunter.

  Fear struck like lightning at the awareness. I had a sudden longing to be near Colton, to feel safe, remember my feelings for him, and to forget the ones for Hunter.

  The path to his room was automatic, but I was aware of every footstep up the stairs, apprehension weighing down my heels. I pushed the door open, flicking on the light. The stab of pain behind my eyes was instant. Everything was exactly like I remembered it. The walls were adorned with football memorabilia, and his desk covered with schoolbooks and comics. His king-sized bed against the wall had the familiar green comforter on it. A shelf above his bed held pictures and trophies.

  It wasn’t the fact it was decorated the same, it was the realization it was exactly how he must have left it before he came to pick me up that fateful night. The shoes he wore to school that day were kicked off right at the foot of his bed, the T-shirt he had on, hung over his computer chair. His backpack on the seat, his gym bag with his practice uniform still inside by his dresser.

  It seemed at any moment he would walk back in. I could almost imagine him coming from the shared bathroom connected to Hunter’s room rubbing his hair with a towel with a big goofy smile on his face at seeing me. I could even smell his shampoo.

  I wrapped my arms around my waist as I walked deeper into the room. My eyes latched on to the picture above his bed. The one I gave him after the state championships as a gift. The same one I had i
n my room. The one of us kissing. I reached up, pulling it off the shelf. I pressed the frame to my chest, swallowing back the surge of grief. My legs caved under the agony, bringing me down on his bed, letting a few tears escape.

  I felt Hunter even before I heard him come into the room. It was like his presence brushed at my skin, leaving snail-like trails over me. I stared at my feet, wiping the evidence of my sorrow away.

  “It doesn’t get easier coming in here,” he said quietly. “My parents haven’t touched it since his death. I think they keep hoping there’s been some mistake and Colton will walk back through the door.” I glanced up, watching him step into Colton’s room. “It took me awhile to come back in here after I returned home. When I did…” Hunter rubbed his forehead, letting his sentence trail off. “About a month ago, dear ol’ Dad and I had it out when I’d had enough of the immortalized shrine.” He came up, standing over me, looking around. “His football gear and socks are still in his gym bag. How fucking sick is that?”

  I lowered the picture still flattened against my chest, staring at the happy faces. “God, we look happy here, clueless to what was ahead of us.”

  “You were.” Hunter grabbed the picture from my hands, looking at it. “It’s not a bad thing. We were all naive and innocent once. But there is a moment when life forces you to grow up. Most don’t have to go through something like this, but we all grow up. Loss is a part of life.”

  I stared at him in complete wonder.

  “What?” He lifted his gaze away from the picture, handing it back to me.

  “Nothing.” I took the frame, shaking my head. “You two couldn’t have been more different.”

  “Tell me about it.” Hunter chuckled. “Except for our stellar good looks.”

  “Ah, there’s Colton coming out.” I laughed.

  “We were opposites in most things, but it worked for us. He wasn’t simply my brother, but my twin—it’s a special bond. We may have had separate groups and lives, but I loved the guy more than anything. I would have done anything for him.”

  I tilted my head, thinking about the numerous times Colton ran when Hunter called. “And he felt the same about you. Believe me. Out of his friends or me, when it came down to it, you would always win.”

  His lips pursued and he turned, walking away.

  “Stevie and Chris are getting into the hot tub. Did you want to join them?” His sudden switch in conversation was not lost on me.

  “You’re asking if I want to get into a bacteria-breeding cesspool with two people who will proclaim bathing suits optional as a declaration to go naked and do things I don’t want to see a friend doing.”

  “It’s a no then?” He turned back around to face me, a smile tugging one side of his mouth.

  I smiled back. “What do you think?”

  “No. I agree, but I swear you are probably the one seventeen-year-old girl who thinks of a hot tub as petri dish.”

  “Instead of a seduction mechanism leading to sex? Girls aren’t stupid, you know? We realize when a guy asks if we want to go hot tubbing, it’s basically code for ‘I’m hoping this warm water and lack of clothes leads to sex.’”

  Hunter popped up an eyebrow at my comment. “We’re guys; we’re always hoping it leads there.”

  My cheeks flushed. The topic of sex should have been off limits between us. “I sound like such a prude. I swear I’m not. Once you learn stuff like that in science class, you don’t unlearn it.”

  “I know you’re not.” Hunter stood in the doorway, a strange expression I couldn’t decipher extended over his features, and then quickly disappeared. “I’m actually not a hot tub guy either. Never liked it.”

  I eyed him. “Please don’t tell me you never used it as a lure to get a girl in a very tiny bikini or nothing at all to have sex with you.”

  “Never,” he answered, a sexy, bad-boy side grin on his face.

  “Liar.”

  “Jaymerson.” He stared straight into my eyes. “I don’t need a ruse to get a girl to want to have sex with me.” He dipped out of the doorway, leaving the room, walking down the hall.

  Air sucked noisily through my nose. No. Hunter did not need any kind of trick. He was a walking seduction.

  With another shaky inhale, I lifted myself from the bed, placing the picture back on the shelf. I needed to get out of the room. It seemed terribly wrong for my heart to be pounding, my skin flushing over Hunter, while sitting on Colton’s bed.

  This was really fucked up.

  I stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind me. I looked toward the stairs. I could hear Stevie and Chris play-fighting on their way to the hot tub. The sounds of giggling and yelping, echoes of towels snapping before the door closed. I turned to stare at the light coming from the open door on the other side of the joining bathroom. Hunter’s room.

  Fear and logic battled in my heart. Fear was a strong ruler, dictating most of my actions. Also the terror of rejection pinned my toes to the floor. Grab the bull by the horns and hold on tight. Grandma Penny’s voice sounded through my head, making me groan and laugh at the same time.

  I knew this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but I was going to live by Grandma’s philosophy. It took her losing someone to see how precious life was. I didn’t want to look back and realize I let these times go by because I was scared.

  I don’t know if I walked to his room with any thoughts past getting to the door. All I knew was I wanted to be around him. I didn’t want to think beyond that. I landed in his doorway, resting against it, searching around his space. I had briefly been in here before, looking for Colton, but hadn’t lingered. The room was designed identical to Colton’s, down to the huge walk-in closet and large bay windows.

  But unlike Colton’s, Hunter’s room was void of any trophies or football memorabilia. It was actually empty of anything personal. On the wall with the entrance to the bathroom, was his king-size bed, donned with navy-and-grey bedding. Plain wooden nightstands framed the bed. On the other wall was the walk-in closet, a workstation with a top-of-the-line computer and flat-screen TV. No pictures, posters, or objects gave it personality.

  My attention was quickly ripped from the lack of items on his walls to the lack of clothing on his body. He strolled out of his closet, stripped of his long-sleeved Henley, his jeans dipping low, and holding a T-shirt.

  Several tattoos inked his back and down his side, but it was the one scrolling up his arm to his shoulder which captured me. It was a beautiful dragon, the tail of the beast wrapping down his bicep. The most beautiful part was the work around his shoulder. The neck of the dragon split in half, two heads curling on either side of his shoulder, looking at each other. Twin dragons. But one of them had a number twenty-two scrolled on the back of its neck. Colton’s football jersey number.

  “It’s beautiful.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “Thanks.” Hunter reached up, running his hand over the markings. “Benji just finished filling it in.” Hunter touched the number on the dragon’s neck. “Even if he’s not here anymore, Colton always will be part of me. I don’t stop being his twin.”

  I pressed my lips together, the emotion in his voice reaching my heart. I stared at the details of the tattoo, but my gaze slipped slowly to his torso, greedily taking in his toned abs and the deep V indention hinting above his jeans. I heard him snort, and I lifted my gaze, realizing he caught me ogling him.

  “Sorry.” I looked away but quickly glanced back through my lashes. His torso was meant to be stared at: trim and muscled in all the right places but not bulky. Less bodybuilder more swimmer.

  “Sorry for what?” he replied.

  I shifted my weight, my mouth opening. “I mean, is that even fair?” I motioned to his chest.

  “Are we competing?” Hunter lifted his brow. “Because if we are, then it’s only fair I see you topless.”

  I blushed, trying not to think about his retort. “It’s just mean. What? You do, like, two sit-ups to get those abs?”<
br />
  “Hey, I work hard. I do at least five before eating a whole pizza,” he teased.

  “Bastard.” I gave him the evil eye.

  “How do you know my middle name?” he joked, covering the beautiful canvas with a grey shirt he tugged on. Damn.

  “What is your middle name?” I asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He sighed, straightening his shirt. “Browning.”

  “Browning? Like the guns? Hunter Browning. Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Wow.” I chuckled.

  “My parents wanted to make sure everyone knew we came from famous lineage. Old money.” He scoffed. “Manufacturers of rifles. Talk about a lineage of blood and death. Not an ancestry you should be proud of.”

  “But that doesn’t matter around here. It’s about the prestige and pedigree.” I tucked my arms over each other. “And if you don’t have status, they name you after every grandparent you have.”

  “Jaymerson is your grandfather’s name, right?” He sat down on his bed.

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “I must have overheard you tell someone.” He shrugged. “Jaymerson, what?”

  “Jaymerson Vanessa,” I said. “Covered a grandparent on either side of the family.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “Thanks.” I shuffled my foot, patting it into the rug.

  “Jaymerson Vanessa?” His husky voice wrapped around my name.

  I looked up.

  “Are you going to come in or should I put a pillow at the invisible line at my doorway for you to sleep on?”

  Fire bloomed through my entire body. How could he read me so easily?

  I took a step, breaking the hidden thread that held so much weight. I kept my arms folded, watching my socks move over his carpet, until I arrived in front of him.