by Lexi Ryan
“Sure,” I say. “I’m not a slave, and contrary to what my dad may have told you, Uriah is actually a very good employer.”
His lips twitch. “Good to know. So does that mean you’re free to join me for dinner some night? Maybe a movie? It’s gotta get old hanging around this place all the time.”
“Um.” I dry my hands on my apron. I’m stalling. Sebastian is incredibly handsome, and this was what Bailey was talking about, wasn’t it? She said I’ve been letting life pass me by, and I feel like if she were here, she’d be jumping up and down, nodding. She’d also probably make a few inappropriate sexual innuendos about what could happen at the movies. “It’s just that . . .” I drop my gaze to my hands, now wringing the apron.
“Isn’t this cozy,” Arrow mutters.
When I swing around to the sound of his voice, I stumble forward. Sebastian catches me. After I right myself, he doesn’t bother to take away the arm around my waist.
“Hey, Woodison,” Sebastian says, unfazed as I step out of his embrace. “Thanks for inviting me. I was looking for an excuse to see Mia again.”
I shoot Sebastian a warning glare, and he meets it with a smile.
Arrow’s gaze ping-pongs between me and Sebastian. Emotions I can’t identify flicker through his eyes, and I wait for him to say something nasty—about me or Sebastian, I’m not sure—but instead he gives a sharp nod, turns on his heel, and goes out back.
He had his hand up my skirt a week ago, and he just walked away at the sight of another man holding me.
“So that movie?” Sebastian sidesteps around the island. I have to give him credit for understanding that giving me space increases his odds here.
“I don’t think so.” I flick my gaze up to peek at his expression but find myself drawn in by his dark eyes. It’s not as easy to look away as I’d like. “I’m just not ready.”
“And is that because of Brogan?” He lifts his chin and points his gaze out the window behind me. “Or because of Arrow?”
I stiffen. “Don’t act like you know me. You don’t.”
“No, Mia. I just want to. And when this world is full of people who want to take advantage of us more than they want to know us, I like to think that’s a good thing.” When I don’t reply, he sighs, fishes in the pocket of his low-slung jeans, and comes up with a folded slip of paper. “Here.”
I take it from his hands and frown. “What’s this?”
“It’s a list of everyone who had body work done on an SUV this winter. We’re not the only place in town, so it’s only a small piece of the puzzle, and you can’t tell anyone I gave that to you, but I hope it helps.”
I unfold the paper and scan the list. “Coach Wright’s here.”
Sebastian shakes his head. “Yeah, I worked on that one myself. Not what you’re looking for. He hit a doe coming out of his driveway.”
“Okay.” I press the paper to my chest. “Thank you. This means a lot.”
“I know you think you want answers,” he says, his gaze steady on the men on the other side of the window, “but before you dig too deep, make sure you’re really ready for them. Answers to these kinds of questions rarely bring us the peace we seek.”
“And what do you know about it?”
He gives me a sad smile. “How are you holding up? I overheard Coach talking to Mrs. Barrett today. She told him the news about Brogan. I just wondered how you were taking it.”
“News?” The only thing that’s been consistent in my life since the accident has been Brogan. When it comes to him, nothing changes. No matter how hard I pray. “About what?”
“His kidneys. Since they decided not to do dialysis. Don’t you . . .” He flinches. “Shit. You didn’t know. Why haven’t they told you?”
“What about his kidneys?” I ask, but he just shakes his head and doesn’t have to say more. Suddenly, I’m in the dark again, the sleet biting into my skin as I climb from the car and rush to the boys. I’m in the dark feeling for a pulse. I’m in the dark punching numbers into my phone, watching with detached fascination as blood smears across the screen.
“Mia? Mia?” I open my eyes, and I’m on the floor, the cool tile pressing into my back. Sebastian leans over me, his hand on my face. “Look at me. Breathe. Okay?”
“What happened?” Arrow’s voice. “Jesus, is she okay?”
Arrow crouches down next to me and brushes the hair from my face. Sebastian shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know they hadn’t told her.”
“Shit,” Arrow whispers.
“I’m fine.” I smack away Arrow’s hands and sit up. And I am. I’m . . . just fine.
Arrow
Eight hours later, I still want to punch Sebastian Crowe in his smug face. I want to kick him in the balls and tell him to never touch Mia again. But I can’t. She deserves to be happy. Whether that’s with Sebastian or someone else, I’m not going to stand in the way.
“Mrs. Barrett?”
I sit up in bed when I hear her voice on the other side of the wall.
“Yeah. It’s Mia. Sorry I’m calling so late.” Her voice is broken. She sounds upset. “I was calling to see how Brogan’s doing . . . Yeah. I’m coming tomorrow. I—”
I close my eyes and mentally fill in the gaps of the conversation. Is Mrs. Barrett talking about the squirrel they watched running across the backyard today? Or has she, in her grief, resorted to her old cold attitude toward Mia?
“Can you just tell me?” Mia asks. “Is he dying?” A pause. “Isn’t there anything they can—” A broken sob. “But can’t they just . . .? I know.”
I don’t need the other side of the conversation to know what’s being said, or to know that Mrs. Barrett is breaking Mia’s heart all over again. They decided not to do the dialysis. This is good for Brogan. I know this, but . . . shit. Poor Mia.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Yes, I understand. It’s just . . . Okay. Yeah. I’ll be there tomorrow.” She sniffles a few times, and I hear her soft tread as she paces the floors. “You too.”
After that, there’s nothing but silence for a long time. No footsteps. No miracle-man book being thrown against the wall for giving her false hope. Just her silent grief on that side of the wall. Mine on this side.
And when I think I’ve heard the last of her tonight, when I think she’s fallen asleep: “Damn you, Brogan.” Then the sobs begin. They come from her, but they might as well be coming from me, might as well be torn from my chest. Each one is a piece of my heart sawed off with the dull blade of regret.
How many times has she come to me and saved me from the nightmares?
I don’t have to think about it. I don’t knock. I go into her room, and I don’t stop myself, because she needs someone right now. Maybe she needs someone better than me, but I’m the only one here.
She’s sitting on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, her gaze centered on the floor at my feet.
When she lifts her head, the tears welling in her eyes stream down to join the ones already wetting her cheeks. “He’s dying.”
“He’s already dead, Mia.”
Her face crumples at this, her shoulders shake, and no longer do I hear her heart-wrenching sobs. She’s folded in on herself, wrapped the pain up, and her cries are silent and so powerful they rock her whole body.
I climb into bed behind her, wrap my arms around her, and pull her back against my chest and let her cry.
“I needed him . . .” She’s struggling to talk around her tears. “I needed him to wake up.”
“We all wanted that.”
“No, but I needed . . .” She draws in a ragged breath. “Arrow, I needed to apologize.”
Fuck. “You don’t need him to wake up to hear your apology. You don’t even need him to be in the same room.” She doesn’t owe him an apology, but there’s no point in saying that. It won’t make her believe it. “You’re going tomorrow?” She nods, and I press a kiss to her hair. “Apologize then. Maybe your book’s right. Maybe he can hear you. Maybe he’s ju
st trapped and he can hear you, and you’re gonna go and you’re gonna tell him what you need to tell him. Then you’re going to let him go.” The words hurt. They’re emotional suicide. “The Brogan we knew, the Brogan we love, does not deserve to be trapped in a body he can’t use.”
“I’m selfish. Wanting him to wake up, wanting him to hang on, wanting his parents to give him dialysis treatments. I know. It’s so selfish.”
“No.” I stroke her hair with my good hand and use the other arm to hold her close. “You’re just dealing. We all do the best we can. We just deal however we know how.”
I hold her for a long time, talking nonsense about saying goodbye and letting him go, and the next thing I know, I’m not talking about Brogan anymore. “I’m sorry for how I acted on New Year’s Eve,” I say. I should have said it a long time ago. I should have said it that night. “What you said took me by surprise. But it never changed the way I felt about you. I came to you that night because I knew Brogan was screwing around on you, and I thought you deserved better.” I draw in a long, ragged breath. “God, was I pissed at him. He was my best friend my whole life, and I’d never wanted to hurt him until that night. But he was right. He said my ego couldn’t handle being second choice. He knew me better than I knew myself.”
“I don’t understand. What did him cheating on me have to do with you?”
I lay us on the bed, rolling so we’re on our sides, our bodies pressed together, our faces inches apart. “That was when you were mine. In the one night between his betrayal and his apology, you were mine, but only because you couldn’t be his.” The memory hooks its claws into my aching heart and tugs.
“It wasn’t like that at all,” she says.
I swallow hard. “I never hid my feelings, Mia. You knew that very first day that I didn’t want to step aside for Brogan. It’s true even now.” My voice drops to a whisper. “You’re in my arms, but you’re still his. And I can’t blame you for that. I don’t.”
She tries to smile, but it looks more like a grimace. “I loved him, Arrow.”
I roll to my back and squeeze my eyes shut against the pain those words bring. Even now I’m jealous of him, jealous of what he had from her. And I hate myself for that. “I know.”
“He was easy to love. So kind and funny and generous.”
“I know,” I say again, still not looking at her.
“I’ve been selfish from the beginning. I wanted to love Brogan. He was my safe place, and I wanted to be in love with someone like that.”
“He loved you, Mia. He fucked up a lot—I’m not denying that—but he loved you.”
She’s quieter now. Her body has stilled, and the tears and sobs seem to have broken, but I know there’s more grief to come. We’ve only reached the calm center of the storm. Not the end of it. “And I thought that if I could focus on that, if I could nurture that easy love, I might be able to drown out the hurt.”
Slowly, I open my eyes and turn to her, blinking. “He shouldn’t have hurt you to begin with. He shouldn’t have—”
She shakes her head and studies me, dark eyes intent. “That’s not the hurt I’m talking about. I’m talking about the ache that burned in my chest every time I looked at you and knew we couldn’t be together. I’m talking about the terrible self-loathing I’d feel when I’d catch myself comparing Brogan to you. He was good and kind and more than I deserved, but he was never you. You could never be second choice, Arrow. Because I never allowed myself to consider you a choice at all.”
I press my open palm to the ache in my chest. I can’t do this anymore. “Mia, you need to know. About that night—”
She presses two fingers to my lips and shakes her head. “Don’t. Please? I don’t want to talk about New Year’s Eve. If you want me to remember that I didn’t die that night, you have to promise me you won’t talk about it anymore.”
“Don’t make me make that promise,” I say. Because I can’t.
“Just tonight, then. Don’t talk about it tonight.”
“Okay.” I pull in a breath and realize I’m shaking. Would I have said it if she hadn’t stopped me? Would I have spilled it all out? And then what? She’d hate me, and what would happen to Coach?
“I need to apologize to him,” she says.
I bury my nose in her hair and inhale slowly, my shaking subsides, and my feet come back to the earth. “Tomorrow. You can apologize tomorrow.” Reluctantly, I release her to climb off the bed. “Lie down. I’ll tuck you in. You need a good night’s sleep.”
“No.” She reaches for me and drops her hand just before her fingers brush my bare stomach. “Don’t go.”
I don’t know if I can do it. Hold her without touching her. Spend a night soothing grief I’m responsible for. “Mia, we—”
“Don’t go.” She bites her bottom lip and cocks her head to the side. “Please? I’m scared to sleep alone.”
I can’t do it. I can’t walk away from her. “Okay.” I climb back into the bed and pull her back to my front. “Do you want me to give Katie a bottle if she wakes up?”
“No, I can do it. I can get her.”
“Okay. Just go to sleep now, okay?” I reach over her head and click off the light, and we lie in silence for a long time.
I close my eyes, knowing I won’t sleep but hoping she can. She’ll need her rest for tomorrow.
“Arrow?” she asks, long after I think she’s fallen asleep.
I don’t answer. My heart is too raw to talk more tonight; my need to tell her everything is too strong. I keep my eyes closed and my mouth shut so I won’t tell her what I can’t.
“I loved Brogan,” she says into the darkness. “But I couldn’t fall for him. That stupid difference between loving and being in love. I never thought it mattered. But I couldn’t fall in love with Brogan. I could only love him.” She finds my hand where it’s wrapped around her waist and pulls it up to rest on her heart. “Because I’d already fallen for you.”
I force myself to breathe. If I hold my breath, she’ll know I heard her confession. If I squeeze her tighter, she’ll have to deal with her secret being out there. If I roll her under me and kiss her like every cell in my body is begging me to, she’ll know. But I didn’t realize until this moment how long I’ve been waiting to hear it. How much of me has been waiting since New Year’s Eve to know that the girl I love loves me back.
So I breathe and promise myself that soon I’ll find a way to tell Mia the truth without ruining Coach’s life.
I’ll find a way.
Part VI: Before
October, two and a half months before the accident
Mia
When I show up to the house party, half the people there are already drunk. I had to work late and I missed the game. Bad girlfriend. Bailey texted me updates at every time-out and between each quarter. The Blackhawks won in overtime. I didn’t think I’d even be able to make it to the party, but I wanted to surprise Brogan. He hates that I have to work so much, and he really hates when I miss his games.
Things haven’t been right between us since my birthday, and I can’t figure out if that’s my fault or his. Did my heart-to-heart with Arrow leave me looking for fault in Brogan, or has he really been more distant and moody since he came home from the wedding last weekend?
Keegan is in the kitchen, pouring a drink for a pretty, fragile-featured girl with dark pixie-cut hair. His eyes go wide when he sees me. “Mia. I thought you couldn’t come tonight.”
“I got off early. Have you seen Brogan?”
“Um.” His loud swallow gives him away. Keegan is a shitty liar. “I think he left?”
“He’s upstairs,” the girl says. “I saw him head up there with—” She stops speaking at Keegan’s hard glare. A weird sickness immediately fills my stomach at what she didn’t say. I’m already pushing past them to the stairs at the back of the house. He hasn’t just been moody. He’s been secretive.
“Mia,” Keegan calls. I hear him on the stairs behind me, but I rush forward anyw
ay.
Don’t be that guy, Brogan. Don’t be that guy.
I throw open bedroom doors, one after another, until I find them.
Brogan’s sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand buried in the hair of the girl sucking him off.
“Brogan.” I don’t mean to speak. It just comes out. All my disappointment and heartbreak in that one word.
He’s slow to respond. He’s drunk, I tell myself. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. But God, it hurts. He’s drunk. He’s stressed. He’s upset that his girlfriend doesn’t show up to half his home games. My mind scrambles to pile on excuses—like putting pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding—but his betrayal bleeds through.
When he opens his eyes, the way the shock rolls over his face is almost comical. The way Trish snaps her head back, his dick popping out of her mouth, is almost comical.
“Mia.” Keegan’s hand closes around my shoulder, and I shake it off.
Brogan pushes Trish away, and in his haste to get his pants zipped, he catches his dick in the zipper. “Fuck,” he growls.
“Karma works quickly,” I say softly. Then I shake my head, because part of what I always loved about Brogan was that I trusted him. I believed he’d never hurt me. “I’m done. This is over.”
I don’t scream or shout or even shed a tear. It’s like I flip the switch I found after Mom left and shut all that off. I turn and push past Keegan, who looks so guilty you’d think he was the one caught with his pants down.
“Why’d you let her up here?” Brogan shouts at him.
“You’re an ass,” Keegan replies.
I don’t hear any more because I make a beeline for the door. I don’t bother with my car but keep walking until I get to the dorms. I’m not even sure what makes me go to Arrow, but that’s where I am before I can even think it through. He opens the door to his quad, and as soon as he sees my face, he knows.
“What did he do?” he asks, his voice deadly and low.
I bite my bottom lip. “House party. Trish.”