“Then that day in April you bumped into a complete stranger, and I met you for coffee the next day. Let me tell you sweetheart it was like he turned on a light switch. A switch that none of us even knew how to find. I couldn’t take that away. I couldn’t. Your eyes were bright and alive and your smile was real babe for the first time since Sean died.” She wipes away tears from her face and looks at me, “I thought about what Sean would want, and I think he would understand this. Mike didn’t kill Sean babe, his brother did,” she says squeezing my hand and I look at her and nod. Surprisingly I’m not upset. I hug her.
“I’m sorry I was like that… I tried… I really did. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“I know sweetheart. We could see you trying… we were all just so worried we would never get you back.”
We sit here, her arm around my shoulder, my head on hers in silence. Finally I ask.
“When did you figure it out?” She moves away and looks at me smiling.
“Dan did actually,” she chuckles. “The night we all met him for the first time, at the BBQ at my house,” she says holding my hand and I stare at her surprised. My best friend had known something like this and hadn’t told me from almost the start. She told me everything. She had never kept something from me, especially something so big.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask calmly.
“Because you would have pushed him away,” she says simple and easy. “You were already skittish about the fact that you were dating someone. I didn’t want to give you a reason to walk away,” she says like it was the right thing to do. Well at least in her mind it had been.
“Does he know that you know? I mean did you confront him?” I ask, still shocked she had known for a while and hadn’t told me. It was so unlike Emmi. I look at her and she shakes her head smiling.
“God no. Sweetheart he cares about you. I’d even say he is in love with you. You have been so happy, so back to being yourself. Why would I want to mess that up?” she says her eyes showing no regret. Like a light bulb turning on from the darkness, I can see where she is coming from. If the shoe had been on the other foot so to speak, I probably would have done the same thing.
“I get it, I guess,” I say to her squeezing her hand that is in mine.
“Nick knew,” I tell her.
“What?” she says surprised looking at me, her green eyes wide, almost comically.
“He threatened Mike… I don’t know the details, Mike wouldn’t tell me… but I think Nick gave him an ultimatum.”
“Fucking Nick,” she says shaking her head. “You know he did that because he cares about you right?”
“I guess… I just… I don’t know what to do from here,” I tell her. She looks at me, tilting her head with a soft smile.
“Do you like him?” she asks.
“Em…”
“Answer please…” she insists in a true best gal-pal way talking in her mom voice.
“Yes,” I answer meekly.
“Are you falling in love with him?” she asks and I nod as tears roll down my face. I can’t help crying.
“Pa- part of me doesn’t want to let myself… fa- fall for him… b-but…”
“You can’t help it,” she says smiling, her own eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Sean would be okay with this… you know that right? Sean would want you to be happy and fall in love again. He wouldn’t want you to be living your life the way you had been. He would want you to be so happy,” she says and I nod sniffling and wiping my tears away.
“You think so?” I sniffle out looking at her face soften.
“Yeah. It’s different. It’s not the same as what you had with Sean, but it’s still good. He would want that,” she says and I nod. Looking off into space I talk without thinking.
“So do I just ignore the fact that he lied to me? From the beginning Em, he’s been lying.”
“No… but you move on because you really care about him,” she states.
“Just like that?”
“What was it that Sean used to say? Pride had no place in love? Don’t let your pride get in the way. You should have heard him when he called me. He is so worried about you, and hates himself for hurting you.”
“He called you?” I ask, and to my surprise she nods.
“How did you think I knew you needed me?” she says smiling.
The door opens again and we glance towards it.
“Sabrina?” Nick yells out in his panicked voice.
“Shit,” Emmi mumbles running her fingers through her hair and subtly wiping her eyes.
I watch him walk in. Worry is in his eyes as he comes into the living room.
“Honey…” he starts to say as he sits in front of me. His hair is disheveled, his shirt and cargo pants rumpled, and he seems more of a surfer than a Fortune 500 CEO of a software company.
“Don’t honey me Nicholas Riley!” I start to say. Looking at him makes me start to feel all riled up again.
“I’m sorry… babe…” he starts to plead.
“Why wouldn’t you just come to me?” I ask sternly.
“Sabrina… calm down. Let him try to explain…” Emmi says, always the voice of wisdom.
“Did you threaten Mike? Did you give him an ultimatum?” I ask. He winces, having the decency to look slightly guilty.
“Yes… but…” he starts to say.
“But what? Why wouldn’t you just come to me? Tell me what you had found out?” I ask.
“Because he had been lying to you and the kids!” he yells, his face turning slightly pink.
“You were jealous!” I yell back. In the back of my head, I notice Emmi staying quiet, watching our little showdown.
“FINE! I was! Okay! Better now? I was fucking jealous of the asshole. You and the kids weren’t going to need me anymore! I know I was an ass about him and you being together. I knew I was giving you a hard time. But even then, I couldn’t go to you! As much as I hated the asshole for lying to you. HE had brought you back to us! Damn it Sabrina! No one was able to bring that light back on. Then last year I fucking realized after our thing that I wasn’t going to be the one to bring you back either!” he yells and I just soak up what he has to say. I notice Emmi scooting forward raising an eyebrow.
“You should have trusted me to handle it,” I yell back, my voice not holding the anger I had hoped I could hold on to.
“You don’t get it do you? What the last three years have been like for us? For us watching you?
“Nick.” Emmi tries to interrupt him, but Nick isn’t having it. He is angry and he is going to let me know just how much.
“You were like a fucking robot. You were gone. I know you tried honey. I do. I was fucking there. I know you did the best you could, but for some fucking reason, this asshole brought you back to us just by fucking being there. Just by fucking sitting next to you! The asshole didn’t even have to do anything but just be around you. I saw you with him. I saw you falling in love with him.” He rubs his face.
“Don’t you remember I was there when you fell in love with Sean? I know what you in love looks like. I knew how much you cared about the jackass. I wanted him to man up before things got more serious between you two. Do you want to know why?” I can’t answer him.
He is mad. The fact that I had been hurting them, making them worry for so long was sinking in. I feel disgusted in myself for not having been stronger, and not having dealt with Sean’s death better.
“Because I didn’t want to lose you again! I didn’t want you to be that fucking robot again!” He yells. His face red now and so completely angry.
It has been a long time since I have seen Nick get so angry, especially at me. But here he is yelling at me. My heart is hurting for so many reasons. I don’t know why, but I start to laugh. Nick’s handsome face frowns and Emmi starts to laugh too.
“Why are you laughing?” he growls, and I sniffle and smile.
“I love you Nick,” I say wrapping my arms around him huggi
ng him. His body is stiff at first and his heart is racing, but slowly he relaxes and hugs me back.
“I love you too honey. You still mad at me?” he mumbles, and I shake my head.
“No,” I sniffle. “How did you know to come?”
“Mike called me. He’s worried,” he mumbles slightly rolling his eyes.
I pull away and Emmi is smiling and pulls the three of us, squealing, “group hug!”
The three of us laugh. Finally we separate and they look at me.
“Are we okay?” Nick asks cautiously.
“Nick. I will always need you, you’re my best friend. We will always need you. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
“You will always have me Babe. You guys will always be able to count on me,” he says and I hug him.
“We’re good,” I whisper into his ear and I can feel him smile next to my face.
“So the two major questions now are what are you going to do about Mike and what the hell happened between the two of you last year?” Emmi asks smirking with her jade green eyes wide with humor. I can feel heat creeping onto my cheeks and I hear Nick laugh.
“As much as I hate that he lied to you, I think I get why he did it,” Nick says ignoring Emmi’s question about him and I. Emmi rolls her eyes at us ignoring her.
“Me too,” I admit. “But wouldn’t it all be too weird?”
“What do you mean?” Emmi asks.
“The connection between his brother and Sean… “
“I don’t. I see how he looks at you. That connection is bigger, brighter than that one. Plus it’s not like Mike was the one driving you know?” Nick says sounding completely enlightened.
“I should …”
“I have the kids for the weekend,” Emmi announces. “You go do what you need to do. Don’t worry about them… Nick will even help, right Nick?” Em and I both look at Nick smiling.
“Fine. Just make sure to be safe… no glove no love…” We laugh at his stupid comment about safe sex.
“NICK!” Emmi giggles in shock.
“It’s true.. I mean his thing probably doesn’t even…” I cut him off knowing what he is going to say.
“It works Nick!” I say laughing at how he blushes. They left and I ran upstairs to change.
Sabrina
I finally knew the truth he had been hiding. It had hurt that he had lied. I understood why he had done it. But at the same time I got it. We really lived in a small world when it was him out of all the people who had brought me back from my own darkness.
I stare at my closet, not able to stop smiling. He had called my two closest friends to make sure they would check on me. He really does care.
I stare blankly at my closet, my hands slightly shaking. I have no idea what to wear. All I know is the I want to head over to his place. Shaking my head and unable to stop smiling, I run down the stairs. Screw it. He’d seen me in not a stitch of makeup and just one of his t-shirts when I had spent the night at his place, he isn’t going to care what I am wearing right now.
My heart is racing as I go into the kitchen in search of my purse. We would figure it out. All I knew was that I didn’t want to throw in the towel, and from the impression I got, he didn’t either. Searching for my keys in the wild depths of my overfilled purse I let out a frustrated growl just as I opened the door.
One day I will organize this thing, I think to myself. I look up only to stare at familiar pale ice blue eyes staring back at me. Almost like magic, as if I had somehow conjured him to show up at my door, he is standing in front of me. He is serious and his eyes don’t give anything away, like always. Except it is different this time. This time it doesn’t bother me.
“You’re here,” I say without thinking.
“Yeah,” he says his voice gravely and maybe a little hesitant.
“Why?” I ask without thinking. My hands are slightly shaking and I hope like hell he can’t tell.
“Nick called me to tell me you were okay, that he was leaving. I didn’t want you to be alone,” he explains and then frowns looking at my purse.
“You were leaving?” he asks staring at my purse.
“Yeah. I was going to go to your place actually,” I admit without thinking. Crap why am I lying to myself? I haven’t played games, I’m not going to start now.
“Yeah?” he asks raising an eyebrow. It makes him look so deliciously sexy and handsome, I can only nod.
He takes my bag and tosses it on the floor by my side. He takes a step forward as I take one back. He closes the door, locking it, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Yeah,” I breath out somehow. His body is strong and large and all I want to do is climb up him somehow and press myself close to him. He had messed up, royally. But don’t we all do that?
“I messed up,” he says gruffly, and him admitting that made me want to smile at his obvious comment. He had really messed up. But if he hadn’t, if he had told me who he really was, we wouldn’t be standing here, in front of one another.
“Yeah you did,” I say, somehow my voice sounds more confident than I feel.
“I thought I was doing the right thing, then you got under my skin,” he says taking a step closer. The room feels warm, the air around us is thick.
“You didn’t want me alone?” I ask almost in a whisper, whatever courage I’d had when he first showed up melts away.
“No I didn’t,” he says gruffly.
“Why?”
“You had a lot fall on your lap today. All of it my fault. I want to know that if you need to scream, I’m here to be yelled at,” he says seriously and I smirk slightly, biting the inside of my lip so it won’t be a full fledged smile.
“So I can scream more at you huh?”
“Yeah. Scream, yell, hit me if you need to,” he says seriously. Now standing in front of me, his body heat wraps around me, even if he isn’t touching me.
His face is serious, but when I really look at him standing in front of me in my quiet living room, there is an incredible vulnerability radiating off of him. A flash of all the times he had told me he wasn’t worthy of me, that he didn’t deserve me came crashing down on me. When he had said those things, I had swept them under the rug, not making what he had said a big deal. I had thought he had been trying to be sweet, but he had really felt that way. Now here he is. He is standing in front of me, giving me permission to belittle him, to humiliate him, and my throat tightens.
“I already yelled,” I say trying to stay calm and not start crying all over again. I care about him so much. He had lied. I want to believe that everything else was real, but I’m not a naive twenty year old all bright-eyed looking at the world through rose colored glasses.
“You can yell at me again. Please… I … I just need to know what you’re thinking,” he says softly. His eyes look tired and sad. A wave of exhaustion hits me hard. Without doing it purposely I stay in my own thoughts. Mike’s brother had killed Sean in a car accident. Mike had blamed himself the whole time.
“Please tell me something sweetheart, anything. You being quiet like this is killing me.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure where I am with this,” I lie.
For the first time since this thing started with him I lied to his face. I do know where I want things to go with Mike. I know what I want from him, and what I hope he wants from me. Looking up at him I instantly regret lying.
“I’m lying,” I say softly still looking at him, his face slightly confused.
“I do know what I want and where I want this to go. I’m just not sure about where you stand on all of this. I’m not sure what is real and what isn’t Mike.”
“You don’t?” he asks looking a little upset and I frown, not about to cower or back down. This can make us or break us. If there was ever a time to lay everything on the table it was now, when my own heart might be at stake.
“No, I don’t. I do know what I hope was real, but that isn’t the same. I need to know how much of it was
lies and where you stand and what you want.” For some reason I start to feel frustrated with him. The room is too hot, my clothes feel too tight and clingy, the air around us way too thick, almost heavy.
“You still don’t get it do you?” he asks seriously.
“Get what?” I ask feeling slightly confused.
“How I feel about you,” he says gruffly his hand coming up to slightly graze my jawline. “If I didn’t care as much as I fucking care, do you think I would have kept this shit going?” He pulls me into his arms, his scent enveloped around me making it hard to think straight, his fingers gripping, his hold tightening on my shoulders.
“Do you think I would have taken such a huge fucking risk if I didn’t care?” he asks a little louder.
“You still aren’t answering me Mike! You don’t get it. It’s not what I might think something freaking meant Mike! I want to know. I want you to tell me! I need the words for once!” I say starting to feel so frustrated with him. I pull away and he lets me.
“I’m here. I’m standing in front of you…” he starts to say but as he’s talking my heart feels like its about to sink.
“Oh my God!” I yell at him.“You still can’t say it can you?”
“Say what? If you let me talk for a second maybe I could tell you that you are so fucking under my skin I’m pretty sure I have no idea how to get you out. I haven’t been able to think straight since I met you. I find myself easily distracted during the day with thoughts of what you might be doing, or when I’ll see you next. Is that what you want to know? Hmm? Do you know that isn’t the type of man I am? I don’t get distracted by a woman… and I was in a relationship for ten fucking years… never was I distracted like I am with you! You want to know how you are the only woman I have ever slept with the whole night without touching? Even after being in a ten year relationship, I never did that. Never with Holly or anyone else, only with you!
“How I thought my balls were going to turn blue and I would look like a fucking Smurf from the fucking waist down because of how bad I fucking wanted you, but I wouldn’t let myself have you?” Part of me wants to laugh at the Smurf reference but I keep quiet and just stare at him. He runs his fingers through his hair. I can tell he is frustrated and exhausted and I am completely turned on.
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