“Isn’t he, like, married?” one girl asked, and I’m pretty sure I heard Savannah snort.
“And? It’s fucking Olivia. She’s a train wreck these days, and everyone knows their marriage is over. Besides, Brody and I have always had a connection—this was bound to happen.”
“What if he never leaves her?”
Savannah straightened and flipped her long black hair over her shoulder. “He will, I’ll make sure of it. I’ll trap him the same way that bitch did.”
The other two girls looked at each other and let out soft, but harsh, laughs. “Oh, my God, you’re going to get pregnant?”
Savannah turned and blinked her eyes rapidly. “I swear I’m on the pill, Brody.”
I turned to see Kinlee’s reaction to all this, but she was practically lying on Jace, watching the show, and they were whispering to each other. I wanted to scream at Savannah that he was mine, but honestly, what could I say? Our relationship was a secret. And though Brody’s family hated Olivia, I couldn’t do that to him. Until he left her, I couldn’t be seen as what I was. Oh, God, I was a home-wrecker. I curled an arm around my stomach and stopped breathing when Savannah spoke again.
“I just blew him in the bathroom before we came out here. That man is hung.”
“Oh, my God!” The other two laughed and pushed at her. “You are so bad! His family is here.”
“Who cares? They want him to be with me.”
I knew she was lying, but I couldn’t continue to sit there and listen to her talk about him like that. He was my Brody. I wanted to rip her freaking extensions out. Standing quickly, I bolted for the house and didn’t stop until I hit the bathroom. Gripping the countertop, I attempted to take deep breaths in and out and forced my tears back through the sobs that tore through me.
The door flew open, and before a scream could build up in my chest, Brody was pulling me into his arms and locking the door behind him. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
I gripped him as hard as I could and buried my face in his chest. “She said you’re going home with her and she’s going to trap you into marrying her the same way Olivia did. She said she was just blowing you in the bathroom.”
He pushed me back to look directly into my eyes. “Kamryn, you know that’s not true.”
“I know! You’re mine, but no one else knows that, Brody. I couldn’t say anything, I just had to sit there and listen to it.”
“I know that I’m yours. As long as I know that, I’ll never be anyone else’s. And Kamryn, I’m gonna be yours forever. You understand?”
I nodded, and he slammed his mouth down onto mine. He pulled me closer, and I clutched his shirt in my hands while throwing everything I had into that kiss.
“I love you, Kamryn,” he promised against my mouth, and I tugged against his bottom lip, earning a low growl that made my knees go weak.
He backed me up to the sink, lifted me, and sat me down on the counter. I smiled against his kisses and whispered my love back to him. He pushed my skirt up my thighs, and my hands quickly released their death grip on his shirt and fell to the button on his jeans. I’d just hit the zipper when his fingers slid inside my lacey underwear and trailed over me.
“Oh, Brody,” I moaned and his forehead hit the base of my neck.
“Jesus, you’re so wet.”
I finished with his jeans and roughly pulled them, along with his boxer-briefs, down low enough so I could take him in my hands.
“I’m sorry, Kamryn, I’ll buy you a new pair.” Before I could question his apology, he ripped my underwear and put his arms under my legs, pulling me closer to him and the edge of the counter.
We both groaned and stilled when he pushed his length into me. “Please don’t stop.”
I felt him grin against my neck before biting softly there. “I just like hearing you say ‘please.’” He pulled out and pushed in twice before pausing again and I was on the verge of screaming at him.
“Brody, please.”
Pulling out almost completely, he slammed back in and crushed his mouth to mine when my scream filled the bathroom. Thank God for the fireworks outside, or I’m positive someone would have come running in there. The burning tension I’d been craving started building, and I leaned back, knowing Brody would keep me in his arms, and I whimpered at the feel of the changed position. The knot low in my stomach tightened as he continued to fill me over and over again, and I begged him not to stop as I went crashing over the edge and my body shattered around his. Brody pulled me back up and kissed me roughly to quiet my moans, and his fingers tightened almost painfully when he found his release inside me.
I don’t know if it was the boom of the fireworks outside, the fact that someone could have caught us, or not having been with him in over a week, but bathroom sex was now my new favorite.
Brody laughed out loud, and I whimpered when his body left mine. “Guess we’ll have to do it more often.”
My eyebrows pulled together before it hit me. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, babe. You did.” He kissed my lips softly and pulled me off the counter before putting himself back in his pants and bending down to pick up my torn underwear.
I watched as he shoved it into his jeans pocket and smiled to myself knowing they’d be there the rest of the night.
Tilting my head back so he could look into my eyes, he whispered softly, “Don’t ever doubt my love for you. Don’t ever doubt our relationship. We’re going to get through this, and when we do, everyone will know that we’re together. No more hiding, no more Aidens or Savannahs. Just us. Got it?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t say anything else. I just pressed a kiss to his chest and let him hold me a little longer before pulling back and making sure I was okay to go back outside.
“Go out first. That way, if anyone is waiting, I’ll handle it. If I don’t get another chance to tell you tonight, you look so beautiful. And I love you.”
“I love you too, Brody.” I hate this. I hate this so much it physically hurts.
Forcing myself not to say anything else, I made my way out of the bathroom and back outside to watch the rest of the fireworks. Brody and I didn’t get a chance to talk for the rest of the night, and I wondered as I drove home how much more of this I could take.
My phone had died at Kinlee’s house, and I was racing to get home so I could call Brody, knowing I probably wouldn’t be able to talk to him for another few days. But as I turned onto my street I saw Aiden’s truck parked outside my condo and Aiden sitting on the steps leading up to the porch. I didn’t pull into the garage before turning off my car and getting out. I figured it’d be awkward to have to come back around to him, and if I went through the house, I’d have to invite him in.
What is he doing here?
He stood as I made my way toward him, and I instantly knew this wasn’t a visit where he hoped for a relationship to start. Aiden looked hurt, confused, and beyond pissed.
“Brody?”
Oh, God. I froze a dozen feet away from him. “W-what?”
“That’s who it is, right? The other guy. The guy you aren’t seeing but you belong to.” He laughed harshly and ran a hand over his buzzed hair. “Because, you know, you can’t really say you’re in a relationship with a married guy.”
“Aiden,” I whispered, silently begging for him to understand.
“I was inside grabbing a drink when you came running in crying. I started to go to you when he raced in after you. At first, I thought he’d said something to upset you, so I waited . . . kinda hard to mistake the sounds you started making, Kace.”
“Please, just—”
He threw an arm out to the side. “He’s fucking married!”
“I know that, Aiden! I know! Do you think I enjoy this? That I like being the other woman? It kills me, Aiden. God you have no idea how much this kills me every damn day. I wanted to stay away from him, and I tried to start a relationship with you. But after meeting Brody, it was over for me. There is no one in t
he world who will ever be able to make me feel what he does just by saying my name. Not a day goes by that I don’t hate myself for what we’re doing. Not a day goes by that I don’t hate myself for breaking up someone’s marriage even though everyone already knows it was over. And yet, at the same time, not a day goes by that I don’t wonder why, if he is so miserable with his marriage, won’t he leave his wife for me.” Tears were streaming down my face and a loud sob burst from my chest. “Judge me all you want, but you have no fucking idea how insane this is making me and how much this is killing me. I would never want to be a part of this, but he is married to someone else and I can’t breathe without him, Aiden.”
“Shit, Kace, don’t cry.” He took a few steps toward me, and even when I held up my hand to stop him, he pulled me into his chest. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have attacked you like that. I told myself I was going to be calm—I just, I don’t know. When you told me there was someone else, I had no clue it was Brody. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
I pushed out of his arms and wiped at my cheeks. “And what was I supposed to tell you? That I was sleeping with a married man? I know what this makes me, but I couldn’t stand anyone else knowing that. I couldn’t have Brody’s family seeing me that way. I’m not normally this person.”
Aiden ran his hands over his hair and down his face as he shook his head. “Couldn’t you have at least waited until he divorced her? KC, it’s not a secret that Brody and Olivia are done, but this just looks so bad.”
“There’s no way for me to explain it so you’ll understand. You can’t understand without being one of us, but there was no waiting for us. It just wasn’t possible. And he swore he was going to file for divorce, he swore to me,” I cried and covered my face. “But it’s been almost two months, and he hasn’t even told her he’s leaving her. The longer this goes on, the more I start to doubt if he will, and I just—I don’t understand. He loves me and he can’t stand being in that marriage, so why am I not enough for him?” I was rambling about things that no one else should have known. But I couldn’t stop. Once my fears had been given a voice, they all wanted out.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. Come on, let’s go inside and we can talk about this more.”
I didn’t want to talk to Aiden, but at the same time I did. Keeping this from Barb and Kinlee had been making everything that much harder to deal with—and deep down I knew I’d been craving to have someone know the truth so I would have someone to talk to. Despite how unconventional it was, it seemed like Aiden was going to be that person.
Brody
July 4, 2015
I SENT THE text to Kamryn, wishing I’d said something when we’d been together earlier. I was telling Olivia we were over tomorrow. I was done waiting for Liv to be ready to get help. I could only drop so many hints and could only deal with so many nights of her breaking down and then screaming at me before I had to just step back. And I couldn’t keep hiding my relationship with Kamryn when she was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn’t keep doing this to her, and I couldn’t keep living day to day without her by my side.
But all of that would change after tomorrow. My life with Kamryn was about to start.
I checked my phone to see if she’d responded before walking into the house and had to bite back a groan when I shut the door. A barely dressed Olivia was standing there with a look I knew too well.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Jace’s. Where I said I’d be when you told me you were going to the club with your parents.”
She pouted and sauntered up to me, letting her hand trail over my chest. I could’ve just gotten it all over with at that moment, but she reeked of wine and I knew it would be pointless. I’d just have to tell her all over again tomorrow anyway.
“But it’s so late. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Good night, Liv.”
“Brody,” she whined and dug her fingers into my chest and arm as she pulled herself closer. She pressed her lace-covered breasts against me and breathed in my ear. “I’m so horny, Brody. I want you.” The hand on my chest dropped to my pants, and I gripped her thin wrist in my hand.
“I said, good night. You’ve taken care of yourself for years, tonight doesn’t need to be any different.” As gently as I could, I pushed her back and turned to walk toward my room.
“Why don’t you love me anymore?” I could already hear the tears starting and was determined to keep moving until she spoke again. “Is it because of Tate? Or is it because I can’t have kids—you think I’m worthless now, don’t you?”
Or maybe I’m not going to wait until tomorrow. I stopped walking when she mentioned Tate and had to grit my teeth to keep myself from lashing out at her for bringing him into this again.
“You would still love me if I could have more children, Brody, I know it.”
My head slowly shook back and forth as I turned to look at her. There was already makeup streaking down her cheeks with her tears as she hunched in on herself. “You and I both know that’s not it,” I said. “We’ve drifted too far apart, and it started long before Tate.”
“But—but it didn’t!”
Holding back a sigh, I put an arm around Olivia’s waist and led her to one of the large couches and sat down next to her. “We both know you only stayed with me to piss your parents off. Just like we know that we would have never stayed together or gotten married if you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
“No, I don’t know that!” she cried and wiped miserably at her face.
“Liv, you refused to see me. You wouldn’t let me see our son. You didn’t want to live with me . . . you and I hadn’t loved each other for a long time before we got married. It had nothing to do with Tate or you not being able to have more kids.”
“That’s not true! I love you! I do.”
“You don’t. Olivia, I want a divorce.” A loud sob left her, and her face hit her hands. “We’re both miserable,” I continued. “We can’t keep doing this to each other. Let’s just end this on good terms and go our separate ways.”
“You can’t just stop loving me all of a sudden!”
“Olivia, this isn’t sudden. How haven’t you noticed that we haven’t even been going through the motions of being married? Do you even see that I’ve been sleepwalking through the last five years of my life?”
“I don’t care—”
“And that’s just it,” I said, interrupting her. “You don’t care. You don’t care about me, you don’t care about my life, you don’t care about what I want. I want to be able to live my life, Olivia, and you and I both know you’re happier without me too, so this is the obvious thing for us to do.”
“I’ve lost everything! I lost Tate, I lost the ability to have more children . . . I can’t lose you.”
I ground my jaw at the umpteenth reminder of Tate that night and shut my eyes.
“Our baby is gone, Brody. You’ve already taken everything. Don’t take you from me too. Don’t tell me I lost you with Tate.”
Goddamn it; stop bringing up what I did! “Olivia—”
“Please, Brody. After everything you’ve done, you owe it to me to stay with me.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to hold back the tears that had begun forming. “I can’t, I—”
“I’ll die without you, Brody! Do you hear me? I. Will. Die. Do you want my death on your hands too?”
“Olivia, stop!”
“You promised you’d help me! You promised you were on my side. No one else knows what it’s like to go through this, no one else knows that I can’t deal with this pain. And you swore you were going to get me help. And now you’re just going to leave me?” she shouted. “How could you do this to me? After everything else you’ve done, Brody?!”
“I have tried, Olivia,” I said, exhaustion coating my voice. “I have tried so many times to get you help. You say you want it, but I know you don’t.”
“It’s because of this! It’s because I know once you put me
in that fucking mental institution you’re going to leave me there forever. You’ll never come back for me. You’ll never check on me. You won’t love me anymore; you’re going to leave me. I know it! You’re just trying to throw me in there so you don’t have to deal with me anymore.”
“No, what I’m trying to do is make sure that you get the help you need so that when I leave you, you won’t kill yourself, Olivia!” I shouted before I could stop myself.
Olivia’s eyes and mouth went wide, and her tears fell impossibly harder. “I knew it! You’re going to leave me as soon as I’m in there! I won’t go. I won’t fucking go! And if you leave me, I swear to God I won’t be alive the next day! Do you hear me?”
My shoulders sagged in defeat and my breath came out in a hard rush. “Liv—”
“How do you think Daddy’s attorney would like that?” she asked, her lip curling in disgust.
My eyes narrowed on her for a long moment before I shook my head and stood. With a hard swallow, I turned and walked toward the hallway. “Go to bed, Olivia. You’re drunk.”
“No! You’re going to leave—”
“I’m not leaving you. You’re fucking sick. I’m gonna get you help. Just like I said I would.”
15
Kamryn
July 5, 2015
THE BELL CHIMED, and I made my way to the front of the bakery. After Aiden had gone home last night, I’d barely been able to force myself through a shower before falling asleep. Yesterday had been draining in so many ways, and for the first time since I’d opened the bakery I didn’t want to be at work.
We should have put up the MONDAYS SUCK board this morning.
A beautiful woman not much older than me was talking on her phone when I walked out, and she did a double-take when she saw me, her eyebrows drawing together as she studied me. I pulled off my glasses and realized I probably looked weird to her with flour on my face and glasses. I looked around for a napkin so I could clean them off.
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