“You’re right. That dipshit was lucky that our first worry when we heard the bullshit he was spreading around was to get Reid’s drunk ass back home.”
I agree with Bryce, had I gotten ahold of Marc, I’m sure he’d have a few more broken bones than what Chase gave him. And I’m relieved that we found Chase when we did or we might have a fucking dead body to get rid of. “Yeah, that motherfucker has to thank Reid’s out of control drinking for still being alive.”
We didn’t hear the patio door open despite the quiet of this early morning, so Reid’s voice makes me jump.
“Who has to thank my drunk ass?”
Reid is looking like hell as he lowers himself on the chair on the other side of me holding a mug of coffee and a bottle of water.
I debate if it’s wise telling him the shit that just went down but decide that if roles were reversed, I’d want to know. The four of us have always been a tight knit unit, Chase and Reid might be the only ones related by blood but I’ve always considered those three assholes my brothers. Sometimes we fight like siblings too, so I begin talking.
I tell Reid how Chase informed us of the nasty rumors that Marc was spreading about Kaya and how Chase took matters into his own hands and beat the shit out of Marc.
Reid sips on his coffee quietly for a few minutes, considering my words and the first question that comes out of his mouth is, “Are we sure that Kaya didn’t sleep with him?”
Bryce takes objection to his question and retorts with a question of his own. “Yes, I’m sure. Kaya has never lied to me, it’s not the way she is. But regardless of it, what kind of douche goes around saying that kind of shit about someone? Even if they had slept together and then she had cheated on him, just be a fucking man and move on.”
Reid nods, almost surprised by Bryce’s heated tone. Bryce is normally the happy go lucky guy among the four of us and I’ve seen him so mad very few times.
“Dude, calm the fuck down. I’m on your side on all this, ok? I’m glad my brother taught that fuckface a lesson. I’ve been wanting to teach him a lesson since the yacht party.”
Bryce and I look at each other and I tread very carefully, Reid lately has been always on edge reminding me more of Chase than his usual calm and collected self. “Yeah, I bet. Especially since the company he’s been keeping since after that yacht party.”
I’m referring to the fact that lately Marc has been seen out with Jasmine, who until the night of the party had been Reid’s date several times.
Reid shrugs. “Whatever. I talked to Jasmine last night and I can’t help her if she keeps choosing losers to hang out with. If she thinks that Marc will help her get out of Star Cove, she’s in for another rude awakening. But you know, I have no hard feelings, I told her to come and find me if she needs a shoulder to cry on.”
Bryce looks surprised. “Seriously, dude? Do you like Jasmine so much that you’d take her back after she fucked Marc?”
Reid shakes his head. “Take her back? Jasmine and I were never together.”
I can’t help the eye roll that follows his objection. “Sure, you weren’t together but you’ve been fucking her, so—”
Reid’s voice is firm when he sets the facts straight. “I haven’t been fucking Jasmine. I never even touched her. We’re just friends.”
Bryce barks out a laugh, disbelief coloring his tone. “Right, and the sun sets in the East and rises in the West. Come on, dude! You tapped that, just own it.”
My best friend covers his face with his hands and his voice comes out a little muffled as a result. “I haven’t been tapping anyone in quite some time, Bryce. Since after spring break if you must know.”
Bryce and I look at each other, unsure if we can believe Reid’s statement. We’ve always seen him with a girl on his arm.
“They’ve been fucking decoys, dude. I’ve been in love with someone for a few years now and I don’t know how she feels about me but it doesn’t matter because I can never have her. I admit that at first I threw myself into the college hookups, trying to fuck her out of my system. It didn’t fucking work because I look for her in every girl and no one ever comes even close. When I realized that I’d see her again this summer, I quit even trying to get laid because I knew there’s no hope for me, I love her too much.”
I don’t even need to ask him who he’s talking about, I know as soon as our eyes meet that he’s in love with Kaya.
Fuck, both Reid and Chase are in love with Kaya.
Bryce comes to my same conclusion but he can’t keep himself from voicing his surprise. “You’re in love with your sister?”
Reid’s voice is gruff and pained when he corrects Bryce. “Stepsister, dude. And don’t look so horrified, we aren’t that weird or anything. We met Kaya three years ago, the summer Chase and I turned eighteen. Remember? You went to Hawaii on that windsurfing under twenty-one World Championship and took Parker with you while Chase and I came here with our dad, since he was looking at Star Cove to open his sailing center? Before he started on the whole luxury yacht thing?”
Yeah, I remember that summer, it was one of the very few summers the four of us didn’t spend together.
Reid explains how he and Chase both met Kaya around Star Cove and immediately fell for her, without knowing that they liked the same girl at first and without knowing that Dustin had met Karen.
“When we realized that our parents were dating, we didn’t have a clue that that would be the source of all our suffering. We were so wrapped up in her and in trying to make her fall for us, that when Dad told us that he expected us all to be one big, happy family—”
So he tells us how hard things became for them, how they couldn’t deny Dustin what he wanted because of how hard things had been for their father when they lost their mom.
“In a way I guess it was for the best, because neither of us was prepared to give up on Kaya for the other. We were headed toward self-destruction. Hell, up to this day Chase and I haven’t even talked about her out loud. We just distanced ourselves from her and we didn’t need words to communicate how hard and painful that was.”
I nod, a lot of things make more sense now. “Right. So that was why you two were so weird around her?”
Reid sighs. “What the fuck did you expect? We tried to stay away and it didn’t work, we tried to forget her and it didn’t work. I really didn’t want to come here because seeing her every day hurts too much. Especially since you two had to go and fall for her too. So she’d hang around us even more. I did tell you that she was off-limits but you two motherfuckers are so hard headed.”
24.
The First Kiss
Reid
PARKER AND BRYCE HAVE two opposite reactions to my accusation: the first one apologizes and the second one is outraged.
“Sorry, we had no idea why you were being so weird about it all. I genuinely thought that you and Chase didn’t like her. You called her a brat. If you’d told me this from the beginning—”
“No, dude! It serves them right. They’ve been keeping this shit inside for years! They’ve been in love with Kaya for all this time and they barely even mentioned her to us. ‘Don’t touch my little sister because she’s a brat’ is different than ‘I’m in love with her and I call dibs even if I can never be with her.’ Had you two been honest with me, I wouldn’t have tried to get close to Kaya. I just thought you two were being the usual controlling alpha assholes, especially after the way you reacted when you saw her with Marc. Chase even told me that I could have a try at dating her but that I’d get burned. You know what? You weren’t honest with me and now it’s too late. I’m in love with her, so either tell her how you feel and face your old man’s wrath or be a man and let Parker and I make her happy.”
Fuck, I want to punch Bryce in the face like I’ve never wanted to punch anyone, not even my twin brother. Chase and Bryce have the same outspoken, fiery personality, with the difference that Bryce is generally mellower compared to my brother.
Parker and I are q
uieter and generally more introverted but the fact that we don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves, doesn’t mean that we don’t have feelings too, goddam it.
I take a deep breath and try to calm down. My best friends are actually right. Chase and I were so blinded by the pain our forbidden love for Kaya was causing us, that we handled the whole situation in the worst possible way. First we ignored her, then we treated her like shit, thinking that we had the right to comment on and judge her love life. If I have to be entirely honest, Parker and Bryce are the two best guys I know and Kaya is lucky to have either of them. They’re definitely better for her than Chase and no doubt better than me.
I man up, aware that Kaya will be on my same campus anyway, so if I have to see her all the time, I might as well know that she’s with someone good. And my broken heart be damned. “I’m sorry, guys. You’re both right. Kaya will be lucky whichever of you she chooses.”
All of a sudden, they both shift uncomfortably in their chairs and neither of them is meeting my eye.
Parker finally breaks the silence. “She isn’t choosing. We don’t want nor need her to.”
I don’t immediately register what Parker means and I look from one to the other of my best friends, utterly disoriented. “Come again? What the fuck are you saying?”
When they explain that they both love her and while they might experience the occasional bout of jealousy, they’re happy to be with her individually and together, the first emotion that invades my chest is indeed jealousy.
I couldn’t really see myself and Chase in a similar situation, even if the circumstances were different. Or could I? Maybe with Bryce and Parker in the picture things would be better and the rivalry between me and my twin wouldn’t feel quite so intense? After all I love Chase, I’d give my life for him and I want to see him happy.
I shake my head to send those dangerous thoughts away because it doesn’t really matter. There are no circumstances in which we could be with Kaya, our parents would never approve and we could never cost her her relationship with our parents, even if we decided to sacrifice our own.
“Dude, are you ok? Look, I know it sounds a little crazy but Parker and I—”
I smirk at Bryce, I could enjoy watching him squirm but I don’t have the heart to do it, I know he’s had a hard year with his parents’ divorce and being dumped in the spring, so I concede.
“Look, she’s an adult and she can date whoever she wants. Just promise me that you’ll treat her right or I swear that whatever Chase did to Marc will look like a fucking walk in the park.”
My friends nod and assure me that they’d never hurt Kaya.
I can’t help a bitter remark. “Yeah, that seems to be my job, and my brother’s. At least Chase doesn’t know how it feels to kiss her. I have to live with that memory every day. Every time I look at her—”
The expression on my friends’ faces stops me in my tracks, they’re looking at me almost as if they’ve seen a ghost.
“When did you kiss Kaya? She never mentioned anything between you and her.”
I don’t know what’s up Bryce’s ass all of a sudden, so irritation seeps into my tone together with the usual guilt whenever I remember my only kiss with Kaya.
“She doesn’t know it was me,” his eyes widen as if he knew what I’m about to say, but it’s impossible. So I tell them the whole story, how at the end of that summer three years ago, Kaya and Nic managed to worm their way into this huge party we were going to.
“Chase and I didn’t want her around and we’d said no but Karen heard us arguing about it and asked us to give the girls a ride and make sure they didn’t get into trouble.
We split as soon as we got there: Chase was trying to bang this girl from Shell Cove and I was just floating from room to room, nursing a wine cooler and trying to pretend that I wasn’t looking at Kaya the whole time. After a while, Nic saw this guy she liked and left Kaya by herself, so I was going to spend some time with her, I knew how much she hated being in a room full of people where she didn’t know anyone. With all her constant moves, she told me that she always found herself in that situation and I wanted— shit, I don’t really know what I wanted. I guess all the new arguing and ignoring her wasn’t really working for me and I missed being close to her. I missed those walks on the beach, holding her hand. Teasing her when she made a mess eating ice cream ...”
My voice drifts away for a second as I remember the beginning of that summer, when I was falling in love and I thought that my life was finally becoming wonderful.
But my friends’ gazes are fixed on me and I realize that they’re still waiting for the end of my story.
“She was going from room to room, maybe looking for someone she knew and I kept getting stopped by people Chase and I met at other parties, so it took me a minute to finally catch up to her. I found her in the lounge and I was about to ask her if she wanted to get out of there, when someone turned the lights off in the whole house and shouted ‘Random kissing time!’. So I—”
Bryce finishes the story for me. “So you kissed her.”
I nod, every time I close my eyes I can still feel her kiss as if she branded me with her lips. I felt guilty about kissing her for the longest time, especially when I saw how much Chase was hurting. But I don’t regret it and if I could go back in time, I’d do it again.
Bryce looks furious and I can’t really understand why. “Look dude, get over yourself, ok? I kissed her just once and she doesn’t even know it was me. She probably doesn’t even remember that kiss. I’m the one who can never forget it and no kiss after that was ever even close. I wish I could tell you that I’m sorry but I’m not. If anything, that kiss proved that Kaya was the girl for me and as you know, that can never happen.”
I feel an odd mixture of relief and loss at having finally told someone about that kiss. But I don’t have a lot of time to dwell on my emotions because Bryce looks ready to kill me and I really don’t understand what his deal is.
“Dude, you’ve no idea how much it’s costing me not to kick the shit out of you right now.”
I look at my best friend, confused about why he’s so fucking mad about something that happened three years ago, when he didn’t even know Kaya.
Parker seems just as troubled and I react by becoming defensive.
“Guys, you’re acting as if that was some fucked up incestuous shit. Remember that Kaya and I aren’t related.”
Bryce shakes his blond head and looks at Parker. “He doesn’t fucking get it.”
They’re seriously starting to piss me off, when Parker finally explains.
“You’re her mystery guy. That was her first kiss, Reid.”
When they tell me how Kaya has been thinking about that kiss for years, comparing every other kiss she’s ever gotten to my kiss ...
Oh, fuck.
My emotions are completely out of control: I feel guilty and sad, proud and happy but most of all devastated because it doesn’t matter that she loved that kiss. That doesn’t change our circumstances but also doesn’t guarantee that she’d have been happy to know that it was me who kissed her that night. What if she wished that it was Chase?
I know that Kaya and I were close but I saw the palpable attraction between her and my brother all summer long. This is why at the time I’d been so hesitant to make my move.
But it doesn’t really matter at this point because whatever could have been between me and Kaya has been swept away by our parents getting married and by the fact that she’s now dating my best friends.
I don’t like the way Parker and Bryce are looking at me, so I make sure that we’re on the same page. “Guys, you know you can never tell her, right? The past should just stay buried where it belongs, in the past.”
Parker objects. “Don’t you think that she has a right to know? It was her first kiss and she’s been thinking about it for years.”
I shake my head and plead my case. “It doesn’t matter anymore, guys. Nothing good can come out of rehashing a
ny of it. Kissing you two obviously fixed whatever I might have broken and we really need to let sleeping dogs lie. That night I did something selfish and I took a risk, my dad can never know. Fuck, I shouldn’t have told you.”
I explain that after I kissed Kaya, I was determined to sit down with my dad and talk to him man to man. My eighteen year old self felt so very mature at the idea of confronting my old man about how my brother and I felt about Kaya.
I planned to tell him that we were both in love with her and that we would make sure that if Kaya loved either of us, that wouldn’t destroy our relationship. That if she chose Chase, I would learn to live with it. I was going to promise that we wouldn’t let our feelings for Kaya interfere with his relationship with Karen.
“I was sitting in his office, waiting for him to come back from the new sailing center he just inaugurated mere weeks earlier. I was getting nervous and you know me, writing my thoughts always help me calm down, so I opened his desk drawer, looking for pen and paper. And then I found two things. One was a jewelry box with an engagement ring for Karen. The other one was a leather bound journal. I opened it hoping that I could grab a sheet from it without realizing that it was my father’s journal.”
I tell my best friends how I looked in it, knowing full well that it was an invasion of my dad’s privacy but unable to resist my curiosity.
“The last entry was from a few days before. The diary was written in the form of letters addressed to my mom. He told her how much he loved Karen and that he was going to ask her to marry him and he told Mom how he thought that she put Karen on his path, somehow. How his love for Karen and the hope of having a family again saved his life. Something in those words bothered me and I went back, looking through past entries until I found one from about a year before, written on the tenth anniversary of my mom’s death.
Dad told Mom how much he missed her, how his life had been empty and painful without her and how he thought about taking his own life several times. The only reason why he didn’t was that he had me and Chase. That he couldn’t leave us without a family. Chase doesn’t know about any of it. But I remember putting everything back where I found it, and making a decision to not challenge Dad’s wish about us being siblings to Kaya. He’d literally lived for me and my brother and even if I didn’t personally believe that loving Kaya would’ve gotten in the way of what he wanted, I couldn’t risk it. So this is why I decided to stay away.”
Forbidden (Perfect for them Book 1) Page 23