25.
Guilty
Chase
I WAKE UP STILL FEELING her on my skin, her sweet scent still clinging to me and I feel more broken than I’ve ever felt before.
It’s even worse than when I thought that she didn’t want me, that this was all one sided and that my father’s disapproval didn’t really matter at the end of the day.
Now that I know that she loves me, every heartbeat, every breath is a painful reminder of what I briefly had and forever lost.
I don’t want to shower, I’m a fucked up masochist but I want to keep her scent on me a little longer.
Then I’ll have to wash her away and shove my feelings deep down where they’ve been festering for all these years like an infected wound.
The door to her room is still closed and I stand in front of it, trying to figure out if she’s up but everything is quiet.
Creepy, I know, so fucking sue me. I need a minute to find my usual composure and finding a balance will be hard because I promised her that I won’t go back to being an asshole but what’s the alternative? I can’t really be buddies with her and watch her date my two best friends.
Speaking of the devil, I spot Parker and Bryce outside on the patio, drinking coffee with my brother.
I guess I should find out what happened last night with Marc, see if I need to call Dad to alert his lawyer that I might run into some trouble. I feel bad about causing trouble but not about beating the shit out of that scumbag. Sorry, not fucking sorry.
“Oh, look who finally got his ass out of bed? I heard your fists had a collision with two hundred pounds of shit last night.”
My twin is the first one to greet me and the smirk on his face makes me laugh, dissipating some of the tension that stiffened my shoulders.
Reid looks at my hands and shakes his head. “Bro, you fucked up your hands. Wait until Coach sees them, especially your throwing hand.”
I shrug with a smirk of my own. “Well fuck, you should’ve seen that asshole’s face.” I sit between Reid and Bryce and look at my brother: we aren’t identical twins but we look really alike, aside from our different coloring. I’m five minutes older than him and I’ve always felt somehow responsible for him, even if five minutes aren’t a lot in the grand scheme of things. “You were pretty wasted last night. Are you feeling ok?”
Reid shrugs it off, saying it’s nothing that a few cups of coffee won’t fix. I can see some tension between him and the guys, as if I’d interrupted something important. “Let’s not talk about me, though. I was asking Bryce and Parker what happened since they cleaned up your mess.”
I love my twin more than anyone else in the entire world, aside from Dad, Kaya and Bryce and Parker but God knows that often he loves pushing my buttons. He’s quiet most of the time and I fucking prefer it to his smart-ass side.
I glare at him, ready to tell him to fuck off when Parker explains what happened last night.
“You’re off the hook, dude. Look, you broke his nose and that douche won’t look pretty for a few weeks but unfortunately, he’ll live.”
I don’t get it, even if I didn’t hurt him that bad, I would’ve bet my ass on him being the vindictive type.
“So has he not gone to the sheriff?”
Bryce chuckles darkly and then puts me out of my misery. “No, he won’t. First of all the asshole was as high as a motherfucking kite. Apparently, the uptight douch-y cadet has a coke habit. This is why he didn’t want to go to the hospital, he was scared that if they realized how wasted he was, his father would find out when he got the insurance bill.”
I nod, that makes sense. And if the cops had gotten involved and the whole story had gotten out, I’m sure that his place at West Point could have been in jeopardy too.
“We agreed that he’ll apologize to Kaya and stop running his mouth and we’ll support the story that the beating he got was down to an attempted robbery gone wrong.”
Parker takes a black leather wallet out of his pocket and slaps it on the table. “He gave us his wallet and told us to burn it.”
I snicker. “Goddam, even his wallet looks pretentious,” I say looking at the expensive Italian leather with Marc’s family crest embossed on the front.
Reid shakes his head. “I didn’t like that douche since the first time I saw him, with his tartan shorts and polo shirts with the collar popped up and the stupid loafers.”
We all agree that we don’t get what Kaya ever saw in that prick to begin with.
I run a hand through my hair, feeling relieved that I don’t need to tell Dad what I did. Not because I’m worried about his reaction to my protecting Kaya’s reputation but because I don’t want to be under his radar again as far as Kaya is concerned. I’d rather he think that I couldn’t care less about my stepsister.
Kaya
I FIND THE GUYS OUTSIDE, drinking coffee and talking. They seem relaxed, so I assume that Parker and Bryce fixed things with Marc.
I ask them about it and Bryce winks at me, tapping his hand on his sculpted stomach.
“How about we tell you over breakfast, sweet stuff?”
Chase narrows his dark blue eyes at his best friend. “Are you trying to dupe Kaya into making you breakfast again?”
His tone isn’t as cutting as it used to be, or maybe I am imagining the underlying softness in his words?
“No I’m offering my help this time, if she agrees to make her delicious breakfast sandwiches.”
Parker intervenes too. “Come on if we all help, it’ll be ready in no time and we can tell Kaya how Bryce and I singlehandedly saved your dumb ass from the consequences of your temper.”
And just like that, we all get to work in the kitchen. Each of us chooses one task and in no time we have a feast complete with freshly squeezed orange juice.
We carry the food outside and we begin serving ourselves, passing the plates around the table and for one crazy, stupid moment my heart feels full at the idea that we’ll be all on the same campus in a few short weeks and I could get used to having all the guys around me like this. For a crazy moment, I imagine how I would feel if I were dating them all, if I could give my love for Chase a real chance, if Reid wasn’t his usual indifferent self.
“Would you like some hash browns, Kaya?” Chase offers me the plate and when I stretch my arm to grab it from him across the table, his fingers touch mine at the bottom of the plate. No one else can see it and the contact lasts a few seconds more than necessary, his fingers stroking mine lightly.
My body reacts immediately to his touch and my knees almost give in because the memory of his skin against mine, of our bodies fused together is still too vivid.
I clench my thighs and the small pang of pain, the soreness that reminds me of having had him inside me just a few hours ago makes me blush and lower my eyes. I can’t hold that dark blue gaze any longer and it’s not just because my heart is breaking at the thought of being apart from him, it’s also guilt.
A shit ton of it. I look around the table and thankfully the guys are all too busy eating to pay attention to me and Chase.
But the guilt is something I wasn’t prepared for and it’s not so much the fact that I gave myself to the man I’ve loved for three years, to one of the guys who’s owned my heart for all this time.
Mainly it’s the fact that I don’t know what I’m going to do with Bryce and Parker. I love them so much and against all odds, I think that our unconventional relationship could really have a future. They both get me completely and I love them with all my heart, even if they’re so different from one another.
No, my internal conflict isn’t about loving them equally. It’s about lying to them, because Chase put me in an impossible situation.
I didn’t mean to cheat on them and I don’t know if the fact that they can accept that I have feelings for both of them means that they could accept my feelings for Chase. After all, they knew about mystery guy and the fact that I couldn’t forget him didn’t seem to be a deal breaker. But I pro
mised Chase not to tell anyone about last night and that to me is a betrayal to Parker and Bryce. They’ve been patient, they’ve been waiting for me, so how can I reconcile not telling them that I had sex with Chase? For as far as they know, I’m still trying to decide who I want my first time to be with, and even though it’s gone, how can I deceive them and keep up this charade?
The right thing to do would be to tell the truth and hope that they’d understand that my feelings for Chase don’t mean that I love them any less. Hope that they could accept that I love each of them wholly and completely and that losing any of them would be like losing a huge part of me. I feel the same way for Reid but when I lift my gaze to look at him, he doesn’t even meet my eyes. For him I don’t exist.
After breakfast, the guys decide to go to the yacht club and have a day out on the beach, waiting for Mom and Dustin to be back later.
They tell me to go change into my bikini while they clean up from breakfast.
I do as I’m told and as I put on my bathing suit, I look at my body in the full length mirror against one wall of my bedroom.
I’m not perfect, far from it but it doesn’t really matter. Parker and Bryce have always made me feel perfect and beautiful but now I feel ugly and terrible because I’m lying to them. My choice puts me between a rock and a hard place; do I betray my promise to Chase and tell the truth? I know that even if Bryce and Parker couldn’t forgive me, they would never tell on us, if I explained how much damage it could do to our relationship with our parents.
Or do I keep my promise and make one of them believe that he was my first?
I hate the idea of lying about something that to me is so important but what’s the alternative? In my heart I didn’t cheat on them both because we still aren’t officially putting a label on our relationship, despite what I told my parents and also because loving Chase doesn’t mean loving them any less. But I know that if they found out, they wouldn’t be able to trust me ever again. The reality is that Chase is right and the risk is greater if our secret got out and our parents learned about what we did last night. So I’ll need to learn to live with my own guilt and treat last night like a beautiful dream that unfortunately could never come true.
I can’t even tell Nic, so I’ll have to carry the weight of my actions all by myself. Or better, the only person who’s carrying this same weight is Chase, so that’s another thing that will always bind us together.
Our love and our guilt.
Parker
I REALLY ENVY BRYCE right now.
Dustin and Karen believe that he’s the only one dating Kaya, so he gets to hold her hand in front of every one and to whisper in her ear making her giggle.
I’m in love with Kaya, I haven’t told her yet but I will soon, hoping that she’ll feel the same.
I meet her gaze across the dinner table and she smiles at me, that sweet smile, full of promises that made me fall for her the first time I saw her.
She’s so beautiful and perfect and innocent and I’ve been dreaming about making love to her for weeks now.
But now I fucking can’t, because since this morning I’ve been keeping this huge secret from her.
Karen’s voice rips me away from my own thoughts.
“Oh damn it! I thought we had ice cream but we’re all out. It’s not family movie night without ice cream! Can someone run to Alberto’s and get some? In the meantime I’ll make popcorn and Kaya and I will choose a movie. It’s our turn to choose and I swear that tonight it’s rom-com night!”
Dustin and the twins groan at the prospect of having to endure a girly movie but I meet Kaya’s gaze and smile when she proudly tells her mom that I’m going to be on their side.
“Parker loves girly movies! He’s seen Dirty Dancing ten times by himself.”
Karen beams at me, “Really? Parker, you’ll make some girl a really happy wife one day. Handsome and loves girly movies. I bet you get your pick of girls on campus.”
I make a non-committal noise and offer to go get the ice cream for everyone. I write down everyone’s order for the delicious Italian Gelato and grab Bryce asking for his help.
“Wait, you don’t have Kaya’s request,” Karen stops us at the door but I reassure her without thinking. “No, I got it. Kaya’s favorite is hazelnut. Do you have whipped cream or do we need to buy some?” Karen seems a little taken aback and she looks at Bryce, who thankfully saves my stupid ass.
“Yeah, I just wrote it down on his list. We got it Karen, don’t worry. Just make sure that you guys pick something bearable when you choose tonight’s movie. No singing or music would be a plus. Maybe a car chase or two?”
Kaya’s mom shakes her head at Bryce’s movie requirements but thankfully we’re in the Jeep and on our way to the marina before Karen can see that no one really wrote Kaya’s order on my list.
We ride to the marina in complete silence: downtown Star Cove is very busy on a Friday night and it takes us a minute to get the ice cream and get on our way back home.
I can feel Bryce’s gaze fixed on me as I drive up the hill that leads to the biggest mansions in Star Cove.
“What?”
My best friend admonishes me that we have to be careful about what we say in front of Kaya’s parents.
“Look dude, you know I’m not trying to mark my territory here or anything, right? It’s just easier to have Karen and Dustin believe that Kaya’s dating just one of us. So you can’t show them how much you care or they’ll get suspicious. Maybe one day we’ll be able to tell them that we both love their daughter but it’s Kaya’s call, not ours.”
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and take a deep breath: Bryce is one of the best guys I know but while I hide my real feelings behind an impenetrable gaze, he hides his behind an easy going smile.
“Is it all that easy for you? Don’t you have a problem with all the lying we’ve been doing?”
I don’t need to tell him what I mean because he immediately gets defensive.
“What do you expect me to do? Reid made us promise and it’s not our story to tell.”
He doesn’t look at me and that’s a telltale sign that Bryce isn’t as comfortable as he wants me to believe, I’ve known him way too long to fall for it. So I pull over and turn to look at him fully.
“I know we promised but does that make it all right? If the roles where reversed and Kaya knew something really important to you, about your past, wouldn’t you want her to tell you?”
Bryce’s expression is as troubled as my own. “Well fuck, this is an impossible situation, isn’t it? Whatever we do, we’re betraying someone we love. But the way I see it, is that Reid has made his decision and that he doesn’t want to piss off his father. So there’s no way for him to ever be with Kaya. If you think about it, telling her wouldn’t really change the situation. It would just dig up a past that it’s better kept where it belongs, in the past.”
I look at my best friend and I have to ask him if it’s that easy for him. “So is that ok with you? That we know who her mystery guy is and we keep that to ourselves? Don’t you think that she deserves to know, since she still thinks about that kiss?”
And it’s true that you can never say that you know someone completely, because Bryce’s next words take me by surprise.
“You’re right, she deserves to know. But I don’t want to tell her,” I’m about to ask him why but I don’t need to because I know exactly why and Bryce voices his feelings that completely match my own.
“I don’t want to tell her because I’m afraid that if she knew, she’d choose. And that she’d choose the guy whose kiss no one could ever match. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t want to disappoint his father, that’s because he doesn’t know how much Kaya cares about him. Haven’t you seen the way she looks at him when she thinks that no one’s looking? Look, I know it’s selfish on our part, but Reid asked us to keep quiet and I plan to honor the promise we made. Bros before hoes and all that shit, right?”
I feel relieved
and pissed off at the same time. “I hate that saying. Kaya isn’t a hoe.”
Bryce nods, suddenly serious. “I know. It’s just a stupid saying. Parker, I’m in love with Kaya. Like, really in love. I’m fine to share her time with you because I know that she doesn’t have a favorite between us. And I wouldn’t be opposed to Reid being in the picture, if I were sure that that fucking kiss wouldn’t be the deciding factor. I know it’s selfish and I feel guilty as shit about not telling her but I don’t want to lose her.”
Fuck, Bryce is completely right. I don’t care if I have to share as long as I know that she cares for everyone equally.
“So what do we do? We just keep it from her and pretend that everything is like it was yesterday?”
“Yes, for now. We keep on like we’ve been doing. After all, it’s not like we’re lying about our feelings for her, right?”
Right.
So we kiss her, we take her out on dates, we eventually make love to her. All of this, hoping that the truth won’t come to bite us in the ass.
In a couple of weeks we begin our senior year of college and Kaya begins her freshman year.
Will our love survive the winter away from the beach? Will we be able to stay together through the things we aren’t saying, the heavy course loads, the football season, the fraternities, sororities, finals and all the challenges that await us when we leave Star Cove?
I know my own heart and I know Bryce is in love with her just as much as I am, but will that be enough?
Forbidden (Perfect for them Book 1) Page 24