by Kate Stewart
Pulse racing, I walked into the living room to see the interview I’d done with the Sergeants months ago playing on Nate’s laptop on the coffee table. He was hunched over in front of it and turned the volume up when I directed some questions to Reid.
“For the most part, you’ve stayed tight-lipped about your personal life. Is there anything you want your fans to know?”
Reid looked directly at me. “I like to keep my private life, private.”
I could see my fake smile on the screen from the edge of the living room.
“You do realize that makes you more of a mystery, and some women find that appealing.”
“I don’t think about it, or the attention,” he said, blowing out smoke, his eyes intent on mine. He was so obvious.
“Any addictions, skeletons, Reid Crowne?”
“I kicked all my bad habits a few years ago. I still dance with my skeletons and tuck them in bed at night. They don’t talk much,” he said with a straight face.
I remembered sitting in that room, tension swirling in the air between us. As an afterthought, Reid pulled on his cigarette. “Addictions are dangerous,” he said pointedly, his eyes covering me in want. “I know what’s good for me.”
Nate paused the interview and sat back, his head in his hands, rubbing furiously.
“I always wondered why you didn’t air that podcast. I’m such a fucking idiot. I pushed you right into him, didn’t I?
“No,” I choked out.
“I was so intent on the story, I didn’t read between the lines. You were scared that day. You didn’t want to do it, and I pushed you. I fed you to him.”
“Nate.”
His eyes met mine. They were bloodshot. He’d been drinking. “You let go of my hand. The minute he started to sing, you let go of my hand.” I felt the rip in his heart. The betrayal.
“I’m sorry. Nate, please believe I didn’t realize I would react like that. I love you.”
“Give it up, Stella! He knows you love him. Fuck, I feel sick,” he said as he paled. “He’s a goddamn rock star and you didn’t think to tell me anything?”
“He wasn’t when I met him.”
“God, it just dawned on me. He’s the waiter. Isn’t he? The one with the broken arm. You were with Reid fucking Crowne before me. It was him.” His voice was filled with dread.
I nodded slowly.
He stood and walked over to me. “So, did you go with him tonight? Is it my turn now?” His eyes glittered with anger and disgust. “No thanks.” He pushed past me to our bedroom.
“Nate, please don’t do this.”
He whirled on me in the hallway. “I saw it. I saw you! You love him! You fucking love him!”
I felt my heart sink. “I love you.”
“I know,” he snapped as he turned toward the bedroom. “I know, Stella.”
He grabbed a suitcase from the closet and flashed a look my way. “Did you fuck him?”
“No. I kissed him. I got swept up in the moment, and there’s no excuse, so I won’t give you one. I can’t explain it.” Desperation leaked out of me as I watched him pack. “Don’t leave.”
The anger in his eyes told me I didn’t have a chance in hell of winning this fight. I crumbled then, and he caught me. “Stella, stop it. You can’t get upset like that.”
“Fuck it,” I said with conviction. “If you leave, I’ll be ruined anyway,” I said, my heart bared. “I said yes because I wanted to marry you, Nate. You are acting like I slept with him, like I had some sort of affair.”
“It’s the same damn thing if you’re in love with him!”
I knew he was right. I knew he was, but it didn’t stop me from fighting.
“Nate, we barely started, Reid and I, and we ended so long ago.”
“Lies. You’re not a liar, Stella! I deserve you! Where has this greedy fuck been? Where is he now? Waiting for you on a jet? Damn you both.” He jerked some clothes from our closet and began packing.
I had no right to argue, but the half of me that belonged to Nate Butler was not going down without a fight. “Never in all our time together did you not feel me with you, Nate Butler. You can accuse me of a lot right now, but not of being absent! You were the one who was absent!”
He stopped packing his bag and shook his head slowly. “You don’t fucking get to throw that in now when it’s convenient.”
“It never was convenient, was it?”
“Oh, that’s some fucked logic, Stella!”
I shrugged. “It didn’t matter. And do you know why? I wanted us. I would never have taken this ring if I didn’t think I would be happy as your wife and could make you happy.”
“Stella,” he said, his voice cracking as his eyes swam. “I saw it. I will never be able to erase that image from my head. Ever.”
He picked up a picture of us—a shot of us the night we got engaged, the night he got down on both knees and asked me for forever—and smashed it into the wall behind me.
“Nate.” I cringed at his outburst. He was seething.
He paced in front of me, his eyes blue fire.
“Tell me everything. Right now, Stella.”
“He was my first love. It just stunned me. That’s all.”
“You aren’t going to lie your way out of this. I want the truth. Right now. I deserve it.”
“I don’t even know him anymore,” I said, but even that felt wrong. I was defenseless after an ambush. I never felt like I wouldn’t be happy where I was. Nate was enough, that’s what my heart told me, and I believed it.
Reid was the goddamn grenade.
“Well, he knows you. That whole set was for you! Admit it,” he said, taking a dangerous step toward me. “Stella,” he snapped, as my eyes begged him to let it go. He lifted his chin, ready for the blow, and I delivered.
“I love you both,” I cried as he towered over me. “And he was never supposed to come back for me.”
“But he did,” he said as angry tears fell down his cheeks.
I would never forgive myself for hurting him.
“After the interview, he showed up to Paige’s wedding and told me he wanted me back. I told him I was with you, that I was happy.”
“And you came home and fucked me,” he scoffed.
“And the day after that and the day after. I’ve made myself clear to you both!” I pulled his suitcase off the bed and threw it on the floor. “It’s your ring that I’m wearing, your name that I’m taking.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“No?” I said, walking toward him as my world stopped for the second time that night.
“Maybe you choose me now, at this moment, but regret that decision later, resent me. You already told me months ago you wanted more. And I’m not going to walk around like a fucking zombie waiting for my wife to leave me!”
He pulled my arms away from him, and I sank onto our bed as the gravity of losing him hit repeatedly.
“Nate, you mean so much to me. You’re my best friend. I love you,” I croaked. “Please don’t go.”
Nate stood with his heart cracking, his eyes full of emotion. I’d never seen him so distraught, so ruined.
“I deserved to know the truth,” he said, pulling me to stand. It was there, between us, all the adoration, the years of knowing each other so intimately, and so much unfinished love to be made. I gripped him tight and pressed my mouth to his, fighting, begging for him to kiss me back. His lips bruised me as he fought back, his tongue dueling with mine. I whimpered in his hold until he shook me away.
“No, Stella. Last night, it was honest between you and me. Tonight, it would be a lie. Don’t touch me. I’m crazy jealous right now in a way that scares me.” His eyes flicked to mine. “I want to hurt you both.”
I gasped as he pushed past me, leaving his clothes, our life, me. Emotions ruled me that moment as I begged him to forgive me, begged him to stay with me, begged for him without right, because I did let go of his hand, and he wasn’t the only man I loved.
I wouldn’t forgive me, either.
“Take your time, but take everything,” he said coldly. “I love you,” he whispered as more tears fell before he walked out on me.
He shut the door on us, and I slapped it with my palms and then hit the floor.
“Wow,” Lexi said with wide eyes as she surveyed the broken glass in my bedroom. “Who would have thought Nate had it in him.” Lexi had shown up minutes after Nate left. He’d called her because he was worried I would have another episode.
Nate.
There was no going back. He’d never looked at me like that. Everything about what happened between us looped in my head and out of my mouth as I told Lexi the story.
“This is some serious soap opera shit right here.” She pulled a joint from her purse pocket and lit it.
“This is what you say to me?” I glared at her. She had grown her hair long and was working harder than ever. In her sweater dress, she was practically glowing in her success. It was hard to get Lexi down these days. Such a different woman than the one who lived in the dark a year ago. I envied her. She walked around the glass in her knee-high boots and bounced over it, holding the weed out to me.
“I’m sorry, Stella,” she said, blowing smoke out and gesturing to me with the joint.
I shook my head. “You know I don’t smoke.”
“No, you stroke,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“If you’re just going to laugh at me, you can get the hell out,” I ordered. She slowly sat down next to me against the headboard and pulled my head to rest in her arm.
“Take it, Stella. You know Nate will be back. He loves you more than anything.”
“No, Lexi, he won’t. This isn’t some argument over petty shit. You didn’t see him. He’s done. I felt it,” I said, pushing the endless tears away from my eyes. “God, I fucked up.”
She looked at me with solemn eyes. “What about Reid?”
“What about him?” I said, relenting when she pushed the joint in my direction. I grabbed it and studied it, anger racing through me. “He’s angry that he walked out on me twice and then I decided to oh, get engaged to my longtime boyfriend. He’s not innocent. He barged in eight months ago, making demands, and then walked right back out, as if he hadn’t just set my world on fire. Seriously, I’m supposed to be the one to run to him? I’m not going to up and leave my life for him.”
“Seems like your life just up and left you, Stella, because you love Reid. You’re the one that’s delusional. Your connection with him just ended your relationship.”
I inhaled the weed and began choking, on the truth.
“Nate has every right to be angry that I didn’t tell him about Reid. I should have told him the night of the wedding.”
“And made him suspect you at every turn? It wasn’t your fault Reid came on so strong. Right now, Nate, he’s just protecting himself. He got a rude wake-up call about the competition he didn’t know he had, that’s probably what freaked him out the most,” she said calmly. I felt the sensation hit me and my nerves began to ease, my limbs settling into a dull ache. My heart forever fucked by dual goodbyes.
“I lost them both,” I said, curling into a ball and grabbing Nate’s pillow. His scent hit me: ocean and woods. I burst into tears. “I can’t handle this,” I said as I looked at her helplessly. “Nate was perfect.”
“No, he’s not. And you know that, and you’ve known it. I watched you situate yourself around him and that damned paper and that was fine as long as you were happy. But, Stella, as much as you loved him, as many of your own dreams as you were planning to sacrifice to be with him, you would have hated that decision eventually, and Nate realized that tonight.”
“No.”
“Yes. And then there’s Reid who you are clearly still in love with.”
“I’ll never forgive him.”
“For what? Playing in a club he started in? He was on a nostalgia kick, and you and your fiancé got caught in the crossfire. He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s just not willing to waste his life in denial.”
“Like I am?” I snapped, taking another heavy hit.
“You want me to hold your hand and lie to you?”
I shrugged. “No.”
She eyed me as she licked her finger and rubbed it on the side of the joint to keep it from running. “Then here’s the way I see it. You love them both. You would’ve been happy with either one. Maybe if tonight hadn’t happened, you and Nate would have had a happy marriage. But it did, so now you have to figure shit out without the two of them. Love has its place and you’ve put yourself on pause long enough. It’s time to get off your ass and do Stella.”
“You never liked Nate for me,” I accused, grappling for anything residual of my own version of the truth.
“Bullshit. He was a beautiful person and good to you. There was nothing not to like.”
“Jesus, I feel so ripped,” I said as I looked down at my ring and saw Nate on his knees, his rehearsed words, our matching smiles and tears, the look in his eyes when for a split second he wasn’t sure of the answer I gave.
“There’s something about Reid you’ll never let go of, and it’s not for nothing, Stella. He’s changed his whole life to make a place for you in it.”
“He had no right to come back like that.”
“He had every right. He worked his ass off to deserve you, and you deserved to know he loved you as much.”
“And you knew this?” I said, staring her down.
“Not really, not until you told me what he said tonight. And it was only then I remembered Ben would say something from time to time that stuck with me.”
“Like?”
She sighed. “Not necessarily about you . . .just how he would duck out after shows and go back to the hotel instead of parties. How they had to reschedule some things so Reid could get his head straight. He’s been fighting his demons for a long time, for himself and for you.”
The look on Reid’s face crippled me from more anger. I wanted so much to go to him. Guilt struck hard then as I sat in Nate’s bed, our bed, trying to make sense of it all. “God, Lexi, you should have seen him on that stage. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“I believe you.”
“All this time, he’s felt that about me. I don’t know why he held on. I gave him every reason not to.”
She eyed me carefully. “Because he knew he hurt you. He knew you weren’t being honest. Just like Nate did. It’s okay that you love them both because you truly do love them both.”
“Well, excuse me if I disagree with you. I hate myself for it. I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want tonight to have never happened,” I said as I shuddered with a sob. “I want my life back.”
“Then take it.”
“He’s done with me Lexi, he was so h-h-hurt.” I hiccupped.
“Don’t think about Reid or Nate. Think about Stella. What does she want for herself?”
I pushed my hair away from my face and bit my lip.
“It’s me,” she pushed gently. “Say it.”
“I want my career. I want to make my podcast successful. I want to be taken seriously. I want to be the Barbara Walters of the music world.”
“Then that’s what you do,” she said simply. “For the next year, you concentrate on Stella.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Damn right it’s what I did,” she said as she lay on her pillow next to mine. “Living for a man is the quickest way to get lost. And the reality of coming up empty-handed when it doesn’t work out. Fuck that. It’s a nightmare. I learned my lesson. There’s a time for everything. I lost my damn mind over Ben.”
“Lexi,” I said softly.
“He came to see me last night,” she said staring up at the ceiling.
Normally Lexi would have called and told me right away. It would have been huge news.
She hadn’t so much as texted me. Maybe she really was okay. Maybe she’d found the strength in herself to not let her emotions rule her. The way I mistakenly thought avoiding mine would work for me.
“What did he say?”
She shrugged. “Later, this isn’t about Ben and me.” She turned to me. “I still love that asshole. But every day I live for me and that’s the best decision I’ve ever made. We’re supposed to be smarter than this, Stella.”
“We fucked that up really quick, all our plans. We lived together for ten minutes.”
“We never got our chance,” she reminded me.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too, but I wouldn’t trade my time with him for anything, would you?”
“No, not with either of them,” I said honestly. “Even though the avalanche started because I just had to know what it was like to kiss Reid Crowne.”
“You could have missed it,” she reminded me. “And then where would you both be?”
“So what?” I sniffed. “I just accept Nate’s decision and move on?”
“No, he was angry, hurt, out of his mind jealous. I don’t think he’s really made his decision yet. And it’s your choice to wait him out. We’re just getting started, Stella.” she said with a sly smile. “It’s not too late.”
Reid’s same sentiments echoed.
“Come on. Let’s give Nate his space to realize what a jealous idiot he’s being. Come stay with me.”
“Lexi,” I said as I looked around our bedroom full of memories. “I messed up by letting go of his hand. I didn’t even realize I’d let go, didn’t even think about him.” I cringed. “All I could see, feel, was Reid.”
She pulled me to stand. “You’ve been fighting your feelings for Reid for so long. Maybe it was just your way of finally admitting it, giving yourself permission to love them both. But you won’t be good for either of them if you don’t realize what you want and make it happen. And the only way to do that is to take you out of both equations. Let it be.”