by Claire Raye
“I don’t.”
“Uh huh,” he says, still grinning. “You keep telling yourself that,” he adds, pushing off the sofa. “Or better yet, just admit it and then go ask her out.”
He nudges me with his shoulder as he walks past, not waiting for my response.
“Fuck,” I mutter, as I turn back and head to the bathroom to wash the filth of last night’s party from my body.
Chapter Three
Sienna
He’s absolutely infuriating, but he has the body of a Greek god and a face that should appear on the cover of a magazine with the headline “Sexiest Man Alive.” I want to claw his eyes out and scream in his face, which I have done on several occasions. Yet, a part of me holds a small place in my heart for him.
We grew up together, all three of us: Reid, my brother, and me. For years we were inseparable. We’d wake up in the morning and walk to school together, walk home together, and in the summers we’d run the neighborhood. We were bonded like no other and for years I loved it. Not a single kid ever fucked with me because they knew Caleb and Reid would come after them. But things changed as we got older and there was a shift in our relationship, something I didn’t think would ever happen. But with age comes growth and with growth comes divide.
We all grew up alone, but we still had each other and I remind myself of that every time Reid forces his way into my life. With absent fathers and missing mothers, we needed each other and if I’m being honest, we probably still do. What I need less of is his need to control my life and who I bring into it.
And why the hell would he have even asked if I wanted to get breakfast, never mind it’s already well beyond that time, but he’s never asked in the past? It felt like an unspoken rule that passed between us years ago that we only ask for help, never anything more. He knows I’d drop everything if he were in trouble and the same goes for him, but beyond that, it’s hands off.
He only feigns interest when someone is interested in me, and if I didn’t know him inside and out, I’d think his intentions were to keep me to himself. But thinking about Reid Bowen in a relationship with me, or anyone for that matter, makes me laugh out loud.
I walk through the front door of the house I share with Ruby and I’m chuckling at the idea of Reid being exclusive.
“Something funny?” Ruby asks, looking up from the pile of books she has scattered on the sofa.
“Reid,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “I went over there to tell him to stay out of my life and that fucking weirdo asked me if I wanted to grab breakfast.”
“Well, in his defense most girls would’ve jumped at the chance.” She shrugs her shoulders, laughing a little. “Honestly, I probably would’ve taken him up on the offer. It’s a once in a lifetime thing.”
Her words cause me to stop for a second, my thoughts swirling with what his invitation means. He doesn’t do the whole socializing with women outside of the bedroom thing, so why decide to ask me? As much as I want to think this means something more, I should know by now he has only himself in mind. It’s probably just another way to insert himself into my life.
“Those girls will just end up with an STD and self-esteem issues,” I tease back.
“Probably true, but I don’t think you realize what you have with him is different. Do you think he’d go after a guy hitting on one of the random girls he’s hooked up? Do think he’d invite them to lunch, meet them outside their classes or check to make sure they made it home safely?” Ruby shoots back, dulling the humor I’m using to deflect my intrigue by it all.
“Demanding to know where I’m at isn’t really checking to make sure I got home safely,” I retort, knowing this argument is pointless. Ruby has always sided with me, but still questions Reid’s motives.
“He has a strange way of showing concern. What can I say?” she shrugs and returns back to studying, once again leaving me with more thoughts than I want to process.
“I’m meeting Justin for lunch,” I announce from the kitchen as I grab a bottle of water from the fridge. “Pissed Reid off.”
“I’m sure it did,” Ruby replies letting out a huff I can hear from the kitchen.
“What was that all about?” I almost demand, my hands on my hips as I walk back into the room.
Ruby and I met when we were randomly placed together by the university roommate lottery system freshman year. We hit it off almost immediately, which we both now know is a rare occurrence. I think we were the only ones on our dorm floor to have that success, but with that comes knowing every quirk about each other. And one of Ruby’s is huffing in place of talking when she has a thought she doesn’t want to share.
Pursing her lips, she hits me with a look I know too well. She’s far too motherly for her own good and growing up without a mother, sometimes my patience for advice is non-existent.
“You sure you’re not just going to lunch with Justin to make Reid jealous?” she boldly asks and it takes everything in me not let out a riotous laugh.
Make Reid Bowen jealous? Please.
“He doesn’t get jealous, Ruby. He’s incapable of feeling.”
“Maybe that’s my point? Maybe you’re hoping you can elicit something from him? Something real?”
She knows she’s annoying me and I cross my arms over my chest, pinning her with a stare. Ruby is going to school to be a guidance counselor and I swear she’s using me as her guinea pig.
“Stop analyzing me,” I tell her, rolling my eyes and letting out an equally annoyed sigh as I head toward the front door.
“That wasn’t an answer,” she shouts as I begin to leave. “It was a deflection!” Her words are loud, loud enough to reach the porch where the door is closing behind me.
I check my phone, looking at the time knowing I told Justin I’d meet him at this little café near campus and since I have to walk, I better hurry.
I’m five minutes late, but when I walk into the nearly dead café I can see Justin isn’t here yet. I scan the small space, looking for a place I may have missed, yet still coming up short. My heart drops and Reid’s words echo loud and clear in my head.
He’s bad news.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. He could just be late and I’m overreacting and letting Reid Bowen dictate my thoughts. His word isn’t worth its weight in gold and I know that.
“Grab a table anywhere, hon,” the waitress calls to me and I plaster on a fake smile, nodding my head in response.
I have no idea why I feel defeated and let down. I met Justin at a fucking keg party and we spent a few hours drunkenly flirting and exchanged numbers at the end of the night. It was his idea to grab lunch today, but that was also at two o’clock in the morning after more shots than I care to remember.
I flop down at a table by the window, looking out at the quiet streets of a college town that sleeps late on Saturdays and only wakes with the setting sun. I pull my phone from my purse and set it down next to me willing it to chime out with a text.
The minutes tick by and the waitress comes over, fills the two water glasses and drops a couple of menus off.
“Anything I can get you?” she asks, a small amount of impatience slipping through.
“I’m meeting someone,” I tell her, as if I need to announce that I’m not eating by myself.
“Okay, I’ll check back then,” she replies, strolling off to clear a few tables.
The door opens a few seconds later and my head shoots around at an embarrassing speed, but it’s only a group of girls, chatting and laughing as they take a table at the far end of the café.
I’m tired of waiting around and instead of being that loser girl who goes home with her tail between her legs, I text Justin asking where he is.
Me: Hey Justin. It’s Sienna. We were supposed to meet for lunch, but I’m just sitting here all by myself.
The bubbles begin to float almost immediately and I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one. But just as I’m waiting for his reply to come through, someone sits down at the
table with me.
Looking up, it’s not who I expect it would be and for a split second I think about bailing.
“What are you doing here?” I immediately ask, my words coming out an obviously bothered mess.
“I was walking by and saw you sitting here by yourself,” he says, a casualness to him, while the group of girls on the other side of the café begin their whispered chats about him.
“Bullshit,” I spit back.
“He stood you up, huh? I think someone mentioned this might happen.”
I hate that he’s right and there’s no way I’m giving him that satisfaction. I look down at my phone, ignoring Reid as he leans closer to me, his elbows resting on the table. He smells like pine trees and fresh snow in the middle of a California heat wave and I hate him for it.
He smells like home.
Justin: Sienna, I’m so sorry. I totally overslept. I blame your beautiful ass for it. So many shots. Can we meet for dinner tonight? I’ll pick you up.
Me: No worries. I’d love to do dinner with you tonight. What time?
Justin: 6:00?
Me: perfect. See you then.
“So he gets a pass at sleeping till two in the afternoon, but you’re all over my ass about it?” Reid quips, looking perfectly insulted with his eyes tipped down at the corners and his mouth curled into a pouting scowl.
“Are you stalking me?” I ask, ignoring his question completely. “How’d you know I’d be here and don’t give me that bullshit that you walked by.”
Now it’s me leaning forward and narrowing my eyes at him. He reaches out his, his fingers gently brushing my knuckles and I pull back instantly. Just his simple gesture causes my body temperature to skyrocket and like hell if I’m going to give him the satisfaction of seeing my reaction as anything more than disgust.
“Stalking you? Sienna, please, I don’t need to stalk women.” He rolls his eyes but floats his gaze over to the group of girls and each one of them giggles in response when he winks and tips his head in their direction.
I think I’m going to puke.
“So then tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Well, Sienna, I was just walking by and saw you sitting here all by yourself and to save you from the embarrassment of being stood up, I thought I’d join you.”
His words are coated with a sweetness so sticky they cling to me and it almost makes me believe him, but I know better. No one knows Reid like I do.
“You followed me here, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did, but I also knew he’d stand you up. Sie, the guy’s a total prick and I know Caleb…”
“Nope. Don’t even think about it, Reid. Don’t bring my brother into this to make me feel guilty. Like I’m the one making the mistake. And anyway, I’m meeting Justin for dinner. He overslept.”
Bringing up Caleb is Reid’s go-to when he wants to get under my skin, because he knows I have a ton of guilt over me being the one who left and went away to college. Being twins it’s hard to be apart, but even more so because I know Caleb gave up his dream of playing college football. Our family business would’ve crumbled to pieces leaving our deadbeat father homeless and desolate. Caleb made the sacrifice and not a day goes by that I don’t think about it.
Reid’s cheeks flush just slightly, and I almost call him out on it, shame him the way he always does me, but I let the moment pass.
“How have things been going?” he asks and again, it’s hard for me to not laugh out loud at his casualness.
“Are we really doing this?” I ask, as the group of girls watches us with bated breath to see if we’re on a date, to see if I’ve nabbed Reid Bowen. He normally wouldn’t be caught dead eating at a restaurant with a girl.
“Yes, Sienna, we’re really doing this. We were friends once, but maybe you’ve moved on from that.”
His words strike a chord, stinging a bit as I realize I have been nothing but cold and rude to him. He’s right, we were friends once—best friends, but that was years ago and we were just kids. He’s changed into someone I don’t recognize anymore.
“Remember when Caleb hung himself by the back of his shorts on that fence post?” Reid asks, a smirk on his face as if he’s recalling the memory in his mind, picturing it like the day it happened.
“Yeah,” I respond, noting the sudden change in conversation, but nodding my head. “He was running from you after he shot you with that paintball gun he bought with the money he made cutting grass.”
“It fucking hurt and I planned to kick his ass for it, but when I rounded the corner and saw his stupid ass hanging there I couldn’t stop laughing.”
I shake my head, laughing a little as the memory comes into my brain so clearly. I can picture all three of us together, Reid and me laughing and Caleb screaming for us to get him down.
“He looked so stupid and neither of us had enough arm strength to lift him up, so I had to stack up a bunch of chairs for him to stand on.”
The two of us are laughing as we pass stories back and forth, a reminder that we always had each other even when we had no one else. Even when our fathers didn’t care, even when the mothers in the neighborhood thought we were trash.
“See, things haven’t changed,” Reid says, a simple smile on his face and through the rough exterior all I see is the boy who was always there.
He carried me two blocks to the hospital when I fell out of a tree and broke my leg. He spent that summer by my side when everyone else was at the public pool finding reprieve from the sweltering heat of the Rhode Island summers. He’d wrapped by casted leg in garbage bags and sprayed me with the hose and spent all his money on Slurpees we’d share.
“But they have,” I say, dulling the joy that once enveloped us. “We’re different people now, Reid. Well, at least you are. You want those girls over there to know you aren’t a bad boy?” I tilt my head in their direction while their prying eyes still scan us every so often.
“Fuck them,” he says, his words loaded with nonchalance as he narrows his eyes at me.
“I’m sure you did.”
He lets out a slow breath of air, his hand covering his heart in typical Reid-style dramatics. “And you’re gonna fuck Justin so I guess we’re even.”
“Why do you care who I fuck? I don’t let your revolving door of women hit me in the ass,” I shoot back.
He pauses for a second, not responding and I wonder what’s going through his head. I search his face, his perfectly beautiful face with its striking blue eyes and chiseled jaw, his nose with the small bump from when he got into a fist fight with Caleb over a girl, and despite all the time that has passed between us, I still see the boy I grew up with.
“How come you don’t come to any of my football games?” he asks out of nowhere. It’s a jolt to the conversation I didn’t see coming.
“How do you know I don’t come to any of the games? You couldn’t possibly know. The stadium is massive.”
He cocks his head to the side and smiles at me. My stomach flutters in response in a way that only he can create and I try to figure out why he finds the need to fuck with me like this.
“It’s been two years and you’ve never once used the seats I have reserved for you,” he states, and I’m caught off guard.
“What are you talking about?” Now it’s me titling my head to the side, reading his face as I search my memory for a conversation we may have had about this.
“I told you right before we left for school that I would make sure you always had a seat at my games, but you blew me off.”
“I did?” I question, his face now sharing with me the disappointment he must have been feeling all this time. We both know what it’s like to be let down and I’ve now just added to his list of people who have done it to him. “I’m sorry, Reid. I don’t even remember you telling me this.”
“No big deal,” he replies back. “I usually give the seats to some random girl because I know it’ll get me laid.”
And there’s the asshole I’ve come t
o know.
Chapter Four
Reid
I don’t know why I say that. Why I go and ruin a perfectly good moment between Sienna and me with a comment about getting laid.
Things haven’t been good like this between us for years and as we shared a laugh and easy conversation just moments ago, I realize how much I’ve missed it. Missed her.
Once upon a time we used to do everything together: her, Caleb and me. In those days I could so easily make her laugh too, unable to stop my own smile every time I did. Sienna’s laugh is infectious, coming from deep within her, as though she’s lighting up from the inside. It makes her even more beautiful than she already is and I used to love it because watching her laugh made me feel invincible.
But up until today, I haven’t made her laugh much at all. If anything, she spends every second she’s around me pissed off and yelling at me. Hating me for the way I act, for the things I do.
Fuck, I miss those days, back home in Rhode Island, even if the older we got, the more my feelings toward her started to change. It scared me, the things I started to feel, knowing I wasn’t supposed to and the only thing I knew to do was push her away. Be a dick to her when I wanted to be anything but.
I knew I had no choice though, I had to keep her at arm’s length because Sienna isn’t mine to fantasize over and she sure as shit isn’t mine to have, no matter how much I might want that.
The silence between us feels awkward, back to how it’s been these last few years. I can practically feel the eyes of the table of girls on me, as though they’re waiting to see what’s going to happen between Sienna and me. I could so easily blow this whole thing off by getting up and walking over to their table. Maybe take one of them home and try to erase the memories of Sienna from my brain.
“When’s your next game?”
She asks it so quietly I almost miss her question and when I turn to her, she’s watching me, an unreadable expression on her face.