“This stupid party, my brothers leaving to do their boy thing, and stood up.”
“That sounds like you got screwed.”
I laughed once. “I guess we could say that was supposed to happen.”
“What does that mean?”
I broke up with my boyfriend two weeks ago. Before then, we had decided that my birthday was going to be the night. The night we gave ourselves to each other—finally. It would’ve been perfect because the idiots known as my brothers would be gone. The house would be empty and there would have been very little chance of being caught, but . . . I didn’t know, the closer the date got, the less I wanted it to happen. I didn’t want it to be him, if I were being honest.
I wanted Jack.
I’d always wanted Jack.
I sat up and gave him a sad smile. “I had plans, that’s all, and they are all gone now.”
Jack’s hand lifted, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “What plans?” he asked, barely audible.
Our eyes were locked, his hazel ones staring into my brown, and I wondered . . . did he feel this? Could Jack hear the pounding of my heart or feel the way I shook, not from the cold but from my need for him to touch me?
I was literally trembling with anticipation.
Our breaths mingled, and if this were a dream, I never wanted to wake. “He was going to be my first.”
That seemed to shock him a little. “He didn’t deserve you.”
My lips quirked a bit. “He wasn’t who I wanted anyway,” I admitted and prayed that, just this once, I’d have the courage to tell him the truth if he asked.
But Jack didn’t ask. He just watched me, his strong hands glided up from my wrist and held the back of my arm.
“Stella?” Jack’s voice broke the silence.
“Yes?”
“If you could have anything for your birthday, what would it be?”
There was a note of something in his voice, something I’d never heard before, and my pulse quickened. I pulled from every fiber of courage I had in my body, willing my lips to say what was in my heart.
“For you to kiss me.”
And then, like a scene from a movie, Jack’s lips moved to mine, and he kissed me. We didn’t stop there . . .
I walk toward him, keeping my voice even. “I didn’t forget. I wish I could. God, how it would make things easier if I didn’t have to remember.”
“I have tried! I have done everything I could to erase that night, your kiss, the way you breathed my name that night. How it was so fucking perfect and so goddamn wrong. You, standing there”—Jack cuts the distance between us—“with your hair coming down and how it felt between my fingers. I want to forget you, Stella, but you’re always there.”
My heart is racing, and I’m struggling to breathe.
I go to him, stopping just a breath away, but not allowing myself to touch him. “Why are we doing this?” I ask. “Why are we fighting against this?”
“Because we can’t ever be. It’s the penance that I’m going to pay for the rest of my fucking life for what I did to you. No matter how much I want you. No matter how much I know my life would be better if I could just . . .”
“Just what?” His eyes close, and I rest my hand on his chest.
After a few seconds, Jack’s warm palm settles against my cheek. “You were always so sweet. So innocent and perfect.”
“I’m not perfect.”
“You are, though. You always have been.”
“I’m perfect for you, Jack. Always you.”
Please tell me you want me. Please let yourself see that we’re fighting the wrong battle.
A knock on the door, which is more like someone pounding, causes us both to jump.
Neither of us says a word, and then it sounds again. “Stella. Please.”
Jessica’s voice breaks over the words and has Jack dropping his hand and stepping back. The loss of his warmth is almost painful.
“Stella! I need you.” Jessica’s tone is frantic.
“Go,” Jack says.
I move quickly, pulling the door open. “Jess, what’s wrong?”
Tears are falling down her face. “I need to go.”
“Go?”
Delia is behind her, hand rubbing her back. “She keeps saying she needs the keys. Jack?”
“Hey, Deals.”
I move forward, pulling Jess into my arms. “Are you all right?”
She wipes her face and shakes her head. “I just need to go to the beach. Please. Can I have the keys?”
I look to Delia, who shrugs. Whatever happened at dinner tonight must’ve been bad and my brother was being a dick.
“Maybe you should stay the night here,” I offer.
She shakes her head. “No, I need to leave and think. I can’t . . .”
“Is it my parents?”
“It’s everything.”
I know more than most about how sometimes you just have to escape. There have been so many times I’ve retreated to the beach house, where the air is filled with the brine of the ocean and it doesn’t remind me of here.
I walk over to the drawer and pull out the keys to the beach house.
“Here.”
She inhales deeply. “Thank you. I just need some time, and . . .”
“You don’t have to explain. I understand needing to just go.”
“Thank you,” she says again, pulling me in for a hug.
Jess and Delia leave, and when I turn back, Jack is standing at the door. He closes his eyes for a second and then exhales. “I can’t be involved with whatever you’re doing in Georgia.”
“I see.”
“I know that you think I’m wrong, but when we gave Kinsley up, we gave her up. Meddling in her life now would be unfair to all of us.”
“Okay.”
I don’t see, but even though this is what I expected from him, a small part of me hoped for something different.
Jack continues to explain. “If Samuel needs us, he would tell us.”
“Right.”
“I won’t do this to you again, Stella.”
“Do what?”
He comes closer, and his fingers tip my chin up. “Hurt you.”
Little does he know that I’m hurting every minute that I’m near him. That my heart cries out for him regardless of where we are or who we’re near. He hurts me because we will never be despite us both wanting to be each other’s everything.
“Too late.” I say the only two words I can.
“Don’t say that.”
“What? Say the truth? We’ve been dancing around it for a long time, why not just be honest for once?”
“And what’s the truth?”
I step back three times, forcing distance between us because him touching me is too much. The contrast between how it makes me feel and how deeply his words wound me is breathtakingly painful. “That it hurts me that we will never be more than this—two people who want each other but one is too afraid to reach out.”
“I see.”
I hope he does because I’m not the one who is afraid.
He nods once and then leaves. When the door shuts, I sink to the ground and cry because there’s nothing else I can do.
Chapter 11
Jack
“What can I do?” I ask Grayson as he exits his room after settling Jessica in.
“Nothing, just . . . I appreciate everything you’ve done already.”
As if there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for him. I literally would walk through fire for this guy, which I’ve done a few times. The last week has been hell for him and Jessica, so we’ve rallied together, doing whatever they need us to. And while what happened to Jessica is a tragedy and has us all waiting to find out if she’ll really be okay, the distraction of focusing on them has allowed me a break from the pain of hurting Stella.
“You’d do the same for me.”
Grayson flops onto the couch. “Absolutely.”
“Is she okay?”
<
br /> “She seems it, but I can’t imagine she actually is. You’ve lived through it, were you okay after?”
I think about the fire at my house, the flames and how I screamed relentlessly for my mother. All she did was yell back, telling me to get out the window. My father was frantic, trying to reach us both. He couldn’t. She demanded he come to me and help me out. My mother died so I could live. I was fifteen when it happened, and I can still smell the smoke all these years later.
While it wasn’t the same scenario for Jessica, it will never leave her.
“No, but she has you. Just like I had people. People will help.”
Grayson was there for me every day. He was the best friend any kid could ask for. He didn’t force me to talk. He was there. Anytime I felt alone, Grayson was there, reminding me I wasn’t.
When my father started to disappear, I wasn’t alone.
I had him.
I had them all.
Josh, Alex, Oliver, and Stella. God, Stella. She was always smiling, bringing me things to cheer me up. She made me cards and drew pictures for me. She was eleven at the time, and I will never forget how she went from being a sweet little kid into this gorgeous girl. Then when I was a senior and she was a freshman, that girl walked down the hallway of the high school as though she were the new queen—and she was. I wanted to fall to my knees.
It was the most confusing emotion ever.
She was Stella. Stella. Grayson’s little sister.
Instead of being shy and a little sheltered, she walked right up to me, smiled, and kept going past me.
I don’t know that I was the same again.
Grayson’s head falls back. “My parents. They . . . my father.”
“They’ve always been this way. They’ve done nothing but manipulate you and your siblings.”
He laughs. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Neither does he. Grayson’s father makes my father, who eventually ended up taking off after my mother died, look like father of the year. The shit he did to Stella and me, the things he threatened to do if we chose to keep our child, was cruel. She was eighteen, afraid, and I was broke with no family to fall back on for help.
He made sure we knew we were at his mercy and there wasn’t a chance we were going to fuck up his precious family name.
I get up, grabbing us both a beer from the fridge.
“What happened?” I ask as I hand it to him.
Grayson fills me in on all that happened at dinner. I’m . . . floored. If I didn’t know him as well as I do, I would have called him a liar to his face because what he’s telling me is disgusting and incomprehensible. His father has always been a piece of work, but sleeping with Grayson’s ex is a little much, even for him. Although, I’m not sure why I’m surprised after the ultimatum he gave to his daughter.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” He lifts the bottle toward me. “How about that.”
“So, you fought with Jess?”
He nods. “I was pissed and took it out on her.”
“Which caused her to run.”
“And almost die,” Grayson adds. I can hear the pain and fear in just those three words.
“She’s here. She survived.”
“I’m going to marry her.”
I grin at that. “You should.”
“Soon.”
“I figured. You never were one to wait once you made up your mind.”
“We’ve always been that way. You and I were reckless for a long time . . . and we made lots of mistakes, but also had a lot of fun.”
I lean forward, forearms resting on my knees. “I’ve definitely made my share of mistakes.”
Grayson sets the beer down. “I want you to be my best man.”
My eyes widen. “What? You have three other brothers.”
“I know, but you’ve always been more family to me than anyone. You’re my best friend, and when I marry her, I want you standing next to me. Will you do it?”
Guilt like I’ve never known before rises, filling me until I feel like I might choke. I nod, unable to speak without being sure I won’t tell him about Stella.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yes,” I croak and then drain my beer, the feeling of betrayal too much to handle.
Chapter 12
Stella
“So, we’re going into business together,” my brother Oliver says as he throws his feet onto my table.
“I feel like we’ve always been in business together.”
“Yes, but now we’re going to take all our life’s savings and toss it in. It’s a good thing none of us—well, other than Gray—have a relationship or kids.”
Right. None of us.
Oliver is my twin. He knows me sometimes better than I know myself. But he has never asked a direct question about why I went to stay with our grandmother.
I’ve waited for him to call me out on why I didn’t go to South Carolina and went to Georgia instead. Because as wonderful as Ollie is, and he is truly the kindest and most wonderful of the Parkerson brothers, he’s not timid . . . not with me.
“Listen, if you’re going to live with me, you shouldn’t do . . . that.” I point to his feet.
“You know we’ll kill each other before the month is out.”
“If I don’t kill you by the end of the week.”
He grins. “You can try.”
I sigh and sit beside him, nestling into him like we were kids. “Ollie, what’s wrong with me?”
The deep rumble of his laugh makes me smile. “So much, Meatball.”
“I’m serious. Why don’t I have a husband and a family?”
Oliver shifts, causing me to sit up. “What in the hell made you ask that?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.” I should’ve known he wouldn’t let me back away from the question. “Is there . . . someone you’re not telling anyone about?”
This is the most he’s ever asked. “No. Yes. I don’t know. There’s always been someone.”
Oliver’s eyes narrow slightly. “Stella, you know you can’t.”
And there it is. Oliver knows something.
“I can’t what?”
He sighs through his nose. “He’s Grayson’s best friend, and he’s about to go into business with us.”
“So you know.”
“About the fact that you like Jack? Yeah, I’ve known.”
Do you know more? Do you know about my daughter?
The question hovers in my mind, and I stamp it down. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I doubt that, but in a way, you’re right. It doesn’t because Grayson will flip his shit.”
“Why though? Why the hell do I give a shit what Grayson wants? I’m thirty years old. I’m not some stupid little girl.”
“I know, but you have to see it from his perspective. Jack’s his best friend, and if shit goes wrong between you, then what? He loses someone he’s known since childhood.”
“Why would he lose him?” I ask, feeling frustrated.
“Because you’re our sister. No matter what the hell happens, we will always be on your side.”
I roll my eyes. “There doesn’t have to be sides.”
“Stella, I’m not trying to be a dick, but there are always sides. Look at Devney and me, we ended things, and do you think I’ve talked to anyone from Sugarloaf since then? I was friends with Sydney, but she, of course, sided with her friend. It’s the way shit goes. Now imagine if I was with Winnie and it went bad, how are you going to handle that when she broke my heart by leaving me when she realized what a dickhead I am?”
“You are a dickhead.”
“Besides the point, but nice try.”
I hate it when he’s right. Probably because it doesn’t happen often.
I lean back, wanting to cry again. “It’s been a long time that I’ve felt this way, Ollie.”
He nudges me. “I know it. I think Grayson does too and pretends he doesn’t. I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t because
I can’t see him not saying something.”
I turn my head, looking into the brown eyes that mirror mine. “You haven’t.”
“Because I know better than to talk boys with you.”
I laugh softly. “I did it one time.”
“And it was enough to scar me for life. Who wants to answer their sister’s questions about cocks and what they do?” He shudders.
“You told me to ask you!”
“I lied!”
“Four brothers, and I got stuck with the worst as my twin.”
Oliver shrugs. “I may be an ass, but I’m not in love with our older brother’s best friend.”
There’s more, Ollie, ask me.
I look into his eyes, begging him to please give me someone to unburden myself to. If there’s anyone, it can be him. Oliver would keep my secret. He has to know I have one. He had to feel the pain I was in twelve years ago.
“Oliver . . .”
Oliver gives me a sad smile. “Don’t, Stella. Don’t open a box you can’t close.”
A tear falls down my cheek. It’s clear he is asking me not to force him to lie too.
If he doesn’t know, he never has to betray our brothers.
For him, I will continue to harbor this alone, drowning in the sea of grief and sadness.
I lean in, kissing his cheek. “I won’t. You’re a good-ish brother.”
The pain fills my chest. I hate that I still have to keep the secret, but I understand it at the same time.
“I could’ve done without the ish.”
“I could do without a lot of things.”
He nudges me softly. “Well, just think of all the fun we’ll have living together.”
I groan and lay my head back on his shoulder. “Fun. That’s a word.”
And definitely not the word I would use, but then nothing has been fun for a long time.
“Are you excited?” I ask Jessica as we look through the rack of wedding gowns.
“Of course I am. I love your brother.”
I smile. “I do too. I just can’t believe you’re getting married in a week.”
Her hand moves to her stomach almost instinctually. “I want this to be as easy for Amelia as possible. I figure if we get married first, then we have some time to settle in before the baby comes. There’s also no point in waiting, we’ve done enough of that.”
Could Have Been Us Page 8
