by Cassie Mae
“Shit.” He ran his fingers through his bedhead, pulling at the ends of his hair as he grumbled under his breath. He slammed his eyes shut, waiting for the guilt to sink in, the regret. It apparently had already hit Kennedy, since she was nowhere to be found. He clutched his head and tried to calm his breathing.
When it happened with Lissa, he’d felt it immediately. She had, too. They’d lain side by side staring at the ceiling completely consumed, suffering in silence until Aaron sat up and said, “We shouldn’t have done that.”
He’d felt dirty, dark…evil. He couldn’t touch Lissa afterward without the feeling coming back, and from the way she’d kept her distance, he figured she’d felt the same.
His breath locked in his throat, and he counted the ticks from the clock absentmindedly as he waited. But the guilt never came. In the ticking silence, all Aaron felt was an all-consuming warmth, starting in his chest and branching through his veins. His fingers loosened in his hair, and he let them settle into the pillows. No, it wasn’t guilt that was overtaking him. He felt absolutely whole—something he hadn’t felt…ever.
He pushed up, nudging the sheets off his body as he moved to the edge of the bed. He plucked his glasses from the nightstand and slid them on, the world coming into focus just as much as his thoughts. Kennedy was the only face he wanted to see before he fell asleep every night for as long as he lived.
“Kennedy?” he called out again, hoping that she’d only gone to take a shower or grab something to eat. He stood, the wind from the open window breezing across his back and ass. A shiver ran up his spine, and he chuckled as he turned to shut that son of a bitch, when he caught the beautiful woman standing out on the dock, her sundress blowing around her like she was sent straight out of heaven.
Aaron frowned and grabbed for his jeans. His blood ran cold with the thought that she was feeling the opposite of what he was feeling this morning. Though he had no right to, he prayed that he was wrong.
—
The third storm in the three-storm cycle was threatening the skies in the distance as Aaron padded across the dock. The breeze was warmer, though, and he tossed Kennedy’s pink hoodie over his shoulder because he wasn’t sure anymore if she would need it. The sun seemed to have come out as soon as he left the B&B.
Her shoulders jolted when he came up behind her, but soon her back fell easily against his chest. A sigh of relief dropped from his lips, and he pressed a kiss to her temple, wrapping his arms around her thin waist.
“Morning,” he whispered, the beat of his heart calming.
She turned her head slightly, resting just under his chin. “Mmm,” she moaned in what seemed like contentment, but Aaron wasn’t one hundred percent sure. In the short time that he’d known her, he had been the quieter of the two; he thought for sure she’d be chatting away by now, but so far the small and pleasant sound was all he’d gotten.
He started rocking her, just to see if she’d relax even more into his arms. She followed his lead, but she still stayed as quiet as a mouse.
An itch crawled under his skin, infesting his mind. Something was off, and he was hoping it was only his paranoia talking. That she would soon erase his unease, or at least put it to rest for the moment.
“You okay?” he asked, and she nodded a little too quickly against him. His tongue swiped across his lip, and he ran a hand over her shoulder and up and down her arm. “You sure?”
She nodded again, offering up a smile before tucking back into her comfortable position against his shoulder. His itch only grew, clawing its way to every corner of his body. He blew out a shaky breath and flicked his gaze over her head at the lake she was so focused on. Like a dumbbell to the face, realization smacked him dead center in the forehead. Of course…she was out here to be with him, and he was intruding on one of the conversations she had daily. This one was obviously private.
“Oh…I’m sorry. Were you talking to—”
She shook her head hard, her lips pressed tightly together as she turned to look at him. “I wasn’t.”
His brow furrowed, and he pushed away a loose strand of hair that had fallen over her forehead. “You sure you’re okay?” he probed once more, unable to shake the unease that was growing the longer they stood there. His eyes searched her beautiful green irises, but they gave nothing away. She’d put up a brick wall, and he had nothing in his arsenal to break it down.
The corner of her lip picked up, and she let out a small laugh. “Yes.” She twisted in his arms, threading her fingers into the hair at the back of his head. Her body slid against his as she pushed up on her toes, and he met her lips, soft and gentle and tentative.
If this was her way of telling him that she was okay with last night, then he supposed there were worse ways of expressing it. But the thought still niggled at him that she wasn’t being completely honest.
His hands slid over her back, and he pressed her flush against him. The nagging thought had to be quieted somehow, and he could think of no better way than to kiss the woman he was falling for so rapidly.
Chapter 17
Kennedy
“Please? I don’t think…” Kennedy paused, the urn slipping in her sweaty palms as she held it out to Chelsea. “I don’t think I can.”
It was only half-true. The other half was that she would bet her entire next editing job—next five editing jobs—on Jared not wanting her to be the one to spread his ashes anymore. Not after what she’d done.
Chelsea shook her head so hard that her scarf nearly slipped right off the top of it. “He asked you, Ken. No way am I going to get my ass haunted for the rest of time.”
Kennedy attempted a smirk. “He’ll do that anyway. He’s your brother.”
“And he loved you.” She pushed the urn back into Kennedy’s arms, forcing it right up against her tired and torn heart. Kennedy’s grin disappeared, and she looked up at Chelsea’s eyes; there was more concern there than annoyance at the request. “You’re stronger than you think,” Chelsea said. “If you need more time, then take it. Seriously, we’re on no deadline. No one is forcing you out the door.”
That wasn’t true, though. Kennedy could feel in her bones that she wasn’t welcome anymore. It wasn’t Chelsea or Aaron or anyone else making her feel that way; it was purely internal. Just like the feeling she got when she made the trip to Lyra in the first place, it ate at her until she knew she had to give in and listen.
Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip, and Chelsea reached out and patted one of her hands, wrapped around Jared’s urn. “You feel like going out?” she asked.
Kennedy shook her head, her gaze flicking to the stairs as she fought the urge to move to her room, pack it up, and run.
Chelsea let out the tiniest of sighs and forced back a smile. “What if I called Aaron over?”
Kennedy’s eyes widened, and her brows jumped. Had she been so wrapped in her own bubble that she hadn’t noticed how obvious she’d been? How many times had someone in the small town witnessed the shared looks, the small touches, the passionate kisses…?
It wasn’t worth denying, nor was it fair to Aaron to do so, though running didn’t seem to be the right way to handle things, either. She squeezed the urn, folding her arms across her chest and shrugging. Aaron’s company had so many different effects on her and she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk feeling the one she had that morning on the dock.
“No,” she said, her stomach knotted so badly there was no hope of untangling it. “I…I…” She shook her head, her mouth open, her mind at a complete loss over how to articulate the battling emotions in her heart. Her confusion nipped at the back of her eyeballs and she shook her head, letting out a long sigh toward their feet. “I’m tired,” she told her honestly. But it wasn’t her body that was ready for rest; it was her head.
Chelsea laughed lightly, set a pair of slightly cold hands on Kennedy’s shoulders, and spun her toward the stairs. “Go take a nap. The place will be pretty darn quiet after I take the boys out.”
&nb
sp; Kennedy’s heart sped up. A nap was the last thing on her mind, and a window of opportunity had been laid out so perfectly. She gulped and prayed that she could find the courage to take advantage of it instead of stewing in her own screwed-up mind for the next few hours.
She nodded over her shoulder, offering up a small smile. Keeping her voice locked up was probably her best bet; she knew better than to trust it not to give away her true intentions.
Her feet hit the stairs heavier and heavier the farther she climbed. When she got to the top landing, her body felt like mud; every action took twice the effort it normally did. Her arms ached as she unfolded them and propped Jared’s ashes up against the pillow on his side—the side that Aaron had just been resting on the night before.
Kennedy snatched up the urn and set it on the nightstand, gulping away at the tears she didn’t deserve to cry. Her conviction returned tenfold, and she sped around the room, tossing her belongings into her floral luggage. Her voice almost slipped out to explain to Jared what she was doing, why she was doing it, but she stopped it before the words could roll off her tongue. She hadn’t talked to him since she’d begged for his permission and forgiveness all at once last night while she was in Aaron’s arms. What turned into a need for comfort had transformed into something much more incriminating, and she couldn’t bear the thought of having to try to explain her way out of it.
Her fingers fumbled over the suitcase’s zipper as she pulled it shut, a rogue tear slipping off the tip of her nose and onto the curve of her wrist. She swiped it away and hoisted the suitcase off the bed, then rolled it to the door. Setting a hand over her heart, she hoped that it would calm it enough to stop the thumping in her ears so she could listen for Chelsea leaving the B&B.
She could hardly believe she was going through with it; when she’d read stories about the girl running to avoid everything, she’d always pointed it out to her authors as a pet peeve of hers. A simple conversation could fix the miscommunication, and as her heart calmed, she looked over at the urn, her eyes filling to the brim. What she had to say was anything but simple, and though the words were screaming in her head, she couldn’t even whisper them. Not until she’d gotten some distance, some perspective. She’d become one of her own pet peeves, and she shook her head at herself, more shame entering into her heart.
The afternoon sun pierced through the clouds, shining through the window and across the floor, warming the side of Kennedy’s face. She moved her gaze to the lake, to the small speck in the distance that she knew was Aaron’s red SUV, parked by the rustic, homey-looking place that he shared with Austin. Her fingers uncurled from her suitcase handle, and she padded across the floor. She closed her eyes, letting the sun soak into her skin and fill her with its warmth. It was so similar to Aaron’s touch, she could almost imagine him in the room with her, running his thumb over her cheek, tucking her hair behind her ear. She’d felt so complete, her wounds healed over, her broken pieces fused back together, her heart beating away the blue and black bruises and glowing red. She couldn’t leave without him knowing why, without him knowing that he’d forever changed her, and without him knowing that she was still in love with someone else, and she always would be, and how sorry she was for that.
Her eyes opened, and she reached for the drawer in the nightstand, finding a pen and notepad with the B&B logo on it. Her hand flew across the page, suddenly able to explain, to tell him thanks, to tell him goodbye.
She folded it up and propped it on the pillow where Jared’s urn had sat before she’d quickly moved it. Her teeth sneaked out and tugged at her lip, and she brought the pen back to her paper and wrote the four words she couldn’t bear to say out loud.
“I’m sorry, Jared,” she said, and set the note against the urn before pushing off the bed, grabbing her luggage, and turning to catch one more glimpse before leaving. Her words gleamed with the shiny, fresh ink as the sunlight streamed through the window.
I love him, too.
Chapter 18
Aaron
The gravel crunched under his shoes as Aaron made his way across the driveway. There was a spring in his step, no matter how hard he tried to fight it, and he begged that his high spirits wouldn’t show on his face when he stepped inside. Austin wasn’t usually the twenty-questions type of person—which was a godsend in a roommate and a brother—but Aaron wouldn’t put it past him to at least ask about the events of last night. Especially considering the way he’d dumped his dog on Austin before dragging his brother’s date away for the rest of the evening.
He pulled a face at himself, realizing just then how shitty that was for him to do, and he hoped Austin was in a forgiving mood. Or maybe Aaron could avoid the entire thing and sneak in and back out without Austin noticing.
A loud, booming bark reverberated around the porch as soon as his foot hit the first step. So much for stealth.
“Buddy, I can’t open the door when you’re in the way.” Aaron laughed as he tried to push against the front door but was met with wild scratches that pushed right back. After a few tries, he was finally able to get Charlie calm enough to at least cross the threshold.
“Well,” Austin said, sitting up on the worn couch and pausing the TV. “Someone had fun last night.”
Aaron’s lip curled upward. “You too, huh?” he joked, rubbing the top of Charlie’s furry head before skirting around the husky to try to get to his room before any questions were thrown. “I’m jumping in the shower!” he called over his shoulder.
“Wait a minute, man,” Austin said. Aaron flinched and slowly backtracked. He should have known better than to think it would be that easy; he never was good at dodgeball.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he half-sang back at his brother.
Austin laughed and shook his head. “I’m not gonna hook you up to a polygraph. I just want to know if you’re all right.”
A grin pushed its way onto Aaron’s lips. “Yeah,” he said. He was definitely all right. Aside from the initial worry he’d felt that morning when he’d woken up alone, he couldn’t have asked for a more perfect twelve hours. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t picture his heart as a blackened, rotten mess. Kennedy had pulled it out, painted it a blinding red, and placed it back in his chest in the span of a single night. He could only imagine what she’d do with it in the future.
Austin nodded, his eyes drifting to the remote in his hand as he picked at the broken volume button with his fingernail. “How about her? Is she all right?”
Confusion pulled at Aaron’s brow, and he leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes. “I think so.”
His brother nodded again, continuing to fiddle with the remote. Aaron let out a breath. For someone who’d been eager to talk, Austin sure was being quiet.
“Just say it,” he said. “I really do gotta hop in the shower.”
Austin chuckled at his lack of patience; Aaron wasn’t normally in a hurry for a lecture, or whatever was about to come his way, but his feet were already anxious to run right back to that B&B and spend the day with Kennedy. He’d be with her still if she hadn’t seemed like she needed a few hours to herself when he left.
“I’m just wondering where your head’s at,” Austin said, setting down the remote. “You tend to, you know, bottle things up till you explode.”
“And you’re worried I’ll explode all over Kennedy?”
“Pretty much.” Austin laughed. “But I worry about what that’ll do to you, too.”
Aaron nodded as he decided he’d better pull up a seat for this conversation. He sank into the easy chair next to the couch and picked at a loose thread on the arm. He felt Austin’s gaze on his hand.
“She knows about Liss,” Aaron said, and his brother raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t tell anyone about that.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I can tell her anything. Don’t know why, it’s just…easy.”
A feeling shot through his gut as he admitted it out loud, and not because he
wasn’t aware of how easy it was to talk to Kennedy, but how easy it was to tell Austin about it.
“Well, it’s gotta be different with her,” Austin said, leaning back into the couch. “ ’Cause I know you wouldn’t dare go there if it weren’t.”
“And you don’t think I’m…” Aaron paused, trying to find the right word, or at least the description that he could manage to say outside of his head. There were several things Jared had called him, and he ran through every insult, wincing at the familiar sting. They were all accurate descriptions, some not strong enough, either. But was he that person still?
Austin shook his head, following Aaron’s train of thought without needing to hear the rest of his question. “You’re not as big an ass as you think you are.” He half-smiled. “At least not when it comes to this.” There was a two-second beat before he continued on. “Kennedy’s pretty amazing. If I swung that way, I’d probably be playing the ‘I saw her first’ card with ya.”
Aaron was sure his brother meant to be comforting with that thought, but instead it burrowed under his skin and ate at him—Jared had seen her first, loved her first, was with her till his last breath. Aaron would most likely always wonder and worry about how Jared, gone or not, would react if he knew that Aaron had betrayed him not just once, but twice. Only this time it was worse—Aaron had no intention of stopping. He planned on continuing to fall far and fast for the beautiful and interesting woman just across the lake, for as long as she’d allow him to. He imagined a heavy storm coming his way, and not just the one that was brewing in the distant skies.
“Holy shit.” Austin’s amused voice broke through Aaron’s thoughts, his brow furrowed and his eyes incredulous. “Do you…love her?”
Aaron jolted back. “What?”
“Love,” Austin repeated, and Aaron’s neck ran warm. “I knew you liked her, but how you were looking just now…” He shook his head. “So, do you?”
