Have Your Way With Me

by Parker, Weston

  Mia made a sympathetic noise and her eyes drifted over to mine, understanding softening the skin around them. “Of course, go. I’ve got everything under control here.”

  She clapped her hands to get the kids' attention, directing them all over to the reading corner for a story. Alice didn’t hesitate. She came back to me, grabbed my satchel from the desk in one hand and my hand in the other, then pulled me out of the room.

  “Are we allowed to do this?” I asked as we made our way to the parking lot. “I really don’t want to get in trouble on top of everything else.”

  “We won’t get in trouble,” she assured me. “Layla is okay with us popping out for a couple of hours when there’s an emergency. As long as the kids are taken care of, which ours are, we’ll be fine.”

  “Okay.” I followed her to her car, climbed in, and rested my head against the seat, closing my eyes. “Thank you for helping me escape for a little bit. The day is only just started and I already needed a breather.”

  She reached over and patted my arm before turning her engine over. “No problem. I know the feeling. Do you want to talk about it?”

  My eyes opened and I watched the scenery rolling by outside for a minute while I thought about it. “Yeah, I think I do actually.”

  Talking to Alice had really helped me the other day, and with as jumbled as my thoughts had been since I’d woken up to Jordan tossing me out of his house, I needed someone to help me make sense of things.

  “Great.” Alice smiled. “We’ll go get some delicious food and monstrously sized cups of coffee. Then we’ll talk it all out.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I chewed the inside of my cheek as she drove us to a small cafe not far away from the daycare center. It was quiet and we found a parking spot right outside the door.

  Alice obviously came here often, greeting the hostess as we walked in and leading me straight through the dining area to a garden in the back. The trees were lush and big, shading the entire corner she chose our table in.

  Fresh flowers that looked like they had been picked from the beds in the garden sat in a small vase on the table. I inhaled a deep breath, letting the sweet scent of the old-fashioned roses planted near the table wash over me.

  “Okay.” Alice folded her hands in front of her after sitting down and ordering those coffees she’d promised. “I’m ready. What the hell happened? The last time we talked, you thought he was the one for you and then you broke up a day after we had that conversation. Did you decide he wasn’t the one after all? Do you not see yourself settling down with him?”

  Each one of her questions sliced through the tiny pieces that remained of my shattered heart. A pained sigh fell from my lips as I leaned back in my chair.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to settle down with him. It’s that he doesn’t want to do it with me.”

  A confused frown formed on her brow. “Did he say that? I mean, that’s just cruel.”

  “He didn’t say it,” I admitted, then proceeded to spill all the rotten beans to my friend. By the end of my recounting what had happened, there was a tear sliding down my cheek and more threatening to fall. The most painful part, however, was what I had to say next. “I’ve never been as important to him as he is to me, or as Kole is to him. That’s all there is to it.”

  Alice’s lips pursed as she stared in thought. “You did say that they’ve been friends for a long time. It makes sense that Kole is important to him.”

  “I know. It’s not that I don’t understand it. It’s that I’m not important enough to him to risk making my brother angry.”

  “It sounds like he’s in a really tough spot,” she said after hesitating for a beat. “Look, I don’t know the guy and I don’t want you to take what I’m about to say the wrong way, but I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as it might seem to you.”

  “It probably isn’t, but what else was I supposed to do? If I keep seeing him, I’m only going to fall deeper and he’s always going to have one foot out the door.”

  “Do you really think so?” she asked, her tone revealing that she didn’t quite agree with me.

  I shrugged because I really didn’t know. “It sure felt that way. You should have seen how mortified he was when he told me Kole was coming over or the look on his face when I suggested we tell him the truth. Maybe he does want me, but he doesn’t want me enough to have to face Kole about it.”

  “Or maybe he was being honest when he said it just wasn’t the right time,” she said, holding my gaze. “You do have to admit that you did spring the idea on him, unless you guys had talked about it before.”

  “We hadn’t talked about it for a really, really long time. Not since we were teenagers. On the other hand, he promised me he’d tell Kole then too and never did.”

  “A lot has changed since then, though. Don’t you think?” The waitress delivered our coffees and Alice risked a tiny sip of her hot liquid, wincing as she swallowed it down. “That needs another minute.”

  “I thought it might.” I mixed a packet of sugar into mine and followed the swirl of the spoon in the cup with my eyes as I thought about her question. “I know a lot has changed, but it also feels like a lot has stayed the same. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that Jordan and Kole will always come first. Jordan and Elyse never will. Not to him, anyway.”

  “Maybe, but maybe Kole will come first in friendship and you’ll come first in romance. Have you thought about it that way?”

  I shook my head. “No, not really. It doesn’t make much of a difference, though. We’d never get far enough for him to put me first in any aspect of his life if he can’t tell Kole about us.”

  Alice propped her elbows on the table, the expression on her face shifting from contemplative to serious. “Like I said, I think Jordan is in a really tough spot. If you still think he might be your ‘one,’ I think it’s worth it to sit down with him and have an actual conversation about telling your brother the truth. Breaking it off instead could be something you regret for a long time, and I don’t want to see that happening to you.”

  “He is in a tough spot, but so I am. Maybe it’s just best that neither of us are in that spot.” I blew on the surface of my coffee and finally took my first sip, rolling the strong, bitter liquid around my mouth before I swallowed. “Do you think I overreacted?”

  “I think you did what you felt was right at the time, but I also think you should consider the position Jordan is in, the suddenness of your suggestion to tell your brother and not to assume that he doesn’t want to settle down with you or ever tell your brother about your relationship.”

  I exhaled a heavy breath, once again realizing that she’d made some valid points. Sometimes living life in the moment meant that I only thought about that moment, not always thinking very far past it.

  Jordan wasn’t like that. Unlike me, if he’d ever seriously thought about telling Kole, he’d have thought about every eventuality and would have reasoned it all out to come to the conclusion he had.

  If I was being totally honest with myself, I was beginning to realize that I might have overreacted. Speaking to Jordan properly about everything would probably have been the better way to go, but there just hadn’t been any time. We’d had minutes before Kole had gotten to his house, and by the time we’d been alone again, my decision had already been made because of the way he’d acted.

  Either way, I couldn’t change what I had done. I just needed to actually sit and think about what I was going to do next. No more charging in and making snap decisions in emotionally heated moments.

  “Thanks for talking all this through with me,” I said to Alice, who smiled and nodded as she sipped her coffee. “I really needed to hear all that.”

  She swallowed, then cocked her head at me. “Everyone needs someone outside of a situation to talk to about it sometimes. When we’re the people involved, we don’t always see everything as clearly as we might have from the outside.”

  “True.” I sighed. “The question
is what someone on the outside would have done next in my situation? Honestly, I have no idea what to do from here.”

  “I can’t tell you what to do, but I think you at least need to be realistic about what’s going to happen.” She set down her cup and gave me a sad smile. “Realistically, you are going to see him for as long as both of you live on this island. Trust me, there is no avoiding exes around here. Especially since he’s your brother’s best friend. Even if it is just at birthday parties or holidays, he’s going to be around.”

  “Also true.” When I’d told Jordan I didn’t want to see him and asked him to try to discourage Kole from pushing us together, I’d known that no matter what either of us did, we would still see one another from time to time.

  Hearing Alice saying the words out loud made me realize something else. If I stuck around, I was eventually going to see my nightmares turn into reality. Those haunting thoughts I’d had about having to watch him fall in love and eventually start a family with someone else would become my reality.

  Unless I removed myself from his life completely. Which meant moving back to San Francisco and getting on with my own life.

  Hawaii had been fun, and I was starting to feel like it was home, but in a way, it had also always felt surreal that I’d get to stay forever. Truth be told, this was Kole’s life and not mine. Jordan’s too.

  This place had become theirs a long time ago, and maybe I was never supposed to have tried to make it mine too.

  Since I’d decided not to make any more rash decisions, I wasn’t dead set on moving back yet just because I’d come to the realizations that I had. I did want to know what my options were, though.

  With that in mind, I pulled out my phone when Alice excused herself to go to the bathroom, and called Lisa. We still talked several times a week and I was up to date about what was going on in her life, but there was one specific thing that I needed to know now.

  She answered and we quickly got caught up before I got to the purpose of my call. “So I was wondering, have you found a new roommate yet?”

  Chapter 35

  Jordan

  “Hey, man,” Kole said when he opened his door the next day. “I’m glad you called about coming to see me. I’m hoping you have some good news.”

  My stomach turned into stone. I had news all right, but I doubted he’d think it was any good. “I’m still not accepting your offer.”

  A disappointed sigh left him, but he opened the door wider and motioned for me to come in anyway. “Damn it. I was really hoping you’d reconsidered. Want some coffee?”

  “No, I’m okay. Thanks.” I’d rather not have any hot liquids around that could be turned into weapons once I told him the truth. I also didn’t think he’d want me to stick around to finish a drink once I told him what I’d come here to tell him.

  After a nearly sleepless night, I still hadn’t come up with the right way of telling him, though. Every scenario I played out in my mind ended terribly and I’d resigned myself to leaving here today not knowing if I’d ever be welcomed back, but I was hoping to minimize the hurt and fallout as much as I possibly could.

  For instance, despite how she’d ended things with me and all the crazy accusations she’d made, I didn’t want Kole being angry at Elyse too. He’d could rage at me, come at me with everything he had, as long as he left her out of it.

  The probability of that really happening was slim to none, but I had to try to protect her as much as possible. Being broken up with her hadn’t left me feeling any less protective of her.

  Sure, she was Kole’s sister and all, but it still felt like she was my girl. And I’d always try to protect her, to save her as much hurt as I could.

  When you’re not the one causing the hurt, a snide voice inside my head snarled. I sighed because the voice was right. No doubt, the person who’d hurt her the worst recently was me. The fact that I hadn’t intended to hurt her didn’t change the fact that I had.

  Fuck. I only hoped that finally telling Kole the truth would at least make her realize that I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed of being with her. Because nothing could be further from the truth.

  “So, what’s up?” Kole asked as he led me to his living room, the game on pause on the flatscreen TV mounted on his wall. “Or did you come to watch the game?”

  “No, I didn’t even know anyone was playing.” Between us, Kole was the sports fan. I preferred to be out doing stuff to staying inside watching other people do them. “I wanted to talk to you about something actually. Want me to wait until the game’s done?”

  At this point, it wasn’t like waiting another hour or so was going to make any difference. Kole shook his head and flopped onto his couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

  “Nah, that’s okay. I know who’s going to win anyway. There’s no coming back from that score. I can see how they win later. Whatever it is you want to talk about, looks like it’s more important.”

  “Why do you say that?” I’d thought my expression was perfectly stoic.

  Kole tipped his head back and laughed. “Why do I say that? I say that because it’s true. Come on, dude. Think about who you’re talking to here. I know you and I know that when your spine’s that straight, your shoulders that rigid, and your face that pale that something’s going on with you.”

  My heartbeat stuttered. Okay, so maybe my expression didn’t matter so much when Kole knew my body language that well.

  “It’s not so much something going on with me right now as something I’ve been needing to talk to you about for a while,” I hedged, still not sure about how to actually tell him.

  Kole’s brows knitted into a tight frown. “Okay, is this about what happened in the service? What you did for me?”

  “For fuck’s sake, bro. It’s time to let that go. You got drunk one time, while on leave even, and slipped up. It’s really not such a big deal, so no. It’s not about that.”

  Regret darkened his blue eyes, just like it always did when this came up. “That’s not the big deal. The big deal is that you punched an officer, the guy I provoked, to give me time to get away and you got a mark on your record preventing you from moving up while I still could.”

  “I don’t care about not moving up because I was never going to be a lifer anyway. I’m glad we enlisted and I’m glad, honored, for the years I had, but it’s done for me now. For the record, I knew when I went over to you that I was going to punch him and I did it knowing what the consequences would be. I accepted those consequences before I’d even done it and that’s on me. Not on you.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You did what?” Elyse’s voice suddenly sounded out from behind me. I hadn’t heard her come in, but I’d know that voice anywhere. She was definitely here.

  My heart seized when I spun around to face her, seeing her for the first time since she’d broken up with me. She’s so goddamn beautiful.

  My entire being begged to go to her, to wrap my arms around her and never let her go. But that was why I was here.

  “Well, that’s one way for you to find out that I fucked up Jordan’s career,” Kole said, his eyes stormy and his jaw tight. “What’s up? I didn’t know you were planning on dropping by today.”

  “I wasn’t, but there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” she said.

  “Well, guess who’s popular today. Sorry, sis, but you’re going to have to get in line. There’s something Jordan wants to talk to me about, too, and we’re already talking about it. Otherwise, I’d obviously have heard you out first.”

  “No, we’re not talking about what I came to talk to you about,” I intervened. On instinct, my eyes slid to the side to meet Elyse’s. Her lips parted when she read the intention in them, instantly putting two and two together.

  Obviously, she also saw that I was having a fucking hard time actually doing it. She moved closer to my side but stopped a couple of feet away.

  “You’ve come too far to turn back now,” she repeated the words I
’d said to her that day on the cliff. “It’s time to jump, Jordan.”

  Kole’s eyes narrowed in confusion, and he opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but he didn’t need to. Words I’d been struggling to find suddenly came pouring out of me, each and every one of them true and long overdue.

  “Elyse and I dated in high school,” I said, watching as his expression turned from one of confusion to a mask of betrayal and rage. “We didn’t tell you then because we didn’t want to hurt you when it wasn’t anything serious and we knew it couldn’t last. After you and I enlisted, I never saw or spoke to her again until she moved here.”

  A vein was ticking in Kole’s neck, his muscles bulging in restraint, but he was still listening. “When we first saw each other again, all those old feelings came right back to the surface. We haven’t been dating behind your back again, but we have been… seeing each other.”

  “Fucking. You’ve been fucking. That is what you mean, right? When you say ‘seeing each other,’ you mean you’ve been fucking my sister?” His voice was tight and choked. “You motherf—”

  “Just hear him out, please Kole,” Elyse said, moving another foot closer to me. We might not have planned it, and we might be broken up, but we were still united in this. “One more minute, then you can yell all you want.”

  I jumped back in before it was too late and Kole tossed or knocked me out without hearing everything I needed to say. “It was never about that. I’ve never used her and I never would. I love her, Kole. I always have and I always will.”

  “I trusted you and you fucked my sister,” he bit out. “Not once, but twice. You betrayed me time and again when I trusted you with the most important person in my life.”

  “She’s the most important person in my life, too,” I said, lifting my chin. “I know I betrayed you and I’m sorry, brother. I tried to stay away from her. I really did, but—”

  “You love her?” he finished for me, his tone dry. “Yeah. Right. Get the fuck out of my house, Coppens. Get out and fucking stay out.”