“Dude, that was almost a decade ago. If she hasn’t gotten over it, she should. Relax. Don’t worry about Willow.”
“Yeah.” I force a smile as my thoughts swirl around me.
I reach for the dark place in the depths of my soul. The place where I lived my teen years. The place where I go to hide away from all the bad in the world, because even the darkest place inside me isn’t as black as the reality out here.
The place where only Willow could drag me out of. She pierced through the darkness inside me, reaching in and pulling me out.
But that was ten years ago, and things have changed. She’s moved on.
I would move on to, if I could.
A mask of indifference falls over my face, and Max visibly relaxes. He leans back in the sofa as his phone rings, a smile spreading across his lips.
“Finn! Get over here. Black’s in town. Yes, the Sacha Black.” He laughs at the response our friend gives, nodding. “I only had to promise an epic bachelor party to get him to leave his fancy restaurant in New York.”
I force a smile that I’m sure looks more like a grimace, reaching for the fresh bottle of beer that Isabelle must have put on the side table. Gulping down the amber liquid, I close my eyes and try to forget my best friend’s sister.
Willow.
Her name suits her. Long-limbed, wide-eyed, and completely off-limits. Her long, gangly legs used to make her look like a frog when she sat down.
Now?
The sight of them makes my mouth water. Even after she’s gone, the thought of those long legs wrapped around my waist makes my cock throb. She’s willowy, tall, with long curtains of blond hair that’s been lightened by the sun to look shimmery and almost white. I want to see it twisted around my fists while I pull it back, dropping kisses down her neck.
Ten years later, and I still can’t get a grip around the one girl I have no right to want.
After everything that happened between us, I shouldn’t even be talking to her. I should be hiding away in the big city, trying to distract myself with women who will never be as good as Willow Wise.
Armor slides over my heart as I think of those big, blue eyes. I lock my emotions away, along with all my fantasies about her swollen lips crushed against mine. I won’t think about her hands splayed over my chest, or my palms claiming her body. I won’t wonder if her skin is as soft as it looks, or if she tastes as good as she smells.
I don’t deserve her. Never have. Never will.
The part of me that wants her needs to perish, once and for all.
Max hangs up the phone, snapping me from my thoughts. I bring my beer bottle to my lips once again, if only to give myself a moment to regain my composure. My body is slipping out of my control. The weight of my emotion for Willow is almost too heavy to hide.
But hide it, I must.
As soon as my bottle of beer is away from my lips, a wicked smile curls over them. “We partying tonight, or what?”
“Just like the old days.” Max laughs. “Hey, babe!” he calls out. Isabelle pokes her head around the corner, arching an eyebrow. Max gives her that irresistible grin. “You don’t mind if I go out with the boys tonight, do you?”
Isabelle smiles, shaking her head. “I figured this weekend would be a wash, anyway. Don’t do anything stupid.” Her eyes swing to me, and her index finger rises to point in my direction. “He told me stories about you. You’d better have grown up in the past decade, because I want to marry this man with all his limbs still attached to his body, thank you very much.”
I grin, nodding. “I promise he’ll be in one piece at the end of the weekend.”
Max smiles, jumping off the couch and wrapping his arms around his bride-to-be. He spins her around in a circle, only setting her down to lay a kiss on her lips. She laughs, and the love oozes off them in sickening, sugar-sweet waves.
I’ll never have what Max has.
I don’t mean to be bitter, it just happens.
It’s one of life’s funny kind of ironies, really. I came from the other side of town. The supposed ‘good’ side of town, with a house four times the size of this one. The Black Estate is perched on top of the nicest cliff in the nicest part of town, with over a mile of coastline with my father’s name on it. Growing up, I was surrounded by all the latest electronics and trendiest clothes. I had it all—or at least that’s what it looked like.
I didn’t have parents like Mr. and Mrs. Wise. I didn’t have love. My father was a tyrant, and I was supposed to be the heir to his pathetic little throne. My parents didn’t treat me like a son. They treated me like an investment.
It wouldn’t be so bad if my father wasn’t a violent drunk, and my mother was too weak to leave him.
They never encouraged me to be anything other than their little pawn. When I said I wanted to go into the restaurant business, my father laughed at me and told me to grow up.
Then, I saw things I wasn’t supposed to see. I wasn’t going to be their pawn, and my father wasn’t going to let me fuck up his empire.
That’s why I had to leave. That’s why I couldn’t drag Willow down with me.
Bitterness coats the back of my throat as I try to push the memories down. Deep, deep down, where they belong.
My walk down memory lane with Willow was enough for one day. That was a good memory, and it still makes me sick. Thinking about my family is the opposite kind of memory. It sends me spiraling into the dark place, echoing the emptiness in my heart. I won’t go there. I don’t need to worry about the man who ruined my childhood.
Max sways from side to side with Isabelle, resting his forehead against hers. His fiancée’s fingers trace tiny circles over Max’s neck, and the two of them whisper and giggle to each other.
I sigh, looking away. My parents thought the Wise family had nothing. A handyman for a father, an administrator for a mother. Beholden to my family, as most of the people in this town are. Behind on their mortgage payments and no retirement savings to speak of.
Riff-raff, as my father so eloquently put it.
But he was wrong. I always knew he was wrong, and that’s why I ended up here every chance I got.
The Wise family were rich. Rich in love, in laughter, in affection for each other.
Until my father ruined it all, and I was too much of a coward to stand up to him. I just skipped town and left them to deal with the aftermath, telling myself I was doing it to protect them.
Max pulls away from Isabelle and spreads his arms toward me. “I’m the luckiest man in the world, Sacha. Did you know that?”
For once, my smile is genuine. I nod. “I did know that, Max. I’ve known it for a long time.”
All of us turn our heads at the sound of the front door opening. Finn Gallagher, the third man in our high school trio, enters without knocking.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is the Wise house. Everyone is family here, and no one knocks. I’m not even sure they have a lock on the door. If they do, I’ve never seen anyone use it.
Finn still has that lopsided grin, with dark hair falling across his forehead. He’s leaned out since high school, losing the boyish roundness in his face, but he’s still built like a machine.
“You’ve been working out.” I grin, getting up to give him a hug.
“Had to lose the baby weight.” His laugh still makes his shoulders shake, just like it did when we were kids.
“I thought your family had been run out of town like me,” I say, jerking my chin at him. “I remember your father closing up his law practice and moving to Seattle.”
Finn shakes his head. “Only my parents. I came back to start the skydiving business.”
“Ah,” I say, nodding. Finn has always been an adrenaline junkie. Between him and Max, there was never a dull moment.
Isabelle smiles, giving Finn a kiss on the cheek before wishing us a good night and disappearing upstairs. The three of us settle into the living room couches and crack open a few more beers.
For the
first time in a long, long time, the tension in my body seems to melt away completely. My shoulders relax, and my laugh comes more easily. I comb my hand through my hair and look at my two best friends, wondering if I made the right decision to leave them behind.
Then, I think of the real reason I left. Willow’s big, blue eyes that were full of hope and happiness. The future she wanted to build for herself. The one thing I had the power to help.
I was right to leave, and I’ll leave again as soon as this weekend is over. It’s the only truly good thing I’ve ever done in my life, and the only way I can think to make Willow’s life any easier. I left to protect her, and I’d do it a thousand times over.
Finn’s laughter pulls me from my thoughts as he produces a bottle of whiskey from a pocket in his jacket.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I haven’t had whiskey since that night in senior year when I threw up all over Max’s front lawn. Not happening again.”
“Come on, Black.” Finn grins, waving the bottle from side to side. “For old time’s sake.”
“What, does your grass need more fertilizer? Because you can buy it at the store, you know. Works even better than vomit.”
Finn laughs, then starts us off by taking a big swig of the bottle. He wipes his lips on his sleeve as he hands it to me. Even the smell of the drink is nauseating. I pinch my lips together and pretend to drink it, passing it over to Max.
The two of them drink happily. We laugh more in one evening than I’ve laughed in the past ten years. I feel like an outsider, even though they talk to me like I never left.
When we leave the house to go to a bar, I let my feet carry me with them, but my mind stays stuck somewhere in the past, in a time when Willow didn’t hate the sight of me.
A time when the thought of kissing her was more than just a distant memory and an unfulfillable fantasy.
7
Willow
A thin sheen of sweat covers my body from head to toe when I pull into my own driveway. Turning the car off, I sit there for a few moments. I lean forward, resting my forehead on the steering wheel as I try to catch my breath.
Sacha Black is here.
My body can’t handle it. Hell, my mind can’t handle it.
How am I supposed to finish my work for the wedding tomorrow when I know for a fact that love is a lie? I’m supposed to go to the venue in the morning and pretend to be happy for the newlywed couple, when in my heart I don’t believe it’ll last.
Nothing good ever does—especially not love.
I have a mountain of work to do tonight in preparation for tomorrow, and I already know I’ll be thinking of him. Sucking in a deep breath, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to compose myself.
My veins are full of hot coals, burning me from the inside out. My heart is thumping heavily against my ribcage, like someone knocking at the door to my soul.
Open up, it says. Let me out.
With another breath, I turn away from the voice. No way. Sacha’s had a hold on me for far too long. There’s too much baggage between us. Our pasts are too thick. Too complicated.
Too impossible to overcome.
If I let him in again, it’ll destroy me.
I yelp when someone knocks on my window, jumping clear out of my skin. Jackson and Nadia are there, laughing their heads off at my reaction. Nadia’s bright red curls shake as she laughs soundlessly, her freckles practically glowing on her face. Jackson looks like an evil, fabulous Cheshire cat.
I open the door and shoot them a bitter glance. “Way to scare the shit out of me.”
“Girl, that was hilarious,” Jackson says, shaking his head. “I’d do it a hundred times over. What were you doing, anyway? Having a little nap on the steering wheel?”
“You okay?” Nadia asks, tilting her head. Her emerald eyes search mine, and I have to look away. She sees too much.
“I’m fine.”
“A little birdie told me that a certain Mr. Black is in town,” Jackson says, wiggling his eyebrows. “Hence the wine.” He holds up a bag full of clinking bottles.
For the first time all evening, my lips tug into a tired smile. “I might need a glass or three.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
Nadia hooks her arm around my shoulders and walks me to the front door. My big, old house greets me with tired creaks. The lights buzz when I turn them on. It smells like worn wood and layered memories, and it feels like home as soon as I walk through the door.
My very own home, with my name on the deed.
Mine, even though my last name is Wise. Even though I came from the east end of town. Even though the Blacks said my family would never amount to anything.
After my parents stopped working for Alastair Black, he blacklisted their name from every business in town. Things were bleak. My parents struggled. When they died, I vowed I’d never put myself in such a vulnerable situation, and I’ve done everything I could to live up to that.
My business. My house. My money.
I only depend on myself.
I earned the scholarship to Woodvale University with the grades I worked my ass off for. I’m not going to let Sacha Black come in and tear any of that apart. I’ve built a good life for myself, by myself.
The three of us settle around the dining room table as Nadia pours out three glasses of wine.
“I should be working,” I say, accepting the glass. “I have a wedding tomorrow and I need to double-check that everything is organized.”
“Have you ever not organized everything perfectly?” Jackson asks, arching an eyebrow. “The only things that ever go wrong are things you could have never anticipated.”
“Exactly. I need to be ready for anything.”
Nadia and Jackson exchange a glance.
Jackson purses his lips and picks an imaginary piece of lint off his shoulder. He tsks, shaking his head. “Tonight, you relax.”
“That’s why we’re here, Willow.” Nadia’s kind smile eases some of the pain in my heart. She only moved to Woodvale four years ago, so she doesn’t know everything that happened between Sacha and me. Still, she’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and she knows me better than most people.
A couple of glasses of wine is a lot more attractive than staring at a computer screen by myself. I hold my wine in my hand as my friends make me laugh, trailing my finger around the wide base and staring into the deep, blood-red liquid.
Nadia and Jackson talk constantly, making sure to include me in their conversations. They know that if they leave me to my own thoughts, I’ll be swirling down, down, down, to a place full of heartbreak and painful memories.
I appreciate their company, but that dark place is calling out to me. I can’t keep up with my friends’ jokes or conversation. Everything always goes back to him.
To Sacha.
All grown up and even more intoxicating than ever before. I’ve spent less than ten minutes in his presence and I can already feel the need growing in the depths of my stomach. That pulsing ache that draws me toward him. That claw, squeezing my insides whenever I think of him.
His hold on me never lessened. Even after ten years apart, he still has the same effect on me. The dizzying, impossible to ignore sensation that I belong to him.
All three of us turn our heads when my phone rings. I glance at the screen and arch an eyebrow.
“It’s Isabelle.”
“Answer it,” Jackson says, taking a sip of wine and staring at me over the glass.
I put the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hi.” There’s a shaky breath on the other side.
“Is everything okay?”
Isabelle releases a sigh. I can feel the tension rippling through the phone as it comes off her in waves. “It’s fine. I just…” My future sister-in-law laughs softly and inhales again. “I feel stupid for calling you.”
“What’s up, Isabelle? You can tell me.”
“It’s just Max. I’m trying to be all cool and laid back with this
bachelor party thing, but it’s stressing me out. He almost never goes out drinking, but now that his friend is in town, I don’t know. You hear so many stories…”
I sit up, leaning my elbow on my knee. “Max would never do anything to hurt you, Isabelle. He loves you more than I thought he was capable of loving anyone.”
“I know.” She sighs again. “I know. I feel stupid. My mind just runs away with me, you know?”
“Yes,” I answer, laughing. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Nadia and Jackson are staring at me with wide eyes, waiting for me to explain what the phone call is about. I glance away from them, standing up. Twirling my fingers around the ends of my hair, I walk toward the edge of the room and turn my back to my friends.
“Do you want me to come over? We could look at stuff for your wedding. I had some new ideas for the centerpieces we could look at. You still have to finalize the menu and the flowers.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose. You’re working tomorrow and it’s so late…”
I turn back to look at my friends, who are still staring at me with arched eyebrows. I can hear Isabelle hesitating on the other side of the line.
“…but if you’re free and you don’t mind…”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Do you mind if I bring Nadia and Jackson?”
Isabelle lets out a sigh of relief and thanks me in the same breath just as Jackson groans. I hang up the phone and he shakes his head.
“You shouldn’t be going over there.”
“Why not? She needs a friend.”
“So, you just happen to be going over to your sister-in-law’s house to comfort her on the same day that the man you’re desperately in love with arrived to stay there? Real subtle.”
Anger flares in my chest. “First of all, I’m not desperately in love with anyone. Second of all, screw you. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, I’m coming. You need a chaperone.”
Nadia laughs. “I need to meet this famous Sacha Black. Is he as sexy as everyone says?”
“Sexier,” Jackson says.
I roll my eyes. “He’s not that hot.”
Shouldn’t Want You: A Brother’s Best Friend Romance Page 4
