I grinned knowingly. “That good, huh?”
Her expression grew serious and her eyes refocused on me. “I can’t even begin to describe it.”
I knew all about kisses like that. Caleb was exceptional at them. “So what happened next?”
She looked down into her glass, crestfallen. “Then I freaked out, pulled away, and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing.” I couldn’t control my flinch at hearing that. “I know!” she shouted. “I totally reacted badly, but what was I supposed to do? I mean, this is a guy I always thought of as a brother!”
I couldn’t flat-out tell her what I knew, but maybe I could help guide her in the right direction; at least then I couldn’t be blamed for being the one who let the cat out of the bag.
I started carefully. “Fiona, think back to when you were growing up. What was your relationship like with Deacon?”
“Well, he was pretty much my best friend. We did everything together.” She smiled happily, recalling memories from her childhood. “When we were ten, we built our own tree house in the woods behind his house. The thing was a death trap, but we didn’t care. You know how fearless kids are. Anyway, no one knew about it but us. We were scared that if our parents found out, they’d never let us use it, or worse, they’d tear it down. I remember being really upset one day because Katy Pierson had made fun of my red hair in front of the whole class. As soon as school got out, I ran straight to that damn tree house. I was all alone, crying my eyes out because everyone had been laughing at me, when Deacon showed up all of a sudden.
“He climbed in there with me and held me while I cried, telling me that Katy was just jealous because she’d never be as pretty as me, and that the rest of those kids were just stupid and their opinions didn’t matter.”
I smiled fondly, feeling a whole new sense of respect for a man I hardly knew. “He sounds like he was an awesome kid.”
“Oh he was,” Fiona replied adamantly, almost as though calling him awesome was an understatement.
“So what happened next?”
She burst into laughter before answering. “Well, he convinced me to come out of my hiding place and go back to his house since his mom was making after-school snacks. I was halfway down the ladder when one of the boards snapped, and I broke my arm when I hit the ground. I’d never seen Deacon so scared in all my life.” I couldn’t quite decipher the look on her face; it was as if she was coming to an important realization. I wanted to prod, but interrupting would have been counterproductive. “But it wasn’t because he was worried he’d get in trouble. He was just scared that I was hurt. He practically carried me back to his house and took full responsibility for building the tree house. Said it was his idea, and that I’d gotten hurt when he tried to talk me into going inside. He was upset for weeks after that, blaming himself for what happened to me. He was… he was always taking care of me any way he could.”
I scooted closer, nudging her knee. “Like how?”
“Like our senior prom. He was all set to go with Marcy Danowitz when he found out my boyfriend had broken up with me for another girl. Deacon beat the shit out of him for upsetting me, and when prom night rolled around, he showed up at my door in his tux. He even had a corsage that matched the dress I’d bought and everything. He totally bailed on Marcy to be my date so I wouldn’t miss my prom.”
Her story was actually making me a little weepy. It was so sweet and romantic. I couldn’t understand how she didn’t see what had been happening all that time. From the sound of it, Deacon had been in love with her since they were ten years old. “When do you think he started pulling away from you, Fee?”
Her brows pinched together in a confused frown. “I don’t know. I guess….” She paused to give it some thought. “I guess it was around the time I started dating Grayson. He’d just graduated college, and Deacon and I were in our second year. The two of them had spent most of their lives competing with each other, but it had always been in a friendly way, you know? It got worse when Gray and I got together. The competitions got ugly. Then one day he just stopped talking to us altogether.”
It was time for her lightbulb moment. If she didn’t put two and two together soon, I was afraid I was going to smack the hell out of her. I hadn’t been a believer of true love in a very, very long time. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled that Lola had found someone who adored her, but if there had ever been a story about unrequited true love that needed to get its own happily ever after, it was Deacon and Fiona’s. The more she talked, the more that ice Stefan had helped build around my heart began to thaw. The woman was actually making me soft!
I spoke in slow, concise sentences, praying she finally got it. “Okay, so consider how he was with you all your lives up until you started dating his older brother. He was your best friend. He’d do anything for you. He took care of you. Then he just disappeared. Why do you think he’d do that?”
“I don’t—” Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. “No! You don’t think…?”
I nodded. “Oh, I totally think. In fact, I’m confident enough, after everything you told me, to claim I know. He’s ass over elbow for you, honey.”
“But he’s… he can’t… that’s not… omigod! And I dated his brother! No wonder he hates me. I’m such an idiot!” She dropped her head in her hands.
I moved in closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You’re not an idiot—well, I mean, maybe you are.” Her head snapped up and she glared fire at me. I smiled and gave her a little shake. “Hey, you’re in the inner circle now. Sisters by choice don’t sugarcoat things. It might have taken you a while to see the truth staring you in the face, but at least you finally saw it. That’s what matters. And Deacon doesn’t hate you. He wouldn’t have shown up on your doorstep like that if he did.”
Her head fell into her hands again, muffling her voice as she lamented, “God, this is all so messed up. What am I supposed to do now?”
I gave her a squeeze, turning her attention back to me. “I can’t answer that for you, babe. That’s something you have to come up with on your own. But I will tell you this: you need to think long and hard about everything you discovered tonight. It’s obvious that what he feels for you goes so much deeper than just a childhood crush. He deserves to have a woman who feels the same way about him as he does her. If you can’t give him that, then you need to let him go. But if you can, then the ball is in your court. You need to make the next move and show him you’re all in.”
Fiona left a little while after having that bomb dropped on her. After hugging her goodbye and telling her I was there if she needed me for anything, I started shutting off all the lights, preparing to go to sleep by myself for the first time in a long time. And as I climbed into my big bed, I was feeling hopeful for the future of my friend and the guy who’d loved her for so long.
Maybe it was all the phenomenal sex I’d been having, maybe it was simply the fact that Caleb had made these past few months the most fun I’d had in a really long time, but as I fell asleep, I actually found myself wishing for a fairy-tale ending for Deacon and Fiona.
Who’d have thought that a woman who gave up on fairy-tale type love so long ago would discover she still had a romantic side deep down?
Chapter Sixteen
Caleb
It had been over a week since I last saw Daphne. Between juggling our day jobs and finding time to spend with our friends, we hadn’t been able to sync our schedules up.
The weekend had finally rolled around, and I’d been looking forward to getting more than just a passing text or phone call here and there. But after Lola and Sophia had gotten suspicious about a month earlier, they had implemented a mandatory weekly girls’ night, leaving me all alone one designated night every week.
I thought that maybe the break was a good idea. We’d agreed on no-strings-attached fun, and spending every available minute with each other for the past few months had kind of blurred that line.
I decided to use the time apart to cat
ch up with my own friends. Deacon hadn’t wanted to spend his night out at the same bar he worked at sixty hours a week, so I’d decided to take him and Grayson to a pub I used to frequent before The Black Sheep became my home away from home. Lola’s brother, Dominic Abbatelli, had recently started working at Bandwidth after making the move from New York to Seattle, so we’d invited him to tag along.
Deacon took a sip of his drink and winced. “This place fucking blows,” he grumbled, setting the drink on the table. “What kind of bar doesn’t know how to make a proper Old Fashioned?” He’d been in a piss-poor mood for weeks now. I tried to talk to him about it but had eventually given up when he threatened bodily injury if I didn’t leave him alone about his shitty attitude.
“What kind of man in his early thirties orders an Old Fashioned in the first place?” I countered, sucking back more of my scotch. “Contrary to your behavior lately, you aren’t actually seventy years old.”
Dominic laughed while Deacon flipped me off. Grayson’s head was too buried in his cell phone to notice anything going on around him.
“Jesus Christ,” I grunted, snapping in Gray’s face to get his attention. “Will you get your goddamn nose out of your phone already?
He looked up apologetically, setting his phone on the table next to his untouched beer. “Sorry. I just worry about those four together.”
I chuckled, picturing all the different kinds of trouble those women could get into. “I bet they’ve fully corrupted poor Fee by now.” At the mention of her name, Deacon grew tense but didn’t say a word.
“Lola’s not replying to any of my messages. I can’t help but imagine the worst.”
Dominic tipped his beer bottle at Gray. “If by ‘the worst’ you mean them being stuck in holding for a drunk and disorderly, then you’re probably not far off the mark. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Son of a bitch,” Grayson hissed, standing from his chair. “Excuse me for a minute. I need to make a couple calls.” His phone was already to his ear by the time he hit the front door.
Dominic chuckled. “Might as well get another round while he tries to track down my sister. Anyone need a refill?”
I shook my head while Deacon indicated he wanted another in spite of bitching that it wasn’t made right just minutes before. When Dominic walked off, I took that as my opportunity. “Okay, look. You’ve been in a shitty mood for damn near a month. I’m not an idiot. I know whatever’s got you pissed has something to do with Fiona. Any time her name’s mentioned, you lock up so tight I’m surprised you haven’t pulled a fucking muscle. You finally going to say what’s bugging you, or you just want to keep acting like a dick until no one wants to hang around your miserable ass?”
Deacon blew out a sigh, raking a hand through his hair. “I made a huge fucking mistake a while back. I took a shot and told Fee how I felt.”
I couldn’t contain my wince. “And how’d that go?”
He shot me a look that spoke volumes. “You said it yourself, I’ve been a miserable prick for weeks. How do you think it went? She shot me down.”
“Shit, man. I don’t know what to say.”
A bitter smile tilted his lips. “Nothing to say. At least now I know for sure that it’s time to move the hell on, right? I wasted too much time hung up on a chick who didn’t feel the same way. Turned out not to be worth it in the long run, but at least I learned my lesson. I won’t be making that same mistake again.”
“Jesus Christ, man, when did you become so cynical?”
His voice was completely flat as he answered, “When the woman I’ve spent the better part of my life pining over blew me off without so much as a fucking backward glance. And if you’re smart, you’d check the shit you’ve got going on with Daphne before you’re in the same boat as me.”
I looked around to make sure the other guys hadn’t come back yet. Leaning forward, I dropped my voice so only he could hear. “First of all, keep your voice down. You’re the only asshole who knows about that. Secondly, it isn’t like that with Daph and me. There are no strings attached, we’re just having fun.”
He let loose a humorless laugh. “You sure about that? Because I don’t know about Gray, but I sure as hell haven’t seen much of you these past four months. Seems to me like you’ve got yourself pretty tied up in her already.”
A cold, clammy sweat broke out across my skin at his insinuation. Was he right? Were we getting so tangled up in each other that we’d started down a path I never had any intention of traveling?
No, not a chance. Daphne wasn’t like other women. She’d made it clear from the start that she had no interest in more than I was capable of giving.
Unbeknownst to the swirling vortex of anxiety and concern he’d just created, Deacon turned his gaze toward the bar to a sexy woman in a skimpy dress who was giving him the all-too-familiar fuck me eyes. I’d had that look directed at me on far more than one occasion, and had taken full advantage of it more than I cared to admit. Because that’s who I was. I was the good-time guy. The one-night stand—or more recently, the steady fuck buddy. Nothing more. I wasn’t the type of guy to get serious or take a woman home to meet my folks. I saw firsthand the kind of train wreck a committed relationship caused thanks to my parents, and I wanted no part of that.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go start the healing process. And that blonde at the bar looks more than willing to lend a helping hand.”
My head spun as I stood from the table, an intense pressure suddenly resting on my chest. My lungs couldn’t suck in enough air. Pulling my phone out of my jacket pocket, I headed for the quiet of the back hallway. I needed to call Daphne and clear things up ASAP if I had any hope of breathing normally again tonight.
The call was on its third ring when I caught sight of something that made my brain short-circuit and forget everything I was doing.
I quickly disconnected the call. My arm holding the phone to my ear dropped, right along with my jaw. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I growled at the table that had caught my attention.
My dad’s head came out of the unknown woman’s neck in order to twist in my direction. “Caleb.” He stood from his chair, looking between me and the woman who most certainly wasn’t my mother. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
My jaw was so tense it made a strange cracking noise as I spoke through gritted teeth. “I could ask you the same question, Dad. But then I’m pretty sure I already have the answer, don’t I?”
I stared down at the woman my father was clearly having an affair with. There was something familiar about her, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on as I glared into her unrepentant eyes. Whoever she was, she obviously didn’t give a shit about being caught with a married man, or the fact that the person who busted them was the man’s own son.
“Look, this doesn’t concern you—”
“Doesn’t concern me?” I threw my head back on a sharp laugh. “That’s a joke, right? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I’ll be the one who has to clean up this fucking mess when Mom finds out. You’re getting lazy, Dad. Either that or you just don’t give a shit if the whole world knows you’ve got a whore on the side anymore.”
He was in my face faster than I could blink. “You’ll watch how you fucking speak around Connie. You understand me, boy?”
I squared my shoulders, standing tall with my chest puffed out just to show the miserable son of a bitch that I was bigger than him. “I haven’t been a boy in a long fucking time, old man. And you’d be wise to remember that warning I gave you the last time we were in this position.”
His face paled, but he didn’t make a move.
“This has all been one big misunderstanding,” my father’s latest skank said. “There’s nothing going on here. Your dad and I are just good friends, that’s all.”
I looked at her, all the animosity I was feeling painted across my face. “Just good friends, huh? I must be doing something wrong, because the only time I sucked on a woman’s neck like t
hat was when I was screwing her. Guess I missed the memo on how friends are supposed to act.”
“Everything okay here?” I turned at the sound of Deacon’s voice to discover him, Grayson, and Dominic had just gotten a front row seat to my fucked-up family dynamic.
The pity and concern reflected at me from my friends only added to the tension I’d started to feel moments before stumbling across my bastard of a father.
“Everything’s fine,” I lied, my tone full of sarcastic derision. “Just another glorious fucking day for the McMannuses.”
I started toward the exit but stopped when I was shoulder to shoulder with Deacon. “You’re right about it all being a waste of time, brother,” I told him ominously. “It’s not worth it when the end result means turning into a piece of shit like him.” I threw my thumb over my shoulder at my father before storming out of the pub, wanting nothing more than to get away from everyone and every fucked-up thing swirling around in my head.
I was halfway down the block when I heard Grayson’s voice. “Caleb, hold up. Will you just slow down for a second?”
He finally caught up with me, keeping stride with each one of my wide steps. “Seriously, man, just stop for a second. Tell me what’s going on.”
I kept going. “Nothing to talk about.”
“Jesus, Caleb.” His hand landed on my elbow, effectively pulling me to a halt. “Talk to me. What just happened back there?”
I grabbed my hair with both hands and yanked, needing the pins-and-needles sensation on my scalp to drown out all the other shit coursing through my veins.
“What just happened was that I got a face-to-face meeting with my father’s current fuck. Not that he hasn’t had plenty of them over the years, but this is the first one I’ve actually met in the flesh. And the fucked-up thing about it all is that my mom knows. She knows! And she won’t do a goddamn thing about it. It’s always their fault, never his. She makes excuses for him being a cheating son of a bitch, but when it gets to be too much for her, she expects me to clean it up.”
Enticing Daphne Page 10
