by Lexi Ryan
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a little girl anymore. Tell me.”
Nic pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, taps one out, and lights it, and I watch his every move. After his first, long drag, he says, “Mom had an affair with Woodison before she left town. She’d been fucking him for months, and Dad found out and threatened to kill him.”
For a hysterical, panicked moment, I think he means Arrow, and then my brain kicks in. “Uriah Woodison?”
“Yeah.” He grunts and shakes his head. “Mom knew she couldn’t live with Dad after that—that he’d make her pay for it every day—so she left.”
An iron fist closes around my throat. “Mom and Uriah Woodison? Are you sure?”
Nic nods. “He has a right to hate the fucker.”
A car roars into the trailer park. Gravel sprays out as the red Jetta screeches to a stop in front of me and Nic.
When Brogan climbs out, I’m still hung up on what I just learned, and for a minute I forget what he did last night. In the same moment, I forget what I did last night.
“Mia!” His eyes are swollen, bloodshot, and his face is pale. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been?”
I blink at him, but I can’t register anything when my brain keeps playing my dad’s sobs on a loop. “Tell me they’re not going to take you away from me, too.”
My mother was having an affair with Arrow’s father. I knew my father hated Uriah Woodison. I knew he wouldn’t like the idea of me dating Arrow. But now that I understand why, I know he’ll never be okay with it.
“You’re not talking to me,” Brogan says, and I realize I haven’t answered his question. “Okay, I deserve that, but will you hear me out? Please?”
Nic narrows his gaze on Brogan, then looks to me. “What did he do?” He steps forward. “Did you hurt my sister? I told you I’d fucking ruin you if you hurt her.”
Brogan holds up his hands in surrender and shakes his head. “I was drunk. I saw the texts on your phone, but it’s okay. I can forgive you. I do. But I need you to forgive me. I’m an idiot and I was jealous and pissed and I thought he was stealing you away from me.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, can’t think about anything but the bomb Nic just dropped.
“Please,” Brogan says. “Talk to me.”
“What did he do, Mia?” Nic asks. He takes another step toward Brogan. “Want me to kick his ass?”
“Come at me,” Brogan says. “I fucked up, but I love your sister, and if you want to beat the shit out of me for that—”
“Stop,” I bite out. “I can’t deal with either of you right now.” I turn to Brogan. My sweet, sweet Brogan, and for the first time, what I did with Arrow last night crashes into me like a thousand shards of glass. How can I feel so guilty now when those moments with Arrow felt so right? So destined? “Go home, Brogan. You’re not making sense, and it doesn’t matter. I don’t have anything to say to you and I don’t have any interest in hearing your excuses.” Stopping, I take a breath and realize I do have one thing to say. “I hope Trish is worth it.”
“But—” he begins, but he stops when I hold up my hand.
I turn to Nic. “Take me home. Please.”
Nic’s jaw is hard and a muscle in his neck twitches. Oh yeah, he’d give anything to take a swing at Brogan right now. Nic’s a fighter. He’s never known how to navigate the world without his fists. But for me, he’ll tamp down that urge and let Brogan go unharmed.
“Get out of here,” Nic says.
Brogan shakes his head and tries again, more softly this time. “Let me drive you home, Mia. Please.”
“My sister told you to leave,” Nic growls.
With one last desperate look at me, Brogan nods and climbs into his car.
“You want to tell me what that was about?” my brother asks, as I climb into his rusty pickup. I slip into the passenger side and buckle my seatbelt, and Nic gets in and says, “So?”
“No, Nicholas. I don’t want to talk about it. Just take me home.”
That muscle twitches in his neck, and his dark knuckles go white around the steering wheel, but he finally starts the car, and we head toward my apartment in silence.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way. About Mom. She should have been the one to tell you.”
I wince and drop my gaze to my hands folded in my lap. I’m still processing. “Do you think she loved him?”
“Woodison?” Nic barks out a sardonic laugh. “Sure she did. He had her fooled. But you can guaran-damn-tee that he didn’t love her. She was his maid at that oversized house of his. Keeping the place clean while his wife was dying. Nothing but an easy piece of ass to him. When Dad found out and started throwing around threats, Woodison didn’t do shit to make it right.”
Outside my window, hawks scavenge the Dumpster behind my apartment, and I stare at them while my mind flips and flops these mismatched puzzle pieces and tries to find a story that makes any sense to me at all.
“She was so beautiful,” I whisper. “When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up and look just like her. She made me believe . . .”
When I don’t finish my thought, Nic reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I know, sis. Me too.”
“Don’t hurt Brogan. He’s just . . .” I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “He’s trying so hard to be who he thinks he’s supposed to be that sometimes he makes stupid mistakes.” I hate myself for how much that explanation undercuts Brogan’s betrayal. Then again, he’s not the only guilty party on that count.
Mom was an adulteress. A cheater. Like me.
Sure, we were broken up, but a breakup hours before sleeping with Arrow feels more like a technicality than an out.
“Is it true?” Nic asks.
“What?”
Nic squeezes the steering wheel and sighs. “Were you with Woodison last night? Is that who was in your apartment this morning?”
“No one was in my apartment this morning.”
“Come on, Mee. I’m not an idiot. There were two sets of feet running around before you answered the door.” He studies me for a beat before shaking his head. “You know what we are to people like them, don’t you? Worker bees. Drones. Whether we’re fucking them or carving their swine. They’ll never see us as one of them.”
The words hurt in part because they come from my brother, who’s supposed to believe I can rise above, and in part because they tap into the fear I’ve carried ever since Arrow told me his last name. “Arrow’s not like that.”
“And do you believe that enough to convince Dad?”
I bite my lip hard and dig my nails into my palms. “Dad doesn’t need to know. I don’t have anything with Arrow. He’s a friend. Last night he was just . . .” Claiming my heart. Once and for all.
Nic snorts. “He was what? Comforting you? Isn’t Brogan his boy? Jesus. That’s a Woodison for you. Take whatever they want. Fuck everybody else.”
I’m too tired to have this conversation, too unsure to defend Arrow to my brother, so I open the door. “Thanks for coming for me this morning. Let me know when Dad wakes up later.”
“Will do.”
I step out of the car and am about to close the door when Nic calls, “Mia?” and I stop. “Don’t sell yourself short. All those things Mom taught us were worth believing in. Even if she wasn’t.”
Brogan came by. My best friend came by his girl’s apartment to talk to her. Knocked on the door. Pleaded through it. Begged for her forgiveness when I was the only one here to listen.
I suck. Goddamn do I suck.
There’s a guy code, and then there’s just common fucking sense. I crossed lines last night, and maybe crossing those lines was inevitable, but it all happened too fast. Too soon. And now I have to find a way to explain it to Brogan that won’t make him hate my guts forever.
By the time Mia gets back to her apartment, I’ve mentally rehearsed ten different ways to tell Brogan what happened, showered, dressed, made a po
t of coffee, and, after searching her cabinets for real food and coming up empty, eaten a Pop-Tart.
When she closes the apartment door behind her, she’s deflated. Every piece of this morning’s joy has fled, and the energy in the apartment shifts from nervous to ominous.
“Everything okay?” I ask. Stupid fucking question, considering what had her running out the door.
“Yeah.” She avoids my gaze and heads to the coffee pot. “Dad’s asleep now. He’ll be okay. Just a rough night.”
“Brogan came over. I didn’t answer the door, of course, but he was here. We need to talk about what we’re going to tell him.”
She dumps some of that powdered creamer junk into her coffee and stirs, staring at her spoon as if this takes careful focus. “Nothing. We’re not going to tell him anything.”
“Right. So you think we should wait a few weeks and keep this quiet for a while?” My stomach knots at the idea. I don’t keep secrets from Brogan. And yet I did. I’ve kept my feelings for Mia a secret for nearly a year. I nod. “You’re right. We’ll give it some time.”
She turns slowly, abandoning her coffee on the counter and folding her arms as she looks at me. Her face is blank, nothing like the woman in my arms this morning. “We aren’t going to tell him at all, Arrow. Not now and not in a few weeks. I saw him at my dad’s this morning, and he’s already a mess. There’s no reason to hurt him more.”
My breath leaves me. “You’re going back to him. I thought . . .” I look away. God, this hurts like hell, and I deserve it. I slept with her the night they broke up. I knew better and I did it anyway. And now I’m nothing but a mistake to her. A dirty secret.
“I’m not going back to him.” My relief is short-lived. Her words are cold, her face stony. All the passion and emotion from last night has been hidden, locked away tight somewhere. “And that’ll hurt him enough. Please don’t hurt him more by confessing our betrayal.”
“You were broken up,” I whisper, even though her description of what we did is an echo of my own thoughts. “You can’t betray someone you aren’t committed to.”
“You and I both know that’s not true.”
“We can’t keep this secret forever. I want to kiss you in public and hold your hand, and I’m willing to wait a couple of weeks, a month even, but eventually it needs to come out, and it’s better if it comes from us.”
Her stony face falters, but then she closes her eyes and her walls go back up. “There is no us, Arrow. There can’t be.”
I feel like she punched me in the gut with a set of brass knuckles. I fucked this up. “What happened? Did Brogan say something to you? Something about me or . . .” Or is guilt gnawing at you the way it’s gnawed at me all morning?
She drops her head and studies the floor. “You were right last night. You said that when I decided to date Brogan, I was choosing him. That I did it knowing I couldn’t date you. It was true then, and it’s still true now.”
“So last night was . . .”
“I’d been drinking. I was emotional. It was a mistake.”
“Right.” Fuck. My first concussion was more enjoyable than this. I look around for my keys, grab them off the counter, and head for the door, where I have to stop because leaving her literally hurts. It tears me apart from the inside.
“I’m sorry, Arrow. You’re a good guy. I just . . .”
“You just made a mistake.” I attempt a smile, but even I can feel it twisted on my face—half plastic smile, half painful grimace. “For what it’s worth, last night wasn’t a mistake on my side. Not even a little.”
My apartment is on fire.
I rush to unlock the door when I see the flames flashing on the other side of the glass. My hands shake and fumble the keys, and before I can find the right one, someone pulls open the door.
Brogan.
And the apartment isn’t on fire. Candles glow from every surface, flickering under the breeze created by the ceiling fan.
“Surprise,” Brogan says, taking my bag from my arm.
“What?”
“This is a birthday redo,” he says. “I shouldn’t have missed it. Tonight I’m going to make up for that.”
I don’t relish celebrating my birthday. I find the whole idea weird—people focusing on me and doing something just because I happened to leave my mother’s womb this day years ago. And frankly, I hate being the center of attention.
Brogan told me he’d change that. He said he’d teach me to enjoy the spotlight. And then he canceled our plans and left me at home while he went out of town.
It’s not even my birthday anymore, but here he is and I’m afraid I’m a lost cause, because after the day I’ve had, I don’t have the energy to dodge his well-intentioned romantic advances.
“Brogan.” I sigh. “I told you this morning I didn’t want to talk to you. What are you doing here?”
He holds up a hand. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see, but just hear me out.”
“Fine.” I fold my arms across my chest as he leads me into the apartment and to the kitchen. It smells great in here, like chocolate and fresh bread, and I realize I haven’t eaten today. I don’t usually forget, but my mind is so crowded with everything that’s happened, even remembering to eat seems like too much.
I sit at the table, where he’s laid out a feast in chocolate: chocolate pastries, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate chunk cookies, and, of course, in the center of it all, a three-tiered chocolate cake already topped with flickering candles. “Why’d you do all this?” I shake my head.
Brogan isn’t like Arrow. He doesn’t have an endless bank account at his disposal. Sure, he grew up in a house nicer than mine, but as far as I can tell, his parents are up to their eyeballs in debt—choosing to buy their way into a higher social class even if they can’t afford it. “You didn’t have to, Brogan. I don’t need it.”
“You deserve it.” He takes the seat beside me but sits sideways on the chair so he faces me. “Do you remember telling me that you wanted to grow up and marry a guy who made you feel special every day?”
“Everyone wants that,” I say. But maybe not as much as I do. Other girls expect it. I, on the other hand, grew up watching the way my father treated my mother—as if she was the hired help or expendable. For me, it’s not an expectation—it’s something I only dare to hope can be. Something I’m not sure I believe is real.
“I’ve always believed that guy would be me, but I saw he was texting you and freaked out.”
“Guys aren’t allowed to text me now.”
He swallows hard and bites his lip. “Trish told me that you and Arrow had a thing. She said I was stupid if I couldn’t see it and that you’d leave me in a second for him.”
This is the part where I’m supposed to say, “And you believed her?” But I don’t. The question is as good as a lie. So I choose a different one. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it instead of unzipping your pants?”
“Because sometimes I’m a coward.” He bites his lip and grimaces before meeting my gaze. “And it was easier to look at your phone.”
He said something about texts this morning, but I was too distracted by what Nic told me about Mom to fully register anything. “I still don’t know what texts you’re talking about.”
“It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have looked.” He draws in a long breath. “I knew you were friends, but seeing it like that just seemed to confirm everything she’d said. And I already know how much he makes you smile.”
“Brogan—”
“I warm the bench while I watch my friends compete in a sport I’ve dedicated my life to. I only get to go in when they need someone to block for Arrow or to do kick returns. Playing second string means there’s someone better. I didn’t want to be second string to you. And I panicked because I thought I was. What I didn’t realize was being your second string trumps not being your anything. Every day of the week.”
“I never thought of you as my second string,” I sa
y, and suddenly I don’t care what he’s done or who betrayed whom. I want to curl into his strong arms and let him hold me. I want to listen to him talk to me about the future and let his dreams be mine. Brogan isn’t Arrow, and that’s a good thing. Arrow and I can’t be. Not after what I learned from my brother. Not even before. But Brogan? He’s a good guy. Sometimes his insecurities motivate him to make terrible decisions, but I could say the same of half the people I know.
“I’m so sorry. Let me prove myself to you, Mia. I know you don’t owe it to me, but I’m asking anyway.”
“I can’t promise we can come back from this, Brogan.” But I want to try, I realize. Maybe I’m scared to be alone. Maybe I can’t stand to see him hurting this much. Or maybe I’m selfish and need a buffer between me and Arrow.
“We’ll take it slow. Tonight, let me feed you. This weekend, maybe you’ll let me take you out. We’ll start over and you can decide . . .” He draws in a ragged breath. “You can decide if I’m worth the kind of forgiveness it’ll take to get us through this.”
“And what happens the next time you feel insecure, Brogan? What happens when I laugh at another guy’s jokes or don’t at yours?”
“I remind myself that I’d rather play the bench than not at all. Because it’s true, Mia.”
“That breaks my heart,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to see yourself as playing the bench with the girl you end up with. I want you to believe you’re the star. You’re worth that.”
His mouth opens and then closes, as if he can’t figure out what to say. And then he leans forward and presses his lips to mine.
For a fleeting, ridiculous moment, I wonder if he can taste Arrow there. If he can feel the memory of another man on my lips. But then I let go of that ridiculous thought and part my lips for his kiss, welcoming its warmth.
Tonight I’m lonely, chased into the empty corners of my mind by the ghost of my mother and her decisions. Brogan chases the ghost away, and the loneliness fades. And for that, for now, I’m grateful.
He breaks the kiss, breathing hard, and leans his forehead against mine. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
