by Franca Storm
I didn’t say it out loud, not now he’d decided to retreat. I was already right on the edge, the beast threatening to break free at any second. He needed to get away from me ASAP.
The two of them climbed back inside their fucking Bentley and took off back down the dirt path.
When they were finally out of sight, I leaned against my truck, trying to catch my breath and calm the fuck down.
That’d been too close.
The idiot had no idea what the hell he’d just risked by taking me on.
It was the first time I’d been tested since that day with my dad and I’d almost failed. I’d been seconds away from snapping and ripping into him.
Fucking hell.
Chapter 15
~Sophie~
Ollie and I sat across from one another at the kitchen table, stuffing our faces with the two large pizzas we’d ordered for dinner.
Neither of us could cook that well and we were both busy with own stuff, so we resorted to ordering in most of the time. It’d been that way since our parents had died. It was fine by me. I liked takeout.
Although, a part of me did miss a home-cooked meal now and then. Our dad had been a great cook and my mom used to win all the bake-offs in town, year after year. Between them, we’d eaten better than any other kids in town. Before the car crash. Before everything had changed. Before it had become just me and Ollie.
I stopped myself.
I hated going there. It was too painful.
We ate in silence, each too busy shoveling food into our mouths to talk.
Finally, though, Ollie broke through the silence. “Admit it.”
I froze.
Oh shit. Oh my God. He knows! He knows!
“Admit what?” I managed to eke out.
“You’re seeing someone.”
Oh, thank God. He’s just fishing. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. All this secrecy was making me incredibly paranoid.
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re happier than I’ve seen you in a hell of a long time.”
“And, of course, that has to be down to a man, right? It can’t possibly be for any other reason?”
“It could, but I know the signs with you, Soph. It’s definitely a guy. Who is he? I need to know who I’m gonna be going around to and threatening.”
“You’re way off base,” I lied.
Right to his face. Looking him in the eye and everything. I’d just lied to my brother. It felt wrong. Not because I’d lied to him, because it had always been that way with me and Ollie. We told one another everything, except anything to do with my love life. He was always so overbearing when it came to that subject matter.
No, I felt bad, because now my lover was his best friend.
“I’ll just have to find out another way then,” he said, winking at me.
Shit. “How about you focus your attention on your own love life?”
Surprise flickered across his face. “You know?”
“About you and my best friend? Yeah, I know, you asshole.”
He laughed. “Relax. Nothing’s happened. We’re taking it slow.”
Brad had said that he’d stayed the night at her place. How was that taking it slow? “So, you guys haven’t…you know?” Urgh. Just asking the question churned my stomach. I hated to think of my brother getting it on with anyone, let alone, with one of my closest friends.
I was such a hypocrite.
“Nah,” he said.
“How about that night when you didn’t come home?”
“I slept on the couch. I stayed there too late with her and I couldn’t be assed to drive all the way back here. Her place is closer to work anyway. It made better sense to crash there. We just started seeing one another, Soph. I’m not Brad, for Christ’s sake.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know, he screws anything that moves. Doesn’t think twice about it.”
My gut twisted at his words. “It hasn’t seemed that way since I came back here.”
He scoffed. “Don’t hold your breath. He’s probably just taking a breather. Resting up, you know?” He munched on another bite of pizza. “I swear, that guy’s longest relationship is probably a week. Two would be stretching it. He gets bored with anything longer than that. He’s never gonna settle down. He’s twenty-seven and still pulling the same shit he did in his teens.”
The conversation was making me queasy. “Huh,” was all I said.
“So, don’t get any ideas about some sort of payback, because I’m with Tiff.”
“What?” I choked.
“About hooking up with my best friend, because I’m with yours?”
“I—”
“I’m kidding, Soph. Besides, Brad would never touch you. He knows I’d fucking kill him.”
Ain’t that the truth? “Subject change, please.”
Ollie laughed. “Yeah. Agreed. Thinking about you and Brad is killing my appetite here.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. Oh my God. “How’s…work?” I almost screamed out.
I couldn’t take another second of talking about it, of hearing his remarks about Brad and me. He was more opposed to it that I’d ever imagined. That didn’t bode well at all.
***
After dinner, I snuck upstairs to the bathroom. I needed to get my head together. I needed to talk to Brad.
We were supposed to see one another in a couple of hours. I was gonna head over to his place, telling my brother that I was going out with some old high school friends, as a cover. But after everything that Ollie had said about him, I couldn’t wait that long.
He’d said that Brad got bored after a week of being with a woman. We’d just passed a week now.
It couldn’t be true, could it?
He and I were different. There was something more between us. I’d been sure of it.
But Ollie had seemed so sure too and he supposedly knew Brad better than anyone.
I leaned against the sink and pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket. I scrolled to Brad’s number and texted him: Meet now, not later?
He always texted me back right away; something I loved about him. So, I wasn’t surprised when my phone pinged a moment later with his response: Sorry, darlin’. Need a rain check. Not feeling up to it.
My heart sank. I texted back: Are you sick?
His response: Yeah.
That was his response? Yeah. What the hell kind of half-assed response was that?
Is this it? Was that text message conversation the beginning of what Ollie had talked about? Brad had said he was sick, but I’d seen him not long ago at the bookstore and he’d seemed fine then.
I deliberated over texting him back and asking for more information, but I didn’t want to be that girl. That needy girlfriend type. So, I forced myself not to. I’d see how it played out.
As I left the bathroom, I tried to push down that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that Ollie was right about him.
Chapter 16
~Brad~
“Keep it there, Brad.”
I slapped the bag of frozen peas down on the kitchen table. “It’s done all it’s gonna do, Mom.”
She blew out a breath and snatched it up. As she stowed it back in the freezer, she shook her head with disapproval. “I still can’t believe you were with that awful woman!”
“It was months ago. A mistake,” I muttered.
“Months and she’s been bothering you all this time?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t have the nickname of Crazy Claire for no reason, Mom. At the time, I’d thought it was just another stupid town rumor.”
She seemed relieved. “Thank goodness.”
“Thank goodness she’s crazy and came up here with her husband to beat the shit out of me today?”
“No. I was worried that….”
“That what?” I pressed. Where the hell is she going with this? I wasn’t in the mood for brain teasers. My head was fucking killing me from all the head shots I’d al
lowed that asshole to take.
“That you’d…made a mistake…with Sophie Clinton.”
My eyes narrowed. “You thought I’d cheated on her?”
“I’m sorry, I just—”
“No, it’s fine.”
I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t blame her. Of course she’d assume that, cuz of the way I’d always been with women in the past. “But, for the record, that would never happen.”
She eyed my phone on the table between us. “You canceled on her.”
“Because of this,” I said, pointing to my face.
I was sporting a black eye, a split lip and a gash down the left side of my face that was just shy of needing stitches. “If she sees me like this, I’ll have to explain the whole thing with Claire.”
“It happened a while ago. What does it matter?”
“I don’t want her to see me that way, Mom. I don’t want her to think I’m that guy anymore. I care about her and I don’t want anything messing that up. I can’t…I…I need her….”
“You love her. That’s what this is.”
She sounded so sure of it, like it wasn’t even a question. She said it like it was a statement of fact.
“Mom—”
“Fine,” she said, holding up her hands. “Deny it to me, if you want. But you can’t deny it to yourself.”
I had to give it to her; she really knew how to get under my skin and get things out of me. I smiled. “If I admit it, will you lay off on all the relationship and marriage talk for a while? Around both of us?”
She grinned. “You have yourself a deal.”
I cleared my throat and forced my gaze to hers. “I…I love her.” I rose from my seat and slapped my hands on the table. “There. You happy now?”
“Very.”
“Good, then I’ve fulfilled my sonly duty.”
I smiled at her as I strode out through the back door.
I blew out a calming breath, enjoying the fact that the house was in the middle of nowhere and so fucking peaceful.
I fired up a smoke and took a long, hard drag. Yeah, that’s much better.
The one thing that kept me from coming up here more often were the memories.
I wasn’t sure what it would do to me, staying here for a few days. It was usually bad enough coming here just for a few hours to fix things around the house for her, like I’d done today.
So far, having her in the house with me had been enough to distract me. But it would take at least three or four days for my face to heal.
I didn’t want to go back to my own place, because it was too close to Soph’s. If she came knocking on the door, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist opening it and I didn’t want her to see me beat up. I also didn’t need anyone at work seeing me, or the rumor mill would erupt in full-force.
So, I’d taken a few vacation days. I had a ton I’d saved up over the last couple of years. I hadn’t taken a single day so far, so they owed me. But Mom would still be at work and I’d be up here alone. Just me and the memories.
Footsteps behind me startled me out of my thoughts.
“You’re not him.”
Her words stopped me mid-drag. “Mom—”
“No, Brad. Come on.”
“We’re not discussing it.”
She didn’t listen to me. “Eric Guildford is a trumped up pipsqueak of a man. The only way he could have done so much damage to you was if you’d allowed him to. You didn’t fight back, Brad.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I ground out.
“You’re not your father!”
I spun around. “Mom, stop!” I dragged hard on my smoke, like it was my only lifeline. She was pulling me down into a place where I couldn’t bear to be. “I can’t do this with you. You know that!”
Her expression was pained as she took me in. “You need to, sweetheart. It’s eating you up inside and harming every aspect of your life. It’s preventing you from moving forward. It’s why you let Eric hurt you. It’s also why you’ve never allowed yourself to get too close. I saw you earlier in my office. You’re even hesitating with Sophie—the girl you’ve always wanted. She’s finally yours now and you’re holding back. You’re afraid you’ll hurt her like your father hurt me; that it’s in your blood, or something. But I know you better than you know yourself.” She moved closer. “You, my boy, are not your father. Do you hear me?”
I stepped back hastily, dropping my smoke at my feet and stubbing it out with my boot. “I almost killed him that day, Mom. Right there!” I pointed to the porch steps. “You were there! You saw what I did! If that doesn’t make me him, what the hell does?”
“What you did came from a place of love, Brad.”
“What are you talking about? Come on, Mom.”
“No! Listen to me!” she snapped. She closed the distance between us and gripped my arms tightly, shaking me to force me to listen to her. “You did what you did to protect me. That’s where it came from that day, Brad. Nowhere else. Not from the place where violence always came from with your father. For him, it was always about power—holding it over those weaker than him. You don’t have that in you. You’ve lumped yourself in with him, because you didn’t understand it. Well, I’m telling you now, okay? You saved my life that day.”
“He was going to kill you,” I said, running my fingers through my hair as I tried to bite back the powerful wave of emotion threatening to overpower me.
“I know, sweetheart.”
“It wasn’t just him, Mom. Soph’s ex…I wanted to hurt him. Bad. It was my first reaction when she told me what he did to her.”
Her brow furrowed. “He abused her?”
“Yeah. Hit her and pushed her around. She showed me the bruises and swore me to secrecy.”
“It’s your protective instinct again.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I am. So, what did you do about Sophie’s situation?”
“I taught her how to defend herself.”
She smiled.
“What?”
“That was very sweet and understanding of you.”
“It was?”
“Yeah. After going through something like that you feel a complete loss of power. An awful helplessness. Teaching her what you did would have been a big help to her self-esteem.”
“You think that’s how she was feeling?”
“That’s how I felt.”
“You never said.”
“I didn’t want to admit it. It was bad enough admitting it to myself.”
And that was when the other shoe dropped.
That was why Soph had come back here. That asshole ex of hers had knocked the proverbial wind out of her. She’d lost some of her confidence.
So she’d come back home where it was safe, where she knew she’d be surrounded by protective, overbearing pricks like me and Ollie who would never let anything happen to her.
“Come inside now,” my mom said, grabbing my hand.
I nodded and let her lead me back inside the house.
Chapter 17
~Sophie~
It had been almost a week since I’d seen Brad. Apparently, he was staying with his mom. It made no sense to me, because I’d always thought he hated it up there due to all the crap that’d happened there with his dad.
We’d been texting, but that’d been the extent of our communication. We hadn’t even spoken on the phone, which just lent more weight to my concern that he was trying to distance himself from me.
But I hadn’t pushed it. I’d tried to tell myself that I was just overreacting, because of the poisonous thoughts my brother had unwittingly planted in my head. I didn’t want to be one of those crazy girls who freaked out so easily, because of their own insecurities. The thing was, I wasn’t an insecure person in that way. I never had been. But Brad was such a consuming force that he was always there on my mind. I had to force myself to put him out of my mind when I was at work, or I’d lose my concentration. It was what he did to me. T
hings were intense between us. At least, I hoped that was the case on his end too.
Sure, it was a bit of a coincidence that we’d just reached our one-week relationship mark and he’d pretty much disappeared, but I knew I’d felt it from him…that there was something powerful between us. Something deep and real.
Besides, after we’d fooled around, he’d been the one to initiate a date, not me. He’d made the move to take things between us beyond sex.
Although, he had been pulling away sexually. I hadn’t overlooked that. And that was never a good sign in any relationship.
Stop it! Stop it right now!
Urgh. I needed to get a grip. I had to focus on my own life, not just my boyfriend. What the hell was wrong with me? I was acting like one of those women who I despised; the kind whose entire life revolved solely around the man they were with.
Well, screw that. I was not gonna be that girl. I was gonna focus on anything else, but him. My work. My friends. Enjoying being back home. Yeah, I could do that.
Besides, I had a mission.
It was something I’d been putting off for far too long, because of all the drama with the last guy I’d been with—asshole Jake. I wasn’t about to let myself fall back into that miserable trap again.
No, today I was going to do it—or at least try to do it.
Write.
I’d graduated with an English Literature degree for that purpose. I wanted to be a writer. It was a pipe dream. That’s exactly what Jake had made me realize. Through all of his indoctrination, I’d forgotten for so long how much I loved to write…how much I needed it.
But something had shifted in me lately, taking me back to that place where I’d been before. The place where I’d been dying to write again.
Hell, I knew exactly what it was. It was Brad.
There was no doubt about it.
Being around him always reminded me of exactly who I really was. He’d always had that effect on me.
So, even if our relationship was about to go down the frigging toilet, at least I’d managed to get something out of it. As pissed as I was at him, I really hoped he’d managed to get something out of it too. He’d been through a lot and he deserved some happiness.
