by Witt, L. A.
I scoffed. “He looks nothing like Sean.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She gestured toward the kitchen. “He’s . . . I mean, you and Sean used to joke about that, Garrett! Remember?” Her voice shook. “Remember how you used to say he was the only queen who could win your heart?”
My gut clenched. It had only been lighthearted silliness—something Sean had so effortlessly brought out of me—but the words hit me hard now.
“So now my brother’s been gone a year, and you’ve already got . . .” Another sharp gesture toward the kitchen. “So much for the only queen, huh? Or do you just have a thing for blonds?”
Guilt and anger were fighting for dominance in my chest. Mark and Courtney had seen it? Scott and Fiona had seen it? What if they were—
“Jesse has nothing to do with Sean,” I snapped. “He has—”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, asshole.”
“Courtney, what the hell? This is—”
“Save it.” Her lips pulled back in a sneer. “I never trusted you because I knew you were just looking for some guy to depend on you. For some reason, my brother was head over heels for you, but I figured you’d at least have the decency not to go out and replace him so soon.” She laughed humorlessly. “But hey, what do I know?”
Shock kept me mute for a long moment. When I finally found some breath, I said, “I loved Sean, Courtney. I will love him until the day I die. But I’m not going to ask someone else’s permission before I decide I’ve grieved enough to—”
“Grieved enough?” She stared at me like I’d just insulted the entire family. Waving toward the kitchen, she demanded, “How long has this been going on, anyway? Did you at least wait until after the funeral to open a Grindr account?”
I clenched my teeth to keep the anger in check. “I met him after I moved to Bluewater Bay. And no, I wasn’t out looking. We met, and we clicked, and he came with me yesterday because I needed the support.”
“And it never dawned on you to talk to us?” She put a hand to her chest, the rage tipping slightly in favor of hurt. “Sean’s family?”
Sean’s family, who couldn’t stand me until he was dying? No, thanks.
But I didn’t want to pour gas on the fire, so I calmly said, “You were all going to be struggling as much as I was yesterday. Why would I compound that?”
“Oh, bullshit.” Courtney’s expression was definitely moving back toward anger now. “But I can see why you wouldn’t want to come around if you had something to hide.”
I forced out a breath and managed to not roll my eyes. “I wasn’t hiding him. I—”
“Yeah, okay. Listen, if you want to run out and replace Sean, be my guest.” She stabbed a finger at me. “But you have no right to bring him—”
“I’m not sure how that’s your decision,” I snapped.
She straightened a little, as if startled that I’d gotten in her face, but when she recovered, icicles hung from every word. “Look at him, Garrett.” She gestured in the direction Jesse had gone. “He’s a kid. Another naïve young boy for you to take under your wing and take advantage of.”
My jaw fell open. I’d known what they thought of me, but they’d never said it out loud to my face.
Her glare dared me to suggest she was wrong.
“I loved your brother, Courtney,” I said through my teeth, voice shaking anyway. “I wasn’t taking advantage of a naïve kid.”
“Sure you weren’t. And as smart as Sean was, he fell for it hook, line, and sinker no matter how much we all tried to warn him.”
The words tore at me, ripping open fresh wounds to go alongside the old ones.
And she wasn’t done. “If he’d lived longer, maybe he would have opened his eyes and seen. Hopefully before you found something younger and shinier to replace him.” Another pointed glance toward the kitchen. “Nice job finding one who’s a younger, healthier clone of my brother, you fucking—”
“That’s enough!” I bellowed. “Get the fuck out, Courtney. Now.”
She eyed me coolly. “That’s what I thought.” She turned to go, and I was too shocked by the avalanche of accusations to counter any of them. At the door, she paused and looked back. “We tried to warn Sean, and I sure as hell hope someone’s warning this new boy toy about the same shit.” She shook her head, lip curled. “If you’re so desperate for something to depend on you and blindly love you, just get a fucking dog and save the rest of us the heartache.”
And with that, she was gone.
I thought I was going to be sick, but my knees were shaking too much to carry me to the bathroom. Instead, I sank onto the couch, swallowing hard and hoping my stomach stayed put. My ears rang and my mind reeled. It didn’t matter that I’d known how Sean’s family felt about me. Hearing it . . . Fuck. They’d tried to warn him away from me. They’d thought . . . thought I was taking advantage of him. Even after we’d made peace—sort of—while Sean was dying . . . this? Did my in-laws really believe I’d had Jesse on the side before Sean had died?
And what was I supposed to make of yet another person noticing the similarities between Sean and—
A hand on my shoulder had me back on my feet with a gasp.
Jesse showed his palms. “Hey. Easy.”
“Sorry. I . . .” I sank back down. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
He sat beside me. “You okay?”
Not even a little.
I turned to him, and I couldn’t help looking him up and down. As I did, the sick feeling worsened. It was impossible not to see everything Fiona and Courtney had seen. A young guy unabashedly embracing—not just in touch with—his femininity. So different from anyone I’d ever dated . . . with one exception.
Jesse’s hair was different. His face. His eyes. His voice. But somehow, gazing at him now, I could only see Sean in him. All the pieces of him that I’d found in Jesse. The sarcasm. The sense of humor. The feistiness. How he so effortlessly switched between adorable and devilish.
Fuck. Were Fiona and Courtney right? Had I been right when I’d second-guessed myself? Was Jesse just a substitute? Someone to fill the role Sean had vacated? Was that why I’d fallen for him so fast and so hard?
It sounded ridiculous, and yet it made sense. As much as anything could make sense right then. Holy fuck, I didn’t think I’d ever been this confused in my life. This lost. I’d thought I was making leaps and bounds with moving on, and now I was afraid I was not only back at square one, but dragging someone else’s heart along with me. Was this why everyone had told me to wait a year before making any major decisions? Because even when I felt like I was ready to move on, there was still so, so much further to go?
“Garrett?” Jesse’s gentle voice prodded me out of my thoughts, and he touched my shoulder. “You still with me?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” I stood up on shaking legs and tried to roll some tension out of my shoulders. “You okay with just hitting the road?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 31
Jesse
Awkwardly silent car rides were always miserable. They always made me twitchy and uncomfortable. When the awkwardly silent car ride was three goddamned hours, it might as well have been my own private circle of hell.
We’d left Fiona’s house half an hour or so after Courtney had stormed out, and the silence had already settled in before we’d even taken our stuff out to Garrett’s truck. All the way out of Seattle and up into Edmonds, the only conversation was about whether we should stop for lunch (neither of us was hungry) and if we should get gas before we got on the ferry (we did).
We took the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, and we both made our excuses to not stay in the truck. I went up to use the bathroom. He stepped out to get a soda. With some expert-level foot-dragging on our respective errands, we managed to avoid each other for about twenty-five minutes of the half-hour boat ride.
While he drove us off the ferry and back onto the highway, I stole a few surreptitious looks at
him. The quiet was killing me, and I didn’t know what to say. We hadn’t fought. He had no reason to be pissed at me, and I knew he wasn’t, but the spat he’d had with his sister-in-law had rattled something in him. Something he didn’t want to talk about. Now he’d withdrawn into himself, leaving me out here with no idea if or how to break the silence. What did he need from me? Space? A shoulder? Reassurance that Courtney was wrong?
Talk to me, Garrett. I want to help.
And there was a selfish angle too. I didn’t want to make what happened this morning about me, but what was happening now sure as shit affected me. He had every right to be upset, and maybe that meant he had every right to shut me out too, but . . . there had to be some middle ground here somewhere. Something between I need to sort this out in my head and you don’t exist. At what point did I have the right to say, Hey, bruh, I’m still here, and get pissed if he kept the walls up? Especially when I had a few questions about his sister-in-law’s accusations.
He’d told me about the strained relationship he’d had with them, so that much hadn’t been a surprise. That part about me being like Sean, though? Uh . . .?
“But if you’re asking who I’ve been wanting for the last few days, and who I hope is coming in whenever the Alehouse door opens . . . no question. It’s you.”
“That’s all I need to know, then. I don’t want you to forget him or not think about him. Just as long as you’re thinking of me as me and not ‘that guy who’s kind of like him.’”
“Not at all. Pretty sure you’re one of a kind anyway.”
My throat tightened around my breath. You sure about that last part, Garrett?
But what was I supposed to say? And shouldn’t he have been saying something? Did I have any right to be pissed? To demand answers? Did he have any right to shut me out?
I watched him from the corner of my eye, trying to gauge him, but that was impossible right now. He wasn’t one to wear his thoughts on his sleeve anyway, but his poker face was rock-solid today. If I had to guess, he was replaying the argument over and over in his head. If he wasn’t, I sure was. Her words kept echoing in my ears, and I kept seeing him flinching every time they hit their mark.
Somewhere between the Hood Canal Bridge and one of those tiny Olympic Peninsula towns I couldn’t name, an epiphany ratcheted up my discomfort by about five hundred percent.
“You and Sean used to joke about that, Garrett! Remember? Remember how you used to say he was the only queen who could win your heart?”
“If you want to run out and replace Sean, be my guest.”
Acid burned in the back of my throat. The things he’d said up on the Space Needle observation deck repeated ad nauseam in my head, their real meaning becoming clearer each time.
“I guess what I’m saying,” I heard myself cautiously venturing, “is that I don’t know how to be what you need, but I want to be.”
“You,” he’d said with certainty. “That’s all you need to be.”
A lump rose in my throat. In light of everything his sister-in-law had said, and this painfully long silence, it was impossible not to put the pieces together.
It wasn’t me he needed. Well, it was, but it wasn’t. Garrett needed someone who wasn’t here anymore, and I was the closest thing he could find to fill that space.
What did he need from me? Sean.
That lump rose higher, my eyes stinging, and I stared out the passenger-side window so he wouldn’t see. Not that he seemed to even remember I was here, but whatever.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, and maybe I wasn’t. Disappointed? Oh yeah. Devastated? Probably would be when the numbness finally cracked. Surprised? I . . . wasn’t sure.
Hopeless? Oh yeah. Big time. Because while I could be a lot of things for Garrett, Sean wasn’t one of them. He was gone. I was me. So where did that leave us?
We crossed into Bluewater Bay, and I was both relieved and apprehensive. The long, excruciating drive was about to be over. But . . . now what?
“Damn it,” Garrett muttered and started slowing down.
“What?”
“Missed the turn.” He laughed humorlessly as he pulled into the bank parking lot. “You’d think I’d know my way around town by now.”
I chewed my lip, once again at a loss for what to say.
Garrett turned the truck around and continued toward the complex. Neither of us spoke. The silence followed us up the stairs to his apartment, broken only by him quietly offering me a drink and me just as quietly declining.
In a matter of minutes, the quiet had overstayed its welcome, and I was starting to wonder if I had too. He’d folded in on himself after his sister-in-law had left, and he wasn’t exactly opening up now.
And even if he did, what could I do for him? What in the world did he need from me?
Something I can’t be. Someone who isn’t here.
The lump was still in my throat, and it was bigger now. The fact was, I could be with a man who was still grieving. I could love a man who still hurt over someone he’d lost too soon.
But I couldn’t replace Sean. Be a companion, a lover, a boyfriend? Yes. But be Sean? No.
And after the things Garrett’s sister-in-law had said and the things Garrett hadn’t said, it was getting too hard to believe he wanted me and not just the nearest guy who kinda resembled the man he’d lost.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Finally, I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “She’s right, isn’t she?”
Garrett turned, brow furrowed. “Huh?”
“Your sister-in-law.” I pushed my shoulders back. “What she said.”
He lowered his gaze, and his shoulders sank just as slowly and unmistakably as my heart. Neither of us spoke. I’d expected him to get defensive, but . . . not this. Not quietly resigned. I didn’t know how to respond. It would’ve been irritating if he’d snapped at me or told me I was imagining things, but he didn’t even fight it. Maybe I was hallucinating, but if anything, I swore he was relieved by the accusation. Like now that I’d said it, he didn’t have to try to hide it anymore.
So what was the point in continuing the conversation? I had my answer.
Fighting to keep my voice even, I stood. “I think I’m gonna go.”
No response.
I chewed the inside of my lip, fighting back nausea and tears and way too many emotions. “Like, I’m going to go. I don’t think I can do this.”
That at least got him to look at me. “What?”
“I can’t be what you need. I think that’s—” My voice tried to break, and I cleared my throat as I took another step toward the door. “I just need to go before I get in any further over my head.”
He studied me, but then he dropped his gaze and wiped his hand over his face. He didn’t speak, though, and if I stood here much longer, I was going to lose it.
So I started to go.
Hand on the door, I paused. Garrett hadn’t fought my accusation, and now he didn’t try to stop me from leaving. If I’d been right, then fine, but didn’t he care that I was leaving? Wasn’t he going to lift a finger to keep me here? Fuck. All those romantic comedies I’d watched over the years and all those sappy novels just made this moment worse. Too many visions of the hero running out and yelling, “Wait! Wait!”
The hero wasn’t chasing anyone this time.
Hero, my ass.
And just like that, I was pissed. I spun around and faced him. “What the fuck, Garrett?”
He jumped. Hell, so did I.
I recovered, though, and strode back across the room to stab a finger at him. “Seriously? That’s it? You’re just . . . That’s it?”
He sat back a little and showed his palms. “What do you want me to say?”
“I just want—” I almost choked on the words, and my voice wavered when I finally ground out, “Do you even care if I stay or go?”
“Of course I do.” Garrett held my gaze, his expression unreadable except for the bone-deep fatigue. “But for God’s sake
, do I look like I have any fight left in me?”
A pang of guilt tugged at me, but it was quickly eclipsed by hurt and anger, and my voice was a shaky mess as I ground out: “If this isn’t worth fighting for, then just say so.”
“I’m not even sure why we’re fighting.” He rose so we were more or less eye to eye. “I’m sorry if I didn’t talk much on the way back, but—”
“No, that’s not why I’m upset. For fuck’s sake, I had to listen to your sister-in-law telling you all the reasons why I’m nothing more than a surrogate for Sean, and you’ve had hours to say something to make me believe she was wrong. Is she wrong or not?”
Garrett flinched, avoiding my eyes, and I couldn’t read the tension in his jaw. Was he pissed? Hurt? Had I hit close to home?
Now it was my jaw getting tense, and my teeth ached from grinding them. Barely keeping my voice even, I repeated, “Is she wrong or not, Garrett?”
“You . . .” He swallowed, and he couldn’t quite meet my gaze. “You’re pissed because I haven’t reassured you that you’re not a replacement for my husband?”
“Well.” I threw up my hands. “Am I?”
His lips thinned. “You’re not Sean, Jesse.”
“You don’t fucking say.” There was more bitterness in my tone than I’d intended. I made no apologies. Especially since I couldn’t tell who he was trying to convince—me or himself.
Garrett finally looked me in the eye. “What do you want from me?” He shrugged, but it was a taut, irritated gesture, not a flippant one. “The point is that I’ve told you this before—you have never been a replacement for Sean.”
So why don’t you sound convinced this time?
“Doesn’t sound like I could fill his shoes if I wanted to,” I growled.
Garrett jumped like I’d punched him. Then his eyes narrowed, and he set his jaw. “Have I ever compared you to him?”
“Out loud?” I folded my arms. “No.”
“For God’s sake.” He threw up his hands, then raked one through his hair. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
