Caden (Loving the Sykes Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stevens

  “But I thought–”

  “Everyone knows what you thought, Tommy,” I said. “I’d have thought, by now, you’d be used to being wrong.”

  He paled. “So, you never…?”

  “Whether I was or wasn’t, we still shouldn’t have been together so long.”

  Now he frowned. “So, you never loved me?”

  I shook my head. “I loved you. I was just never in love with you.”

  “I waited for you for five years!”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair on either of us–”

  “Fair?” he spat. “Fair? No, it wasn’t fair, Lucy. You never gave me a proper shot. I was just some placeholder because you were too stupid to see he’d never love you.”

  I felt tears threatening so I held onto all my anger. If I wasn’t going to let Caden see me cry, I certainly wasn’t going to let Tommy see me cry.

  “Pot meet kettle,” I retorted.

  “What does that mean?” he scoffed.

  “It means I’m not the only one too stupid to notice someone doesn’t love them!”

  Tommy puffed up in his best attempt at big and strong and intimidating. “And he’s not the only one to realise you’re a stupid little unlovable girl.”

  “You’re a stupid little unlovable girl,” Brit hissed as she took a step towards him.

  I put my hand out to stop her. “Leave him. He’s not worth it.”

  I could see Tommy didn’t like that. He’d never liked that. He was so insecure that he always needed to be worth it, to matter, even if it was just to rile up my emotions. He wanted to say something, he just didn’t know what to say.

  I looked at her girl behind him. “I hope you and Tommy are very happy with each other,” I told her sweetly.

  She humphed and walked away. Tommy looked back at her. He looked at me, a combination of knowing he should go after her and a burning need to put me down one last time on his face.

  Finally, he turned, called out, “Babe!” and hurried after her.

  “Good fucking riddance to that little prick,” Brit said, flipping his retreating back the bird. She put her arm around me as she turned me back to the bar. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Why?” I laughed.

  “You stood up for yourself. You gave him exactly what he deserved. And you looked totally badarse doing it.”

  I smiled. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “You all right, Lulu?” Grant asked as he came over.

  I nodded, feeling that maybe things were already better than I thought. “I will be.”

  He nodded. “Good.” Then went to serve a customer.

  “You want to go?” Brit asked.

  I shook my head. “No. Let’s dance.”

  We smiled and she grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor.

  I felt free. I felt confidant. I felt like a whole new me, a better me. I might not have had Caden, and that still hurt when I thought about it. I might not have had the best relationship with my brothers just then. But I knew for certain that everything would work out and I really would be okay eventually.

  25

  Caden

  I told myself to focus on the sound of gunshots and to stay on high alert. The new guy, Findlay, was at my four o’clock, Gunner was at my ten. We were surrounded on all sides, separated from Richards over comms so no idea what our satellite situation was.

  Noise battered at me. Gunner kept making suggestions to Findlay who just helplessly mumbled in response. But I was numb. My only priority was to get them out safely by any means necessary. If that meant surrendering myself, then what else was my life worth?

  I unhitched my gun from my shoulder and stood up.

  “Reece, what in the ever-loving Hell are you doing?” Phillips yelled.

  I put my hands up and walked towards the enemy combatants. Even through my body armour, the three shots to my heart stung like a bitch.

  Sarge lowered his gun and frowned at me. “What are you playing at, idiot?”

  I pointed to Gunner and Findlay. “If they hadn’t been dicking about, they could have got free while I provided suitable distraction.”

  Phillips pinched the bridge of his nose. “Reece, the mission is get everyone home. Not relive your emo teen years and dramatically surrender without a bloody need.”

  “It was a legit strategy!” I argued.

  “It was not.”

  “I think I know what I’m doing, sir.”

  “My office, Reece.”

  “Sir, I–”

  Phillips gave me the fatherly disapproval look. “We all know what you’re doing, and you’re not doing it under my command. My office. Now!” he snapped when I didn’t immediately get going.

  I stormed off the field, throwing my gun by the spare armour.

  “Reece!” Richards called from the ops tent, but I ignored him as I headed into the main building.

  I flung myself into the seat opposite Phillips’ desk with all the melodrama of an angsty pre-teen and saw what he’d meant. I didn’t feel inclined to admit anything, though.

  My commander closed his door much more gently than I’d opened it and leant on the edge of his desk, facing me. He clasped his hands in front of his body and just watched me. I sat perfectly still for as long as I could, but eventually even my patience and training broke in the face of his annoyance.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you uncomfortable?”

  I sniffed as I rearranged in my seat. “I’m fine.”

  “Fine.” He nodded. “Fine doesn’t surrender himself to certain death with the excuse, ‘It’s a legit strategy.’ You want to tell me what the hell’s going on with you since you got back?”

  I rubbed my nose and shook my head. “I’m fine. Just a little stiff.”

  “Bullshit.”

  My eyes snapped to his and I saw he was frowning at me.

  “I take it things with your girl went south?”

  “She’s not my girl,” I gritted out.

  “Obviously.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean.”

  “It means I’m disappointed in you, Reece. At work, you’re the first one in the line of duty, you’re unhesitating, unwavering. You’re our most fearless soldier. And yet you can’t manage to tell a girl you love her?”

  “She’s in love with someone else,” I told him sullenly.

  “So?”

  “So, it feels a little creeper twat to tell a girl I know isn’t interested in me that I love her.”

  “She wasn’t interested in you…at all?” His eyebrow quirked and I frowned.

  “It was just sex.”

  He gave a single, unreadable nod. “Did you ever stop to think that it was just sex because you didn’t tell her how you felt?”

  “What part of she’s in love with someone else did you not catch, sir?”

  “The part where you didn’t fight for what you wanted.”

  I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve all moved on.”

  “Yes. You’re here getting yourself shot every day. I hate to think what she’s moved on to.”

  I stood up, in no mood for the constant reminder of my heartbreak. “Is that all, sir?”

  He sighed as he stood up. “Go home, Reece. Take a day. Make it two. If we were deployed tomorrow, your shit would send us all home in body bags. Sort it.”

  Biting my tongue so I didn’t completely disrespect a superior officer, I nodded and saluted. “Understood, sir. I’ll sort my shit.”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  I left his office and headed for my locker to grab my stuff. As I was getting changed, my phone rang and I picked it up to see it was Oscar. I was going to ignore it, until I realised I had a bunch of missed calls from Oscar. I hit answer warily.

  “Reece.”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know it was me,” Oscar huffed.

  “Okay, fine. I knew it was you. Hi.”
/>   “Hi.”

  There was silence for a while.

  “Did you call a hundred times just to yell at me?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay, so what’s up?”

  “You’ve got to come home,” Oscar said.

  I laid the snark on a little thick in self-preservation. “I am home.”

  “Stop being a fucking idiot!” he snapped and I blinked.

  Oscar Sykes didn’t yell. He didn’t swear. And he didn’t get angry with people. In the twenty-however long years I’d known him, he’d been consistent. Consistent to the point of annoyance. Consistent to the point that Carter and I had done everything we could to get him to crack. And nothing, to date, had. So, what was his problem now?

  “Excuse you?” I asked.

  “I don’t give a shit what messed up bollocks you’ve got churning around your delinquent mind at the moment. I don’t care if you’ve convinced yourself not to come home from your next mission. I give zero fucks – zero, Caden Reece! – if you’re going to try to push me away–”

  “Push you away. No, never,” I said sarcastically.

  “Like fucking clockwork,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I’m Caden Reece and when things get hard, I get all angry and pissy,” he said, putting on a dicky voice. “Instead of talking about my feelings, I lash out and push everyone away. My patterns are as solid as Brit’s cycle–”

  “What do you know about Brit’s cycle?” I interrupted.

  “Shut it,” Oscar said hotly. “Not my fault I’m perceptive. And you should trust me when I say you have to come home.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I have never met two stupider people than you and Lucy. I swear to God. The two of you were right fucking in front of each other and you just… Two ships in the night for all the good it’s done.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Fuck’s sake!” he yelled into the phone. “Are you seriously that dense? Maybe you don’t deserve her after all.”

  I blinked, confused again. “What?”

  “Are you going to do anything more for this conversation than, ‘What’?”

  “This isn’t a conversation, Oz. It’s a fucking inquisition. I have no idea what you’re talking about and all you’re doing is yelling at me.”

  “If I have to spell it out for you…” He sighed. “Seriously, you’re one of our country’s last lines of defence? I’ll get the tea on for the invaders now, will I?

  “If you’re just gonna keep insulting me, I’m hanging up on you.”

  “She’s in love with you, you bloody idiot!” he said vehemently.

  “What? Who? Brit?”

  There was a muffled scream of frustration, then he was back on the phone. “If you don’t pull your sorry excuse for a head out of your arse, I will come down there and pull it out myself.”

  As far as threats went, it was pretty lame. For Oscar though, it meant a lot.

  “Why don’t you stop talking in riddles and just fucking tell me in plain Aussie English what the fuck you’re on about?” I suggested.

  “Lucy is in love with you, you shit-stain.” He enunciated every word much more clearly than he needed to as though he was going to start teaching English as a Second Language classes at TAFE in his spare time or something. “Somehow.”

  My brain still had trouble processing what he’d said. “She… Lucy loves me?”

  “Ding, ding! Lights are on and someone’s home.”

  “You can be really mean, you know.”

  “Did I hurt your precious little feelings?”

  I shook my head, heedless he couldn’t see me. “Actually, I’m proud of you.”

  “Oh…” he said. “Thanks. Anyway, not the point. You need to come home and tell her you love her, too, or the whole house is imploding.”

  “What makes you think I love her, too?” I asked, defensively.

  “You seriously think I don’t know why you left, why you stayed away, or what you two got up to when you were forced to come home?” His tone was wry, like he really didn’t want to believe I was that stupid.

  “You’ve known this whole time?”

  “I have known this whole time that you were both in love with each other!” he said exasperatedly. “Eighteen-year-old Caden Reece and fifteen-year-old Lucy Sykes are not as subtle as they think they are.”

  “Six years. You’ve known for six years.”

  “I have.”

  “And you said nothing. To anyone.”

  I could just picture him shrugging. “It wasn’t my business.”

  “She was with Tommy for five years!”

  “Not my problem that she tried moving on and you didn’t.”

  “Well, fat lot of good that’s done anyone.”

  “I’m telling you now, okay? Better late than never.”

  “I missed six years with her, Oscar.”

  “You’re assuming Carter isn’t still planning to give you a severe beating if you ever show your face again.”

  “And you’re asking me to come home to that excellent welcome?”

  “Someone has to do something. Carter won’t even look at Lucy. He’s snapping at everyone and basically only comes home to eat and sleep. Luther blames himself for not watching out for her–”

  “Gee, I thought Luther thought better of me than that.”

  “You told us all it was just sex and left, numbnuts. What’s he supposed to think of you now?”

  I nodded. “Okay. You have a point.”

  “And Lucy just flits around the house like a ghost. When she’s home. She spends as much time at Brit’s place as she can and she goes white as a sheet when she walks past your room.”

  My heart ached horribly at the thought of her in pain.

  “But she said…”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “From what I can gather, neither of you said a damn thing aside from slinging pain and blame and sarcastic nonsense. I’ve spent all month trying to put all the pieces together and it’s a bloody shambles. Just come home, put aside your fragile male ego and bluster and just tell her how you feel.”

  “Carter?”

  “I’ll deal with him.”

  “You’ll deal with him?”

  “We’ll work it out. I think we have more pressing things to worry about than his equally fragile male ego. He’ll learn to share you. It’ll be fine.”

  I rubbed my hand over my mouth as I thought about how quickly I could get home.

  “What?” Oscar asked like he could tell.

  “I can be home tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.”

  “You will.”

  I was about to hang up, but Oscar stopped me.

  “Cade?”

  “Mm?”

  “You don’t turn up tomorrow, you don’t turn up ever. You hear me?”

  Fuck. Little Oscar Sykes gave me chills up my spine. And I was too proud to be annoyed or even properly intimidated.

  “I hear you, brother.”

  “Good.”

  He hung up on me and I looked at my phone in pleasant surprise. Oscar had never once been in a confrontation in the time I’d known him. He was too kind, he was too polite, and he was too damned likable. He’d certainly never put his foot down and started it himself.

  It seemed there was no length too far that the Sykes boys wouldn’t go to take care of Lucy. Once, I’d been counted among that number. I just had to hope it wasn’t too late to be counted again.

  I started packing my bag, no idea how long I’d be gone. I figured I’d call Phillips from the road, he’d probably be glad to see the back of me for a while. At least until I sorted my shit.

  And I was determined to sort my shit. I was going to, once and for all, tell Lucy I loved her. If she turned me away, at least I could say I tried.

  26
>
  Lucy

  There was yelling from downstairs, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it. I hadn’t been in the mood to deal with anything for a while. I could pinpoint exactly when it had been, but I tried my hardest not to think about him anymore.

  “She doesn’t want to see you. I told you!” That was Carter.

  “Why are you here?” That was Luther.

  “I called him!” That was Oscar and I was starting to think I should pay attention.

  “No one wants him here,” Carter snapped.

  “I don’t fucking care,” Caden’s voice was crisp and clear and sent a jolt of pain through my heart. “I’m seeing her and that’s it.”

  “What else have you got to say, Reece? Huh?” Carter asked and I could hear the pain in his voice; I knew I’d ruined more than a friendship by sleeping with Caden, and I was sorry for it.

  “Everything, mate!” Caden yelled back, then more quietly, “But I really think she should be the one to hear it first.”

  “She’ll hear everything if you lot don’t stop yelling,” Oscar said.

  I heard them coming closer and there was a knock on my door.

  “Get off me, man. I will end you!” Caden warned, his voice so cold it sent chills down my spine.

  “Big words from the super spy who broke our little sister’s heart,” Carter answered and I rolled my eyes.

  “Lucy!” Caden called as he pounded on my door.

  I ignored them and kept folding my clothes. It was three against one. Even a super spy couldn’t take them all out, surely? Not without seriously hurting them. And I doubted that, as awkward as it got between them, Caden would ever want to really hurt them.

  “Lucy, we have to talk!”

  “Dude, what did you tell him?” I head Luther asking.

  “The truth. Someone bloody well had to,” I heard Oscar reply shortly.

  “Lulu!” Caden called again.

  “Okay. She doesn’t want to talk to you. Time to go, Reece.” Luther was calm, but he used that tone that told me he was about to simmer over.