“You should stay,” I whispered when Jentry caught up with me.
“I drove you here.”
“I can find a way home.”
“Aurora.” My name rumbled from deep in his chest, a question and demand all at once, and very clearly the end of the conversation.
I pressed my lips tightly together and nodded once, but didn’t look back at him, just continued to walk.
Because even though Declan’s sudden movements had pushed the girl who had been in my apartment aside, I hadn’t forgotten about her, and being alone with Jentry right now sounded like pure agony.
18
Present Day
Aurora
My body sagged with an odd mixture of relief and exhaustion when we got back to the apartment and Jentry still hadn’t tried to talk to me again. I knew I would feel even more relieved if I could just go lie down, but my bed felt so far away.
“Are we not going to talk about this?” Jentry asked.
I let out a huff that sounded more like a scoff, and kept walking in the direction of my room.
“Aurora.” He grabbed for my arm, but I jerked it away. “Aurora, stop!”
I whirled around when he finally grasped my hand, but managed to yank it away again when my apparent anger shocked him. “What exactly do you want to talk about?” I asked.
“The fuck, Aurora?”
“Do you want to talk about the fact that Declan’s moving? Or maybe about who the hell you had in my apartment this afternoon?”
Jentry’s expression fell, his body stilled. “You saw her?”
I laughed, but there was no humor behind it.
“Another one of your girls?” I asked, bringing up our conversation from the beach all those weeks ago, and hated that my voice shook. “But it’s not a game though, right?”
“No, Aurora—”
“Who was that?” I demanded.
He took a step toward me, but I backed away and put my hands up, as if I could ever stop him.
“Wait, no. Let me guess. Jessica?”
Jentry no longer looked sick that I’d found out; he looked terrifying. “What did she say to you?” His voice was deep and severe, and matched his expression.
“What does it matter? You’ve been lying to me!” I yelled, ignoring the chill that crept through my body from his voice. “You made me believe—you told me—it doesn’t even matter!” I pointed at him, and then myself as I continued to yell, “We are not together, and thank God for that after what I saw earlier. Screw whoever you want, Jentry, but don’t tell me to stay somewhere so you can bring some girl back to my apartment. Find your own place if that’s what you want.”
“Screw her? That’s not—fucking listen to me!” he begged when I turned and hurried to my room.
“Auror—”
“I don’t want to talk right now.” I gasped in surprise when he gripped my hand in his and yanked me back to where he was.
“I do,” he countered huskily. In two long steps, he had the backs of my legs pressed up against my bed and was pushing me down. My arms covered in goose bumps and my body vibrated in anticipation for something I refused to allow happen. “This afternoon—”
“That kiss was a mistake,” I said, cutting him off again as he hovered over me.
His dark eyes flared, and he blew out a heavy breath through his nose. “Never. We could never be a mistake. But I meant Jessica. She’s not who you think she is. She’s my sister,” he said, his words rushed.
Right. I laughed miserably, and wondered if he really thought I was so stupid to believe that. “You tried to keep me away while you brought your sister here.”
“Yes, and I’d do the same thing in a heartbeat because I didn’t have a lot of time to think of another option. But just so you know, I’ll probably see her again in the future.”
I blinked slowly as I waited for him to give me something else, for him to realize that I didn’t believe him. When Jentry didn’t offer anything else up, I pressed my hands against his chest and pushed. “Right. Okay, please get off me.”
He didn’t move. “What’d she say to you?” he demanded suddenly.
“Who ever said that she spoke to me?”
His dark eyes looked into mine and the corner of his mouth lifted in a sad smile. “I saw your expression when you walked in here. Knowing Jessica and knowing that you saw her tells me that you talked. Tell me what she said to you.”
When I only responded by continuing to shove at his chest, he blew out a harsh breath.
“Fine. Just promise me something: if you ever see her again, stay away from her. She’s insane; she is literally crazy.”
“Oh good. So you sleep with psychotic girls now.”
Jentry recoiled and his face pinched with disgust. “Sleep with—no. Did you not hear me? Aurora, stop pushing me away and just talk to me!”
I didn’t stop. I gritted my teeth and said, “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to know about what or who you do. I just need you to leave!”
Jentry grabbed my wrists and slammed them down on the bed, his face now directly above mine. Pain unlike anything I’d ever seen from him flared in his eyes, and his jaw clenched as seconds passed.
When he finally spoke, his words seemed to drain him of his energy. “She’s my twin. I don’t know how to get you to believe me without her here, but I’ll never want you that close to her again.” There was no mistaking the honesty that wove through each word, or the way it seemed as if he was admitting a dark secret.
I lay there, stunned. A denial was on the tip of my tongue, but it wouldn’t leave my lips the way it had before. “What? No, because she . . .” I trailed off and gasped softly when I remembered her dark eyes and wicked smile. One that could have matched Jentry’s so perfectly if it hadn’t been so hateful. “But you . . . you grew up with Declan. You were adopted by . . .” Each word came out sounding confused. My head shook slowly at first, then faster. “She’s really your sister?”
Jentry nodded. “It’s a long story, one I’m not ready to tell you yet. I only saw Jess a handful of times growing up. She calls when—she only called today because she needed a place to stay. I try to avoid her. I haven’t seen her in over a year, because like I said, she’s insane. But she always seems to know too much. She already knew I was back in Wake Forest and staying here, and when she kept calling me over and over again when we were in the field today, she was sitting in Declan’s hospital room.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise and confusion, but Jentry continued before I could question that.
“Again, I can’t explain it right now, but I need you to know that her calls weren’t what you thought. Her being here wasn’t what you thought. I didn’t want you to see her because I don’t want her crazy near you. Understand?” Putting all of his weight onto one of our joined hands, he slowly slid the fingers of his free hand from my jaw to my cheekbone, then cradled my face. “The way you looked at me . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “How can you not understand by now that I only see you?” he asked softly, and dipped his head until his lips were just above my own. His breath mixed with mine, and my eyes slipped closed when that intoxicating scent overwhelmed me, as it always did.
“Jentry,” I breathed, but didn’t continue.
The hand on my cheek moved slowly down until the tips of his fingers were nothing but the faintest brush against the soft skin of my throat.
His mouth curved up in a sad smile, but he didn’t respond. His eyes dipped to where his hand slowly continued down my throat to my chest, then back up again. The touch was soft as a feather, and contradicted the way his other hand seemed to claim me as his in the tight way it gripped my hand.
Hard and soft.
He dipped his head lower to trail his nose along my jaw before he placed two deceptively soft kisses there that caused my heart to stutter before it took off again in the pounding beat that was so familiar with the man above me.
“Every second, Aurora. Every seco
nd I regret that I let our night end without telling you that I wasn’t ever letting you go.”
The pain in his voice didn’t fit our current positions, or the promise of more that lingered between us; but it made sense when he suddenly shifted to get off the bed. And for the first time, Jentry Michaels walked away from me.
When I woke, I was curled up on top of the comforter on my bed, still in my clothes from the day. My body felt stiff, but oddly relaxed, and my mind felt clearer than it had in weeks.
I glanced over to the window to see a darkened sky outside, and searched blindly around the bed until I found my phone underneath me. It was just after four in the morning. I hadn’t slept more than three hours at a time since before Declan’s accident, and couldn’t remember when I’d slept nearly twelve.
Ever since that night, my body had always stayed so on alert—afraid that I’d get a call worse than the one informing me of his accident—that it was usually impossible to sleep long.
That, and sleeping in a chair in a hospital room wasn’t the easiest thing to do.
I rolled off the bed and stretched my stiff body as I walked into the bathroom, then turned on the shower and stripped off my clothes. After quickly rinsing my body off, I hurried to get ready for the day, grabbed a book, and was out of the apartment within twenty minutes of originally waking up.
I drove with the windows down, and enjoyed feeling the cool predawn air of late summer whip through my car, stirring up the pieces of my hair that had fallen out of my bun.
The drive felt so routine that I wondered if I could have done it in my sleep. Every turn of the wheel felt like I was doing it out of habit, as if my body knew what to do before I even registered that I was turning onto the next street, ordering my usual drink from my favorite coffee shop, and pulling into my normal spot in the hospital.
In what felt like seconds, I was sitting cross-legged on the trunk of my car, and leaning back against the window so that I would have a perfect view of the sunrise.
I drank my coffee slowly, and when the sky lightened enough to allow me to read, pulled my book out of my bag and opened to where I had left off.
This had always been my favorite time of day because it was quiet and beautiful, and what better time to get lost in another world than when your world shifted around you?
But I had come to live for the mornings since Declan’s accident . . .
There is that phrase: The darkest hour is just before the dawn. It was something I’d heard my whole life. People had tried to tie it to their lives in so many ways to give themselves hope. And I’d never understood why they would cling to a saying just to make themselves feel like they could get out of whatever situation they were in.
I understood now.
Because there is so much unknown in the darkness, and the unknown can be terrifying. Like our futures . . . like Declan’s. Every day had been full of unknowns, and even though yesterday had been a small miracle, today would still be unknown. But the next day always brought with it possibilities, and though I hated to think in clichés, hope . . . but it was more than that.
Because it was never just the light of dawn washing away darkness that I saw; it was the beautiful transition of darkness to light, of the terrifying unknown to the promise that one day all would be okay.
And I knew as the sky filled with purples and pinks and oranges . . . I knew that no one would ever be able to find that kind of beauty without the dark.
Life wasn’t supposed to be easy. Life wasn’t supposed to be all light. There needed to be a balance. Just as the world needed night, we needed our trials.
And I was going through the trial of my life.
I was struggling to find the beauty in my life with everything that was going on—but the beauty that was surrounding me gave me hope that one day I would.
I stayed on my car reading until the sun finished rising and my coffee was gone, then carefully slid off the trunk and walked across the parking lot and into the hospital. I waved to a few of the workers I’d come to recognize over the past three weeks as I made my way to Declan’s room, and rummaged through my purse to find my phone charger as I got close.
Three weeks and I already had such a routine that starting school tomorrow would feel odd. Or maybe it would help. Maybe staying in his room most of my days wasn’t healthy.
I sucked in a startled gasp and stumbled backward when I stepped into Declan’s room and found a tall guy standing just inside.
My heart instantly took off. The pounding was so hard and loud to my own ears that I was sure he heard it when he quickly turned at my not-so-graceful entrance. “Jesus, Jentry!”
His mouth tipped up at the corner in a small smirk, but fell quickly. “Where have you been?”
My brow furrowed as I walked around him, ignoring the way his intoxicating smell filled the room, and the way I was craving to turn around and move into his arms. I focused on plugging my phone in so it could charge, and continued to avoid his stare as I sat down. “What do you mean?”
“I was getting ready to go for a run when you left this morning; that was hours ago.”
I finally glanced up at him when I heard the underlying panic in his tone. “I’ve been here.”
Jentry’s face fell into a mask of frustration. “No. I went running, showered, and have still been here for over an hour. When you left, I figured this was where you were coming. When I got here and you weren’t here, I tried calling you. It went straight to voice mail.”
“My phone’s dead; it died on the way over here.” I wanted to ask why Jentry had taken it upon himself to know where I was at all hours of the day, but his tone and expression kept the comments from escaping. He wasn’t acting overprotective or bossy; he seemed genuinely worried and frustrated even though I was sitting right in front of him. “I didn’t know you would try to get a hold of me.”
He took a steadying breath in and clenched one of his hands into a fist before letting it relax.
“Jentry, what is wrong? I’m right here. I’ve been at the hospital this whole time. I do this almost every morning. I was in the parking lot reading on my car. I read and watch the sun rise.”
“What’s wrong is that my brother is lying on that fucking bed in a coma. The last time I called someone I love and it went straight to voice mail, he’d gone for a drive and ended up here.” He blew out an exaggerated breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. When he spoke again, he sounded exhausted. “I just thought you would have been here. I couldn’t think of anywhere else you would have gone that early in the morning. When you weren’t here—when your phone . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and stood to walk over to him.
I hadn’t even thought of doing it. I hadn’t thought of moving toward him, into his arms. I was just there suddenly with my head pressed against chest and his arms wrapped around me, in a place I fit perfectly.
“I’m right here.”
His chest moved with a silent laugh, and a weighted sigh left his lips. “I see that.” I felt his lips pass across the top of my head before he released me and took a few steps away, and watched as he scrubbed his hands over his face again. “Now that I know you’re okay, I need to step outside for a few minutes.”
My lips twisted into a grimace. “I wish you’d stop.”
One of Jentry’s eyebrows rose, and that wicked smile I had missed so much crossed his face. “Are you sure about that?”
“Am I sure that I want you to stop smoking? Yes, Jentry, I’m sure. It’s bad for you.”
He stepped closer and placed his knuckles under my chin to tilt my head up. Once we were just an inch apart, he whispered, “You think I don’t catch the way you take that first deep breath when you come near me? I already know you like the smell, Aurora; don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
My eyes widened in horror as I wondered if I did actually do that, then narrowed. “I still wish you’d stop. As you pointed out, Declan is lying right behind us in a coma. You’ve already b
een deployed four times and came back alive. Stop doing something stupid that could hurt or kill you.” I hadn’t meant for so much emotion to pour through my plea, and from the shocked look on Jentry’s face, he hadn’t expected it, either.
Seconds passed as Jentry studied my face. His thumb brushed against my lips once just before he dipped his head and stepped away. With one last look, he turned and walked out of the room.
I let out a shaky breath and turned to really look at Declan for the first time. “Morning, Dec,” I whispered as I walked past him, trailing my fingers over his as I did.
I went to where my phone sat on the chair on the opposite side of the bed, and tapped on the screen until I was calling the familiar number, and listened as it rang and rang until Declan’s voice mail filled my ear. My gaze shot over his still form as I listened to his voice, and when it ended, I hung up and pressed my fingers to his forehead.
“Where are you, Dec?” I curled my other hand around his and said, “I know you’re lost, but you don’t have to be. Just find your way back. Come back, okay?”
I sat back and started grabbing for my book, but paused when Jentry walked back in. My brow pinched in confusion, but he didn’t say anything about coming back so quickly, just grabbed one of the other chairs and moved it so it was on the other side of Declan.
Before he could sit down, I noticed that the small bulge that was normally in his pocket from his cigarettes was gone, and that his intoxicating smell wasn’t any stronger than when he’d left.
I dropped my head to hide my smile, and pulled my book out of my bag. Just before I began reading, I risked one more glance at Jentry, but he wasn’t looking at me; he was watching Declan. His eyebrows were pulled together tightly as if he was lost in thought, but something about the look in his eyes made me worry about just what those thoughts were.
19
Present Day
Aurora