Leave Me Breathless

  “You loved her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you still?”

  She would have thought he’d expect that to be the next logical question to leave her lips, but he looked staggered by it. Her heart sank. Hostility between him and his brother she could understand. You just didn’t do that to someone you cared about. If he wanted to carry the grudge around with him for the rest of his life, that was his business. Unhealthy, maybe, but his business.

  How he felt about another woman while Macy was becoming increasingly more involved with him was her business.

  “It’s like I can’t disentangle my feelings for her from my hatred for him. Does that make sense? I can’t say that I love her, no. But I’m always gonna hate him. Every fucking day, I’m gonna hate him. When I think about him, I have to think about her, and I get pissed off all over again.”

  “Do you hate him because of her, or was that the nail in the coffin?”

  “He was always an asshole. But then, so was I, so can’t blame him there. I don’t know. We never had much more than toleration between us, even before shit went way south.”

  “So…the tattoos, the music, the piercings…I mean, what are you trying to do, distance yourself as much from your twin as possible?”

  “Jesus, Macy. I am who I am. Not to rebel, not to piss anyone off, and damn sure not for any fucking reason related to that douche bag in there.”

  “That wasn’t… I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

  Now that the can of worms was open, though, he couldn’t seem to put the lid on it again. “I guess my brother was an upgrade. Same package, bigger ambitions. And she was right, too, wasn’t she? As it turns out. So…whatever.”

  “What are you talking about? As sure of yourself as you’ve always been, you can’t possibly believe that.”

  “I know what I believe about myself.” He gestured toward the house. “But I also know what they believe about me.”

  “Well, who cares about them, then?” One corner of her mouth tugged upward. “Fuck them.”

  It was worth it to see his eyebrows shoot up, to see a genuine grin brighten his face. All it had taken was an f-bomb from her. But his next words had her losing her own smile, and he wouldn’t look at her as he said them, instead watching the toe of his boot dig into the ground. “You would wreck me, you know that?”

  “What?”

  “If you ever run some shit on me like she did. I’ve known it from the start. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. I’ve crashed and burned too many times, but here I am, asking for more.”

  Her heart lurched. She stepped forward and grasped the zippered edges of his hoodie, making him look at her, waiting until she had his full attention again before she spoke. “Hey. I’m not her. I’m not anything like her. Don’t project that onto me. It’s not fair, and you know it. As soon as I put together what had happened, I was disgusted. If you think I’m that kind of person, that I would do something like that to you, then…” Then what? If he was that wary and mistrustful…what future would they have?

  His fingers were surprisingly warm as he reached up to take hers. “Now, I shouldn’t have said that. Dammit. It just…brought a lot back. Seeing them. I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe this will give you a chance to work through some things.”

  “Right. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where did you go after that night, that very first night we were together?”

  Macy’s breath caught as shame burned through her middle. His dark eyes searched her face.

  “You quit talking to me,” he went on. “More than that, you avoided the shit out of me. Do you remember what you said to me, after we were done? You told me not to tell anyone.”

  That’s right, she had. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, though, he had to know that. She shook her head, but he continued. “What, I was good enough to bang a few orgasms out of you, but I wasn’t good enough for your friends to have a clue?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m not one to talk about stuff like that, even with my best friends. Ask Candace and Sam when they get here, if you want. I didn’t know if you were the type to run and brag to Brian you’d got it on with his girl’s best friend. Yes, I was a little embarrassed and a little confused and wondering what the hell was up with myself. But my asking you not to tell anyone wasn’t commentary on you. It was on me. I promise.”

  She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She hadn’t thought she would hurt him, or even that she could. Back then, especially, he’d seemed so…invincible. Impervious. Yeah, she’d really thought he might boast to his buddies that he’d managed to nail Candace’s frigid best friend in his backseat, and she would die of mortification, and that would be that. But no. As far as she knew, he hadn’t breathed a word of it, and he wouldn’t have even if she hadn’t asked it of him.

  Reaching up, she captured his face between her hands. She could look at that face forever, she realized. So full of character, so beautiful. She’d laughed more with him in the past couple of weeks than she had in the entire year. And she had to leave him. The thought of not touching him, not hearing his laughter in her ear or seeing that devilish glint in his eyes for who knew how long, laid her heart wide open.

  “I’m really going to miss you,” she said, hating how banal it sounded. If those damn threatening tears began to win out, she was going to have to let them. They would speak more for her feelings than her voice ever could.

  A little bit in love, my ass.

  “Macy…” Her transition into his arms was seamless; she didn’t know if she went into them or if he pulled her in first—it was simply a fluid, instinctive motion. As if they both knew she belonged there.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he breathed into her hair, squeezing the air from her. “Fuck. Just wait for me.”

  That was all he needed to say.

  “I will.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  There were so many reasons he dreaded her leaving. For one, once she was gone it meant he would have to face what was waiting for him at the hospital, and he didn’t know if he could take it. For another, he’d be left staring at the happy fucking baby-making couple without her comforting voice of reason at his ear or her calming presence by his side.

  Last but most importantly…God, he hadn’t realized just how much he was going to miss her until he watched her friend’s car pull up front, and it hit him like a kick in the gut.

  “There they are,” she said quietly, standing from the porch swing where they’d been swaying mostly in silence for over an hour. Without her warmth curled almost protectively against his side, the cold seeped in, but she didn’t let go of his hand as he stood and followed her down the steps. So there was that.

  Candace bailed out of the passenger’s seat and rushed forward, hugging him and saying how sorry she was for everything, how she and Brian were there if he needed anything done back home, but he heard it and watched it all through a fog. Brian had already told him that on the phone. Told him to take all the time he needed, and he would still have a job whenever he was ready for it.

  Damn, he hated letting him down or leaving him in a bind.

  He wanted to ask Macy to stay. At least for a day or two. The impossibility of it didn’t make it any easier to resist. Her friends had already come all this way. She had a life, and he wasn’t a permanent-enough presence in it yet for an interference of that magnitude. Besides, even if by some miracle she didn’t shoot him down cold, it would only be that much worse when she finally did go back. He was getting way too ahead of himself, dumping all this on her. She’d end up running before they even had a fair shot. Hell, he was damn lucky she hadn’t already.

  “You are a saint,” Candace was saying, hugging Macy now. That much he knew, and he hoped Macy did too. She was an angel on earth to go through the last twenty-four sleepless hours with him.

  “I’m a sleepy saint,” Macy said. Her eyelids drooped a little. He’d th
ought a couple of times she’d been dozing on the swing. Still, she was beautiful, her skin a little flushed from the chill, her hazel eyes no less clear for the apparent drowsiness.

  “I bet. We’ll leave you alone and you can sleep all the way home.”

  Samantha came around the front of her SUV. “I brought pillows and a blanket for you, even.”

  “Bless you.” The two exchanged a quick hug and Macy asked if she could retrieve her purse from Ghost’s car.

  He got it for her, making sure his fingers brushed hers as he handed it over. Her gaze met his, held there and spoke volumes her friends couldn’t hear. There were no words, anyway. Maybe that was part of his fucking problem; he never knew how to say the words to keep someone from leaving him. Macy was different from anyone he’d ever been with, though. She would understand.

  Yeah. He’d thought that about Brooke once too, hadn’t he? And she was pregnant with his brother’s kid. In the beginning, he’d even thought it about Raina, who was so much like him on so many levels that surely there was no way they couldn’t work out. Eventually, their explosiveness together had only resulted in their self-destruction.

  Don’t think about that shit, man.

  There was way more pressing crap to worry about.

  “I guess…we’d better get on the road,” Macy said, shouldering the strap of her purse then stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.

  “Yeah.” He had to resist licking his lips with his need to kiss her.

  “I’d feel bad not saying good-bye to everyone…”

  “I’ll tell Steph for you; she understands. As for the others, don’t worry about it. Really.”

  “Okay.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

  At his blurted words, her expression seemed to drain. Was that good or bad? He knew she couldn’t stay; he wasn’t that dense. All that mattered was that she would if she were able. When her eyes filled with tears, he decided it must be a good sign. Sam and Candace returned to the car, giving them their privacy.

  “Everything is going to work out for the best,” she told him, gently taking his shoulders in her hands. “You have to believe that.”

  “I know it will.”

  Standing on her toes, she pressed her lips to his, lingering until he was just getting ready to crush her in his arms, throw her over his shoulder and run away with her caveman style—and then she pulled back, stroked his cheek once and turned away. Taking her sugary vanilla scent and her quiet reassurance with her, leaving him to face some harsh, cold realities all on his own.

  But that’s the way it had always been. That’s the way he’d preferred it. What was different now?

  “I’ll call you,” he said lamely, just in case it wasn’t obvious. He wouldn’t last ten minutes without needing to hear her voice.

  “You’d better.”

  He opened the back door for her, watched as she got in and buckled up. He told Samantha to drive safe. Macy’s gaze met his as he shut the door; he didn’t break the connection as the car pulled away, even as it drove down the street and he couldn’t actually see her anymore.

  Then they turned the corner, and she was gone.

  He didn’t go back in Stephanie’s house. There wasn’t anything for him in there right now. He’d be a comfort to his sister and her family once that bastard wasn’t under her roof, but right now, there was little short of a fire that could make him share oxygen with Scott.

  Bad enough they had to share DNA. And a face. Macy had asked if he was trying to be different from his brother, and he wasn’t—they’d always been like night and day. They hadn’t shared any of the same interests except in one huge, glaring example…it wasn’t enough to have the same taste in women; no, they had to have the same woman.

  Macy had said it all. Fuck him. And fuck Brooke too.

  It was too beautiful a day for this much gloom. He made the drive to the hospital on autopilot, bracing himself the whole way. The depressing, all-too-familiar smells inside the building turned his stomach, but he steeled himself and trudged on, knowing that the atmosphere was going to get way more fucking familiar in the next few days, weeks…however long it would be.

  God, how he wished things could go back to normal again. For himself, for his nana.

  The information desk told him where to find her and soon he stood frozen in the door to her room, practically deaf and blind to the bustle of nurses and white-coats in the ICU. It was all he could do to breathe. She looked so frail, almost nonexistent beneath the blankets except for her cap of white hair and the little points where her feet rested under the blankets. What must’ve been a dozen tubes connected her to this machine and that.

  He’d really fucked this up, thrown away his last chance to say good-bye to her, to tell her he loved her and have her hear him.

  Dragging a chair to her bedside, he sat heavily and took her thin, tepid hand in his. Was it just yesterday he’d been so stoked to take Macy out on their first real date? It felt like ten years ago. His grandmother would’ve liked her. She also would’ve been able to tell him how to deal with Scott, or if nothing else, she would’ve yanked him in line and told him to quit wasting mental energy on something so worthless. It had broken her heart to see the two of them divided in such a way, but she’d known where to place the blame. Scott hadn’t just hurt Seth, he’d hurt her, he’d hurt all of them. He’d run away like the fucking little weasel coward he was so he wouldn’t have to hear crap from anyone about what a piece of shit he was being.

  Hell, maybe Scott had the right idea. Do what you want to do, no matter who you hurt or how much, live your life the way you want and to hell with everyone else. They were all going to end up right where his grandmother was someday, right? Might as well make the most of it, and it seemed to be working out awfully well for that rat bastard. Financially well-off and a baby on the way with the woman who was supposed to be someone else’s wife.

  Every time he thought about the nights he and Brooke had lain together and talked about getting married, he wanted to tear walls down with his bare hands, wanted to jump out of his skin because it felt covered in slime from letting himself fall victim to a betrayal like that. It wasn’t so much for what he’d lost—not anymore—but for the fool he’d been. Had she been fucking Scott even then? He didn’t know and he never would. The only minor, infinitesimal satisfaction he had from that entire situation was that he knew he’d been Brooke’s first. Yeah, smoke on that, motherfucker. Not that Scott probably even knew. When was the best time to tell your husband his identical twin brother had popped your cherry? Try never.

  The machines beeped and pumped and did whatever they were doing to keep his grandmother alive. At that moment, he was barely hanging in there himself. His mind spun on his current drama to keep from dealing with the reality in front of him.

  She was dying. And he couldn’t fucking take it.

  The images he’d been deliberately pushing back flashed their way through his turmoil then, and he shuddered, breathing hard through his nose to keep from losing it. Playing hide-and-seek behind the house, listening to the awesome bedtime stories she always told him to put his hyper ass to sleep, her holding him and rocking him and somehow managing to keep it together while he cried and wailed for his parents. She’d lost them too.

  Maybe his mom and dad would know how to deal with everything too. But they weren’t here either. They’d gone away, like most everyone else in his life. They weren’t with him in spirit, they weren’t comforting him, and anyone who said otherwise was full of shit. He was alone.

  The emotions tore through and ripped him to pieces. He dropped his head to where his hand clutched his grandmother’s and sobbed.

  “I know we promised to let you sleep, but I have a question.”

  Macy turned from her blind perusal of the passing landscape and met Sam’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I probably won’t be able to sleep until I’m in my bed, anyway. What?”

  “We debated this all the way up
here.”

  “Okay…”

  “Is he pierced?”

  “Sam!”

  Her friends’ mingled laughter was like a balm to her soul. What would she do without them? “I’m just joking,” Sam said. “Sorry. It’s just way too serious around here; I can’t help it.”

  “I know you can’t.”

  “You really are gonna keep it in the vault, aren’t you?”

  “Yep. And speaking of vaults, Candace… What has Brian told you about Brooke? Anything?”

  “No, nothing really.”

  “Wow. Those guys have a blast-proof vault, then.”

  “Is he holding out on me? What is it?”

  “If Brian hasn’t told you, then I’m sure as hell not going to. I was just curious what you knew.”

  “Men and their vaults,” Candace grumbled.

  “Hey, we have a vault too,” Sam said. “It’s just that usually, it’s in a centralized location and we all three have keys to it.” She shot Macy a comical glare over her shoulder.

  “Not this time. Sorry.”

  “Who’s the Brooke chick, though? Clue me in at least a little. I know absolutely nothing.”

  “She’s an ex.”

  “He still hung up on her?”

  “There are some…lingering anger issues. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”

  “Tear through ’em. She ain’t got nothing on you, babe. Right?”

  “At least you’re not blood related to the most prominent ex,” Candace put in. Macy smirked as she pulled her cell phone out of her purse. God, wasn’t that the truth. Brian had dated Candace’s favorite cousin before the two of them hooked up, and it was still a source of contention with Candace’s suffocating family.

  She sent a quick text to Seth. They’d been on the road for over an hour; surely by now he’d gotten to the hospital. A feeling that he wasn’t okay churned in her gut, and that more than anything else was keeping her awake.

  Of course he wasn’t okay. She wouldn’t be okay in his situation either, but she couldn’t stand not being there. He was practically alone with his ex, a brother he hated and a sister who, while her intentions were good, was probably going to push the whole get-over-it thing until he snapped.