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“What if time doesn’t help?”
Shit. She already thinks the worst. “It will. I’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Her brows rise, and I sense I’ve said the wrong thing, so I try again. “Think about how much more convincing it will be if we tell Teagan once we’ve been together for six months. Right now, it’s just weeks, so he’ll think the worst. But if we prove to him before he even learns about us that this is the real deal, that I’m not just playing around, and I’m serious, he’ll be forced to take us seriously, too.”
Her shoulders slump, but she doesn’t contradict me, which I take as a good sign.
“So, maybe, just while we’re home, we cool it. No more sneaking around. No more hiding. I’ll hang with Teagan and the guys, and then once we’re back at school, we can pick up where we left off.”
Her eyes widen, emotion flashing through them like a thunderclap. “And what if I don’t want to be your dirty little secret? Because that’s how this is starting to feel.”
Icy fingers grip my chest as I grapple with a way to make this right. I step forward and draw her into my arms, but she’s stiff, unyielding. “No, Brynn. Don’t you ever fucking say that.” I lean back again, holding her by the arms as I look into her eyes. “Do you hear me? This isn’t about you.”
Her lips press together, and if the moisture in her eyes is any indication, she’s holding back her tears.
“I told Knox,” I blurt. “This morning, at breakfast.”
She tips her head. “You did?”
I nod, eager to make her see how much I care.
“And what did he say?”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Well, he was surprised, that’s for damn sure.” I release her arms and sink my hands into my pockets. “And he didn’t exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about coming clean to Teagan, but he seemed to think it was smart to wait, just in case . . .” I trail off, not wanting to say the words because I have every intention of hanging onto Brynn with everything I have, and I don’t want her to think otherwise.
But she’s smart enough to read between the lines, and she scoffs. “In case we don’t even make it through the fall?”
I say nothing, because what can I say? And why is she angry about this when we talked about it weeks ago and agreed? We said we needed time to see where this might lead before telling him, and what I’m proposing now isn’t all that different from the original plan.
“Brynn, you know that’s not . . . I have every intention of being with you at the end of fall semester.”
She turns and fumbles with her suitcase, zipping it closed and trying to lift it onto the shelf in her closet. As she struggles, I take it from her hands, and hoist it above my head onto the wooden shelf, but as I do so, something crashes to the ground.
I shove the suitcase further back on the shelf as my gaze falls to the source of the sound, and I see Brynn scrambling to collect the wooden jewelry box along with its contents.
I frown as I bend to help her. “Sorry, I didn’t know there was something still in . . .” I trail off as I pick up the familiar leather cuff, turning it over to reveal the metal plate with the inscription “Bub,” and my insides turn to stone.
I glance over at Brynn to see her watching, the color draining from her cheeks, her knuckles white as they clutch the now busted box and a slip of crumpled paper in her other hand.
I swallow as I finger the leather in my hand, trying to make sense of why she has it, let alone why she keeps it tucked away like a buried treasure, but I come up blank. So, I ask, “Why do you have Knox’s bracelet?”
CHAPTER 37
BRYNN
Why do you haveKnox’s bracelet?
The words ricochet inside my skull like a bullet.
I blink over at Jace, my stomach tight as I glance between him and the leather cuff, certain I heard him wrong. It’s been a long night. I’m tired and emotional, and my mind is playing tricks on me.
“What did you say?” I ask.
He twirls the bracelet in his hands, his gaze homing in on the inscription I’ve wondered about more times than I can count. “This bracelet. Knox called it a cuff, but he got it sophomore year from his mom. She always called him Bub.” His lips quirk at the memory.
“You’re sure?” I ask, and something about the way I say it must alert him to a bigger issue because his smile fades.
He nods slowly, as if trying to put together a puzzle he doesn’t yet have the all the pieces to. “I remember it so well because we gave him so much shit for it. When he stopped wearing it, we justassumed it was because he was tired of us making fun of him for it.”
