AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I had to leave. I couldn’t stay here. I wanted you to go with me.”
“I couldn’t. Not unless…”
I frown. “Not unless what?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. This is my home. You know this will always be my home.”
It is his home. Birchbark is in Dusty’s soul. He loves the UP, is made up of it, and my skin itches to get out. “So you kissed him to punish me for leaving?”
“What? No.” He paces the dock in front of me. I know I said I didn’t want to talk about it, and I don’t, but I’m afraid it’s going to eat me alive either way. “I don’t know what that was, other than a mistake. We were drunk, and I had all this shit in my head. You were leaving, and you can say I was yours, but that also means you were mine, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I was hurting and alone and I fucked up.”
Dusty stops, looks at me with those eyes of his that feel like they’re so open but hold a world of secrets too. “It made me lose ten fucking years with the person I care about most in the world, and I regret that every day. I do, but I’m also not going to let you keep punishing me for it. I hurt you, and you hurt me…and somehow in that, Rhett became my friend too. If we’re gonna do this—try to get our friendship back or whatever it is you’re willing to give—I need you to understand that.”
I feel my jaw tighten, feel the pain bubbling up in my chest…the feeling of not being enough, of not being good enough, of having to prove myself to Dad and to Rhett. That’s how I spent my whole life except with him, and now my brother has a piece of Dusty too. “I don’t know how to share you with him.”
“I’m not to him who I was to you…and he’s not to me who you are to me either, but he is part of my life.”
How, I want to ask. After everything, how can he care about Rhett and ask this of me, but I know the answer. I didn’t mean to throw him away, but in his mind, I did, and Dusty is a good man, with a big heart. He cares about people. That’s why he made himself my whole world, and why he’s helping East now, and why he cares about Rhett. Taking care of people is how he’s built, and it’s why he’s always meant so much to me.
I turn around, look at the water, block out the memories as best as I can. “I don’t know how to be here without you.” It’s why I left so quickly. Being in Santa Monica without him, I learned to handle it, but I can’t be in Birchbark without Dusty.
Dusty takes two steps forward, until we’re standing side by side, the warm skin of his arm brushing against mine. “I’m right here, Morgan. I’ve always been right here. You just have to reach out and grab me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dusty
It’s crazy how sometimes I can tell Morgan the truth, say everything to him, but he can’t hear the meaning behind the words. This is what I’ve grown to understand over the last ten years—he can’t hear that I love him because he doesn’t want to.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Morgan cares about me, that we hurt him, that to him I’m his best friend and his person, but it’s never been in the same way he’s mine.
He loved me.
I was in love with him.
That in might only be two letters, but it’s packed full of a whole lot of meaning. I’ve worked through my feelings for him over the years—gone through the hurt, the anger, the acknowledgment, and then finally started to move on. Now I’m afraid I’ll have to start all over again.
Maybe it’ll be different this time. Maybe I’ll be able to be friends with Morgan without wanting more.
“Fuck, I missed you.” He wraps his hand around my nape and tugs me closer. My arms go around him, the two of us sharing our first hug in what feels like an eternity.
I breathe him in. Some kind of cologne clings to his skin that used to smell of amber and musk. It’s still there, the hint of it, but now it’s covered slightly. “I missed you too.”
He pulls away and chuckles. “I told myself I was going to stay angry with you. But then I look at you, and it’s hard to stay mad because all I can remember are all those times when you were the only one who could make things better.”
My heart clenches, feels like he’s holding it in his fist, squeezing tighter and tighter. He doesn’t know what hearing him say shit like that used to do to me. Hell, maybe still does to me, though I’m trying to pretend I don’t notice.
“Tell me about your life.” I lie down on the dock, looking up at him. Morgan is just as gorgeous as he’s always been, only more mature now. His skin is still golden, hair in a dark fade, deep-set brown eyes that hold a lifetime of secrets and pain. He starts to move, and I add, “Nope. Just stand there. You’re blocking the sun.”
He chuckles deeply, rolls his eyes, and lies down beside me. We used to do this a lot before Ella. Afterward, none of the Swifts came out here for years, but I figure since Morgan was already here when I arrived, he’s okay with it.
“I’m the CEO of a beverage company back home.”
I try not to twitch at hearing him call Santa Monica home. And I already know about his job. The Swift brothers aren’t close, but there are certain things Rhett or Easton have shared with me about Morgan over the years. Still, I want to hear it from him.
“Do you like it?”
“I don’t dislike it.” He laughs. “Do most people like their jobs? I make good money, and I’m good at it. I don’t hate it, so I consider that a win.”
