Hayden watched like a jealous toddler watching his favorite teacher giving another student more attention as Joel quickly obeyed.
"It's just that," Sapphire continued, bringing both of their focuses back on her as she dragged another stool underneath her and sat down on the opposite side of the counter. "I didn’t want them to hate me. I just kind of hoped to be ignored after a few weeks here, you know?"
Hayden nodded.
Looking toward the back door, Sapphire watched the light spill in through the door's window onto the floor. "I just wanted to get through the rest of my classes and make it to the fall year. I know I'm not the most inviting or warmest person, but I did not expect this."
Joel's fist clenched, and Hayden could tell he wanted to say something, but Sapphire kept talking.
"But this will work," she said, her voice firmer now as she grabbed a clean bowl from underneath the cabinet. There was a new energy to her movements. Grabbing the bag of powdered sugar, she began pouring the fine stark white powder through the sifter and into the bowl. "I wanted to work remotely anyways, so this was just a roundabout way of getting what I initially wanted."
"Don't do that." Hayden waited until she looked up from the bowl and gave him a confused look. "You don't have to diminish your feelings. Yeah, you may not have wanted any of them as your friends or, hell, even give you a passing thought, but it still hurts to be rejected."
Sapphire gave him a silent, questioning look.
"I know what it feels like on some level to be cast out of somewhere you should've been accepted," Hayden began. "My fucked up parents: abusive, neglectful, all of it, you name it. They were people who should've never had children. But it still hurt far more than I could've imagined when they took my two younger siblings and just left me in an empty house. No explanation given, no goodbyes, just gone. I had thought it had to be some sort of mistake, another of my dad's cruel pranks he liked to play, but after hours and hours of waiting, I soon realized the truth."
Sapphire looked at him in horror. "That's awful. I can barely imagine it. Leaving their child to just fend for himself?!" Tears sparkled in her eyes but did not fall. She reached for his hand across the counter, and Hayden watched as his own body reacted without thought to the silent gesture, sliding his hand forward.
The warmth from her small hand on top of his much larger one should not have affected him so, but God, it did. Hayden suddenly had the image of him lying on the couch by the window and watching the snow fall outside as Sapphire snuggled deeper into his arms. The unexpected image sent a spike of pure want through his pulse. A want not quite sexual in nature, though it angered him to know that was definitely an aspect of it, but something that leaned toward feelings he long thought buried—the need for warmth. The desire to be hugged back, to inhale the soft scent of someone who cared for you, to feel completely accepted, and more importantly, wanted, in their arms.
The sharp slap to his back broke through the gentle thoughts and forced him back to reality. Sapphire let go of his hand at the interruption.
Slowly, Hayden turned his head to look at Joel, who sat there, giving him a shark-like smile.
"Don’t worry, buddy. I won't leave you."
Hayden narrowed his eyes at his brother, and for a moment, they just stared at one another. The silent staring match saying far more than words ever could. They both caught the traces of rivaling possession and simmering jealousy in each other’s gazes but did not speak on it.
Finally, Hayden spoke, swallowing the lance of anger only for Sapphire's sake, and he gave Joel a cold smile. "Sometimes, I find myself wishing you would."
Something just as cold flickered in Joel's deep blue eyes, and his smile grew larger. He opened his mouth to speak just as the timer went off.
"Oh, let me get these," Sapphire said before turning back to the oven.
With one final look of warning at each other, both men focused back on the girl in front of them.
Chapter sixteen
Whatwasshethinkinglast night?!
Shifting on her feet, Sapphire pulled her shoulders forward to brace herself against the cold wind. Her weather app said this could be the last cold front before spring began in a few weeks.
Checking her watch, Sapphire glanced back at the shuttered window and closed sign on the ticket window of the post office slash bus station. In a few minutes, someone should be opening it so she could buy a ticket for the eight-thirty bus for Stardust Cove. She needed to get out of here. Give herself an afternoon of space between those two guys so she could clear her head.
Sapphire looked pensively over her shoulder and down the street to the large beige three-story building with the unlit neon sign. She couldn't stop herself from thinking of last night again, despite her best efforts.
She had opened up to them.
A shudder passed over her body, and not from the cold. Making a desperate noise filled with regret, Sapphire began stomping up and down the empty sidewalk in front of the post office. After Hayden had found her in the closet, she had felt so tired and exposed. They had stood there in all their tattoos and rough edges, looking at her with gentle worried eyes, and it had pried something open inside of her. Without any thought or consent to the better, more logical side of her brain, she had found herself just talking.
She lifted a hand to her head and rubbed at the tension in her forehead. At the time, talking had felt—good. It was a relief finally letting some of the worries that were weighing down on her out instead of holding them all in until they twisted and turned into something darker. It had felt good.
What did not feel good was waking up and remembering what she had done. Embarrassment prodded her like needles all over. She couldn't face them. Not in the cold light of day, not after showing such a vulnerable side of herself in the quiet, intimate space of the kitchen last night. Nope. No sir. No. She needed space and time to gather herself first. And that's why she was here, bouncing on her toes in forty-degree weather and waiting for the blasted bus station attendant to open the window.
Her phone in her pocket rang, and Sapphire froze.
She knew who it was. Somehow, she just knew.
