Page 80 of All for Love

KODY

Mercedes’s early morning coffee deliveries had become the highlight of my working day. I sat behind my desk, waiting for her and hating that today would be the last time it would be happening. I had a private coffee machine in my office, and a barista-level one as well as a normal coffeemaker right down the hall in the breakroom, but I’d stopped kidding myself.

I wasn’t so eager for her to arrive because of the coffee. It was because I got to see her, even if it was just for a few minutes every morning that we carved out for each other.

I grinned when my door opened, but it fizzled out when Brooke popped in instead of Mercedes. “Hey, Kody. Do you know where Kaden is?”

So that’s why she came by. I nodded and motioned her in. “He’s just down the hall in a conference room, but you’re welcome to wait here if you want. They should be done in about fifteen minutes or so.”

“Thanks.” She gave me a tight smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’ll just wait by reception. If he happens to swing by here when he gets done, can you tell him where I am?”

“Of course, but stay, Brooke.” This was a rare opportunity to check in with her alone.

She frowned at me. Her head tilted and she slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans and gave me a look filled with apprehension. “Stay? Why? What’s up?”

“Are we good?” I repeated the question I’d asked her before, but she’d made it clear then that even if she’d said we were good, we hadn’t been. I suppose I just want to know if we’ve made any progress since.

Brooke nodded. “Sure, we are.”

I wasn’t convinced, and my eyebrows hiked up on my forehead as I stared back at her. Frankly, I’d done what I could to try to make up for what happened when we’d been in high school, but it felt like she wanted to hold it against me for the rest of eternity.

“It’s the holidays,” I stated evenly. “I don’t know about you, but this animosity between us is starting to get old for me. Is there anything I can do to squash the remaining, underlying tension between us so we can start the new year with a clean slate?”

She looked me right in the eye, and I could practically see the gears in her head turning. Eventually, her lids dropped shut for a moment, and she seemed to reach a decision. Then she went to close the door and walked deeper into my office.

“You can stop making a mess of everything you touch,” she said but not snidely. If anything, her voice was gentler and had a more pleading tone to it than I’d heard from her since I’d been a teenager. “I know about you and Mercedes, Kody.”

“What?” My muscles braced for attack and I blinked at her. “Riiiight. Of course you do. Kaden?”

“Yes, Kaden. We don’t keep secrets from each other. Not anymore. Especially not about something as big as this.”

I scoffed. “This isn’t big, Brooke. You’re both overreacting.”

Her throat worked and her jaw tightened, but her eyes remained unwavering on my own. “Are we? Kaden is worried about the toll this will take on your father when the truth inevitably comes out, and it will come out. Have you thought about that? Have you considered that your father is getting older and that this will come as one hell of a shock to him?”

“He’s as healthy as a horse,” I retorted, shaking my head at her. “With a young wife who’s probably giving it to him multiple times a day. He’ll be shocked, but don’t make out like your concern is for some decrepit old man with a weak heart who’s going to keel over when he finds out.”

She shrugged. “Well, you’re still seeing her in a way that is entirely inappropriate. It was obvious at the party, and Kaden knows you better than anyone but he said you swore to him that she ended things.”

“What I swore to him or what’s going on between Mercedes and me has nothing to do with you.” I really didn’t feel like this was a conversation I had to have with Brooke. “If you want to worry about someone’s health, worry about your own family. Leave mine out of it.”

Her jaw tightened. “See? This is why you and I are never going to be able to bury the hatchet. I told you once before that it has nothing to do with what happened back in high school, and it really doesn’t. It has to do with the fact that you’re still just as selfish as you were as a teenager. You haven’t grown up at all, and until you do, I just really don’t have anything to say to answer your question. There’s nothing you can do for this animosity between us to end before the holidays.”

“Get off your high fucking horse, Brooke. You’re not perfect, you know that? At least I’ve been trying. You just keep looking down at me, thinking you’re so much better than me, and yet here you are, meddling in shit that is none of your business. It pisses me off, and I don’t feel the need to apologize for that.”

“Then don’t,” she shot back as the door opened. Kaden walked in. Brooke glanced at him, but her jaw was still clenched as she moved her gaze back to mine. “Don’t apologize for it, but I won’t either. You don’t have to like it, but it is my business. It’s my boyfriend’s father and—”

“Exactly,” I snapped back at her, cutting her off. I stood up from behind my desk as I jabbed my thumb at my chest. “It’s my fucking father and your boyfriend’s father, not yours. Stay out of it.”

Thunder rumbled across Kaden’s features. His gaze darted between us before it rested on mine and he glowered at me. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but you don’t get to talk to her like that.”

“Oh, I don’t? But she can talk to me however she wants? Say anything she wants and I just have to sit here and take it?” I scoffed and shook my head. “Oh, wait. Of course, I do. Because she’s perfect and you’re perfect, and the rest of us mere mortals just have to take whatever the fuck you feel like dishing out.”

He moved in front of her like he felt the need to protect her from me, and pain unlike anything I’d ever felt seared through my chest. My brother leveled a glare at me as he took a few steps closer, his index finger extended and his hands trembling with rage.

“Calm down, Kody,” he seethed. “We’re not perfect and we don’t think we are, but you’re way out of line.”

My eyebrows climbed as high as they could. I glared at my brother, wondering when he’d started thinking he needed to protect Brooke from me. Right now, looking at him was like looking at my brother but seeing a stranger—who just so happened to be wearing my face.