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“I’ll stay focused. Don’t worry,” he yelled, frustrated, and I heard glass breaking in the background. “Shit. I’d better go clean that up. Thanks for listening. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
Yeah. I was sorry too.
From Bad to Worse
Knowing that I was keeping this massive secret from everyone was eating me up inside. Gran called me sour the other morning when I snapped at her, and asked me what on earth had been eating at me lately. I couldn’t tell her, so I lied and just said I was really tired.
I would never tell Gran or Cassie what Jack had done, but it was tearing me up inside to simply know about it. I almost wished that he’d never called me and confided in me, but everyone needed help carrying their burdens, and my brother was no exception. He called me because he had no one else to call. If our situations were reversed, I would have done the same thing.
Jack might be one of the strongest guys I knew, but when it came to Cassie, he had the softest heart. As much as his error in judgment pained me, I couldn’t imagine what it must be doing to him. He called me every night, usually after he had just gotten off the phone with Cassie, consumed with guilt. He hated lying to her, but his fear of losing her outweighed everything else.
Our conversations were usually filled with him asking me what I thought he should do, and me remaining silent on the other end of the line. I still had no clue, and I refused to be the one responsible for them breaking up. Hell, I hated the very idea.
There were moments where he broke down, overwhelmed with so much guilt that he would call me practically in tears, begging for a forgiveness that I had no ability to give him. He seemed to go back and forth; one moment he would convince himself everything was fine, and the next he was certain he and Cassie were doomed.
It sucked. And was exhausting.
A week had passed since “the incident,” as I thought of it. Jack was still calling me daily, and was no closer to how he wanted to handle the situation than he had been the first night. I finally told him that if he wasn’t going to tell Cassie, which I had finally realized that he wasn’t, then he needed to try to get past it and move on before it ate him up inside and she figured out something was wrong.
That conversation appeared to reignite a little life within him, and each day that passed after it seemed to be easier. His calls became less frequent but when we d
id talk, the conversations had improved from him practically falling apart on the phone, to him simply asking how Cassie was and if I’d seen her lately.
I hadn’t. Between the kiss with Melissa and this big secret of Jack’s, I wasn’t thrilled about seeing either of the girls. On weekdays it was easy to avoid them; I just claimed that I was too tired after working all day with Marc and Ryan. The weekends were a bit harder, but I’d still managed to blow them off without drawing any suspicion.
But school would be starting again soon, and any attempts to evade either of those two would be transparent. As hard as it was for me to dance around the truth, being around those girls was seriously going to test me.
Before classes started, Melissa finally sent me a text.
Melissa: I don’t want things to be awkward between us.
I responded right away, keeping my answer simple.
Dean: They won’t be.
But I didn’t know. Maybe it would be weird when we finally saw each other, even though that was the last thing I wanted.
When Melissa didn’t respond, I tried not to spend any more time thinking about her, but her stupid text had opened the floodgates in my mind that I’d tried so hard to close. Now all I could think about was her. And those lips. And the way she had moaned in my car when we kissed.
Damn it.
I needed to get this girl off my mind if she wasn’t going to let me into her heart.
• • •
School was back in session, and while the baseball team still had their groupies and fangirls pawing them and hanging on their every word, it was nothing in comparison to last year. No one could draw the kind of attention that my brother had. And all the girls who used to hound the crap out of me no longer had any use for me since Jack was off the market and also out of town.
The third day of classes, Cassie texted me to ask if I would have lunch with her and Melissa. I almost responded no, but I couldn’t avoid them forever. They were girls, and girls were nothing if not amateur detectives in better clothes.
When I walked into the student union, I spotted Melissa before either of them saw me, and I wished for a moment that our kiss hadn’t ended so suddenly. I couldn’t help but wonder if that first kiss was destined to be our last, and I hated the thought.
I tossed my bag on top of the table, and the girls looked up at me with big smiles.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in a thousand years,” Cassie said before scooting her chair over to give me a hug.
“I feel like I just saw you yesterday.” Melissa stuck out her tongue before taking it back. “Just kidding. I’ve missed you.”
Damn. She’s missed me? What the hell did she mean by that?
