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I look over at Aidan and shake my head. “Really? A cheap shot?”
He shrugs. “He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t.”
No shame whatsoever.
“You two are driving me nuts.”
I find Shane in the back of the guesthouse sitting in one of the two lounge chairs he must’ve bought because they weren’t here when I moved in. He’s holding a glass filled with ice and a brown liquid up against his busted eyebrow.
I remove his hand from the injured brow and tip his chin up so I can get a better look at it. “The good news is you don’t need stitches. The bad news is your pretty face will be bruised for a while.”
Without thinking what I’m doing, I comb my fingers through his hair and push it back off his forehead. His eyes close briefly, fluttering shut. He exhales tiredly and his big hand slides over my waist and squeezes gently. As if he’s testing to see if I’m real.
“What happened?”
“With what?” he near grunts.
“You know what… between you and Aidan,” I remind him and sit on the lounge chair next to his, elbows on my knees facing him.
He sighs. “A tale as old as time.”
“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to.”
“I was married,” he says abruptly. “Recently divorced.”
I assume we’re talking about the woman I saw him with in town. The woman who cheated with Aidan. The thrill I feel at hearing he’s divorced is really shameful. There are a thousand scenarios where this ends badly for me, but I jump way ahead nonetheless and pretend there’s a happy ending at the bottom of this tattered, make-believe rainbow.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him and I am. I’m sorry to see any marriage fail because someone always walks away hurt. The cheating would make Shane the one hurting. Reading how he feels about it is another story altogether, however. It’s impossible. Shane is so adept at looking detached. I’m afraid to find out whether it’s an act or he trained himself to be this way.
“No need to be sorry. Nobody died.”
“No. But divorce is hard…”
He cuts a look my way, searching my face. “You really want to hear this?”
I nod.
“My brother slept with my wife.” He takes a sip of his drink and stares into the distance. It’s magic hour again, but there’s very little magic happening now.
What I want to know is how this could’ve happened between two brothers who love each other? Because they do. I know them well enough now to say that with absolute certainty.
He sighs. “I met my ex-wife on the set of one of Aidan’s movies. I was just out of the service and…” He glances over at me again. “I thought it was time, I guess. So we got married. Once my series sold, the publisher sent me out on tour almost immediately.”
His series was everywhere on social media. I remember it well. It was on every bookstagrammer’s radar. Every magazine entertainment section speculated when it would be turned into a TV series.
“Kaya was working all the time so my travels weren’t an issue then.” He stares at the bottom of the almost-empty drinking glass, his brow wrinkling in deep thought.
The pause makes my heart pump twice as hard. There’s pain in these memories for him; I can feel it radiating off of him. It just occurred to me that he could still be in love with her.
“I saw you with her,” I admit. I don’t know why, other than it feels wrong to keep anything from him. He’s my friend and friendship should be based on truth and trust.
“You did?”
I nod. “At the restaurant in town. You were having dinner.”
His brows climb up his forehead. He nods. “The day we signed the divorce papers.”
Which explains why she was crying. Except now I know she’s a cheater. That she’s the one who hurt him. “She looked upset.”
“She didn’t want a divorce.”
The admission makes my stomach churn. The tone in which he says it makes me want to cry. I knew this wasn’t going to end well for me, and still, I persisted. Maybe I am just like my father, destined to choose the wrong man over and over. I can’t trust myself anymore. “So what happened?” I press. Because clearly I have a sadistic streak a mile wide.
“I was away a lot. She and Aidan ended up spending time together. One thing led to another… We weren’t doing well and neither of us tried to fix it.”
Do you love her still? Has she broken your heart for good? Questions I am dying to ask and can’t. End me now because I don’t think I can bear it if the answers are yes and yes.
Instead, I ask, “And Aidan?”
“That hurt.”
“I think he regrets it, Shane. Actually––I know he regrets it. That night I found him drunk in the water tub he said as much.”
