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“This is all Mason’s fault,” Leander says.
My eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
Is he saying Mason punched him? Mason’s in town?
“If only he wasn’t so cocky and so damn stubborn, none of this would have happened,” Leander goes on. “I should have just let him get blown to pieces.”
I freeze. Let him?
“I should just blow myself to pieces,” Leander adds. “My life is worthless now. Pointless. I…”
He stops talking, puts his arm over his forehead, and starts to sob just like a child in pain.
Oh, Leander.
Before I know it, my arms are around him. I can’t just do nothing when he’s in so much pain. He must have been keeping the pain inside all this time.
“Shh.” I stroke his hair. “Just let it out.”
I know how he feels. It’s how I’ve been feeling lately. Lost. Tired. Breaking on the inside. Not knowing who I am anymore. Wondering if I’ll ever be happy again.
I fight my own tears and plant a kiss on his forehead. “It’s going to be fine, Leander. We’re going to be fine. You’re not alone. I know exactly how you feel.”
He continues to sob silently and I continue to stroke his hair.
“Oh, how I wish we could go back to being children, but we can’t. We’re grown-ups now, and we’re going to get through this. We are because we’re strong, stronger than we know. We’re going to – ”
I stop because I hear the back door slam shut.
Someone else is there?
Then I see him pass by the window. Someone tall and muscular and…
My heart stops as I get a closer look at his face.
Mason?
Chapter Twenty ~ First Love
Mason
My chest feels like it’s being stabbed by a thousand knives as I walk away from the house where I used to live. My jaw is clenched. My forehead throbs.
I walked away like this once before. Ten years ago. I still remember that day. The rain was pouring. Giselle was supposed to be sleeping over at Aster’s. But then Leander called to say his girlfriend was dead and both girls were devastated for him. I tried to comfort Aster and ended up kissing her. She slapped me and said she hated me. I left.
I feel the same heaviness, the same pain of rejection now as I did then. But worse. Ten years ago, Aster was in love with Leander but she wasn’t brave enough to do anything about it and she didn’t stand much of a chance. That has changed. Leander is single now and no longer a hotshot. He’s not on a pedestal anymore. He’s fallen to earth, right where Aster has been waiting for him. And she’s a woman now. Brave. Wiser. She’s past sighing over unrequited love.
And she’s still in love with my brother. I just saw her hugging him, kissing him. That’s more painful than a slap to the face. And Leander wasn’t pushing her away.
He may have said he’ll never love again or get married, but I know every man needs a woman, and not just to have sex with. If there’s any woman who can change his mind, it’s Aster. She knows him, and like she said, she knows just how he feels. They both have nothing. They’re both in pain. They belong together. They should be together.
And I should be on my way.
“Mason!” Aster calls my name.
I stop. She came after me? This didn’t happen before.
“Mason, wait.”
I hear Aster’s footsteps stop behind me. Her labored breathing hangs in the air.
I want to turn around and take her in my arms. I want to kiss her and then take her back with me no matter what. But I can’t. Especially not after what I saw in the living room.
“You should go back to Leander,” I tell her with a lump in my throat. “He needs you.”
“Mason, this is not what you think,” Aster says.
I draw a deep breath.
“I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not what this is. I was just comforting your brother.”
Yeah. I saw that.
“He’s beaten up and he’s in pain.”
And you can’t just leave someone like that alone, can you?
“He came home just now, I swear. There’s nothing going on between Leander and me.”
“You mean there’s nothing going on between you now.” I turn around to meet her gaze. “But that can change, right?”
Aster’s eyes grow wide. “What?”
“Like you said, Leander’s broken. You like fixing broken things, don’t you? Just like your father.”
Her jaw clenches. Anger flickers in her eyes.
Ah, now this is just like last time.
“Besides, you’ve always been in love with him,” I tell her. “Don’t deny it. You’ve loved him since you were five.”
She snorts. “How could I know what love is when I was five?”
“You adored him. You followed him around even though I was the one who saw you first that day you moved next door.” I glance at the house. “You know, I saw you as you jumped out of the car in your white shirt with the pink collar and your purple overalls.”
