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Vince
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I ask Maia as I slide my shoes on.
Holding her stomach, she groans. “I’ll be fine. Harper’s sleeping for the moment. Plus, we both have different symptoms. She’s puking and I’m—” She stops as her stomach gurgles again.
I cross the room to her and run my hands up and down her arms. “You can say it, I’ve witnessed it all for the last eighteen hours.”
“Ugh. I’m hoping it’s just a twenty-four-hour thing. Harper does seem a little better. But to answer your question, yes. I’ll be okay. I’ve got all the bland white food to munch on and worst case, my dad is home. I really want someone to be there with Braden today.”
I hide the grimace my face wants to pull into and say, “Okay.” It’s not that I don’t want to see Braden. It’s that I don’t know… how. We’re at odds, but yet we aren’t. There’s so much left unsaid between us, but neither of us has attempted to say it. I glance back at Maia.That’s why she’s sending me, isn’t it?
She lets out another groan, and I pull her into my arms. “I’ll bring Marion’s back for dinner, okay?”
“So much chicken soup,” she mutters, resting against me. “I love you.”
I pop a quick kiss on her forehead. “I love you, too.”
She gives me a little push and says, “Go on.” She looks tired, but there’s something wily in her eyes.Yep, she’s definitely sending me on purpose.
But I’m going, aren’t I?
I need to.
“Text me if you need anything,” I say as I walk out the door.
She nods and waves as I close the door behind me.
Once on the road, anxiety settles in my stomach. I haven’t been alone with Braden since… he was unconscious. Before that?Fuck if I know.
When I sat next to his bed, I recognized all the things I wanted to say, but I don’t know how to say them. I’m still pissed at him for leaving—for walking away from Maia and Harper in the first place, for how he treated all of us. I’m pissed at him for treating me like shit simply because I care about Maia and Harper.Because I love them.And that’s part of the problem, right?
It’s not like it’s just anger that he left between us. Everything is complicated now, and it’s hard to shake the fact that every interaction with him can affect Maia and Harper, too. I won’t apologize for falling in love with Maia, but I know I didn’t handle that right with Braden. And I’m still not. But it’s also not fair that he accused me of taking advantage of her, of always harboring feelings for her behind his back.
Neither of those things is true.
I mean, hell, if you asked me two years ago if I thought I’d ever date Maia, I’d have been on the floor laughing. Not just because of her and Braden, but because she was my best friend. My brain couldn’t even conceive that idea. Of course, when I look at it now, I know how much sense we make together, how well we work, how much we love each other.
I want Braden to know all that, too.
I guess the only way to do that is to talk to him.
Let’s hope it doesn’t go like shit.
