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A bemused smile crosses my face. “You know she did this on purpose, right? Sent you up here without telling me when she could’ve called anyone else.”
He gives a slight nod. “I know. Figured it out before I left the house.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “But you still came?”
He huffs out a sigh. “Yes. Because she was right. We need to talk. And you need the support.”
I stare at him. I have no idea what to say to that. Wedoneed to talk. But I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where we stand with each other. The last words we really said were during that fight in the hallway and then Harper’s birthday. Neither are moments I want to recall, and yet they’re part of the bigger problem between us.
“I’m sorry,” he says, surprising me again. “There’s so much shit between us, Brade. We’ve gotta start somewhere. I let my relationship with Maia—both friendship and otherwise—determine how things were with us. I didn’t spend much time trying to reconnect with you when you came back—not that it’s all on me. But more than anything else, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about my feelings for Maia. No matter what a mess our friendship was, I owed you that much. A lifetime of friendship deserved me talking to you man to man about my feelings for her. Maybe not the second I felt them, but once I knew I was in love with her, at least. I’m sorry I didn’t do that. You were right the day we fought. I should have.”
I blink at him a few times.Wasn’t expecting that.
There are lots of things that I could say. That I should say. But what comes out is, “When?”
His brow furrows. “What?”
“When did you fall in love with her? When did it start? Be honest with me, Vin. Have you had feelings for her since before—”
“No.” He walks over, forcefully grabs the chair next to the bed, and sits down. “I swear to you, I never had even the slightest feelings for her before October. That’s when it started. I took her to Harper’s doctor’s appointment, then spent the night with her and—”
He stops short as he looks at me, no doubt seeing rage in my eyes.
“I mean on the couch. Harper wasn’t feeling well after her flu shot, so I stayed overnight to help.” I open my mouth, but he holds up his hand. “And you don’t get to be pissed about that. You hadn’t been showing up for either of them. I had no idea what was going to change between us when I offered her a ride that day. I was doing it as her best friend, as Harper’s godfather—”
“Then what the fuck happened?” I inhale at the sharp tone of my voice. I’m not sure I fully realized before how much this upset me. Or maybe I didn’t realizewhy. Maia moving on… it is what it is. But her moving on with Vince? Them suddenly being madly in love? All while Vince was acting like nothing was going on? It felt—and in some ways still feels—like a massive betrayal.
“I wish I could put it into words, but I can’t. All I can tell you is that I saw her differently. And then our relationship started to shift. She said she felt it around that time too. But neither of us said anything to each other until—well, officially, not until February. I think we both pretty clearly knew how the other was feeling before that, though. Probably in January.”
“When Harper was sick,” I whisper. “That’swhy she called you and not me.”
I’m sure the hurt is evident in my eyes. I was trying so hard—maybe for the wrong reasons, I’m not even sure I know—and she chose him over me.
“I didn’t know that until later. I had two thoughts when she called me: first, Harper needed to go to the doctor, and second, I needed to calm Maia down, support her. Those were the only things driving me.”
I sigh and close my eyes. It’s hard to be mad at him for caring about Harper. Even for caring about Maia. If I hadn’t been able to take them, I’d have been glad he was there.
“It felt like I was being replaced,” I mutter, slowly opening my eyes again.
Vince’s voice is thick with emotion when he speaks. “Ineverever want to replace you. I never could. When I sat by your bed when you were still out, I kept saying how I couldn’t ever take your place as her dad. How you needed to wake up because she needed you.”
For the third time today, he’s completely shocked me. “You sat in my room when—”
“Yeah.”
“With Maia?”
“No, not the first time. I went in by myself. And, honestly, I pretty much fell apart. I was angry at you, scared, hurting, and pissed at myself for how I’d handled things. I never wanted to lose our friendship, but I didn’t do much to fight for it, either. I won’t apologize for falling for Maia, not for a second, but I am sorry that I didn’t talk to you about all of it when I knew. It was the end of November when I was sure I was in love with her, and I was terrified, not sure how she felt about me, and things were still up in the air with you. None of that is an excuse, but it’s what I told myself. The truth is, I felt like I was betraying you, but I also felt like that discounted Maia’s and my feelings—I couldn’t hold myself back from her just because it might hurt you. Still, I should’ve been honest with you before Maia and I started dating.”
I stare at him for a minute, emotions thundering through me. He’s not wrong. I know he isn’t. My history with Maia isn’t reason enough for them not to be together. He might not have handled it right, but I’ve spent the better part of the last year handling things like shit. I can’t say much.
“I didn’t make it easy,” I say honestly.
He bites back a laugh. “No. You didn’t, but I don’t think either of us really tried.”
“No. We didn’t.”
“I’m still pissed at you for a lot of stuff. I’m sure you’re still mad at me. But I don’t want to lose our friendship. I know it’s a lot more complicated now, but you’re still family to me, Brade.”
