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Carter’s lips stop moving as I speak. He’s frozen against my skin, and I shiver, not just from the feel of him against me, but because I feel like I’ve lost something inside of me by telling him all of that. What does it say about our love that I would rather fight with Carter, Logan, or Quaid than experience any type of bliss with someone else?
These men are my fucking soulmates is what it means.
Carter seems mollified by my explanation, but he still shoots daggers at my phone when I slip it into my bag to take with me.
Although I don’t know why I’m even bringing it with me. There’s no one I would care to hear from at this point that isn’t with me right now.
We walk along the path that winds down the side of the cliff. I’m struggling, even though it’s downhill. It’s one of those moments where you’re trying to breathe as softly as possible so no one knows how out of shape you are.
Although I’m not out of shape. My body is just shutting down.
“You know about my past relationships,” I begin as I keep my eyes looking firmly at the water below us. I don’t even know why I’m going to ask what I’m about to ask. “Did you ever have anyone special in your life?” I ask Carter.
Carter lifts his eyebrow to ask if I’m really going there. I’m not sure why I’m doing it, but maybe I need the bite of pain today to help me feel more alive. I had a nosebleed last night in the middle of the night. It went on for hours, and I was almost to the point where I was going to wake the guys up to take me to the doctor, when it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
“I don’t know that I would call anyone in my past a relationship,” he finally answers after thinking for a moment. “There were fuck buddies, yes. But no relationships.”
I wince at the term. Ihatethinking about him fucking someone. Especially when he still hasn’t made love to me.
“You asked, Valentina,” Carter replies nastily after he witnesses my cringe. “And whose fucking fault was it that those women ever got that chance to be with me in the first place?”
My lips quiver at the vehemence in his tone. We’d been doing so good lately. But obviously, we still have a lot to resolve.
Carter stalks off down the path. Logan and Quaid both stay by my side though. “You okay, Princess?” Quaid asks hesitantly.
I sigh and nod, not trusting myself to speak because I know I’ll cry. I was a fool to think that a few weeks could fix ten years of heartache. Especially with Carter.
He feels things deeper than most people. I’m sure my betrayal and abandonment made its way down to his very soul. A mark on it that may not be able to be undone.
Quaid clears this throat. “You know…I think that one of the hardest things about life after you was the struggle to find anything else that could live up to your memory. I felt like I was going crazy sometimes. And in the process, I’m sure I broke a million hearts in my pursuit to touch anything that could hold a smidge of what we had together. But it was no use. No one could live up to the image I had of who you were in my mind. As time went on, I began to doubt whether what we had was really as special as I’d thought. I lied to myself, saying it wasn’t, and then the guilt and anger just got worse. Because I hated the fact that the ghost of you was better than anything real in front of me.”
He struggles to clear his throat again and keeps looking intently in front of us. I can tell by his side profile that he’s blinking rapidly as if he’s trying to keep himself from crying.
“I was upfront with any woman I hooked up with that we were nothing and could never mean more than nothing to me. But I knew they wanted more. They always wanted more. And that’s on me,” Logan also laments at my side, taking a long inhale before continuing on. “At first, I was just trying to fuck you out of my system. Especially after that first year where I foolishlywaited for you to come back to us. And then when I realized that was never going to happen, I did it just for release,” he adds, a slight blush on his cheeks at how uncomfortable he is with the subject matter at hand.
“You waited for a year?” I asked Logan, even as Quaid starts to walk faster ahead of us. Logan scratches his head awkwardly.
“I didn’t think you could stay away. Because it felt like I was dying when you left. I thought you would come back because of the pain. It felt like my soul had been ripped from my body. Fuck,” Logan curses as he rubs his chest.
We’ve stopped on a ridge right above the bustling dock below us. Quaid has disappeared from our sight, and maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t want to know how long Quaid waited to fuck a girl after I left. I doubt he had the same restraint as Logan, and that is a fact.
There’s a sunken wooden bench along the path, and I sink down onto it gratefully. I rub the area over my heart to remember the pain that he was talking about. I’d thought I was going to die, too. At first, I counted down the hours, telling myself if I could just get through the next hour without calling them or going back, then everything would be all right. And then hours stretched into days, and days turned into weeks, and then ultimately months.
And then suddenly, ten years had been stolen from us.
The pain had just become a dull ache, a scar that hurt whenever I really looked at my life and realized that I wasn’t happy. That true happiness was unattainable for me, and apparently, for them as well.
I finally stand back up and take Logan’s hand as we walk down to where Carter and Quaid are both waiting. I squeeze his hand right before we get there. “I couldn’t choose,” is the only explanation I can give him for why I never came back.
Thankfully, we get there before Logan can ask what changed.
Carter is ignoring me when we get to the dock where our boat for the day is waiting for us. Quaid is twitchy, undoubtedly scared that I’m going to ask for the number of women he’s slept with over the past ten years. Logan…well, he’s just sullen.
Way to go, Valentina.
You’ve done a spectacular job of ruining our outing.
When our guide for the day shows up, I let out a relieved sigh, hoping the day can be salvaged, but unfortunately, it only seems to get worse.
