AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?” Braxton asked, confused as hell.
We got off subject for a moment while Gyth told him about Luke calling me that. Braxton chuckled and then they looked back toward me to keep going.
“Yeah, not my finest of nicknames but even though I didn’t take all those girls up on the offers they placed in front of me, I just let Brin think I did.”
“Shit,” I heard Gyth mutter.
“Yeah well, I didn’t say I was a smart guy. All I knew was I needed her to move on. Have a life. Not hope for something that couldn’t be.” I ran my hands through my hair, frustrated with myself for being so dumb even for a teenage guy.
“Dude, it may not have been the best tactic but I get you were trying to do the right thing in your mind,” Brax said.
A sigh escaped from deep in my throat. “I was trying to do the right thing. Then, one time when I had come back home and was on leave, I fucked up and did so many things wrong.”
My chest hurt and I rubbed it again. This was so damn hard to relive while I talked to the guys.
“You see, Brin was a year younger and we left when she was going to be a senior. Her mom was already not doing well and just after she graduated her mom passed away. She had cystic fibrosis. Brinley was so young and her mother was all she had. Except for Luke and I. Me, well I was being a selfish bastard and trying to not feel anything. Luke, however, went home and married her.”
Looking at Gyth, I could see the wheels turning. He knew more than anyone about Luke but still didn’t know what I’d done. Yet, I could see him putting a few things in place. The guy was smart. And if he was figuring it out I knew that Braxton was probably jumping to the same conclusions.
“When Luke’s mom was ready to push Brin out, Luke played the hero. He convinced Brinley to marry him so she would have his insurance and he then could help her out. His mom let Brin stay then but it wasn’t long until Luke bought them a house. His mother was a nightmare and Luke knew it.”
I made a disgusted sound at the thought of that woman. How she raised Luke and he turned out to be so damn honorable and such an amazing guy, I didn’t know.
“Luke was the best person I’d ever known. That was obvious from the day we met, but when Jelena passed away and I thought back on that day, I knew he was always a far better human being than I was.”
Sometimes the truth hurts.
My palms were sweaty from anxiety and all the emotions running through me, and I rubbed my hands on my pants as I went on.
“They stayed together for many years and I kept my distance. I wanted them to try and have a real life. The one I told you they deserved. Because you know how the military is. I wasn’t on leave much or didn’t always choose to take it.”
I shook my head at the thought of how I behaved when others needed me. How many times had I been disgusted with my action or non-action but still kept making the wrong choices?
“I’m sure it hurt both my mother and Brinley. I didn't come home more often, but all the memories there killed me. And knowing Brin was married was harder than you probably think.”
With the way I acted, I’m sure people thought I was a cold person with not many feelings but that wasn’t true. I was just good at hiding them.
“When my mama died I had to come home. And with no questions asked or attempts at trying to make me feel bad for not coming more often or keeping in touch better, Brin helped me handle my mom's passing.”
When Gyth said she was sweet he wasn’t kidding.
“That time, while I was home, was when I slept with Brinley for the first and only time.”
I closed my eyes at the memory. I felt so many things later, but at the time it had felt so right.
“We were talking one night at my hotel after everything had been handled with my mother and Brinley told me that she and Luke were getting a divorce. I knew why they’d gotten married, I just thought maybe over time they’d fall in love but she said they hadn’t.”
It had felt wrong to be happy about that back then, but I couldn’t help the fact that it did.
“They’d separated and would finalize everything the next time he was home, but she admitted it was what they both wanted. She needed to set him free and wanted him to find the kind of love a husband and wife should share. And he wanted her to have the same.”
Don’t get me wrong, if Brinley would have stayed with him, Luke would have done their song and dance forever just to take care of her. And later they did end up making that decision to salvage the marriage. It wasn’t as if I led her to believe there was any future with us.
“One thing led to another and for the first time with my emotions over losing my mother so raw, as well as being in Brinley’s arms as she consoled me, I gave in to what had always been between us.”
It felt like heaven, but I didn’t need to give the guys all the details. Those were ours and ours alone.
“After, even though they were separated, the guilt of them not being divorced still set in. She mentioned wanting a family one day and how that wasn’t going to happen with them. But it scared the shit out of me because I was never having kids. Then as she fell asleep she muttered she loved me. I don’t have a clue if she knew she even said it, but I panicked.”
