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“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything,” Brian called out again from where he was messing around at his own station, getting things ready for when the shop would open in a few hours. All between giving me shit and eating the breakfast he’d shown up with, tossing one of the bags at me with acompliments of your future wifey.
“Bri,” I said on an irritated groan and dragged a hand over my face.
“I’m just saying.”
“There was nothing to say,” I told him for probably the fifth time, then hurried to amend, “Nothing that would help our situation.”
“There’s everything to say,” he countered. Standing and turning to look at me as if I’d offended him. “You tell her you’re a motherfucking idiot for sleeping in a different bed last night. You tell her you love her.”
“Brian—”
“You tell her you still want to marry her.”
I ground my jaw, my head shaking as I thought over yesterday and last night and then this morning...where I’d let Scarlet drive away without ever saying so much ashito her.
“I knew,” I began firmly. “Iknewafter talking to you that there was something I’d done that was going to hurt her. I tried keeping some sort of distance between us because of it. Because the closer we get, the more it’s going to hurt when I remember what it is. But she...Jesus.”
“You love her,” he said, enunciating each word and talking to me like I was an asshole for not having said it to Scarlet before then.
“I know that,” I ground out. “It feels insane to be this in love with someone my mind thinks I barely know. But I can alsofeelthat I’ve loved her for so damn long. But, Brian, it’s going to ruin her. I fucking feel that too. Every time I get another hint of something, this dread and guilt inside me tears at me, screaming I’m going to destroy her. And I’m trying to soften the blow the only way I can.”
“By ignoring her,” he said with a shrug. “Smart.”
I hissed a curse. “Fuck off, Brian.”
“I mean, what do I know?” he asked, gesturing to himself. “Been married to my lady love a damn long time. Done a lot of things wrong and done a lot of things right. And, my dude, this is awrong.”
“I already did a wrong,” I snapped, arms spread wide as if he’d somehow missed that.
His head moved in slow shakes as he turned, rooting around in one of his drawers for a hair tie to pull back his long mass of curly hair. “You don’t know that, Chach,” he began sadly, words eerily similar to Scarlet’s. “What you said and that feeling you’re having...it could mean anything. You could’ve done something, sure. Except, none of us believe youwould. But maybe you justknewsomething, have you thought of that? You kept telling me, ‘I didn’t know,’ so why is it so crazy to think that you just had information that was going to hurt her?”
I thought over the possibility for a while before the memories Ididhave—even if they weren’t real—had me shaking my head again. “Because that isn’t what this feels like. It feels like I got caught. Or like I was going to.”
His brows lifted as he considered that. After a minute, he said, “But I’m telling you, you’re making a mistake by keeping that damn ocean you love so much between you and your girl. You keep expecting her to leave...one day she just might because you’re not giving her a reason to stay.”
My body went tight as the impact of his words slammed into me.
As I realized that, in trying to protect Scarlet from whatever was coming, I was ruining whatever future we could possibly have once my mind finally righted itself, and our lives went back to normal.
“Right,” I managed to say.
“Damn right, I’m right,” he said with a huff, then turned back to his desk, bending over an outline there. Murmuring as he continued. “Always so surprised when I come out with all my awesome wisdom-ness.”
I didn’t respond or react. Just sat there. Thinking over the disaster in the coffee shop the day before and how there’d been nothing when I’d been in front of Trish—Erinand Harper this morning.
No stirrings. No beating on that invisible barrier in the back of my mind. No whisper of what I might be missing.
All while thoughts of Scarlet slipped through. Invading everything, the way she always did—even when I’d still been in the hospital. Only now, it was flashes of her. Of us.
Her smile. The way she fit perfectly against me when we slept. The way she leaned toward me when she laughed. Those fucking mesmerizing eyes.
Her soul.
Because it washerthat I was drawn to again and again. And I was hurting her...
In trying to save her more pain later on, I was hurting her now.
Fuck.
