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This makes my betrayal and fixation even worse.
Looking across the room, I spot Adam and Bryson together. They’re standing at the window. The sun has disappeared behind the clouds, no sunglasses on Bryson’s face, his powerful features softer than I’ve ever seen them…
Yet still savage. Still compelling.
I should be glad when Bryson pulls Adam into a hug.
I can tell Mom and Dad are pleased by the smile they exchange.
All I can do is stare and know this makes me more of a traitor. I’m not obsessing about my brother’s ex-best friend now. They’ve made up.
Whatever the fight was about—Adam keeps refusing to tell me—Eva’s car accident has pushed it all aside.
“Something good came from this, at least,” Dad says quietly.
“Yes,” Mom replies. “Thank goodness.”
I’ve told nobody about my crush except for Tiffany, my best friend and podcast partner.
Our show,The Girl-vine—a play onGrapevine—is all about different issues women face today. Next week’s topic is unrequited love. I didn’t choose it. Tiffany did, but that was before she knew Bryson was visiting. She’s seen the notebooks filled with his name, been there as I’ve drifted off, so consumed with fantasies of him there might as well be Bryson-shaped thought bubbles above my head.
“I’m going to get more wine,” Mom says.
“I’ll get it for you,” I reply, wanting any excuse not to sit here and gape at Bryson.
I move through the room, accepting condolences, the heat in my cheeks telling me I’m blushing severely.
I wish I wore makeup, but I rarely do. In my craziest dreams—waking and asleep—I imagine Bryson telling me I’m prettier without it, telling me he wants me natural, just me, all me, the way I want…
I almost walk directly into somebody as I pass the refreshments table.
“Sorry,” I say, stepping back. I need to stop daydreaming.
“It’s fine.”
A shudder grips me. My body tingles from head to toe.
Obsessive sensations compel me to reach up, squeeze onto his chest through his shirt, and feel his powerful muscles and the gentle strength I first experienced when he deftly handled my broken wrist.
I don’t.
Looking up, there he is, Bryson Sawyer. His icy eyes seem to bite into me, attack me like he somehow knows about my crush, and he’s disgusted by it.
Disgusted byme.
He thinks I’m wrong, defective somehow, for letting such feelings invade this setting. If those are the thoughts flurrying around his silver-tinged head, is he wrong?
We stare at each other for a long moment. His jaw pulses at the same time as his temples, like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says after a pause, his voice gruff.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “It’s a loss for you, too. You knew Eva well.”
“Yeah,” Bryson nods, towering over me, meaning I have to crane my head to look up at him. “It’s a terrible thing. You need to be there for your brother. We both do.”
My hands clench into fists at my sides. My heart is pounding.
Every obsessive instinct is yelling,Kiss him. Hold him. Be his. Make him attracted to you.
