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I switched the script, wanting more than the friendship she had to offer. I’m not such a narcissistic asshole that I can’t accept that she doesn’t want me. Somehow, the pain feels brand new and as old as our friendship.
“I found out about Mom,” I whisper, my fingers tangling as I wish I had something to fiddle with.
I’m not big on showing emotion or being vulnerable around others. It was a lesson taught to me long before I was adopted. Shit like that sticks with someone. It marks them and follows them through life whether we want it to or not.
“Cannon and I went to her funeral,” she says. “It was a beautiful service. She was loved by so many.”
I peek up from my hands and look at her. She’ll always be so fucking beautiful to me.
“It was a dream,” I begin. “All of it, but it was so real. I dreamed Mom was there helping me get ready for our wedding.”
“Bishop,” she says, making it clear she doesn’t want to discuss this by using my nickname. It was always her way of drawing that line between the two of us.
“I need to get it out,” I tell her.
She nods with a quick sigh.
“We had a little boy. I could never see his face clearly so I don’t know if he looked like me or you or a combination of the two of us.”
I drop my eyes back down to my hands.
“I dreamed that you were with another man, and there was no amount of begging you to stop that made you even look like you wanted to.”
“I would never, Brent. You should know that.”
I nod. “I know. I think it was my mind trying to remind me that you weren’t mine. That you belong to someone else. Are you happy?”
She’s silent until I look back up at her. “I’m very happy. As sappy as it sounds, Cannon is my soulmate.”
“There’s no chance for us?”
She shakes her head. “There never was. Even if I wasn’t engaged to Cannon, we wouldn’t be together. It was never like that for me with you.”
She doesn’t apologize for being engaged to another man, and her explanation makes it very clear where she stands on the subject. She doesn’t try to soothe my heart by telling me maybe in another lifetime. I’m not a fool. I know the distinct difference between sorry, I have a fiancé and I have a fiancé.
Silence fills the space between us but it’s no more awkward than it would’ve been eight years ago when we were both still in the Corps.
I lift my head when the sun disappears momentarily behind a cloud.
“Still friends?”
“Always,” she answers.
“Cameron doesn’t have a problem with it?”
“Cannon.” She huffs, knowing I purposely fucked his name up. “And no. You guys actually get along very well.”
“So I wasn’t still in love with you when I joined Cerberus?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. You came to visit once. You confessed your feelings—”
“And you shot me down,” I predict.
“I was already falling for him at that point. If memory serves correctly, he and I became a serious thing very quickly after.”
“And I accepted it?”
She scoffs. “You tried to hit on me again when we came for your mother’s funeral. You begged me to leave him, said some seriously shitty things to me. Accused me of sleeping my way to the top through the VP’s son. You were downright nasty.”
“I was hurting,” I explain, not actually recalling what happened but knowing it would be out of character to keep pestering someone when they already told me no.
“I know, and Cannon understood as well. It didn’t stop him from telling you to chill the fuck out.”
“And what happened then?”
“You took a swing at him, landed right on your ass when he dodged it.”
“Seriously shitty of me,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”
“You apologized to both of us a couple weeks later.”
“I feel like an asshole.”
She chuckles. “You said the same thing back then.”
“I can’t believe after all that I still had the chance to join Cerberus.”
“Your record speaks for itself, but I don’t know what kind of conversations you had with the OGs before they made you an offer.”
“There’s no telling. From what I can remember about the group, probably a lie detector test, and possibly a couple rounds of waterboarding.”
Her laugh tells me she thinks I’m ridiculous, but she doesn’t argue with my analysis.
The glint of a reflection catches my attention, and a sense of calm washes over me when I look up and see Sunshine pushing a man in a wheelchair out on the back patio.
“Hmm.” The sound comes from Rivet, but I’m too distracted by the other woman to turn my head.
“You got the hots for her?”
A slow smile spreads across my face. “She’s been very kind to me.”
