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I shift, but he shakes his head, halting me. “Give me a minute.”
“For what?”
“I’m not ready to let this moment pass just yet,” he confesses quietly. “Just one more minute.”
I give him his minute. Sixty blissful seconds of us tied away where no one else can find us.
“Henley,” he murmurs against my neck. “You know I love you, right?”
My arms wrap around him. “Of course.”
“Good,” he says. “I’d hate for you to ever think you wasted that—”
“I love you, too,” I cut him off. “We’re for keeps.”
“For always,” he echoes.
14
BROOKS
I bringher into consciousness with my lips brushing along the dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Sun kisses that she’s earned from countless hours outside, befriending Mother Nature for no other reason than comfort.
Her eyelashes flutter, and I kiss them too.
She moans her approval, moving into me. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say back, my arm wrapping around her warm body to pull her closer to me still. Needing the line of her body pressed against mine. Wanting her to feel how hard she makes me.
“Well, isn’tthissweet.”
Henley and I startle apart at the same time.
I wrap my sheet tighter around Henley’s naked body as panic settles in her eyes. Comfortable she’s covered, I twist my neck, glancing over my shoulder to where the facetious tone made its appearance.
Evelyn sits in the large armchair housed in the corner of my room. Legs crossed, examining her nails; her interruption is both unwelcome and regrettable. Her body exudes calm, her foot kicking out softly over and over again in time with the tick of my clock.
God knows how long she’s been sitting in my room. Watching, waiting. Inserting herself into a private moment she had no right to while likely plotting her revenge.
“Evelyn,” Henley stutters.
Evelyn lifts her eyes; sliced so heavily with hate she looks ready to burn everything around her. Her disdain for Henley has only grown over the years with her absence. A festering sore she can’t rid herself of. She could never move past the reality of Henley’s and my friendship. She wanted to replace her, a feat that I told her time and time again was impossible.
“Hope you enjoyed your time with myboyfriend.” She maims the way she aimed to, Henley’s sharp intake of air evidence of that.
My eyes close in respite.
“I, uh, ummm. . .” Henley mumbles.
Bile rushes up my throat, burning my esophagus in regret. Shamefully, not for what I did with Henley, but the fact that Evelyn is here stopping me from doing it again.
“Evelyn,” I start, sitting up.
“Save me the excuses, Brooks.” She stands. “You fucked your best friend without having the decency to end our relationship.”
“Evelyn,” I try again, knowing she’s right. But it’s not as if I planned this. It just happened. Something I’m not exactly proud of, but something I won’t ever regret.
“Funny that you wouldn’t sleep with me but jumped into bed with the very girl you told menotto worry about.We’re just friends, Evelyn,” she mimics a line I fed her again and again. One up until Henley arrived home, I wholeheartedly believed.
