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“Who is she?” Chase asked, apparently feeling better enough to join the conversation. A blessing and a curse.
Paul shook his head. “I don’t know. This guy won’t tell me.”
“Hey, I said I’d tell you, just not right then.” I grinned when Paul waved his hand, prompting me to continue. “Not right now, either.”
“You’re the worst, brother,” he replied with a shake of his head, taking a massive bite out of his burger.
Even though he’d been calling me that our whole lives, hearing it now caused another stab of dread. What if he really did disapprove of my relationship with Aria? I’d decided to make my feelings known to her before him intentionally, so it wasn’t like I was asking for his permission. Aria would have hated that. But was it the honorable thing to do? Was it the same thing as asking a girl’s father for her hand in marriage when it was a matter of dating your best friend’s little sister? I shuddered at the thought. It seemed so outdated. We were adults. Didn’t that count for anything?
Best-case scenario: Paul is freaked out but able to get past it. I could handle that. And I couldn’t blame him. When the floodgates opened and the feelings I’d been trying to suppress carried me away with them, I’d freaked out too.
But the worst-case scenario? The worst-case scenario was that my best friend, my brother for all intents and purposes, would refuse to give me his blessing. He’d hold back his stamp of approval—something no man had earned yet, to my knowledge—because he knew I didn’t deserve her. She might think I did, but I was still unsure. And Paul might think it’s a hard no.
“You realize the longer you go without telling me, the more I’m gonna wonder who she is, right?” he asked, jabbing a french fry in my general direction.
I chuckled. “If you say so.”
“Are you bringing her to my wedding?”
Swallowing hard, I shrugged. “It’s a little late to change my RSVP.”
“Probably for the best. Wouldn’t want her to recognize Beau and get all weepy like Amber did.”
Sighing, I leaned back in my chair, no longer hungry. My efforts to save this conversation for another day were going to be completely in vain if he kept poking at me. I wouldn’t outright lie, but I couldn’t keep dancing around the truth either. At some point, it was going to have to happen.
In fact, maybe I needed to just come out with it. It wasn’t ideal, given the way I’d felt moments before, but when would it ever be? What if the next time I tried to tell him, something else got in the way? The longer I waited, the worse this would be.
I looked over at my best friend, every molecule in my body silently begging him to take it well. “Paul.”
His gaze flicked up and then away, then zipping right back thanks to whatever he saw on my face. “What?”
“It’s Aria, Paul.”
The voices of our fellow Marines in the crowded chow hall faded into a barely audible din as he stared at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chase’s head whipping back and forth between us. I wasn’t sure if he remembered the name of Paul’s sister from our group conversations over the last few months, but even if he didn’t, he could tell my revelation was huge.
“What’s Aria, Will?” Paul asked, his voice chilly.
“The girl—thewoman—I’m seeing. It’s Aria. I’m in love with your sister.”
Paul’s face was a hard mask. He leaned away from his plate, his shoulders straightening. I saw a muscle twitch in his jaw, knowing he was clenching his teeth so hard he was in danger of breaking one. Maybe a public place had been the best place to have this conversation after all.
Paul drew his lips together, his eyes holding a lethal calmness. “I’m sorry,brother, I don’t think I heard you right.”
“I’m in love with Aria,” I said again, ignoring what he was implying by using the term of endearment again. My tone was unapologetic as I met his accusing stare without flinching.
His nostrils flared. He brought his hands onto the tops of his thighs as he pushed back from the table, finally breaking our staring contest to look around the room. Then he turned to me again, rising from his chair. “Outside.”
It was one word. He’d only uttered one word, but with it, he took away any hope I had that this conversation would go smoothly. Chase gaped at me from across the table. He started to get up, quickly dropping back in his chair when I held up my hand.
“It’s cool,” I said, standing on unsteady legs. “Stay here. Fuel up.”
I left before he could reply, following Paul out of the chow hall and into the hot midday sun. Okay, so a public place was good, but maybe choosing somewhere off base would have been better. I knew I wouldn’t lay a hand on the man stalking ahead of me with rage rolling off his shoulders. But if he punched me, if he let his fists do the talking here, there was no way he wouldn’t get spotted by a higher-up. I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting in trouble because of me, so I really hoped it didn’t come to that. Not formynose’s sake, but for his.
“Come on, Paul,” I said to his back, hands up with my palms out in surrender. “Let’s talk about this.”
He whirled on me, stopping when he was within an inch of my face. “Oh, now you wanna talk? How long has this been going on? Maybe we should have talked before wheneverthatwas.”
I’d spent most of my high school days with Paul, keeping dudes away from Aria like a pair of bloodthirsty hounds. We’d gotten into a few scuffles in the name of her honor, but looking back, I knew how ridiculous it had been. We had no right to police her love life like that. She didn’t like it then, and she sure wouldn’t like it now. So to see him turn that vicious snarl on me set my blood to boiling.
