Forever (This #5) (22 page)

“Huh. Joe drinking. Can’t imagine.”

“You say it like he’s some kind of alcoholic or something.”

He pats his laces and lowers his jeans over his shoes. He shrugs. “He makes his living off alcohol. That’s all I meant.”

Everything Joe’s said to me about Ryan now makes sense. I can hear it and see it. He thinks he’s the better brother. Why? Because he’s a doctor?

“Right. So is there trouble in paradise with Rebecca and Joe?” I thought I knew the answer to that last night when he boxed me into the wall and nearly kissed me, but the look he had when he heard her talking to Ryan has me questioning everything. One minute he’s begging me not to go, the next he’s telling me he can’t be friends with me. He was drunk even though he denied it. Had to have been. Because nothing he said made sense last night the more I try to over analyze it.

“I wouldn’t know. She just asked if he was here.”

He just lied to me. Lie by omission. I guess I just did the same to him because I do have something to hide until we get some alone time to discuss everything. Maybe he’s doing the same thing I’m doing. Maybe he saw us on the stairs last night the same way we saw them? Has he heard us talking? “That’s all?”

“Yep.” He cocks his head and grins. “Are you jealous?”

“No.”

“You ready?” He stands and zips up his bag.

“Yep.”

The drive back was quiet. Joe avoided eye contact with me at all costs. When I was able to see his eyes, they were cold and distant.

We’ve told everyone goodbye, and we’re about to get back in our car. “Ryan, can we go somewhere to talk for a little bit? Or we can just sit here and chat.”

“We need to get home.”

“We need to talk.”

Much to my surprise, he doesn’t look concerned, but rather more annoyed. He sighs. “Now? Here?”

I nod.

“Fine. But we should probably go somewhere.”

“Starbucks?”

“Okay.” He doesn’t ask what this is about. Does he know?

We drive through the gated exit of the neighborhood and the short distance to the coffee shop. When we get there, we both get out of the car, and my insides feel like they’ve been raked over with a cheese grater. My heart specifically.

He holds the door open, and I walk in under his arm. “Thanks.” I pick out a table in the corner, away from the patrons. “Do you want something?”

There’s a smattering of stubble on his rounded chin and the edges of his jaw. His full cheeks are red. He swipes his mouth with his thumb. “No.”

We sit facing each other. He leans back, his legs spread. He doesn’t say a word, but he taps his foot. God, this is going to be so hard. But I’ve already driven three hours with him, and I can’t keep this bottled up for another couple while we travel back to Macon. First, I need some of my questions answered. Well, one specifically. “Who is she?”

“Rebecca?”

I nod as I place my hands in my lap and hold them to keep from fidgeting.

“When I was in undergrad, we had a thing.”

“Define thing.”

He turns his head and glares at me. “It’s over, so what does it matter?”

“Define thing for me, Ryan. Because I thought you were different from the Joes and Bradleys of the world.” My mind connects dots in hyper speed, comparing Ian to Bradley and now Ryan to Joe.

“We took care of each other’s needs for a bit.”

“Well, that explains why she said it was good to see you again instead of nice to meet you.” I look him in the brown eyes he shares with his brother. “Do you have feelings for her?”

“Sam. You’re being ridiculous. That was ages ago.”

“Don’t deflect the question by trying to make me feel stupid. I saw you two last night.”

He sighs. “It wasn’t what you thought it was. If you want to talk about The Carriage House Inn, maybe you can explain why she’d come to my room to see if Joe was with me at the same time as you were supposedly with Gabby. Imagine my surprise to find you two had gone missing at the same time. Then, when I called Gabby to look for you, you weren’t there.”

“You called Gabby looking for me?”

His eyes narrow. “So, is there anything you want to share with me?”

My skin burns like I’ve been sitting in the spotlight of the summer sun the entire day. He scowls. “Dammit, Sam. Do I even wanna know?”

“Nothing happened.”

“But you wanted it to?” My eyes drift anywhere but his. Suddenly the room seems small. “You have feelings for him?”

I nod, licking my parched lips as I open my mouth to speak. “I…I think it started before Gabby and Bradley’s wedding. But I blamed those feelings on other stuff. Made excuses for them.”

He runs his hands through his hair, his tight jaw bone clenching. “And you actually have the nerve to act like I’m doing something wrong with Rebecca whom I saw yesterday for the first time in years?”

“Do you want me to continue?”

“Do I want to hear how my girlfriend whom I thought I was going to marry thinks she’s falling in love with my brother? I don’t know, Sam.”

“Really? You thought you were going to marry me? Because I could have sworn last night I heard you tell her you didn’t even know if you wanted to get married.”

He averts his gaze. “Go ahead. I need to know. Otherwise my fuckin’ mind is going to go to all sorts of crazy scenarios. You have some nerve lecturing me about Rebecca when you’ve been pretending to just be my brother’s friend for the last six months.”

“I saw you with Carmen at the wedding. I’ve seen you flirt with Charlotte and other residents. Then I watched you with Rebecca for the last twenty-four hours. You may not have done anything, developed feelings for any of them, but I realized today as much as we want this to be right…it’s not. Hell, you didn’t even know I drink Diet Coke.”

“Did you sleep with my brother?”

I vigorously shake my head. “No. He has no idea how I feel about him. I refused to acknowledge or accept those feelings until last night…”

“So you were with him?”

“I was with him on the steps when you were talking to Rebecca. I’ve never even kissed him.” I swallow. “He seemed really upset by the fact there was something between you two. You might want to deal with that at some point.”

“For fuck’s sake. Again. Where do either of you get off? And just because you didn’t kiss him doesn’t mean you weren’t cheating on me.”

“I’m not pointing fingers. I’m not judging. Is it wrong for me to want to know if you were sleeping with someone behind my back? I mean, you just asked me if I screwed your brother. And I deserve that about the cheating. But you should know that I did everything in my power to turn those feelings off. He gave me an ultimatum a couple of months ago, and I chose you.”

He runs his hands through his hair again before staring at some random spot on the table in between us. “This is supposed to make me feel better? Were you thinking of him when you were sleeping with me?” His eyes search mine.

“I’m being honest with you because you deserve that much.”

“You’re being honest because you need a clear conscience.”

“That too. Ryan…”

“What?”

“Tell me you don’t see that this between us is wrong.”

He shakes his head.

“You chose a football game over me last night. We’re not even married. My sister was getting more sex than I was, I can guarantee you. I heard it. I did go to her room.”

“So, this is about sex?”

I toss my hands in the air. “No. Well, kinda. This is about the fact that I love you, but I’m not in love with you. And I think if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll say the same thing. I think we were
just
comfortable, and we both deserve more than that.”

“And you’re planning on getting”—he does air quotes— “more with my brother?”

My shoulders drop, and my body is on fire. “I don’t know. Joe and I didn’t leave things on the best of terms last night. He and I need to talk.”

“I guess that explains why he was such an ass on the way home, then. It was all about you.”

“I don’t know. I guess. It could have equally been the realization that Rebecca had likely screwed or was screwing his brother.”

Ryan lets out a long breath. “We need to get on the road.” He stands.

“About that…can you take me back to Gabby’s?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He walks to the front of Starbuck’s, pushes the door open, and holds it for me before unlocking the SUV. We both get in, and he starts the ignition. Once I’m in and buckled up, I notice his jaw is tight, his knuckles are white on the steering wheel, and he’s staring straight ahead.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Fine.”

“One of the reasons I didn’t want it to come to this is because I didn’t want it to ruin your relationship with Joe. Do you think you two will be able to work this out?”

He cuts his eyes to me, then back to the road. “Blood’s thicker than water.”

I swallow back the tears forming in my eyes. Everything he’s dishing I deserve, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “So they say.”

When we pull into Gabby and Bradley’s neighborhood, I realize I don’t have a pass. This damn gated community thing. This is exactly why I hate it. Ryan seems to have the same realization at the same time. “Do you have a pass called in?”

I fumble for my phone. “I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”

He nods. “I’ll pull over until you get it worked out with your sister.”

“Thanks.” My finger swipes the screen, then pulls up Gabby’s number and presses send.

“Hey, Sam. What’s up? You forget something?”

Did I forget something? Not exactly. More like I didn’t finish something. “Yeah. I’m at the gate. Can you call me in a pass?”

“Sure. See you in a few.”

I end the call as Ryan’s thumbing through some sports site on his phone. “She’s calling it in now.”

He nods.

“I hope with time we can get through this. I know it’s cliché to say I hope we can be friends, so I won’t. But for the sake of our families, I hope we can eventually move forward.”

He shoves his phone in a cup holder and clutches the steering wheel. “Sure, Sam.” He plasters a fake smile on his face. “Should be a fucking piece of cake to watch my ex-girlfriend be my brother’s girlfriend.”