I pushed him away and jumped off the table, righting my clothes before I had any second thoughts about giving in.
Without looking back, I jetted up the staircase and back out to the pool, suddenly feeling the urge to go home.
Ben was standing with Madoc and Fallon—Madoc now in swim shorts—and they were all laughing as I came up to stand next to Fallon.
“Did you get the bottles?” Ben asked. “You were gone awhile.”
I blinked, remembering the bottles I’d told him I was getting.
Catching Madoc’s confused sideways glance at me, I just shook my head. “Couldn’t find what I was looking for. No biggie. So”—I looked to Madoc, changing the subject—“how’s the internship going?”
Madoc stuffed a chip in his mouth. “Good.” He nodded. “I kind of hate the stuck-up pricks in my father’s office, and the men are even worse, but I’ll get through it.”
Ben laughed, and I watched Madoc grab another handful of chips out of the bowl.
“Here,” Fallon said, grabbing the bowl and shoving it into Madoc’s chest. “You know you’re going to eat all of them.”
He shrugged and kept eating.
Fallon laughed. “You would think he was pregnant.” She smiled lovingly at her husband. “He ate the sushi you brought home yesterday, and the leftovers in the fridge, and then he ordered burgers from the Mining Company. He eats constantly.”
I let out a sigh, looking to Ben to gauge his reaction.
“Sushi?” he asked. “The sushi I brought you at work yesterday?”
“Tate hates sushi.” A voice came from behind us, and Jared walked up to the cooler, grabbing a long neck.
Ben’s eyes narrowed at Jared, clearly aggravated that he was here, but I intervened to ease Ben’s mind before anything started.
“Don’t worry about it,” I spoke to Ben. “I thought I mentioned it, but I guess not.”
Jared twisted off his cap, tossing it in the trash as he turned to look at me. He didn’t break eye contact as he tipped up the bottle and took a drink.
I knew that look. The one that said he was two seconds from hitting Ben or kissing me. And both would cause a fight.
I looked to Ben, ready to get out of here. “Any interest in cutting out of here early?” I asked. “Go back to my place?”
Ben looked relieved. I hated that my issues were keeping us from having a good time, but at least some space from Jared would mean we could just relax.
Ben nodded and took my hand, leading me off.
“Everywhere you kiss her,” Jared belted out to us from behind—and I noticed bystanders turning to look—“just remember that my tongue was there first.”
I stopped and turned around, glaring at Jared. It wasn’t so bad that people were looking, that a few girls were laughing behind their hands, or that Madoc sucked at hiding his snort.
No, what really pissed me off was being embarrassed in front of Ben. Of Jared talking about me like I was his personal property and trying to deny me a shot at a relationship with someone else.
Just like in high school.
“Does she still like it in the morning?” he taunted. “That’s when she has the most energy.”
I lost my composure, mortified at what he was doing. What the hell?
The bystanders oohed and giggled. Jared’s smirk was vile, and I arched an eyebrow, feeling Ben tense next to me as Jared tried to educate him. Telling him all the ways he knew me.
I squeezed my fists and walked up to Jared slowly.
I let my smile show through my eyes as I whispered. “He knows when I like it, Jared.”
It was a lie, but Jared didn’t know that. His smirk slowly fell, and the rage in his eyes was evident, even though his face appeared calm.
I turned around just in time to see Ben lunge for Jared, and I gasped as Jared reared back and Madoc jumped in to pull Ben away. “You son of a—” Ben was cut off as Madoc spun him around and walked him off, away from the crowd.
Jared pulled me into his arms, Ben forgotten, and wrapped them around my waist. “You want to play?” he charged, biting out every word so only I could hear.
“Challenge accepted, Tatum. This time I don’t want you hurt,” he continued, his breath falling over me as he got in my face, “and I don’t want you small. I just want you. Do you hear me?” He jerked me into his body. “It will be my ring on your finger and my kids in your belly someday.”
I twisted, struggling to free myself as rage kicked in, heating up my face and neck.
He bared his teeth. “Tatum Brandt is my fucking food,” he growled. “They all knew it in high school, and not a damn thing has changed.”
I yanked my body out of his hold and backed away, moving across the patio as he held my eyes. My hands ached to hit him, and I fisted my fingers and steeled my arms, glaring at him.
And he smiled.
“There’s my wildcat,” he commented, clearly seeing the anger that I couldn’t contain. “You want to hit me, don’t you? You want to fight and scream and challenge me back, and you know why?”
I ground my teeth together, thinking about how good it would feel to wipe that smirk off his face.
“Because you care,” he finished. “You still love me, and nothing has changed.”
I shook my head, and before I could give in and be the old Tate who reacted instead of rising above it, proving him right, I left. Slipping through the doors, back through the house, and out the front door.
Why did he still get to me? Why did I still . . .
I couldn’t finish the thought. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as I dug for my keys, not caring that I was leaving Ben. The day was ruined now, anyway, even if he was crazy enough to still want to spend time with me.
I groaned, feeling my cell phone vibrate against my ass. I was tempted to ignore it, but I dug it out anyway.
She said yes!
I narrowed my eyes, studying my father’s text. And then closed them, feeling the first tears fall as my chest shook.
Not a damn thing has changed.
Everything changes.
Chapter 9
Jared
The clay of the thumbprint charm was as smooth as water as I ground it between my thumb and index finger. The tattered green ribbon had frayed along the edges after years of being handled, twisted, and abused.
But nothing had changed. It was still loved.
The green still held the same vibrant shade as the tree between our windows, and all of the small lines and curves of her tiny fingerprint had survived.
Weathered but still solid. Fragile but unbreakable.
I lifted the beer to my mouth, emptying the bottle and wishing I’d brought another.
Sitting in Madoc’s empty and dark theater room, “Breath” by Breaking Benjamin playing throughout the house, I looked ahead at the black television screen—or screens, actually—seeing my own reflection staring back at me. And for the first time in two years, hating what I saw.
I was that guy again. The one who made her cry in high school. The one who broke her heart and stopped being her friend. The one who was a loser.
I was better than this. Why did I get in her face? Why did I always try to back her into a wall?
“Jared.” My mother’s voice fell behind me, and I blinked, coming out of my thoughts.
I slipped my empty bottle into the cup holder on the recliner and stood up, grabbing my jacket and sliding my arms into it.
“I thought you’d grown up,” she said, sounding far from disappointed. She must’ve witnessed what happened with Tate. And with her stern eyes and tight lips, she was pissed.
I looked away, hardening my armor. “One of the many things I love about you, Mother, is that you’re absolutely clueless as to who I am.”
Her chin instantly lifted, and hurt flashed i
n her eyes, even though she tried to hide it.
I looked away, shame heating my skin. She didn’t show her anger, but she couldn’t hide the pain in her eyes. It’s not like my mom was clueless. She knew that she had burned some bridges with me.
And I almost always reminded her.
Her hand went to her stomach, and I looked down and exhaled, seeing her small frame carrying her new start.
“I’m sorry,” I said, barely able to meet her eyes.
“So is that going to be a recurring thing?”
“What?” I asked. “Fighting with Tate?”
“Apologizing,” she shot back.
Yeah, I did that a lot, too.
“You’re not a child anymore,” she scolded. “You have to start being the man you want your sons to be.”
I shot my eyes up. Sons.
She knew how to make a point, didn’t she?
“You’ve always bullied her.” She sighed and took a seat. “Always. You might’ve been nicer about it when you were little, but all you had to do, even when you were eleven”—she smiled—“was hook an arm around her neck and lead her where you wanted her to go. And she always followed.”
An image of eleven-year-old Tate riding on my handlebars as I had the bright idea to race up a ramp and try to fly through the air popped into my head. I’d broken a finger, and she’d needed six stitches.
“But you always protected her, too,” she pointed out. “You jumped in front of her, shielding her from a fight or from danger.”
I slid my hands into my pockets and watched her calm eyes look at me with love.
“But she was a girl then, Jared, and she’s a woman now,” she stated matter-of-factly, her tone growing harder. “A man who stands in front of a woman does nothing more than block her view. She needs a man standing next to her, so grow up.”
I stopped breathing, feeling as if I’d just been slapped in the face. My mom was never motherly. And she certainly had no business giving others advice.
But fuck me, she was sounding kind of . . . smart, actually.
Tate didn’t need to be handled. She was already so strong on her own, as she proved time and again. She needed someone to share things with. Someone to make her life better, not worse. Someone she could trust. Like a friend.
I used to be her friend. Whatever happened to that guy?
I shot my mother a look, never giving away that she’d gotten to me, and walked past her, up the stairs of the home theater.
“And Jared?” my mother called, and I stopped and turned my head back toward her.
“Her father is getting married,” she announced. “He called tonight to give me a heads-up to keep an eye on her.” And then she took a breath and looked at me pointedly. “Not that you’re ever aware of anyone else’s feelings but your own, but back off, okay? I’m sure she’s a little tender right now.”
James was getting married?
I turned around slowly as I searched my head for what that meant. He was selling the house. Tate was going to Stanford. He’d have a new wife when she came home for visits.
And where would her home be? What—or who—was the one thing, solid and constant, that she could count on?
***
I pushed open the fancy black curtains in my old bedroom in my old house—no doubt an upgrade Juliet had made once she and Jax took over the room after I’d moved out. Since they were still at Madoc’s party, I had the place to myself, probably all night.
I threw my leather jacket on the chair in the corner and dug my cell phone out of my pocket, gazing through the forest of leaves to her darkened bedroom. No light, no movement, and no sound came from the house, but she had to be there. Her car was in the driveway.
Dialing her phone, I instantly caught sight of a small light—like a flickering star in a black sky—coming through the tree from her room. Her cell phone.
I watched as it flashed on and off with my rings, and then it went to voice mail, unanswered.
I squeezed my own phone, her silence hurting more than I wanted to admit. Tossing the phone onto the bed, I took off my shoes and socks and lifted up my window, slipping out, one arm and one leg at a time. I pressed my weight on the tree limbs, judging their strength.
After the damage done by the attempted cutting, I wasn’t sure how weak the tree might be or how much heavier I might have gotten since the last time I’d climbed into her room.
Holding on to a limb above me, the familiar feel of the bark under my fingers comforting me, I stepped across the limb we’d sat on the first time we met each other and the limb she’d scraped her leg on when she was thirteen when she slipped.
Reaching her French doors, I swung them open, stepped on the railing, and leaped onto her floor.
She bolted up in bed, breathing hard, with fresh tears covering her face. She looked confused and shocked as she supported herself with her arms on the bed behind her.
“Jared?” Her voice cracked as she sniffled. “What the hell are you doing?”
I took in the sight of her pained eyes, the tears reaching her chin telling me she’d been crying for a while.
God, she killed me.
Her sadness used to give me power, making me strong. Now it just felt like a pair of pliers pinching my heart.
Her light blue tank top hugged every curve, and from the sliver of pink and thigh where the sheet didn’t cover her, I could tell she was in her underwear. Her sunshine hair was parted on the side and fell over her chest in beautiful perfection. Even crying, she was the most perfect creature on the planet.
And just like twelve years ago when we’d sat next to each other in the tree for the first time, and I’d seen her sad about losing her mom recently, I didn’t care who stood in my way or what I needed to do.
I just needed to be in her life.
“I heard about your dad,” I told her. Every part of my body had relaxed, because this is where I was supposed to be.
She looked away, her defiant little chin lifting. “I’m fine.”
I instantly walked toward the bed and leaned down, gently turning her chin back to me and putting my forehead to hers.
“I’m never letting you go again, Tate,” I whispered, almost desperate. “I’m your friend forever, and if that’s all I get, then that’s what I’m taking, because only when you’re here”—I took her hand and placed it on my heart—“do I feel like my life is worth a damn.”
Her eyes pooled with more tears, and her chest rose and fell faster.
I cupped her face, rubbing circles on her wet cheek with my thumb. “Just let it go, babe. You wanna cry? Then, let it go.”
She looked up at me, the tears in her eyes shaking as she searched mine, and I hoped like hell that she could find some trace of the boy who loved her unconditionally.
And then, as if seeing it, she sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and dropped her head, shaking with her despair and letting it all go.
I sat down and pulled her into my chest, lying down and holding her tight enough to convey that I would hold her forever if she wanted me to.
Her head rested in the crook where my arm met my shoulder, and her hand lay hesitantly on my stomach as she shuddered with the tears. I brought up my legs and just held her, suddenly warm with the realization that nothing had changed. I’d first shared a bed with her about ten years ago—two kids finding an anchor in each other when life had thrown us too many storms—and lying here, with the familiar shadows of the tree’s leaves dancing across the ceiling, I felt as if it was yesterday.
She sniffled and wound her hand all the way around my waist. I rubbed circles on her back.
“It’s so stupid,” she mumbled, the ache making her voice thick. “I should be happy, shouldn’t I?”
I just kept rubbing.
She inhaled a short, shaky breath. “I like Miss Penley, and
my dad won’t be alone,” she cried. “Why can’t I be happy?”
“Because you love your mom,” I said, taking my other hand and lightly brushing the hair away from her face. “And because it’s been just you and him for a long time. It’s hard when things change.”
She tipped her head up and looked at me, her eyes still wet and sad but calmer now.
I caressed her face. “Of course you’re happy for your dad, Tate.”
“What if he forgets my mom?”
“How could he?” I retorted. “He has you.”
She looked at me, her eyes softening, and I pulled her in closer, tucking her head under my chin. Threading my fingers through her soft hair, I grazed her scalp and then dragged my hand down the strands over and over again.
Her body relaxed into mine, slowly melting like it always did.
“You know I turn dumb when you do that,” she grumbled, but I noticed the drowsy tease in her tone.
I closed my eyes, loving the feel of her slender leg sliding up over the top of mine.
“I remember,” I whispered. “Now go to sleep. Tatum.”
I might’ve heard her say, “Asshole,” but I couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 10
Tate
Cheesecake.
I flopped onto my back, the pillow under my head feeling as soft as a cloud in a Disney sky after sleeping so well, and I was strangely desperate for cheesecake.
Sweet and creamy and heavenly, and I swallowed, suddenly starving to indulge.
What the . . . ?
I glanced over at the other pillow—empty, but the remnants of his body wash had lingered, and I was glad he was gone. The smell that he’d left behind was so succulent that my mouth was watering for chocolate-covered cherries, champagne, cheesecake, and . . .
Him. God, I was hungry.
It had felt so good to be in his arms last night that I’d slept better than I had in months and awoke feeling calm and excited at the same time.
Heading into the bathroom, I brushed my hair and put it up into a ponytail, washing and rinsing my face afterward. Grabbing the mouthwash, I gargled, ridding myself of the leftover bitter taste of the glass of wine I’d had when I came home last night.