CHAPTER ONE, CLARA #2
“Sorry,” Brendan says. “I’m not lying to the cops and I can’t attest to any of that.”
“Traitor.” I gasp at the same time that a muffled climax sounds from Lulu’s room.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before you snapped,” Brendan teases. “No one can be sweeter than honey all the time.”
I kick the back of his knee, causing it to buckle slightly. He grabs his leg like he’s a soccer player looking to flop his way into drawing a yellow card. “Help! I’m going to be her next victim,” he cries. “This must have been her plan all along.”
“Brendan Russell, if I was going to kill you I would have done it years ago,” I say matter-of-fact, standing over his shrinking body.
A guttural, inhuman groan comes from the body on the couch, stealing our attention.
Brendan straightens and uses me as a human shield, pushing me forward to the man rising to a seated position, covering his face with his hands.
“Coward.” I hiss.
“Just an equal opportunist for who gets murdered first.”
“Why should I get murdered first?” I dig in my heels. But Brendan keeps pushing me forward.
“My mom would be heartbroken if I died.”
“Oh, and no one would miss me—” I lean back on his hand, trying a spin move, but it’s halfhearted as the truth slams into me.
No one would miss me. I’ve been no contact with my father for three years now.
My mom is gone, passed away when I was ten.
I have no other family. No other siblings. No one else who’s ever truly loved me.
“Lu and I will miss you. My memory is better, anyway. Don’t worry Clara, I’ll identify the murderer and make sure your sacrifice isn’t in vain.”
“Won’t he just kill you next? None of this makes sense.”
“I’m not a murderer,” the figure sitting on our couch says, in a low, slow gravely lilt I haven’t heard in a while. My heart warms at the familiarity. “But fuck this hangover might kill me. Any chance y’all have more of that coffee brewing and would be willing to share? It smells heavenly.”
“No,” I say under my breath. There’s more than familiarity there. There’s an ache. I know that voice.
It’s a voice that’s held me in a deep caress more times than I can count. It soothed my worries, comforted me when I mourned the loss of my mother, read to me by the light of the moon and string lights in a treehouse. Whispered I love you, my Clarabelle countless times.
But I could be wrong, right? Plenty of people could have that soft lilt, the slower speech, the elongated vowels.
Brendan and I don’t, of course, because we went to a private school an hour away, but plenty of other people went to public school in the hills of Texas and came out here for University, I’m sure of it.
“Yeah, that was weird of me to ask, sorry,” the man on the couch says.
Something in my chest claws at my ribcage, begging to be closer to the man on the couch and telling me I’m right about who’s seated there.
Hearing his voice again feels like waking from a coma, a part of myself I thought lost forever stirring back to life.
“Sorry, that wasn’t—I mean—of course you can have some coffee. ”
Nerve endings lick alive along my spine, shiver after shiver ripples down my back.
“Breathe, Clara,” Brendan whispers against my back. His hand grips my waist and he draws me into him. He knows, too, who’s sitting in front of us.
Since I moved to Bluebonnet Springs, Brendan and I haven’t talked about Wes.
Or what transpired at Harvard. Once the announcement was made about Wes’s transfer, Brendan’s tried to breach the subject a few times, but I tiptoed around it, changed the subject, or shrugged him off.
Internally, I was spiraling, but I felt like if I acknowledged it out loud, I’d fall apart.
For the past three years, I’ve been scraping by in my quiet life, just surviving.
Rolling with the punches as they came, but I never learned how to build up my defenses for the knockout blow.
Now the fist is here to deliver it, and I’ve left myself wide open for the shot.
“Thank you, I’ll be sure to pay you back, it looks like my teammate and your roommate are fond of each other so maybe if I’m lucky we’ll be seeing more of each other.”
His devastating smile is a flash of white before he takes me in, and his words and his smile disappear into the heavy air hanging between us.
There’s a hesitation. Like he’s not sure it’s me.
Without my extensions. Without my bleach blonde hair.
Without my eyelash extensions. Without my makeup.
Without my designer clothes. I’m not sure he’ll recognize me either.
“Clara?” he whispers my name like it’s a long-lost treasure, laid buried and forgotten in the sand. One he’s spent years away on a ship searching to recover. “What—what are you doing here?”
“Oh, so—uhm. First off, hello.” I wave. It’s a stupid wave, wiggly fingers and all, and I regret the awkward gesture immediately.
Since I heard of Wes’s transfer here, I’ve spent countless sleepless nights practicing how our first interaction might play out.
I’d be gracious, eloquent, explaining in great clarity how I ended up at the college we visited together in a fit of rebellion in high school when my dad wouldn’t even entertain the idea of letting me go to a non-Ivy.
The campus where Wes and I shared a glorious night in the bed of his truck on the beach, counting the stars and sharing more than secret dreams.
Even if I’m still trying to figure out the why myself.
I’m either a masochist or a hopeless romantic.
Maybe those two things are the same, I don’t know.
Not once, though, in all of my overthinking sessions, did I see myself running into Wes in my own house, me wearing a flimsy cropped cami and a pair of bike shorts because I haven’t done my laundry in a week, last night’s makeup smudged under my eyes because I didn’t even bother to wash my face before face-planting into bed.
“Hi,” he says, terrifyingly calm, a pointed stare aimed in my direction.
I shift on the balls of my feet. Brendan runs his hand up and down my arm to calm me.
Wes’s eyes snap to Brendan’s hand, his gaze sharp and intense.
He stands, towering over us and the heat from his stare singes my skin.
There was always friction between them. Brendan never trusted Wes’s intentions with me, and Wes didn’t like how Brendan seemed to always look down on him, no matter how much I tried to tell him that was just how Brendan came across to people who weren’t in his inner circle.
“I think you should probably go,” I whisper to Brendan, as Wes’s scowl stays directed over my shoulder.
“Uh, yeah. Wes. It was good to see you again. Congratulations on the whole football thing, I guess. Crazy how all you had to do was grow to get everything you wanted, yeah?” The warmth from Brendan’s front fades as he takes a step back.
“Not everything.” A muscle in Wes’s jaw flexes. The harsh lines on his face don’t soften until Brendan is out of sight again. “Clara,” he exhales, stepping toward me. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I force a laugh.
Alone in the room with Wes, standing over me, everything feels wrong.
Wes has never stood over me. Never loomed.
I was taller. I was someone he looked at in reverence, not disdain.
My skin itches. Hell, my soul itches because I always found Wes handsome, but it was a subtle handsomeness, something that didn’t strike you like a lightning bolt but grew on you over countless nights spent studying his features by the dancing firelight.
It wasn’t just Wes’s looks that drew me to him; it was the warmth of his smile and the quiet kindness in his eyes.
It was the way he made me feel special—the way he looked at me and convinced me he saw beyond the “rich girl” persona I always guarded myself with.
But now.
God, have the last few years been that cruel to me, or have I simply forgotten how beautiful he is?
The boyish good looks that he shyly wore at eighteen are long gone, leaving a ruggedly handsome, self-assured face behind.
I knew he had grown steadily taller—that’s why the man I dated at eighteen, who couldn’t get a collegiate scholarship for football, is suddenly a football prodigy, but I didn’t realize growing meant…
this. This towering frame. This captivating face that somehow makes every other face woefully plain in comparison.
My belly swoops, taking him all in. Internally, vibrant blooms explode into a flowering oasis I thought I’d left to wither and die.
Meanwhile, Wes remains cool and reserved, arms crossed. Like our reunion isn’t the hellish start to the day it is for me. “My roommate dragged me here and I fell asleep. You here visiting him?” He nods towards the kitchen.
“Oh, uhm. No. I live here,” I say, with forced strength. “We live here. Brendan and me—I. Brendan and I.”
“In this apartment?” His eyes scan the cluttered walls, the living room where a hodgepodge of thrifted furniture sits.
They pass over the worn dresser we found at an estate sale for twenty dollars and converted into a TV stand, and our mismatching sofa and armchair that probably saw a thing or two before they made their way into our rented house.
It’s not much, but I’m proud of the life I’ve built with my friends.
We’ve earned everything here.
“Yes.”
“It’s quaint.” He narrows his gaze—a question hanging in his statement. It’s not the mansion I grew up in. It’s nothing he’d expect the daughter of the wealthiest man to ever live in Winthrop, Texas to be found in.
I don’t want to explain my fall from grace to him, not when his presence here is already managing to make me feel small.
In my hesitation to say anything else I admire Wes’s hair. When we were younger, he kept his hair buzzed since it was easier to maintain between ranch work and football practice. I used to relish how the smell of hay and sweat lingered on his skin despite his four showers a day. Does it still?
He’s wearing his hair longer now. I’d seen it in the promotional pictures around campus, but I missed the way he has sunshine highlights that catch in his chestnut waves. His jawline is sharper than I recall, shadowed by a bit of stubble, and diamond earrings shine in his ears.
“Right, so,” I exhale. How much of the story should I tell him?
I’ve debated contacting Wes over the years, telling him that I was no longer under my father’s control.
But by the time I found the courage, he was already on the up and up so much I was afraid it would look like I was only going back to him now that he was making a name for himself.
That was never the case with Wes. I just wanted him. And now it’s too late—because he’s staring at me in this room like he hates me.
Down the hall, Lulu’s door creaks open. “Dude, you’re still here?
” A gruff voice says with a laugh. “You know how much ass you had waiting for you at that party? You should have gone back.” A hulking man—Will, stack of pancakes and a side of bacon—emerges from the hallway, bowing under the doorframe so he doesn’t hit his head.
A diner regular. I’m used to seeing him in the morning, just not here, and certainly not emerging from Lu’s room.
Interesting.
“I wasn’t in any shape to drive.” Wes clears his throat. “And someone had said they were just dropping Lu off.”
The other guy laughs, clamping a hand on Wes’s shoulder. “Ah shit, sorry. She looked at me with her puppy dog pout last night and asked me not to leave—how could I say no to that face? I’m weak, man.”
Wes scrubs his hand over his face, and I swear, there’s a split second where his eyes connect with mine.
“Yeah, I get that. No judgement, I just need my center to be a little stronger willed as spring season ramps up, yeah?” He runs a hand through his hair, before grabbing his hat from the ground and tossing it on backwards.
“You good?” He clamps a hand on Will’s broad shoulders. “I want to head home and change and grab something to eat before we hit the gym.”
Will grimaces. “I promised Lu I’d have my first breakfast with her, cap. But I’m sure you can join.”
I meet Wes’s gaze, feeling the weight of his expectation and the unspoken words lingering between us.
Uneasy, I cast my own eyes downward, fidgeting with the hem of my shorts and shifting my weight from foot to foot.
“I was about to make pancakes for the house. And I owe you coffee if you still want it. I can brew you another pot so it’s fresh. ”
“No, I don’t want your pancakes or your coffee, Clara,” he says sadly. “I’ve gotta—I’ve gotta go.” With a disappointed shake of his head, he marches towards the door. The sound of his heavy footsteps echoes through the room.
And I’m left there in the living room staring at the door, the bitter taste of remorse on my tongue and a cold first sip of a very troublesome manifes-tea-tion in my mug.