Chapter 16
LONDON
W hat am I doing? I shouldn't have touched her.
Fuck, why did I touch her? When she is near, my mind is useless; every rational thought evaporates.
I should have learned my lesson outside those bathrooms the other day, when grabbing her arm to stop her triggered that same devastating electrical current.
One touch and all my carefully constructed walls crumble to dust.
She still takes my breath away. My heart thunders in my chest, outpacing Gypsy's stride in the arena.
I despise being this hollow version of myself, the one who no longer belongs to her.
It's yet another reason I can't stand her being here.
Every second in her presence is exquisite torture, a reminder of everything I've lost and everything I can't reclaim.
It's killing me to exist as anything other than hers.
Seeing her at the wedding was a special kind of hell where I could look but never touch, speak but never say what screamed inside me.
Even now, with her sitting mere inches away in those goddamn riding pants that hug every curve and a navy t-shirt that clings to her like a second skin, my treacherous hand moves of its own volition.
Her body still calls to mine like a siren song, magnetic, primal, as though she's still mine to touch, mine to hold, mine to worship all over again .
Her eyes bore into mine with the same penetrating gaze that always made me feel exposed.
I can't help but wonder if she remembers everything with the same excruciating clarity that I do, every whispered promise, every shared secret, every moment our bodies spoke a language only we understood.
It's beyond fucked up for me to want her to carry these memories, considering it wouldn't change anything, but inside, I'm screaming, love me, choose me, love me back the way you used to.
Instead, her voice cuts through my internal plea, cool and detached. "I'm more interested in how you're related to Trigg."
And just like that, I'm reminded why my heart can no longer beat for her, but neither can Trigg's.
"You can't date him," I snarl, wholly peeved with her response. It's been years since we've seen each other, since I was ripped out of her arms, and all she cares about is my brother.
"You can't tell me who I can date," she says plainly, as though my demand means nothing to her, further infuriating me.
"I can. He's my brother," I argue back intensely, attempting to force her to see it my way.
"So," she says, eyes forward, watching Madison and Abbey perform as though our conversation is an inconvenience.
Fine, if she wants to play it that way, so be it. I'll spell it out for her so she remembers everything I haven't forgotten. "So, every time you look at him, it's me you'll see, it's my taste you'll be searching for on his lips, and when he's in your bed, it's me that will be in your head."
She purses her lips, and when her gaze swings back to mine, I see challenge in her eyes.
I don't know if it's rooted in the same jealous envy that mine is, or if she remembers just fine and hates the reminder, but her words don't miss.
"Sounds like you're talking from experience.
You never did answer me earlier… Tell me, London, when you were kissing your girlfriend last night after you saw me in that dress, was it my mouth or hers? "
I feel the muscles in my jaw flex, and I resist the urge to say yours. It doesn't change anything, so instead, I ask, "You're really not going to ask me why I'm here?"
She shrugs. "You have not answered one of my questions since I came here. Why would I ask another?"
"Smart ass," I mutter. She raises a brow and smirks, and I tell her anyway.
I owe her some answers, even if they're partial truths.
"Sheriff Townsend owed my father a favor, so he brought me here instead of taking me to prison.
To stay here, I had to keep quiet. I had to be forgotten.
No one could know who I was, where I was from, or why I was suddenly here.
You don't just get to kill somebody and walk away.
" She's quiet, and I know I haven't said anything that's probably not obvious.
Laney is well aware my name isn't Dallas, and given she knows precisely what happened back in Willow Creek, it's not hard to draw conclusions about why I'm not using that name now.
"For the record, I never lied about not having siblings.
I didn't know I had a brother until I showed up here.
Hell, I didn't know I had an uncle for that matter. "
"How exactly is he your brother? I thought Baylor is his father, and if Baylor is your uncle, wouldn't that make him your dad's brother?"
"Yep, sure does, hence why I didn't know he existed.
My father and Baylor hadn't spoken in eighteen years until I showed up on his front doorstep.
Remember that fantastic mother I tried to hide from you?
Turns out she's even more stellar than I knew, because she didn't just royally screw me and my father over; she screwed his brother first."
"No," she says with a gasp.
I take my hat off and run my hand through my hair before putting it back on my head and hanging my arms over the fence.
"She hooked up with Baylor before she ever married my father.
My mother lost her virginity to Baylor, got pregnant, and then put the baby up for adoption without anyone ever knowing.
It's the weight of that secret that I believe ended her marriage to my father.
She couldn't bear the weight of her deception.
Every day, she had to look at him and keep this despicable secret.
You know I spent three summers with her in high school, and she never once mentioned Baylor or Trigg. Even now, she holds onto her secret."
"Wow, I don't even know what to say. Did she love Baylor?"
"I don't think so, but from what I've gathered, I'm pretty sure he loved her.
Baylor doesn't talk about what happened, and of course, my father never did; hence, how I didn't know he existed, but from what Trigg and I have put together, there was a party that both my mother and uncle attended.
There was lots of drinking, and what we speculate happened is that she didn't want to be inexperienced for her first time with my father.
We think Baylor knew exactly who she was, but she didn't know it was him.
Seven Minutes in Heaven was played differently around these parts when they were teenagers.
When you entered that dark room, you didn't always know who you were going in with, and the time stopped when you came out.
Speculation aside, we know she loved my dad first, and because she loved my dad, she tried to erase what happened until finally she couldn't block it out anymore, and she just left. "
It's unfathomable to me how she could so easily walk away from two of her children. The second I saw that little girl by Laney's side, my heart sank into my stomach at the possibility she might have been mine. I never could have walked away.
"Does Trigg know who I am? I mean, does he know about our past?"
"No...or rather, I don't think he does. I'm still trying to piece that together myself. The only person who knows who you are is Baylor. I don't talk about you, Laney. I left you in Willow Creek."
Damn it, the second I see her spine straighten, I know I chose the wrong words.
"Ouch, thanks for the reminder." She hops off the fence.
"Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up. I need to finish up with Madison," she says, starting toward the center of the arena.
"Oh, and don't worry about your secret. It's clear people here know you as someone else, someone I don't know anymore.
I'll stay out of your way, and you can stay out of mine. "
After six years of carefully constructed distance and cutting ties with everyone I cared about, I finally started to build something that resembled a life after her, and now she's here.
This is going to be a long, long summer and an even longer forever after that—if my secrets don't burn it all down first.