Chapter 20
Unbalanced
Sara
Something heavy drops on the floor, waking me from a deep sleep. I bolt upright, completely disoriented. Peabody barks furiously into the darkness.
I’m on the couch. Fuck, why am I on the couch?
“Peabody,” I whisper yell.
“Fuck.” A man’s voice has my heart racing.
I fumble for the light, and for a moment, it blinds me.
“Call off the little bastard.” Wyatt’s voice calms my heart. Peabody makes enough noise to wake the dead.
“Peabody, leave Wyatt alone.” I rub my eyes, trying to remember what the hell happened.
Peabody jumps on my lap and growls in Wyatt’s direction.
“Peabody,” I scold, but he just settles on me, never taking his eyes off Wyatt.
I finally look up at him. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt. There’s a small table on its side behind him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Why are you down here?”
We speak at exactly the same time. Peabody growls until I pet him. I don’t know why Peabody doesn’t like Wyatt. Tom always encouraged it though.
“What do you mean why am I down here?” I smooth my dress down. After Drew left, I watched some TV and I must have fallen asleep. It’s been a while because the TV shut off.
“You weren’t in your room.” He points to the staircase.
My eyes narrow on him. Something isn’t lining up. “How do you know that, Wyatt Hawkins?”
I stand and Peabody growls on the couch next to me as I step closer to Wyatt. The only way he’d know is if he could look in my room. There’s only one way to look in my room currently.
Some of the anger leaves Wyatt’s face and he actually looks chagrined.
“Wyatt, how do you know I wasn’t up in my bedroom?” I take another step and poke him in the chest with each of my next words. “Answer me right this minute.”
He backs up and runs his hand through his hair. “It’s my camera.”
I take a step backward and cover my mouth. Heat fills my neck and face as I realize what I did. What he might have seen. “Oh, fuck.”
“I had Dante set it up so we could check it if something happened to you.”
Which sounds reasonable until you factor in earlier today. And the fact I was out with Drew.
“Were you checking to see if Drew spent the night?” I step forward again, trying to ignore the tingles that race through me at the thought of him watching my “show” earlier.
“I was making sure you were okay.” He straightens like I offended him. “You wouldn’t have a guy spend the night if your parents were home.”
I want to throw in his face that my parents aren’t home and that if I wanted Drew to stay the night, he could have. But that would open up a can of worms I’m not ready to deal with.
“I was fine until someone broke into my place.” I cross my arms over my chest and suddenly remember he knows I’m not wearing a bra.
His gaze drops for a split second and I groan.
“Wyatt, that’s an invasion of my privacy.”
“Tom’s gone and he’s worried something will happen to you.” He takes a step closer. “I’m worried something could happen to you.”
“So you watched me in my bedroom?” A wave of heat rushes through me. He saw me masturbating, and I mean, he saw everything. When I thought it was for Dante, I was taunting him. He’d already seen everything anyway. “That wasn’t for you.” The words burst out of me.
Wyatt closes in on me again, forcing me to look at his chest or tip my head up to maintain eye contact. “Who was it for, Sara?”
I narrow my eyes and purse my lips. “Fuck you, Wyatt. You don’t get to invade my privacy and act all self-righteous about it. You need to leave.”
His hand lifts and my breath catches. Will he touch me? I still can’t believe I poked him in the chest, but if he touches me, all those walls I’ve built around my heart will crumble.
“Leave, Wyatt,” I say quietly. For a second, we both just breathe, so close to touching but not.
He lowers his hand and his head and backs away. “Be safe.”
Dante
It’s still early when Sara storms into my office and sets the little camera on my desk. “My bedroom is off-limits.”
I take a breath and stare at the camera. “I left it where you could find it.”
She turns and looks at the door. She crosses the room and closes it before coming forward and putting her hands on my desk.
“Wyatt came by last night because I wasn’t asleep in my bed.” If she could shoot daggers from her eyes, she would.
“Where were you sleeping, pip?” I’m not sure I want to know.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I fell asleep on the couch.”
“The camera was for your own good.” I set my pen down on the desk and rock back in my chair.
“My own good?” She looks about two seconds from blowing up. “You put a camera in my bedroom and I knew you were the last one in there. Trust me, when I found it yesterday, I gave you one hell of a repeat performance.”
She pushes off my desk and crosses her arms.
Fuck, it’s early and I haven’t had enough caffeine to deal with this. “Repeat performance?”
She glares at me. “Seriously?”
Slowly, it registers. Oh, fuck. I laugh. Fuck, I don’t mean to, but it bursts out of me. All those years of keeping her away from Wyatt and then I basically set a ticking bomb between them.
“This isn’t funny, Dante.” She looks livid. If looks could kill, I’d be dead and buried.
“No, you’re right. This isn’t funny.” I straighten in my chair and can’t help but imagine exactly what Wyatt saw. I saw firsthand, and she puts on an amazing show. He’s been in denial about his feelings for Sara forever.
“If Tom were here, I’d tell him what you two did and what Wyatt saw.” She’s gone stubborn now but she didn’t say what I saw, only what Wyatt saw.
“Good thing Tom isn’t here then.” I rub my chin.
Like all the energy goes out of her, she drops into the chair across from me and puts her face in her hands. “What am I doing?”
“Living?”
She lifts her green eyes and returns to glaring at me. I hold my hands up in surrender.
“Seriously, pip. For years, you put yourself on hold for Wyatt. Now you’re actually living. I have to admit, I like this side of you.”
“Of course you do. I give a really good masturbation show,” she says grumpily.
“You do.” Fuck, I’ll admit it’s been my go-to memory to get off to recently. “But you have this spark that I’ve been watching die for years and it’s back.”
Sighing, she drops her hands onto her lap. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Dante. I’m dating Drew and he seems okay with the fact that I’ve been kissing you and Finn—”
“Whoa, pip. Me and Finn.”
Her cheeks blossom pink. “Um, yes.”
With fresh eyes, I look her over. She does seem more confident. More in possession of herself. More tempting than she ever did before. I’m not surprised Finn noticed.
The misery clicks. “But not Wyatt.”
She shakes her head. Of course not.
“Do you want him too, pip?”
She blows out a breath and throws her hands up. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
I lean my elbows on my desk and study this woman I’ve known practically my whole life.
It’s weird that things are changing, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say they changed years ago.
This unspoken agreement between the three of us to not go after Tom’s sister went into effect and we all decided a hands-off approach was best.
Tom kept her away from us as much as possible and then I got tapped to run interference when she decided to charge headlong in Wyatt’s direction. Wyatt was the first to back away from her because his obsession with her was too much.
“Whatever you choose will be right, pip, if it’s right for you.”
Her pale green eyes collide with mine. “What if I don’t want to choose?”