Chapter Four
Nathan
“Get your ass up, you stinking bastard!” shouts my best friend, Nova.
I groan, my head pounding like a bitch.
Whoosh!
The sunlight streams in, hitting my face and worsening the hammering in my brain. The sheets around my waist get torn next. “The fuck!”
Blocking the stinging rays, I blink my eyes open to a disgusted Nova staring me down. He’s not alone. His wife’s pet dog, Fire, who’s taken a shine to him and replaced me as his best friend, bares his teeth at me.
I arch a brow. “Do you really have to take him everywhere with you?”
“Cover your dick first.”
“Why don’t you look?” I jab, making no move. “You sure seemed eager when you ripped the blanket off.”
He lowers the chihuahua to the bed near my left ankle. Snapping his fingers, he commands, “Hump.”
The damn thing straddles my feet and starts at once. “Jesus! Fuck!”
I shrug him off until he slumps on his side, before jumping from the bed like my ass is on fire. Hives break out on my skin.
A laughing Nova picks up the rugrat.
“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” he coos at his dog in crime. “I’ll give you a treat when we get home.”
“What has Rosalie done to you, man?”
“Seriously, cover your balls before I ask him to take a bite.”
I stalk toward the adjoined bathroom, snagging my sweatpants along the way. After doing my business and washing my hands, I reenter the room.
“Did you wash the house in booze or something?” Nova taunts, circling my bedroom.
“I gave you a spare key for an emergency.”
“You drowning yourself in liquor and hiding from me constitutes an emergency.” Tilting his head, he shares, “Also, I rang the doorbell a thousand times. You and Rose can give each other competition in sleeping like the dead. At least my wife looks like an angel I can stare at for hours.”
“Why don’t you go do that?”
“She woke up early,” he replies disappointedly. Glaring at me, he scowls. “Instead of reaping the benefits of the once-in-a-blue-moon situation, I’m here taking care of your ass.”
“I didn’t ask.” I head for the door. “Go home to your wife.”
“I didn’t drive all the way out here at the ass crack of dawn just for you to throw me out.” He follows me into the hallway. “You’re done avoiding me, Nathan.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’re spiraling, man.”
“I’m fine.”
“The fuck you are,” Nathan accuses. “Come on, talk to me.”
“Do I look like a woman?” I grumble, reaching the kitchen downstairs.
Nova stops across the island from me. “It isn’t a crime for a man to share his feelings with his best friend. Men need a heart-to-heart too.”
Crossing my arms, I give him an ‘are you kidding me?’ look.
He drops the act, taking a seat on the barstool after putting Fire on the floor. “All right! All right! I read it in one of the books Rose wrote.”
The man is so whipped that he reads every single romance book she writes. He even has a shelf in his office to display all her books proudly. I can hardly believe there was a time when they wanted to kill each other.
“Let’s go to the court,” he suggests. “Been a while since I kicked your ass at ball.”
I know it’s a subterfuge tactic to get me to talk. “You’re not gonna take no for an answer, are you?”
He grins, knowing he won.
“Fine.” As long as it quiets the thoughts in my brain, I’m game.
***
“My wife’s put you on her red list.”
“Red list?” I ask over my shoulder.
“People she’d like to give a slow death.”
I halt, turning around. “Your wife’s a psycho.”
I dodge the basketball that comes flying for my head.
“Only I have the right to call her that,” Nova says possessively after I straighten. “Don’t worry about the list, she’ll take you off it eventually.”
Figured I’d be on Rosalie’s shit list, considering I hurt her best friend and my ex-fiancée, Iris. Then again, that’s pretty much how my relationship with Rosalie has been. She also used to be on my shit list before she and Nova fell for each other.
“You’d know,” I retort, sitting down on the bench and grabbing a bottle of water. “You were at the top of that list for years. She almost succeeded too.”
“Those were just warnings. She didn’t actually want to kill me.”
I shake my head. Delusional bastard was smitten from the moment they got engaged.
“Are we ever gonna talk about how you lied to me for three years?”
I knew the interrogation was coming. Leaning back against the bench, I watch Nova dribble the basketball idly. “Does it matter? The truth’s out now.”
Everyone in our close group of friends knows that Iris and I were in a fake relationship for three years. That our engagement at the start of this year was a business arrangement. One that I orchestrated to get revenge on my older brother. While Iris did it to get closer to him.
What they don’t know is how real it was for me.
I knew Iris wasn’t mine and would never be. I knew her heart belonged to my brother. None of it stopped me from giving mine to her.
Between the two of us, she won.
While leaving me nothing but destruction in her wake.
Turns out, my whole life was a lie. Half of which I spent hating the wrong person. Did reprehensible things that I can never take back. Hurt and betrayed them so deeply that no redemption is in the cards for me.
“One day you’re going to wake up and regret the choices you’re making. By then, you’ll have pushed away every person who ever loved you, including me.”
Iris’s words ring in my head like a haunting lullaby.
Oh, how right she was.
With her, I didn’t just lose the woman I loved, but also my best friend.
I know I still have Nova, who’s like a brother to me, but there are things I can’t share with him. They came easily whenever I talked to Iris.
The most devastating pain is not having anyone to talk to.
“I found out from my wife, instead of you,” Nova accuses, dragging me back from my dark thoughts. “Did you think I was going to judge? Tell someone? I even understand why you did it. But to hide it from me for three goddamn years.”
“It wasn’t only my secret to share.”
“Bullshit!” His curse echoes in the empty court. “We’re brothers. You should’ve told me. Trusted me.”
I put myself in his shoes and I understand why he’s furious. But what’s done is done. One day, it’ll all be history. “I can’t change the past, Nova.”
“Trust me, I know that better than anyone. But you’re fucking up your present and future. You’ve shut everyone out. I’ve barely seen you in the past few months. And whenever I have, you’ve been hungover. Drowning yourself in booze isn’t going to bring Iris back.”
My muscles pull taut. “Don’t talk about her.”
“So, it is about her.”
“We’re not discussing her.”
“She’s engaged to Kian, Nathan,” he says calmly, the pity in his eyes pissing me off. “You need to move on because she has.”
Lurching upright from the bench, I shove past him. “We’re done talking.”
“You can’t go on like this, brother. You need to get your act together.”
You reap what you sow.
I sowed the seeds of deception and became the villain. Now I shall reap the consequences. No actions of getting my act together will save me from it.
Good thing I don’t want to be saved.