Chapter 3 – Trevor #2
"Friend." He tested the word like he was tasting something bitter. "You know, I've noticed how you look at her."
My heart slammed against my ribs. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you?" He cocked his head, studying me. "When she's helping you with calculus. When she comes over to watch movies. How you always volunteer to give her rides home."
I kept my face impassive despite the panic clawing at my insides. "Someone has to. You're usually too busy with 'hockey practice.'" I made air quotes around the words.
"You think I don't see it? The way you find any excuse to touch her? How you hang on her every fucking word like she's reciting poetry instead of explaining derivatives?"
I swallowed hard. "You're imagining things."
Liar.
"Am I?" Trevor stepped closer, until we were nose to nose.
I could smell the mint of his gum, see the tiny scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood hockey injury.
His jaw was set the same way Dad's got before he threw punches in the penalty box, and for the first time in my life I understood that my brother and I were capable of hurting each other in ways that had nothing to do with fists.
"Because it seems to me my little brother has a thing for my girlfriend. "
"She deserves better than you," I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
The silence that followed was the loudest sound I'd ever heard. I wanted to grab the words out of the air and shove them back in my mouth. But there they were, hanging between us, and we both knew I meant every syllable.
His gaze widened, then narrowed. "Better like you, you mean?"
The basement felt suddenly airless. We stood there, the muted sounds of the hockey game on TV the only noise in the room.
"That's not what I said."
"But it's what you meant." He jabbed a finger into my chest. "You think I don't know you've had a thing for her since we were kids? You think I don't see how you fucking light up when she walks into a room?"
I felt exposed, like he'd ripped open my chest and was rooting around in there with both hands, pointing at every secret I'd ever kept. "This isn't about me. It's about you cheating on her."
"Maybe I wouldn't need to look elsewhere if she wasn't so fucking boring sometimes," he snapped.
Something in me broke at those words. My hands curled into fists. "Don't talk about her like that."
A slow, knowing smile spread across his face. The same smile Dad wore when he had an opponent exactly where he wanted them. "There it is." He nodded, as if confirming something to himself. "Well, well, well. Little brother's in love with my girlfriend."
"I'm not—"
"Save it." He cut me off with a dismissive wave. "You know what's really fucked up? I think she might feel the same way." The words hit me like a sucker punch.
"What?"
"The way she asks about you. Defends you." He mimicked her voice with cruel accuracy. "'Trace wouldn't do that. Trace is so thoughtful. Trace is so responsible.' It's fucking pathetic."
My throat closed up. I couldn't have spoken if I'd wanted to.
Hope and horror wrestled in my chest. Was it possible? Had Lena felt something too? All those study sessions, those lingering looks I'd convinced myself I'd imagined, had they been real?
Trevor must have seen something in my face because his expression darkened. "You want her? Fine. Have her."
"Trev—"
"No, I mean it." His voice was cold, calculated. "Let's see what happens. I'll break up with her, tell her I'm not good enough. That she deserves better." His smile turned razor-sharp. "And then we'll see if she runs straight to you."
The proposition hung in the air between us, poisonous and tempting.
"That's not—I wouldn't—"
"Wouldn't you?" He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You've been waiting for your chance since she and I started dating."
"That's not true." Even to my own ears, the protest sounded weak.
"Isn't it? Then prove it." He straightened, a new resolve hardening his features. "Swear to me you'll never go after her. Even if we break up. Even if she comes to you."
"What?"
"You heard me. Swear it. Brothers before others, right? Isn't that what Dad always said?"
I stood there, the weight of his demand pressing down on me like a physical thing.
The right answer was obvious. The only answer.
I thought about Lena, the way she'd looked at me the other week, when I'd driven her home from the library, the streetlights catching the gold in her dark eyes.
The way she'd paused at the car door like she wanted to say something, then didn't. I was about to promise that moment would never become anything more.
"I swear."
The words tasted like ash. Something inside me went quiet when I said them, like a door closing on a room I'd never be allowed to enter.
I could hear the clock on the wall ticking.
The ice maker humming in the wet bar. The muffled commentary from the hockey game neither of us was watching.
Normal sounds. Like the world hadn't just shifted underneath me.
You just handed her to him. Wrapped her up with a bow and everything.
He watched me for a long moment, eyes searching mine for any crack in the armor, before nodding once. "Good. Because if you ever break that promise..." He let the threat hang unfinished.
The memory dissolved as someone jostled me, spilling beer on my shoes. The party roared around me, but all I could focus on was the empty space where Lena had been standing moments before. The phantom warmth of her body against mine. The way her dark eyes had flashed with fury.
I grabbed a beer from the bar, cracked it open, and drank half of it in one pull.
It was warm and tasted like shit but I needed something to do with my hands.
My knuckles were white around the can. A couple of girls from the dance team were giving me the look, the one that usually meant my night could end any way I wanted it to. I didn't even register their faces.
Three years later and nothing had changed.
I was still bound by that promise. Still watching her walk away.
And the worst part? If given the chance to go back, to that moment in my basement with Trevor's ultimatum hanging between us, I don't know what I'd do.
I'd like to think I'd tell the truth. I'd like to think I'd fight for her.
But I'd sworn an oath to my brother. And Coulters don't break their promises.
Even when every instinct screams that she should have been mine all along.
Coward.