Epilogue #4
This is where Callie lives now that she’s pregnant with her sort of ex-boyfriend’s, Reed, baby. She’s having a small get together today because she just got her acceptance letter to Juilliard and we’re all super duper excited.
These days, nothing excites me. Nothing feels right. Not the colors, the sketches I keep drawing because I don’t know what else to do. Not the woods behind our school or green rolling grounds. Things I usually loved because they inspired me to draw.
But I’m really, genuinely happy for her.
My friend deserves all the good things in life. Including the guy she’s in love with and from the looks of it, that guy loves her too. Not sure if he realizes it but still.
Anyway, I’ve gone off topic here.
I have to solve this mystery first.
Mystery being why does Callie’s brother keep looking at me? He has been staring at me ever since the get together started. And why did he follow me in here, the kitchen, where I came to get away from the crowd for a few minutes, from the backyard where everyone’s currently gathered?
But then he speaks and the mystery gets even more… confusing.
“I’d like to take you out on a date,” he says.
Okay, I think I heard him wrong.
Did he say a date?
“I’m sorry?”
“A date,” he says in a deep voice, standing casually against the marble island, his arms folded. “With you. I’d like that very much.”
“You’d like to take me out on a date?”
“Yes.”
I’m standing by the counter, holding a glass of water and my fingers around it tremble. Hugging it to my midsection, I reply, “I’m not… what?”
Something like amusement flickers through his beautiful eyes. “You’re allowed to go on dates, right? I mean, at St. Mary’s. Over the weekend. Or whenever you’re allowed out.”
“Um, yes. I can get my day pass.”
He smiles then, all confident and arrogant. “And you’ve been on dates before?”
“Yes.”
Sort of.
I mean, as I said, I’m not an attention worthy girl.
I usually stick to the shadows and pass by without making any sort of ripples.
And where I come from, Wuthering Garden, the town of the rich, people don’t generally notice girls with weird taste in jewelry who wear bohemian dresses and have messy, uncombed looking hair and a sketch pad in hand.
Even so, I have been on dates.
With guys in my art classes, back at my old school, before St. Mary’s.
And then there have been dates where I…
Okay, don’t think about it, Wyn. Don’t think about your non-date dates. Especially not in front of him.
“So yeah, you and me,” he says, his eyes taking in my arm chains, his lips twitching with a smirk. “What do you think?”
What do I think?
I think it’s all kinds of wrong. And not only because he’s Callie’s brother. But because Ledger is his brother and oh my God, I can’t even fathom going out with his brother.
Not that he would mind. He doesn’t care and he…
I clear my throat to break my own thoughts and try to appear calm. “Oh, I don’t… I’m sorry but I don’t think so.”
It doesn’t faze him at all.
In fact, it looks like he was anticipating it.
“Why not?” he asks, still standing casually, only a few feet away from me.
“Because I don’t think we’re each other’s type. Besides you’re Callie’s brother and I…”
“You what?”
I press the glass to my stomach even harder. “It would be inappropriate.”
Yes, definitely.
Only it doesn’t feel inappropriate when it’s him.
God, I’m a bad friend.
“You know what, I think I should…” I trail off when he moves.
Ledger unfolds his arms, which I have to admit are extremely corded and sexy but do nothing for me. Nothing at all. They don’t even stir my creativity like his arms do.
He closes the gap between us and I swallow thickly, my eyes wide. His eyes, on the other hand, are calm and relaxed and serious.
“Look, I’m not the best guy, I’ll tell you that right away,” he says, his gaze flicking all over my face.
“I’ve been a player. I’ve been an asshole too.
To girls, I mean. And I’m pretty sure Callie would freak out at the thought of you and me.
Not because she wouldn’t want you to be with her brother.
But because she wouldn’t want her asshole brother, me, to be with one of her innocent friends, you.
Despite that, I’d very much like to take you out on a date.
I think you’re interesting. You’re quiet and maybe sad and I think I could get you to smile.
Even though we’re not each other’s type.
But then who made the rule that you can only go out with someone your type, right?
I’d like to break the rules for you, if you’d let me.
So this is me breaking all the rules and asking you out. What do you say?”
Oh that was… good.
I swallow again. “You’d like to break the rules for me?”
He nods slowly, his expression earnest. “Yes. You should think about that too, breaking the rules.”
I would laugh if I could.
That’s what I’ve thought about, breaking the rules. Ever since he came to St. Mary’s, back in November. Not Ledger but someone else.
Him.
I’ve broken a million rules for him since then, for his love and all of this would be funny, his brother asking me to break the rules, if it wasn’t so painful.
If he was willing to break the rules for me too.
Maybe I should say yes. I mean, how long am I going to be hung up on someone who’s not hung up on me. Who will never be hung up on me.
But I can’t.
Because I have to ask Ledger and with a sigh, I do. “What about her though?”
“What about who?”
I look him in his pretty brown eyes. “Tempest.”
That gets me a reaction. A pretty fierce one.
His brows snap together and his square jaw goes tight. His entire body goes tight as he replies, “What about her?”
“I thought… she was important to you. I mean, the way you were pretending to not stare at her and —"
“Tempest is nothing.”
And I know he’s lying.
He’s lying in the way I lie. To myself I mean.
When I’m angry at myself. For wanting him.
For wanting a man who doesn’t want me back.
Finally I also know why he followed me in here. Maybe he was trying to get away from the crowd too. From her, Tempest.
I smile at him sadly and say, “You know, it would be a great idea to go on a date. But you’re…”
But I trail off because I notice a movement behind Ledger’s shoulders. A flash of dark hair and stricken gray eyes. Tempest.
She’s standing at the kitchen threshold and from the looks of it, she heard everything. When she spins around and leaves, my heart twists for her, for the disdain and rejection she must’ve heard in Ledger’s voice.
I’m about to go after her, maybe help her understand what’s going on in Ledger’s head, but I freeze.
Because she isn’t the only one who heard things.
Someone else did too.
Someone who lives in my dreams. Has been living in my dreams ever since I accidentally met him on a summer night. Ever since he told me to follow my dreams before becoming a dream himself.
He stands at the threshold too, all tall and muscular.
His navy blue eyes taking in the scene before him, taking in the closeness between me and his brother. His chest broad and his fists closed at his sides.
When our eyes clash, my lips part to exhale a trembling breath.
He looks at them for a second before he snaps his gaze up and leaves. Just like Tempest did.
And this time my heart twists so fiercely, so forcefully that I know it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter that my dream man, who also happens to be Callie’s oldest brother and our soccer coach at St. Mary’s, doesn’t want me.
Because I want him.
I want Conrad Thorne.
I love Conrad Thorne.
I love him even though he loves someone else…
Continue the series with Conrad & Bronwyn’s Story (These Thorn Kisses).