Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Henry
T he flight home held the title for the longest and most miserable I’d ever taken.
We touched down in England in the piss-pouring rain sometime in the early hours of the morning, because summer in this country went that way.
Glorious sunshine one day, arctic conditions the next.
What else did I really expect after two weeks of paradise?
England always had a way of letting you know it was pissed off with your betrayal at having visited another country.
Whether Andy had seen something in me when I’d warned him not to get in my way earlier or not, I couldn’t be sure, but his growls had gotten softer, and he’d even asked me if I wanted a pint in the airport, which I’d refused, too pissed at him to do anything but look down at my phone and scroll through the pictures of Phoebe.
Especially the ones from the last seven days.
Her bright white smile and sparkling eyes stared back at me, and the longer the holiday went on, the more she relaxed in my company with every image I looked at.
Fuck, the girl was stunning, and not just on the outside. In fact, her inner beauty outshone those angel blue eyes of hers I couldn’t stop thinking about.
I’d known it when I’d held her in my arms last night, and I’d known it when I’d kissed our final goodbye, but now the truth of how I felt slapped me up the side of the head like a sledgehammer.
I’d fallen for her.
This thing between us had turned from lust to… that one word I never thought I’d feel, and it had taken no time at all.
Now, I had to endure the car ride home from the airport with that knowledge slapping me in the head and heart over and over again.
I slid into the passenger seat when Jace snuck into the back of Andy’s car with one of the suitcases, leaving me with no other option.
I hadn’t planned to be up front, but Jace wasn’t always as thick as he pretended to be, and when he flashed his cocky smirk my way, I knew his move had been intentional.
He wanted Andy and me to talk it out in a confined space before we arrived home and dragged this thing out for another few weeks, months, or even for ever.
I’d been ready to go for it, too, when Andy’s phone rang over the speaker, and the sound of an all too familiar voice floated through the car when he accepted the call.
“Hey, big bro. You’re home!” Lillie cried out, unaware of her horrific timing.
Andy’s knuckles tightened around the steering wheel; the not-so-subtle side eye he gave me well and truly noted. “Hey, Lils. Yeah, we’re back. Landed an hour ago. Just on the M4 now. What are you doing awake at this time?”
She laughed. “Do you not know me at all? It’s 5:00 a.m. What do I do every morning at 5:00 a.m.?”
Lillie had always been an early riser when I’d been with her, driving me crazy with her social media-inspired perfect schedule of working out early at the gym, followed by a protein smoothie, a macro-counted breakfast, a full shower including hair wash and blow dry, before she’d finally think about making her way to work that day if she had it.
While I admired her dedication, I wondered sometimes why she lived that way and documented it all. Was it for her enjoyment? Or everyone else’s?
“Like I could forget how crazy you are,” Andy told her, but he couldn’t hide the tension in his voice.
“Can you believe this storm we’re having in the middle of summer?”
Andy leaned forward and glanced up at the dark, grey skies as the rain beat down on his car like an ASMR lover’s dream. “It’s England. What else should we expect?”
“Please be careful driving in this.”
“I’m always careful.”
Jace cleared his throat in the background.
“Oh,” Lillie said. “You still got the guys with you?” She knew damn well we’d be here.
“Yeah. Jace and… Cohen.”
“Hey, Cohen,” she said sweetly.
I glanced Andy’s way cautiously, seeing the way his hands tightened around the wheel again. “What’s up, Lillie?”
“Oh. You know. Just… living my best life.” She paused, expecting a response, I guessed, but I had none to give. “You had a good time in Mykonos?”
Wasn’t that a loaded question? The tension inside the car elevated even more than before, and Jace’s “You could say that” didn’t go unnoticed.
“Yeah,” I answered anyway. “A real good time actually.”
Andy’s head swivelled my way, his eyes narrowing at me in warning. Of what, I had no idea. It wasn’t like I was going to blurt out to my ex-girlfriend, whose heart I’d unwillingly broken, that I’d found someone who could well be my one and only soulmate now, was it?
“That’s… good,” she said. “I’m, ya know… pleased for you.”
“Awkwardness level eleven achieved,” mumbled Jace in the background.
“Shut it, dickhead,” Andy snapped, glancing over his shoulder into the back seat, making the car swerve slightly in the road.
“Christ, Andy.” I reached for the wheel, forcing him to straighten up the vehicle. “Get your shit together, man.”
“What’s happening? Is everything okay?” Lillie asked. “Cohen?”
“All good, Lillie. Nothing to worry about.” I glared at Andy’s profile, barely recognising the man I’d once been so close to, I’d have taken a bullet for him. Hell, I’d still take a bullet for him, but that didn’t mean I liked what I saw when I looked at him right now.
“Sorry, sis,” Andy said with a sigh. “We’re all tired, that’s all. We’ve been travelling through the night. I’ll catch up with you later, yeah? See you at Mum and Dad’s?”
“O-okay,” she said, her voice wavering. “Drive safely. If you’re tired, stop at the services to grab a coffee.”
“Sure thing.”
The call ended, and no one said a word as I leaned back in my seat and stared straight out at the road, waiting for Andy to finally get it off his chest, whatever he kept trying to hold back.
I knew the man well enough to see it coming, and when the time finally arrived, he slapped his hands on the wheel and let out a frustrated growl.
“I fucking hate this, Cohen! Can’t you see that? This is not who we are, you and me. It’s not who I am.”
“Then, stop being it,” I said calmly.
“Like it’s that easy. Like I can just switch off to the fact that my best friend screwed around with my little sister, then expects everything to go back to normal now he’s done with her.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed into my hand, the headache arriving quickly. “I’m so tired of this conversation, Andy.”
“You are? How do you think I feel?”
I looked up slowly to find him glancing between the road and me and back again. “You’re the one who keeps bringing it up. Didn’t you hear Lillie and me talking just now? We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“You’re a fucking idiot if you believe that. She’s more in love with you now than ever before.”
The thought of that being true stung more than it should have. I never wanted to hurt Lillie. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just couldn’t live a lie anymore, either. I refused to.
“If that’s the case, I’m sorry. But what do you want me to do?
Stay single and miserable forever? Serve a life sentence of your anger because I dared to try to love Lillie?
Fuck, you act like I maliciously used her for sex then left her bed cold the next morning.
We were together for months. Months I tried to make it work?—”
“So, what does Phoebe have that my sister doesn’t?” he cut in.
I blinked at him, stunned by his question.
Stunned by how quickly my answer came to me: my heart.
Phoebe had my heart the moment I met her, whereas Lillie had never been able to get near it, no matter how hard she’d dug.
“I’m not answering that, and fuck you for asking it.”
“Fuck me?” His eyes widened. “Fuck me? ”
“Okay, guys, as much as I love my front row seat to this show, I really think we should wait to finish it until we’re outside of a vehicle moving at seventy miles per hour in the piss pouring rain,” Jace interrupted.
“Is this even about Lillie anymore?” I asked, my eyes narrowing at Andy, both of us ignoring Jace.
Andy cast a quick glance my way before facing forward again and taking the turn off the motorway to bring us back to normal roads. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean it’s not normal, this behaviour. So, what’s it really about?”
His jaw tensed, his grip on the wheel tightened, but his silence spoke volumes. This was about something else, not just Lillie anymore.
“Andy?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if it matters to you.”
“Leave it, Cohen.”
“Yeah, I think maybe you should leave it, Cohen,” Jace said from the back seat, but I couldn’t now. Not when I knew there was something more to this than what he’d been letting on all these months.
“Sorry. Can’t. I think it’s time we got this out in the open once and for all, don’t?—”
Andy slapped the steering wheel again, his foot falling heavier on the accelerator as he hit the A roads.
“Don’t you see? Do I have to spell everything out for you?
I’m scared you’re going to pull away for good now because of all this, and I’ll lose one of the best mates I’ve ever had.
So, yeah, it’s about more than just my sister. ”
Stunned silence descended over the car, the only sound being the racing engine as Andy navigated the dark streets and the rain beating down on our return.
He’d been this way because… he didn’t want to lose me? Is that what he was finally confessing?
“Then, why the hell have you been so hostile to me since I ended things with her? Why have you been pushing me away like this?”
He glanced out the side window, taking a moment to himself. “I guess I wanted you to try. As long as you were trying, you weren’t leaving.”
“Leaving?” I choked out. “Where the hell am I gonna go, Andy?”
He turned back to look my way before shaking his head and putting his eyes on the road again.
“I know you, Cohen. I know how shame and regret and all those fucking emotions you seem to drown yourself in dominate any sense of reason or logic you have. You can’t look at Lillie anymore, let alone be around her.
Where is that going to take you? Exactly where it already has.
You avoid family dinners now. You make excuses to stay in your apartment and miss game night.
You throw yourself into work with Dad, even when we all know being an architect is the last thing you wanna be—another thing you’re dutybound to do.
What’s the next step? Moving to another town or city so you don’t have to face Lillie anymore? ”
There were so many emotions racing through me, I couldn’t pick a dominant one to cling onto.
Andy shrugged. “I figured I was the last thing to keep you here. I knew you wouldn’t walk away from me on bad terms, so as long as things were wrong, you’d stick around to make them right.”
“Don’t you see how fucked up that is?” I frowned at his profile, unable to believe all these months of misery had been nothing but a spoilt man-child trying to get his own way with no regards for my feelings whatsoever.
“You know me. I’m fucked up with no reason to be. Doesn’t stop me from being fucked up though.” He glanced my way one more time, and our eyes locked, no one saying a word.
Sometimes there wasn’t anything to say.
We were lost in translation, two grown men struggling to navigate this unknown territory.
The rest happened too quickly.
Andy had taken his eyes off the road for too long.
“Andy, look out!” was the last thing I heard Jace shout from the backseat.
I barely had time to look at the road one final time before the brakes were slammed on sharply, making my body bounce forward until the seatbelt locked into place, holding me back, and the road disappeared in front of us with only the banking up ahead growing closer and closer.
The wheels skidded on the water, making the car swerve this way and that.
The banking’s edge came into view until it disappeared behind us, leaving a steep edge for the car to hurtle down.
“Shit, shit, shit!” filled the car.
I braced my hands and arms for impact, not knowing when it would come or what laid ahead, only two thoughts racing through my mind:
Was I about to go out of this world the same way my parents had?
And would I never again get to stare into the ocean-blue eyes of the woman I’d somehow fallen in love with?
No answers came, because moments later…
Everything turned black.