Chapter 21
twenty-one
. . .
Top-Five Trauma
HALSTON
I’m wearing Warren’s shirt when Marley finds out.
Objectively, this is terrible timing.
The shirt is dark gray and soft from too many washes. It’s too large on me in the exact way a shirt should be when it belongs to a man built like Warren. It’s the shirt he’s left at my place before sneaking down to the kitchen in the morning.
It smells like him, too. Clean soap and coffee.
It’s hanging off of my shoulder while I stand barefoot in my apartment, holding a mug of coffee that Warren made me before I woke up.
Warren is at the kitchenette washing a pan he used to make eggs. He’s shirtless, his hair loose from when I pulled it free twenty minutes ago and dragged my fingers through it as I kissed the side of his neck until his fingers tightened on my hips.
His tattoos look sexy. Black ink over his broad shoulders. Enough to make my mouth water.
My bed is unmade, but my coffee is perfect. My thighs are still warm from where he lay between them ten minutes ago and kissed me like he had nowhere else to be.
It’s the kind of scene I would have held in my mind for months if I’d watched it in a movie.
Warren glances over his shoulder. “You’re smiling.”
“I’d like to consider it resting joy face.”
“Is that a thing?”
“It is for me.”
Downstairs, the bakery is closed. We open late on Mondays, and we have forty-five minutes before Lisa arrives, fifty before Dev, and at least an hour before Marley, who texted me last night to say she was sleeping in because content creation has destroyed her bones.
So, naturally, this is when my apartment door unlocks.
My entire soul leaves my body.
Warren turns off the sink.
The door swings open, and footsteps climb the stairs two at a time. When Marley steps into the room, I can’t breathe.
She’s carrying a pink bakery box, a stack of printed labels, and a tote bag full of what looks like ribbon samples.
“Okay, I know I said I was sleeping in, but the packaging place called me early and I found this ribbon that would be perfect or emotionally manipulative—I need you to tell me which—”
She stops.
Her gaze bounces from me to Warren’s shirt on my body, then to Warren standing shirtless.
The bakery box slides from Marley’s hand.
Confusion flashes in her eyes before realization sets in.
And then the smallest, most devastating flicker.
Oh, I was right.
Then hurt.
“Oh,” she says flatly.
I put the mug down on the table.
“Marley,” I say quietly.
She laughs once.
“Wow.”
Warren steps forward. “Marley.”
Her gaze cuts to him. “Do not.”
He stops.
Marley looks back at me, and the hurt under her anger makes me feel like vomiting.
“So this is happening.”
I swallow. “Yes.” It comes out small.
“How long?”
I look at Warren.
“Don’t look at him like you’re trying to get your stories straight. Tell me how long.”
Warren’s voice is low. “It started the night before you introduced us.”
She rolls her eyes. “I knew that. I had to learn about my brother’s pierced dick before breakfast, which, by the way, remains a top-five trauma, and in case you don’t remember, our lives have been full of trauma.”
“Marley,” Warren says.
“No, you don’t get to Marley me.”
He goes quiet, and she turns back to me. “I’m asking how long this has been going on.”
My throat burns. “When we made the Coconut Bloom.”
“Really?” Her face pales.
I nod.
“Oh my God.”
“Marley—”
“No, don’t.” She steps back. “You let me sit there and joke about it. You let me make comments. You let me think I was being overprotective and dramatic and weird because I kept saying something was happening, and you both looked at me like, ‘No, Marley, we’re adults. It’s complicated, Marley. Stop policing eye contact, Marley.’”
She looks between us, her eyes shiny.
Angry tears.
“You made me feel stupid.”
It feels like a punch.
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes. Yes, Halston, you did.”
I take a step toward her, and she takes a step back.
I stop.
Marley wipes under one eye quickly, furious. “I kept thinking I was crazy for feeling weird because you’re my best friend and you’re my brother and I love both of you so much, and yet somehow I was the only person without all of the information.”
Her mouth trembles.
She’s right. She’s completely right.
I built an argument in my head for why we weren’t really lying. Not exactly, anyway. We weren’t making an announcement. We weren’t ready to. There are complications. Warren is temporary. I think he still is. Marley had already been upset. Everything happened at once.
But all of those were soft cushions I built around the truth.
We knew something Marley didn’t. We let her stand there while we denied it.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Her eyes close.
The words aren’t enough. “I’m so sorry, Marley. I should have told you. I should have told you when it changed. It wasn’t like this the whole time. But I should have said when it stopped being accidental and started being…” I glance at him. “This.”
Her jaw jumps.
“I was scared,” I say. “And embarrassed. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I did. I made you feel like you were on the outside, and I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her eyes open.
“Don’t do that,” she whispers.
My chest aches. “Do what?”
“Be good at apologizing. I want to be mad.”
“You can still be mad.”
“I know.”
“You should be.”
She looks away, tears spilling despite her obvious attempt to prevent them.
I hate myself. A lot.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “Not because we got caught. We should never have made you feel foolish for trusting us.”
She presses her lips together.
“I’m sorry, too,” Warren says softly.
Marley turns on him. “Are you?”
He squares his shoulders. “Yes.”
“For what?”
He pauses.
“For lying by omission,” he says.
I close my eyes.
Oh, Warren.
Marley laughs again, sharp and disbelieving. “Lying by omission.”
“That’s what it was.”
“That’s what you call it when you don’t want to feel guilty.”
He flinches.
And as much as I want to protect him, I don’t. Marley needs this moment much more than Warren needs to be protected from shame.
Marley steps closer to him.
“You came back into my life,” she says.
Warren goes still.
“You came back,” she repeats, her voice shaking. “After years of being the person who left and checked in and sent money and showed up when things were already on fire. You came back and immediately created a secret with my best friend.”
“Marley—”
“No.” Her voice cracks. “You don’t get to make that sound reasonable.”
His mouth closes.
“You raised me,” she says. “I know. I know what you gave up. I know you fed me and signed forms and learned how to braid my hair badly and made sure Dad’s bullshit didn’t swallow me whole.”
Warren looks down.
“Look at me.”
He does.
Tears fall down her face freely.
“But raising me doesn’t mean you get to manage every person I love.”
I watch the words hit him. Watch his body absorb them.
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle.”
Warren swallows. “I wasn’t trying to manage you.”
Her eyes flash. “Yes, you were.”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he says honestly.
She throws up her hands. “And look how that went.”
He flinches again.
I take a breath. “Marley.”
Her gaze snaps to me. “You both let me be the joke.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper.
“I know.” She wipes her cheek. “That’s the worst part. I know you didn’t mean to. I know you love me.”
I nod, tears spilling. “I do.”
Her face crumples. For a second, she looks younger. Like the girl Warren raised. Like the sister who learned care from a brother who had no idea how to make it soft.
She pulls herself back together.
She picks up the fallen box and bag.
I kneel immediately.
“Don’t,” she says.
She gathers everything herself while Warren and I watch, unsure what to do.
Then, she looks at me. “Do you love him?”
I feel the air grow thick and heavy as the weight on my shoulders becomes harder and harder to bear.
I could lie. I could say I don’t know. It wouldn’t be fully false. Love can be complicated.
But I do know.
“I think I’m falling in love with him,” I say softly.
Warren makes a small sound, but I don’t look at him. Marley closes her eyes again like she expected to hear it, and it still stings.
“And you couldn’t tell me that?” Her chin quivers as her eyes grow shiny.
My tears fall harder. “I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m scared of losing you.”
Her face twists. “So you made sure I’d feel betrayed instead?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I know.”
She turns to Warren. “Do you love her?”
I turn toward him before I can stop myself, my pulse loud in my ears.
The man looks like someone brought him to the edge of a cliff and asked him to prove that gravity exists.
His gaze moves from me to Marley as he shifts uncomfortably.
Marley laughs, but there’s no humor. “Wow.”
Warren’s face goes pale. “That’s not—”
“Not simple?” Marley offers.
His mouth closes.
“Complicated? Temporary?”
“Marley,” I whisper.
“No.” She shakes her head. “Forget it.”
Warren takes a step forward and stops himself. “I’m not good at this.”
Her eyes brim with tears again. “That’s not an apology.”
He inhales. Slow and steady. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“For what?”
“For treating you like someone I needed to manage. For not trusting you.”
He looks at me. “For doing the same to you.”
Something squeezes in my chest.
He looks back at Marley. “And for coming back into your life and acting like being useful gave me authority.”
Her lips press together tightly.
“Do you even want to be here?” she asks.
He goes still.
“In Maryland,” she clarifies. “With me. With her. With everything here.”
His gaze drops as he tries to think of the best response.
“I can’t keep being someone you come back to only when there’s a problem,” she says.
His face breaks. “Marley.”
“I can’t. I love you. I do. But I cannot keep feeling grateful for scraps of you because you raised me and I know it was hard.”
A tear slips down his cheek.
“I needed my brother too, Warren. Not just someone who kept the lights on.”
Warren doesn’t answer.
I stand there in his shirt, crying in front of my best friend, realizing how broken everything is.
She grabs her tote bag. “I need to leave.”
Panic rushes through me. “Marley.”
She looks at me.
“I love you,” I say immediately. “I know that doesn’t fix this. I know I hurt you. I know I made you feel stupid. And I hate that I did that. I’ll keep apologizing, and I’m not asking you to forgive me right now.”
Her face crumples. “Stop being reasonable.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing too.” She pauses. “I love you too.”
Relief flows through me.
Then she adds, “But I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
I nod. “Okay.”
She looks at Warren.
“I love you,” he says.
Marley’s eyes fill. “I know.”
She walks down the stairs, and the door opens and closes.
The apartment settles around us. We don’t speak. I look at the bakery box on the table. The labels stacked neatly beside it.
Warren looks toward the stairs.
“I should get dressed,” I say softly.
Warren turns to me, his face wrecked in the quietest way. “Halston.”
“I can’t talk yet,” I tell him.
He stops.
“I’m not saying forever. I just can’t right now.”
He nods once.
He reaches for his undershirt on the chair, and I take off his T-shirt and hand it to him.
He waits a second before he leaves. Maybe because leaving is what he always does, staying feels impossible, and neither of us knows the right answer when one of the people we love most has just asked for space.
Then he picks up his boots and goes barefoot down the stairs.
The door closes behind him. And I’m alone.
The apartment holds the aftermath.
A roll of blue ribbon is left behind. I pick it up.
It’s soft between my fingers. Marley had probably brought it because she knew I’d love the color.
She was here because she loves me.
I sink to the edge of the mattress and press the ribbon to my chest.
For a while, I just cry.
But life keeps moving.
My phone buzzes on the table. For one hopeful second, I think it’s Marley.
It’s not. It’s Oliver.
OLIVER
You alive?
I stare at the message and type back with shaking fingers.
Technically.
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
Then:
OLIVER
That bad?
I look at the stairs. The ribbon. All the love in the room and the damage beside it.
I type:
Worse.
Oliver answers immediately.
OLIVER
Come down when you’re ready. No rush. Warren and I have it handled.
It’s eight in the morning.
I cry.
For so many reasons. But mostly because Oliver is here for me. And because Marley left. And especially because I’m falling in love with a man who doesn’t know if he’s staying. I hurt my best friend.
I lie back on the mattress.
For the first time in a while, sweetness is not enough.