Chapter 10 #3
She shifted uneasily beside him, the stretch of silence between them growing uncomfortable. Her shoulder grazed his and she didn’t move away. Neither did he.
She searched to change the subject, but Thomas beat her to it.
“We should have bought vanilla ice cream.”
Nadia sighed, her smile instant at the memory of their shared treats at Joe’s. “Hot fudge sundaes sound so good right now.”
“With maraschino cherries.” Thomas’s close-lipped smile curved upward as he stared into his coffee.
“What was her name—Angela? She always gave you two.”
“She wasn’t stupid. She knew we shared.”
“Joe’s hot fudge was the best.” Her mouth twisted. “I’m sure it was canned.”
Thomas chuckled. “I’m sure it was.”
Nadia smiled with him at the memory. Those sundaes had been the best, and not because they’d tasted good.
It had been the company. The fact that he just got her.
Their friendship shifting into something Nadia had always seen as not necessarily more.
Just different from what she had with James and Nick. Even Kristen and Aimee.
She went quiet, lost in her memories of that year. Thomas arched a brow at her.
“Those school nights we met up at Joe’s.
Did I ever tell you why my dad left us?” Thomas shook his head.
“You’re right. I couldn’t have. I didn’t know until my mom told me when I was in high school, and by then you…
” She waved a hand at nothing. He’d been off at university, well into his studies.
“He was having an affair. That’s why my mom kicked him out, and why we had money problems. She told him to stay away.
That she didn’t want anything from him, including his money.
” She thought about how horribly hurt Lisa must have been for her to refuse money from him, given how desperate their situation had been.
While she’d finally come to peace with it, it had made Nadia angry for a long time.
Those years between when her mom confided in her and Nadia’s college graduation that had been very tense between them.
“I’m sorry,” Thomas murmured, fixing his eyes on her.
“Me too. Before she told me, I thought I’d been the reason he left.
I’d disobeyed my parents and wore makeup to school, and my dad about shit his pants.
They’d been fighting over me when Mom kicked him out.
Anyways.” She took a deep breath and crossed her legs at her ankles, leaning against the counter beside Thomas so they faced each other.
The new position put them closer together, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
He frowned. “What isn’t?”
“All this.” She circled her mug. “Your house. James’s anger. The Hidalgos.”
Thomas didn’t say anything.
“Don’t get me wrong. I still hate you.”
“Still regretting you came to look for me at the funeral home?”
“Every goddamn day of my life,” she said with all seriousness.
She finished her coffee, her hair catching in the corner of her mouth with her last sip.
Thomas reached forward, his fingers grazing her cheek below the gauze covering her wound.
He untucked her hair where it was caught before she could.
His touch sent a whisper of longing from her lips straight to her center, which she quickly let disperse.
It was a feeling she didn’t want to acknowledge, but also one she couldn’t let manifest.
Aimee had once told her she couldn’t tell Nadia what to do when it came to Nadia’s feelings for Thomas. She wouldn’t make Nadia choose between her and him. But wasn’t that the thing? Nadia had chosen. Just not in the way Aimee thought.
“You’re worried about Aimee,” he said. He could always read her mind.
“I am.” Nadia was more than worried. Aimee might have been naive once, but she wasn’t stupid.
Sooner or later, she’d figure out Nadia’s involvement with Thomas had deeper roots than him just being James’s brother, or all of them being friends since childhood.
And when that time came, Aimee would change her mind.
She’d want the full story behind James’s disappearance. The one that included Nadia’s role.
“She doesn’t understand why I’m with you. Not here right now. But earlier, when I went to your house.”
“Tell her I didn’t give you a choice.”
“That’s the thing, Tom. You did.” Both of them had, for very different reasons. And she felt like she was always making the wrong one by choosing him. “Do you ever think about it?” she asked before she could stop herself. “What would have happened if things were different? If your father hadn’t—”
“Every day.” Thomas’s admission came quick and unguarded as he stared into his coffee. She felt the words land in the center of her chest, prompting a dull ache she’d spent years ignoring. “I think about who I could have been. Who we—” He stopped, jaw working. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to—”
“Don’t.” His hand tightened on the mug. “Please don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me believe in something better than whatever this is.” He gestured between them. “Not when I’m the reason you have to lie to your best friend every single day.”