24. Cassian
Cassian
Iwatch Vivienne leave the barn, and the second she’s out of sight, I throw the brush I’m still holding as hard as I can against the back wall of Rhya’s stall. The mare startles and blows air out of her nose.
“Sorry, girl. I’m not frustrated with you.” I run a hand along her back, then walk over and retrieve the brush. “Not with Viv, either.”
Truth be told, I’m upset at myself for once again being a damn fool.
I’m starting to think I’ve been cursed with sticking my foot in my mouth every time I open it.
Being around Viv only makes it ten times worse.
Somehow I always get backed into a corner where the only way out is to make myself look like an idiot.
And now apparently we’re back to being nothing more than friends.
You’re the one who kissed me. What possessed me to say it? Even if it’s the truth, the look of pain on her face made me want to die.
I could live to be a hundred, lose every single memory in my head, but I’ll never forget that night as long as I live.
I’ve done a pretty good job blocking out the first part—Bash’s crash, the terror as we waited for the paramedics to show up, realizing what Lord Wilson had made us agree to—but what happened next stands out in Technicolor, burned into my memory like scorch marks after a forest fire.
Everyone talks about the smell—that gag-inducing antiseptic mixed with vomit and sick people—but they don’t talk about the cold.
That night, it felt more like a morgue than a hospital.
The vinyl on the chairs in the waiting room was like ice against my skin.
I couldn’t find a thermostat anywhere, but I’m confident that if I had, it would’ve shown no higher than fifty-nine degrees.
Vivienne sat beside me, and her fear was even more bone-chilling than the waiting room itself. She trembled, her entire body shaking. “Why won’t they let me see him?” she asked for the third time.
I wrapped my arm around her, but she didn’t lean into me. “They just want to make sure he’s stable first.”
“He’s my brother.” She said it like that somehow made a difference. Her eyes were locked on the tile floor, and I wasn’t sure when she’d last blinked. “He needs me.”
Rubbing my hand across her back, I wished for the hundredth time that I was better at this kind of thing.
I was twenty years old, and my experience with comforting women could be boiled down to that time I told Amy Gerrard she’d be okay after her nail got caught on my jeans and tore.
It hadn’t worked, and it didn’t seem to be working now.
I wasn’t sure Viv even knew I was there.
The way her gaze stayed glued to one spot made me think anyone could have taken my place and she wouldn’t have noticed.
Grabbing her hand, I tugged her to her feet, then shrugged out of my hoodie and popped it over her head.
She didn’t even bother pulling her hair out of it, just hugged her arms around her waist. She looked like a little girl lost in a woman’s body.
I clutched her arms and ducked to see her eyes, which were still downcast. “He’s going to be okay, Viv.”
“You can’t know that,” she whispered.
She was right. I had no way of knowing if Bash would survive. We hadn’t received any news from the doctor yet. But in that moment, I offered her the only thing I could.
“When has Bash ever backed down from a fight?” I asked her. “Do you really think he’s going to give up now?”
A tiny spark of hope flared in her eyes, which finally met mine. “I can’t lose him, Cass. I just can’t.” Her lower lip quivered.
“He knows that,” I said. “He’ll fight to come back and make our lives miserable again.”
She gulped out a laugh, making me feel like a million bucks. “If we hadn’t—”
“Shhh.” I wrapped my arms around her and pressed her head against my shoulder.
I knew what she was about to say, but this wasn’t the time to talk about what had happened.
There would be more than enough time later for that.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was keeping Viv calm as we waited for news.
Her parents were somewhere in the hospital.
I had heard her dad yelling at several nurses earlier.
After what had happened at the crash site, if I never saw the man again, it’d be too soon.
I’m sure they called their older daughter, Maeve, but she hadn’t shown up yet.
Lord Wilson sent the rest of our friends home, claiming it would draw too much suspicion if we were all at the hospital.
He tried to force me to go home too, but I told him I’d kill him if he kept me away, and I meant every word.
“Don’t they know that our birthday is in two months?” Viv said against my shirt.
“I’m sure they don’t,” I said. “But we’ll tell them the first chance we get.”
I continued rubbing my palm against her back, relishing the feel of her body against mine.
I knew it was a shitty thing to do. Her brother—my best friend—was fighting for his life right now, but I was a twenty-year-old man whose sex drive was a V8 engine at full throttle.
We could be in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and I’d still stop to savor the feel of Vivienne Wilson in my arms.
She was no longer shaking, which felt like a victory. Between my hoodie and body heat, I hoped she was staying warm. I would’ve offered to get her tea if I could’ve done it without letting go of her. As it was, it would’ve taken a crow bar to pry me away.
I don’t know how long we stood in that waiting room, isolated from the world and left to swim in our terror and guilt alone. Neither of her parents ever joined us. They were probably busy forcing the staff to sign NDAs.
Finally, Viv lifted her head to look at me. Fear still lurked in her eyes, but there was something else there, too. Her gaze dropped to my lips, and I realized what it was.
Desire.
She leaned in, and I was too paralyzed to move away. A better man would’ve stepped back, brushed her off, and explained that she was in shock.
I wasn’t a better man. If she wanted to kiss me, I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her no.
The second her lips met mine, every other thought vanished from my mind. I forgot about Bash lying in a hospital bed just feet away. I forgot about her family, who might barge in and find us at any second. I forgot about the fact that this had the potential to change our entire friendship for life.
The only thing I could think about was how soft she was and how good she tasted. She might have instigated the kiss, but once the decision was made, I was in charge. I shoved my hand into her hair, delighting in how silky it was. I had touched it before, but never like this. Never by the fistful.
Angling my head, I urged her to open for me.
She did so without hesitation, letting me plunder the depths of her mouth with my tongue, sweeping it over hers until she groaned.
That small sound nearly ended me right then.
Cradling her face in both hands, I tilted her head back and kissed her with all of the passion I’d ever felt.
I had imagined kissing Vivienne before, obviously. She may be my best friend’s sister, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about what I’d do to her if I ever had the chance.
She’s as beautiful as a supermodel, with a lean and elegant frame, soft curves in all the right places, and a face so gorgeous it hurts to look at sometimes.
Some people become less beautiful the more you get to know them; others become even more attractive.
Viv is the latter. She’s kind, funny, witty, and incredibly smart.
She’s a dream come true, and she was kissing me.
On some instinctive level, I knew she was only doing it because of the fear and trauma she was experiencing, but too much of me wanted it to care.
I’d never once imagined I’d have a chance with her—I wasn’t delusional—so this was likely the only time I’d ever get to kiss her.
I was an idiot, yes, but an idiot who wasn’t about to waste his sole opportunity.
If she hadn’t started it, no way in hell would I have touched her.
Girls like her are off-bounds to guys like me.
It’s a law of human nature that I learned at a very young age.
We’re good for a few fucks, but we’re not the ones they settle down with.
That privilege is reserved for the real estate moguls, the investment bankers, and the Landon Davenports of the world.
Nothing on earth, either before or after, has rivaled kissing Viv. For one brief moment, I thought I was the one who’d been in the accident and that I’d flown to the ninth level of heaven. She blew the fantasies I’d had of her so far out of the water, they became nothing more than distant memories.
I don’t know what prompted me to end the kiss.
A premonition, a noise in the corridor, the sense that we’d just ruined everything—whatever it was, as soon as I pulled back, the enormity of the mistake we’d just made hit me like a load of steel.
I was never going to be able to look at her again without remembering.
Every guy she dated after this would be my enemy. She was going to haunt my dreams.
When I pulled away, Viv was looking at me with a brighter light in her eyes.
The flicker that had been there before was blazing now.
I recognized it immediately: hope. She looked at me like I was something worth looking at, as if there was some universe in which the two of us could be together.
But anyone with two eyes in their head could see it was never going to happen, not the way she was envisioning.
I wasn’t the guy you brought home to your parents, the guy you took to your sister’s wedding, or the guy you accepted a ring from.
I was the guy you fucked in the back of your parents’ limo or in the storage closet during a party.
I was the guy you called at 2 a.m. when you were drunk and wanted to chase away the loneliness.
I was the mechanic at the shop who fixed your car and whom you passed your number to when you signed your receipt.
Viv couldn’t see that because she liked to believe society operated the way she wanted it to.
Her whole life was a cushy pillow, protecting her from the rough edges of the world.
This was her first brush-up with its cruelty, and her first response was to bury herself in denial, to revert to something familiar and comfortable.
I was more than happy to play that part for her, but letting her think it would lead to anything more was just as cruel.
So I did what I had to.
I wiped a hand over my mouth and stepped back the way I should’ve at the beginning. “Sorry. We shouldn’t have done that.” My voice came out gruff.
Her face dropped, her mouth falling open in a small O. “What do you mean? I thought you . . . liked it.”
“That doesn’t mean we should’ve done it.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and I wasn’t sure if they were from my words alone or if the situation was coming back to her. She lifted her chin and nodded, but I knew her well enough to see through the mask of composure she was trying to put on. “So you want to pretend it never happened?”
Relief coursed through me. That was exactly what I wanted, because otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my head.
It was going to be hard enough to move on as things were.
If she was constantly pulling me aside for a quick snog or—god help me—something more, there was no telling how that would end. Not prettily, that’s for sure.
“Yeah,” I said, aiming for nonchalance. “Let’s just forget it. It didn’t mean anything, so we don’t need to tell anyone.”
If Bash ever woke up and found out about this, I’d be the one in the hospital bed. He might be my best friend, but if he thought I was shagging his sister, there’d be hell to pay.
Viv’s lip started trembling again, but I knew it was because she couldn’t escape reality any longer.
She had to face the fact that her brother was fighting for his life.
It had nothing to do with the kiss, and everything to do with needing something I couldn’t give her: the promise that everything would be okay.
“I’m going to get some coffee,” I said. Then I walked past the machine sitting in the waiting room and out into the hallway. I needed to catch my breath, and that wasn’t going to happen when the woman I was in love with was sitting within arms’ reach and in another universe completely.