Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
ADDISON
I’d been off my game all day. Or, more accurately, since my encounter with Chase last night. I couldn’t think with him around. It was as if he fried every brain cell I had, and I absolutely hated it.
In an effort to shove him out of my mind, I’d overworked myself.
I’d managed to destroy only one stress peen as I’d reached out to several contractors in the area to get quotes for rehabilitating our decrepit ice-skating rink and surrounding buildings, recorded twenty new videos for our social media accounts, emailed back and forth with Levi’s former bestie turned journalist, Harper, about possible articles on the resort, and started planning our spring marketing campaign.
I wanted to do all I could to make sure the resort stayed at the top of people’s minds.
Just because things were going well right now didn’t mean I’d forgotten exactly how tough times had been for us in the not-so-distant past.
It was nearly eight by the time I dragged myself upstairs to my room, grateful I was on the other side of the house from Aiden after the looks I’d seen Avery shooting his way.
I loved that they’d gotten together—hell, I was the whole reason they had!
—but I absolutely did not need to know what my best friend sounded like during a night with my brother.
I shuddered at the thought and stepped through my bedroom door to find Levi lounging on my bed, ankles crossed, phone in hand. “Hey. Did we have plans tonight?”
“Nah. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
I set my iPad on my dresser and kicked off my shoes, glancing at him with a raised brow. “About what?”
“Chase needed a place to stay, so I let him use my room.”
I tripped over absolutely nothing on my way to the adjoining bathroom and turned around slowly to face my brother. “You what?”
He didn’t lift his eyes from his phone, clearly not reading the sharpness in my tone. “Told him he could stay in my room this week.”
“Why the fuck did you do that?”
He shot a look my way before shifting his attention back to his phone. “He’s waiting for furniture to be delivered to his new place, and he can’t stay at his parents’.”
I didn’t give a single shit about his furniture or the lack of accommodations at his parents’ house. What I cared about was keeping my sanity intact. And that absolutely could not happen with him sleeping right next door to me. My entire avoidance plan would be out the fucking window.
“What about the cottages?” I asked, panic rising in my voice.
This time, Levi lowered his phone to his chest and met my eyes, his brows raised. He spoke slowly, as if he were explaining something to a child. “The cottages have been booked for months, as you continually remind me. What’s the big deal?”
The big deal? The big deal? The big deal was I had absolutely no willpower when it came to Chase. I never had. And now he was going to be directly next door, separated from me by a measly bathroom shared between our rooms?
Absolutely not.
“Why can’t he stay in Brady’s old room? Or Beck and Ford’s?”
“Because they’re still filled with paper towel cartons—and Jesus Christ, how many did Aiden accidentally order anyway?”
“We can move them into your old room and send Chase across the house.”
“Yeah…I’m not doing all that.” He shook his head, dismissing it without thought. “What, are you worried about him bringing random women back here?”
Well, I hadn’t been, but I sure as hell was now.
Levi shrugged. “I’ll tell him to get his dick wet elsewhere. That work for you?”
Without my permission, images of Chase doing exactly that assaulted me. If the tabloids were anything to go by, it’d be someone leggy and blond with huge boobs stuffed into a child-sized jersey with his number on it.
“I don’t care what he does with his dick.” Lie. “When’s he going to be here?”
In other words, how long did I have to prep for this absolute fucking catastrophe?
“Any minute. When you’re done freaking out, how about you shut up so we can watch Vampire Diaries?”
“Not tonight.” Any other time, I’d give my brother shit for being addicted to teen dramas, but I was preoccupied trying to determine a game plan. I needed to lock myself in my room and never come out. Figure out how to do all my work from right here in this 12’ x 14’ box.
Levi finally swept his gaze over me, his mouth pulled down in a frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said too quickly. Just trying to avoid your best friend because I’m done fucking him and fucking up my life in the process. “I have my period, and I don’t want you in my face.”
He gave me a dubious look, and I threw my hands in the air. “Do I have to start throwing tampons at your head to get you to leave?”
“Fine. Jesus, you vicious little shit. You don’t have to yell about it.”
“I’m not yelling.” I was totally yelling.
He stood from my bed and walked past me, ruffling my hair in the process. “I’ll wait for him in my room and tell him to steer clear of the red beast. Text me if you need anything.”
“Great. Thanks. Get out.” I pressed my hands against his back and shoved him the rest of the way out of my room, slamming the door in his face and locking it for good measure. There wasn’t anything I could do about the connecting bathroom door, though.
I just had to hope Chase wasn’t stupid enough to come through it. Because I might not actually have my period right now, but I could muster up some PMS rage if I needed to. And I had absolutely no problem directing it straight at him.
Addison:
I know you’re busy getting freaky with my brother
*shudder*
But I have an SOS situation over here
Addison:
Seriously
You need to come to my room
Immediately
Probably daily for the rest of our lives
Since I’m never leaving here again
Addison:
I’m going to take your silence as a need for further explanation
Why am I trapped here forever?
Oh nothing major
JUST THAT HE WHO IS DEAD TO ME IS STAYING IN LEVI’S OLD ROOM
AKA the room directly next to mine
Connected by a bathroom
You remember how that worked out for you and Aiden???
Addison:
HELLO?
MY GOD
How long does it take my brother to get you off???
Does he need a manual?
I’m literally dying over here!
Avery:
First, you’re not LITERALLY dying, you drama queen. Second, he has no problem getting me off, believe me. He stopped at three this time thanks to your incessant text interruptions.
Addison:
omg
That’s more than I ever wanted to know about my brother and his delivery of O’s
Avery:
You’re the one who brought it up. But let’s get to the issue here. What do you mean, He Who Shall Not Be Named is staying in Levi’s old room???
Addison:
Exactly what I said
Tell my brother he can play porn star later
I need you now
Avery:
Be there in 2
True to her word, Avery showed up at my door a couple minutes later, carrying the pan of brownies she’d baked earlier in the day. “I figured if you were going to stay in here for the rest of your life, you’d need sustenance.”
“And all you brought were brownies?”
“What else matters, really?” She walked over and plopped down on my bed with the pan in her lap and immediately dug in. “I haven’t seen you much since the bar, so you’re gonna have to fill me in. How did we go from you glaring at him in One Night Stan’s to him staying in the room next door?”
I joined her on the bed and grabbed a brownie for myself, stuffing nearly the whole thing into my mouth in an effort to make myself feel better. It didn’t work. “I have no idea. Except for the fact that Levi is obviously out to get me.”
“Sweetie, I’m pretty sure this lies squarely at He Who Shall Not Be Named’s feet. Levi doesn’t have a clue about you two and hasn’t for years.”
“Aiden doesn’t either, right?”
She shook her head. “He asked about it after the bar, but I made up a story about Chase ruining your favorite dress freshman year, and then distracted him with a beej.”
“Gross.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, good thinking, I guess. Because I definitely don’t want any of them to know.” I pursed my lips to the side and glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. “Except I did think about telling Levi just to see if that would get the asshole to back off.”
Avery scoffed. “I don’t believe you for a second. Let’s cut the shit, and how about you tell me what’s really going on?”
What was going on was the only man I’d ever cared about had left me in the rearview without thought. What was going on was I’d allowed him to break my heart—not once, but twice—and I had no intention of allowing it a third time.
I threw my hands up in the air and lied through my teeth. “What’s going on is the person I want to see least in the world is staying twenty feet away from me.”
She lifted her brows, skepticism written on her face. “So this is the story you’re going with, is that right?
“There’s no story. It’s the truth.”
“Mhmm,” she said flatly. “So, we’re just going to ignore the fact that for the past however many years, you guys have hooked up every time he’s been home?”
I cleared my throat and avoided her gaze. “Yes, I would like to ignore that, thank you very much.”
“And how about the sobfest over margaritas last year after Christmas? Are we going to ignore that, too? Or the one in June after you found out he was injured and never texted you back? Or the one just a couple weeks ago when he didn’t come home for Christmas without a word?”
When she laid it all out like that, it made me feel even more pathetic than I already did, and I fucking hated feeling like that.
I blew out a ragged breath, my entire body deflating as I shook my head, my gaze locked on a loose thread on my comforter. “I can’t do it again with him. I need to move on with my life once and for all.”
She studied me for long moments before nodding.
“Okay. If that’s how you really feel, then what you need to do is pretend he doesn’t exist. He’s dead to you, remember?
If you hide away in your room, he’ll know he’s getting to you.
Show him he’s not.” She grabbed another brownie and looked at me with raised brows.
“And maybe if you do it long enough, you’ll start to believe it, too. ”