Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
I close my eyes as I drop back into the warmth of the tub. Freddie moves away, using his spare hand to turn the bubbles on again. I hadn’t even realised they’d stopped. We sit down.
“Hattie, look at me,” he says, his voice soft but commanding.
“No,” I whisper.
I feel my foot being lifted like before. He runs a finger up the middle again, forcing me to squirm. I finally open my eyes but only to glare at him. “You know what that does to me, don’t you?”
He sighs, shaking his head. “It gets a reaction.”
I give him a look. He knows. I know he knows. I feel the sensation all the way up to my ears. It makes me crave pressure in places he’s making it very clear I can’t have. I feel wanton and needy, and I hate it.
God, I’m so embarrassing.
“You do know if a guy says a girl is no good in bed, it means he doesn’t know how to press her buttons right. Please tell me you know that. No one is bad in bed. He was just being cruel,” he says, still holding my foot, his finger poised as if he will tickle me again if I don’t pay attention.
“Well, he said it anyway,” I say.
“Then he was being cruel.”
“I know. So, I want to prove him wrong.”
Freddie nods, his eyes still on me.
“I shouldn’t have told you any of that.”
“Hattie, it can’t be me,” he whispers.
I drop my head again. This is mortifying.
“I can’t do that to Sam. You know how it was. I can’t take you from him.”
I balk at this. “I’m not his, though. And I didn’t ask you to do anything that would cause a problem between you two. I’d never purposefully hurt Sam. He wouldn’t know.” I shake my head. “It was a childish agreement we made. You don’t really think he’d hold it against me now?”
He exhales sharply. “I think he’d hold it against me, though, and I can’t take the risk. Not with you. And besides, I’m really not that guy anymore.”
I frown at him. “What guy?”
“I’ve been a fling for women for a long time. You know that. I’m not trying to hide it. And I enjoyed that time in my life but that’s not who I want to be anymore.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. I can feel tears building, the familiar, unwelcome sting behind my eyes.
I’m being rejected. This hasn’t happened since I was a teenager.
He quickly lifts a hand to my cheek like he knows I’m about to cry and brushes his thumb there. If he’s trying to soften the blow, I can’t tell if this is sweet or fucking brutal. I lean into it anyway because it feels nice to be touched. Even if only platonic.
“You don’t know this but I was broken up with this year too. A few months before you.”
I part my lips, eyes wide. “I didn’t know you were even dating.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
“I’m sorry…”
He shakes his head. “I needed it. I needed to be hurt for it all to sink in. For me to see what the world looked like for me right in that moment. I had no one. No one who really cared about me. I’d leant on Dad’s support for years, his pressure to pursue success, to better myself, always thinking about the next step.
As soon as I achieved something, it was time to look forward, never ok to just settle there.
“And when Mia left, I didn’t realise how fucking lonely my existence was, because you know what?
Dad didn’t even want to know that I was feeling down.
It was all, “Get up, Son. Keep pushing on.” There was no time for me to wallow.
No patience for it at all. So, I reached out to Sam. And you know what?”
I nod. Because I know exactly what my best friend in the whole wide world would do.
“He listened,” I say.
He half-smiles. “And I didn’t deserve that from him, I know I didn’t.”
“You did. You just…”
“I didn’t. I did not deserve it. And now I have a second chance to be his brother. I have a chance to make it right between us.”
He pauses, waiting for me to catch up on his point, but I already know it. I push back to release my face from his hand. He lets go as I float backwards. “I’m so sorry I made that awkward,” I mutter.
He shakes his head as if to say I didn’t as he rises out of the tub.
I try not to look at his perfect, wet body as he climbs out, guilty I ever took the time to look at him at all, when he’s only here to get closer to Sam again.
Of course, that makes sense now. Sam is so forgiving.
So, kind. To even think about touching his brother, after all these years, sends a shot of guilt right through me.
“Hattie,” Freddie mutters. I look up to find him holding his hand out for me, my towel already in his other, ready to wrap me in while he stands in the freezing night air, not even shivering.
I step up, taking his hand to help me out, but only because I’m drunk and the chances of me falling and slipping to my death right now are high. I take the towel and wrap it quickly, hating the bite of air against my wet skin.
“Thanks, and I’m sorry,” I whisper, before trotting off to the doors.
“Hattie,” he says again. I pause briefly at the door. “We can add that to the list. Nobody has to know. And don’t apologise; I understand. And I’m sorry too. Trust me. I am really sorry it can’t be me.”
Mortifying.
I smile but it feels more like a grimace. Then I disappear inside the toasty lodge, sprinting to the shower on the first floor to warm myself up before I go to sleep.