13. Paige #2
The laughter takes over completely. Hysterical, unhinged laughter, the kind that comes when you’ve burned your entire social life to the ground in one afternoon and there’s nothing left to do but acknowledge the absurdity.
Wes starts laughing too. I don’t know if he’s laughing at me or with me, but it doesn’t matter. The sound of it - deep and genuine and so different from Cole’s performative chuckle - breaks something loose in my chest.
When the laughter finally subsides, I’m wiping tears from my cheeks, and the tension in the cab has shifted into something else entirely.
Wes is looking at me.
Not the way he looked at me at the construction site, with all that careful control. This is different. This is the look he must have been hiding for twelve years - hungry and hopeless and so full of want that I feel it like heat against my skin.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re finally looking back.”
The rain hammers against the roof, and in the enclosed cab, I’m hyperaware of everything. The heat radiating off his body. The way his hands grip the steering wheel - white-knuckled, like he’s holding onto his control with everything he has. The scent of him: rain and pine and warm male skin.
My thighs press together. An involuntary response to the heat pooling low in my belly. My mouth has gone dry, and I can feel my pulse throbbing in places that have no business throbbing in a truck during a thunderstorm with my husband’s brother.
This is insane, I think. It’s been two weeks. You’re still technically married. He’s Cole’s brother.
But Cole is a liar. Cole was never really my husband - not the way I thought. And Wes is looking at me like I’m the only real thing in a world full of performances.
“I shouldn’t want you yet,” I hear myself say. “It’s been two weeks. My marriage isn’t even officially over.”
“I know.”
“If I touch you right now, Cole wins. He gets to say he was right about us.”
“Cole doesn’t get to decide anything about us.”
The words hang there, dangerous and true. Us. Like we’re an entity now, something separate from the wreckage of my marriage.
I reach across the console and put my hand on his thigh.
High. Higher than friendly. Higher than anything I should be doing with my brother-in-law in a truck during a thunderstorm while my divorce papers sit unsigned on a lawyer’s desk somewhere.
I feel the muscle tense under my palm. Feel the sharp intake of his breath. Feel the way he goes completely still - like he’s afraid any movement will shatter whatever this is.
I should pull back. I should apologize, blame it on the adrenaline, the chaos, the fact that my whole life is a dumpster fire and I’m clearly not thinking straight.
Instead, I slide my hand higher.
His thigh is warm through the denim. Solid. When my fingers brush the inseam of his jeans, his whole body shudders, and the sound he makes - low, strangled, barely controlled - sends a spike of heat straight to my core.
We shouldn’t do this, I think. Not here. Not now. Not when anyone could drive past and see us.
But the windows are fogged with rain and breath, and no one’s coming up this road in a storm like this, and I’m so tired of shouldn’t.
“Paige.” My name in his mouth sounds like a warning.
“I know it’s wrong. But I can feel it - whatever this is between us. It’s not only me.” My voice is steadier than I feel. “I just - I need to touch something real. Someone who isn’t lying to me.”
His hand covers mine. Rough palm, calloused fingers, the warmth of his skin bleeding through the denim of his jeans. But he doesn’t move my hand away - and he doesn’t move it higher, either.
“You can touch me whenever you want,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, like something’s scraping its way out of his throat. “But I’m not going to touch you back. Not until you’re free of him.”
“Because of Cole?”
“Because you deserve to know that I can wait.” His thumb traces a small circle on the back of my hand. “That I will wait. However long it takes.”
I want to scream. I want to climb across this console and straddle him and make him forget about waiting. I want to feel his hands on me, his mouth on me, I want to replace every memory of Cole’s careful, measured touch with something raw and real and desperate.
But he’s right. I know he’s right.
That doesn’t stop me from leaning across the console.
I mean to kiss his cheek - something safe, something I can pretend doesn’t count - but he turns his head at the last second, and my mouth catches the corner of his. Not quite a kiss. Not quite innocent.
His breath stutters.
His hand tightens on mine.
Neither of us moves. We’re frozen there, my lips a millimeter from his, his breath warm on my skin, the storm raging outside like the weather itself is trying to force us together.
“Paige.” My name again, but different now. Broken apart. A warning and a prayer all at once. “If you do that again, I’m not going to be able to stop at waiting.”
I pull back just far enough to see his face. His eyes are dark, his jaw tight, and I realize with a thrill that runs straight through my body: he’s barely holding on. Twelve years of control fraying at the edges because I put my hand on his leg and almost kissed him.
“Good,” I whisper. “I don’t want you to be comfortable. I want you to want me the way I’m starting to want you - like it’s going to kill you to wait.”
His breath comes out in a rush, like I’ve punched him. His hand tightens on mine almost to the point of pain, then releases.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he says. “You know that, right?”
“Maybe.” I settle back in my seat, my heart racing so hard I can feel it in my throat. “But at least you’ll see it coming.”
The storm rages on outside. Neither of us says another word.
But his hand doesn’t let go of mine until we pull into his driveway an hour later - and even then, his fingers linger.