Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Bellamy
Music floats through the house, sneaking up behind me and escorting me down the stairs. My brain is frazzled, my heart threatening to pound out of my chest as I hurry into the kitchen and lock myself in the powder room.
I look into the gold-framed mirror hanging over the sink. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes wide open as though I’ve ingested too much caffeine.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” I whisper to my reflection.
Rummaging around beneath the sink, I find a hand towel. I wet the corner with cold water and dab it around my face.
This was not how this morning was supposed to go.
“We need to fight or fuck. Get it out of our system.”
I lay the towel on the edge of the sink and hang my head.
I can’t do this with him. I can’t get pulled back into his orbit.
My mind scans our history and begins popping up uncomfortable memories to help my heart—and body—understand the danger of our predicament.
It’s a total Coy move. He sucks you in and disarms you. It’s such a fun way to fall to impending doom. He kisses you, smothering you with attention, and tells you everything you want to hear. But when the time comes to act on any of it, he bails.
I know this.
That’s why I don’t want this.
But dammit. That kiss was amazing.
“Why does he do this?” I groan, closing the toilet lid and sitting on top of it. “And why do I do this too?”
It’s as much my fault as it is his. I know that. I came over here and went toe-to-toe with him, and if I’m honest, I wanted him to kiss me. I needed his touch. As angry as I get with Coy and as much as I tell myself I hate him, being with him is like a balm smoothed over a wound.
A wound that he helped to cause. That’s the kicker.
I race through my options because seeing him again now is a guarantee. At a minimum, I have to snatch Bree up and get her back to my house without making myself look crazy.
Crazier than I looked when he threw me over his shoulder.
I grin. I don’t want to, but I do.
He can be so good when he wants to be. Coy can be silly and playful. He can be kind like he is right now, sitting with a little girl he doesn’t even know and teaching her a skill. He can distract me and make me feel safe.
He can be everything I’d ever manifest for myself.
And he can be the opposite.
He can be the one who turns away, ready to leave, and never looks back. The one who seems to have no clue how he hurts my feelings. How he hurts … me.
I have to remember that.
I blow out a breath and flush the toilet. Then I wash my hands because no one wants to get caught coming out of a bathroom without the water running. Just before I grab the door handle, my phone buzzes in my pocket.
Suit: Drinks tonight? Tomorrow?
I twist my lips.
Suit is a man I met the night Larissa met Hollis a few weeks ago. We meet up for quickies here and there—but that’s all he’s suitable for. He’s not my type. Besides that, he wears suits, and I find that ridiculously hot.
But not hotter than the man upstairs.
I wince.
Me: Busy right now. Text you later.
Suit: Sure. Let me know.
Why do I compare the untouchable hot, though, when I can have nicely convenient at a text’s notice?
You need to get your head examined, Bellamy. And stay away from Coy’s lips.
I shove my phone in my pocket and exit the room.
Siggy comes around the corner. She jumps when she sees me.
“Bellamy,” she says, clutching her chest. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Oh, sorry. I, um, just—”
“Sweetheart, you don’t need an excuse to be here. I love having you here. I just know Coy …” She makes a face. “You know what I mean. You usually avoid us altogether when he’s home.”
“Yeah.” I walk around the table. “Coy is helping Bree, the little girl I babysit. Hear that?”
We pause as someone, obviously Coy, plays Matchbox Twenty’s “She’s So Mean” on the piano. It doesn’t take long before his voice barrels through the house as he sings the lyrics. It’s perfectly in tune and thick and warm.
The bastard.
Siggy tries to withhold a chuckle.
I can’t. I laugh. “It’s fine. We both know Coy is talking about me.”
“I didn’t want to suggest such a thing, but … I think you’re right.” She laughs freely. “He loves getting under your skin.”
I love when he gets under it too.
No. No, no, no.
“Can I get you a drink?” Siggy asks as she opens the fridge. “I’m about to go to the office. My first shipment of the special edition pieces of my new collection comes in today.”
“Larissa was telling me about the new line. She said it’s your best yet.”
Siggy beams. “Well, that’s nice of her to say. I’m in love with it. Rodney says it’ll never sell because I love it so much. The last time I was this obsessed with a collection, I couldn’t give it away.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
She smiles. “Do you want a drink?”
Coy’s voice peters off, and the music stops playing.
I look at Siggy. “I think I better go get Bree. She’ll take up Coy’s whole day if we let her.”
“It’s not like Coy has much else to do.”
I shrug because I don’t know. I don’t know what he has going on or what he has to do.
She must read my reaction because she closes the refrigerator softly.
“Did the two of you make up?” she asks. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but I hate seeing the two of you so estranged.”
I grip the back of a kitchen chair. “We aren’t estranged. Just … on different paths, I guess.”
Walking over to the table, she pulls out a chair and sits.
“I make it a habit not to get involved in my children’s personal lives. It’s not my place,” she says carefully. “But you and Coy—and Boone, for that matter—have been the best of friends throughout your entire lives.”
I nod.
“Sweetheart, those are the friends you want to keep close,” she says softly. “I know Coy is hard to love sometimes.”
“Coy shits clovers.” Boone storms in and barely misses a swat from his mother. “What? It’s true.”
“What does that terrible analogy even mean?” Siggy asks him. “And what are you doing here in the middle of the day?”
I laugh as I watch their interaction. It’s so foreign to me, and if I didn’t adore them both so much, I’d be jealous.
“It means that everything works out for Coy, and he doesn’t even have to try.” He points at me as if my presence personifies it for him. “Coy shits clovers. Get it?”
“Not really,” Siggy says, her face screwed up. “I’d rather not hear that again.”
“Yeah. Same,” I say.
Boone shrugs. “And for the second part of your question, I’m here to eat and to avoid the office.”
“What’s happening at the office?” Siggy asks.
“Oh, nothing except I just convinced Holt not to send me to Portland, and now he and Oliver are at each other’s throats over something else, and I’m being called to side with one of them. That always ends well—with all sarcasm intended.”
“Whose side are you on?” I ask.
Boone looks at me over the door and makes a face before going back to his hunt for food. “Neither of them. Holt will make my life hell professionally, and Oliver will harass me mercilessly in person. I can’t win, so I won’t play.”
“But who is right?” Siggy asks. “If you had to pick a side?”
Boone grabs a slice of pizza from the refrigerator and closes the door. “Oliver. But if you tell Holt that, I will put you in a nursing home when you get old.”
Siggy laughs.
“So on to other more important and interesting topics—what are the two of you doing here?” He grins at me before taking a bite of pizza.
“Well, I live here,” Siggy says. “And Bellamy brought her little babysitting charge over to get lessons from Coy.”
She turns in her seat and smiles at me like we have some big secret.
Boone nods appreciatively. “Well, they can be in the same house without it burning down. Good to know, good to know.”
“You stop that,” Siggy tells him. “Don’t make this awkward.”
I snort. “I kind of think we’re already there. And on that note, I think I’m going to go grab Bree and make a run for the hills.”
“It was great seeing you, Bellamy. Come by any time,” Siggy says.
“Thanks, Siggy. It was nice seeing you too.” I walk to the doorway. “Call me later, Boone.”
He nods with a mouthful of pizza.
I shake my head and make my way back through the house. Baby pictures of the Mason boys hang on the walls of the hallway leading to the stairs. They’re all adorable with chubby cheeks and the same white-blond hair. It’s hard to tell one from the other.
Coy and Bree are walking down the staircase as I approach.
“Bellamy, he is awesome,” Bree tells me. “He knows cool music and not just nursery rhymes.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” I say, raising my brows at him. “Was that Matchbox Twenty I heard?”
He laughs.
The sound sweeps over my ears and quickens the beat of my heart.
I take the workbook and baseball mitt from Bree and join the two of them as they walk to the front door. Coy accompanies us to the porch.
“What did you learn today, Bree?” I ask, trying to fill the silence with some mundane conversation to keep me from blurting something out about the kiss.
“You have to arch your fingers like this.” She holds her hands in front of her like claws. “It keeps them from cramping, and it lets you move them easier. Right, Coy?”
She looks up at him and beams. He grins back down at her.
“That’s right,” he tells her. “Gotta keep good hand posture.”
“Can we play baseball now?” she asks, looking at him like he hung the moon. “I want to work on my curveball.”
“We need to get home,” I tell her, cutting in. “I have to meet the nurse for my daddy. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” She frowns. “Can we come back tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is Saturday, so you’ll be home with your parents,” I point out. “But we’ll get with Coy and see what his schedule looks like for next week. Okay?”
She flashes him a big, toothy smile. “Okay.”
“You did good today,” he tells her. “You’re a natural.”
She shakes with happiness. “Thank you!”
“Sure thing,” he says.
“Can I go back to your house and get a snack cake and turn on the television?” she asks. “Just for one show. One. I won’t ask again today. I promise.”
“Just one,” I tell her. I don’t even get the words out before she’s running across the lawn toward my house.
I watch her go, mostly so I don’t have to look at Coy. I can feel him staring at the side of my face, probably wearing his ridiculous smirk, and I don’t know what to say to him about what went down at the top of the stairs.
“You’re a natural too,” he tells me.
“Oh, really?”
“Yup. You lie with the best of them. Hell, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you hated me.”
I roll my eyes as my cheeks get warm again. “Just because you kissed me doesn’t mean I don’t hate you.”
The air between us shifts. Before I know it, I’m facing Coy.
The intensity in his gaze is something I can’t squirm my way out of. He’s so focused, so superficially sincere, that it takes my breath away.
“Why do you say that?” he asks. “Why do you say you hate me?”
Because it’s easier than the truth.
I force a swallow and try to determine how to answer him.
“Hate is a strong word, Bells,” he says.
“You’re right. I probably don’t hate you. I reserve that for the guy who created plastic Easter grass.”
He bursts out laughing. “What?”
“Oh, come on. Have you not ever had to clean that up? It lasts forever and is only second on my list of dreadful things behind glitter.”
“Wow. That’s serious.”
I half-smile and wish that it was enough to distract him from his question. But it’s not.
I sigh. “I have to get going …”
“Answer me, Bellamy.”
“My dad’s therapy nurse will be at the house in a few minutes. I have to be there for a variety of things, none of which are interesting to you.” I turn and walk down the stairs. “Thank you for helping Bree today.”
My steps pick up pace as I cross the lawn.
“This isn’t over, Bellamy,” he calls after me.
It needs to be.
My brain and body are at war, both wanting what’s best for me.
I know logically that I need to distance myself from Coy.
But the illogical side of me—the side that irrationally holds out hope that the spark between us could sustain a lifelong fire—wants to live in this moment.
It wants to grip the shred of everything being okay, if only for a second.
It’s confusing, and I don’t know which way to turn. So, I tuck my head and ignore the tingle on my lips and make a beeline for the other side of the gate.