Chapter 23 #2
My damn brother. If Nate hadn’t reacted so poorly, none of this would be happening.
How dare he say all those things to Liam.
They’re supposed to be best friends. How in the hell can Nate have a best friend that is worthy of the title but not worthy of being with me?
It doesn’t make a lick of difference to me how many women Liam has been with, so why should it matter to Nate?
I wipe furiously at my face as I drive in the direction of home. Hah. Home. Home should be a place where you feel welcome, but I sure as hell don’t feel welcome there after Nate’s blow up.
“I can’t stay there,” I realize out loud, fresh tears springing to life. I blink rapidly to get rid of them, letting them cascade down my cheeks as I sniffle. No part of me wants to be around my brother right now. I don’t need to hear some version of “I told you so” from him.
When I pull up to my spot in the back, I cut the engine and sit there for a moment, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose.
Collecting myself enough to get through the next ten minutes because Nate’s truck is here which means he came home after Liam’s.
All I need is to pack a bag and then I’m out of here.
A couple minutes later I’m pulling the screen door open and darting up the steps into the kitchen. The silence is deafening, but the tension is palpable. Nate is standing at the kitchen island, and Savanna is across it sitting in one of the breakfast bar chairs.
“Hey,” Savanna greets with a note of hesitation in her voice.
It’s obvious I interrupted them talking about me and Liam.
I spare neither of them a glance as I cross through the kitchen to the hall that leads down to the bedrooms. My room is at the very end of the hall, across from theirs.
It doesn’t take more than a minute to grab a bag from the floor of my closet, tossing it on the bed before I start pulling clothes from my dresser.
“Jor?”
Savanna stands in my doorway, using that same tone. Treading lightly and handling me like I’m a ticking time bomb. Maybe I am. I’m currently hurling clothes at my bed, and at some point between entering the house, and this moment, tears have started to stream down my cheeks.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
Savanna takes a step inside my room. “I can see that. Why?”
Swiping angrily at the tears on my face, I stop and turn to face her. “Ask your stupid husband.”
“He told me he saw you and Liam,” she hedges, glancing over her shoulder toward the hallway. “Doesn’t sound like it went great.”
“It didn’t,” I confirm, turning back to the task at hand. I grab a pair of scrubs and throw them angrily at the bed. “And it went even worse after he left.”
I don’t hear her move, but she’s suddenly at my side, touching my forearm before I have a chance to throw something else at my bed. “What does that mean?”
“What does it mean?” I whirl in her direction.
The sound of my voice sounds shrilly, even to my ears, and I’m certain she feels the same way based on the cringe she gives me.
“It means I hope my brother is fucking happy,” I yell loud enough that I hope Nate overhears me. “Liam broke it off. He ended things.”
“This is exactly why I didn’t want you dating one of my friends,” Nate snarls from the doorway.
I spin towards him, my eyes wild, a renewed surge of anger causing me to throw the t-shirt in my hand at my bed. Immediately I wish I hadn’t so I could wave it in his face instead.
“You call yourself a friend?” I screech. “Do you even know why Liam is the way he is? Have you ever bothered to ask why he doesn’t date? Do you understand why he’s only ever wanted to fuck women?”
The questions are rhetorical because I know he doesn’t know. And when he rears back, just like Liam did in the garage, I put my foot on the gas and keep going. “No, you don’t. You have no idea. Have you ever even asked him? Do you even care?”
“We don’t talk about that shit.” It’s a weak excuse and Nate knows it.
“Which means you don’t know enough about him to have an opinion on whether he’s good enough for me or not!” I throw my hands up and turn in frustration towards my bed, grabbing clothes to shove into the bag.
“You broke your promise to me.”
With half the things on my bed in my bag, I pause to face him again. “You’re right. I did. And for that I’m truly sorry, Nate. Maybe one day you’ll let me explain everything to you, and maybe you’ll understand. Or maybe you won’t, I don’t know. But today isn’t that day.”
Suddenly I feel exhausted, like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. The adrenaline from Nate walking in on us, and then the scene with Liam, is starting to wear off, and the heaviness in my chest is growing. All I want to do is curl up somewhere in a ball and cry it out.
I finish packing my bag as Savanna and Nate have a silent conversation behind me.
I know because I’ve lived with them for the last year, and it happens more often than one would think.
They gesture with their hands and while they think they’re silent, their movements generate enough noise that I’ve learned to pick up on it.
“You know what?” I say, slinging my bag over my shoulder.
“I should honestly probably thank you, Nate.” Releasing a sigh of defeat, I raise my tired eyes to my brother and offer a sad smile.
“It’s better I know now that he’s not willing to fight for me rather than find out six months, or a year from now, when I’m even more in love with him. ”
I didn’t mean to say that last part out loud.
I meant to say when it would hurt even more, but the words just seemed to tumble from my lips before I could stop them.
It doesn’t matter. They’re the truth. It’s just the first, and probably only time, I’ll say them out loud.
Maybe it’s better that I said it. At least it’s in the universe and I can let them go.
Let him go.
“Jor…” Savanna says softly, reaching out a hand to touch my shoulder.
I dance out of her grasp, darting around my brother. “I need to go.”
“Where are you going?” Nate asks gruffly, emotion thick in his voice. The gravity of the evening weighing down on him? I don’t know.
“Away from this. From you. From Liam.”
Stopping in the bathroom, I grab my toiletries, stuffing them in my bag. They’ve both followed me down the hallway, but neither of them are standing in my way as I come out and head toward the kitchen.
“Text me, okay? Let me know you’re okay,” Savanna requests as I hit the couple of stairs to the back door.
I glance over my shoulder at the two of them and give a short nod before I’m out the door.
I’ll text her, but it won’t be when I’m okay.
I’m not sure that’ll ever be possible again.
Our romance may have only started three weeks ago, but our bond was forged years ago, and in the last few months has deepened beyond what I could have imagined.
Liam wasn’t just Nate’s best friend, I realize. He’d become mine.