Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Mia
I stood up abruptly, despite all the layers restraining me, and adjusted my hat. Snow fell off me in chunks. Some of it ran down my back. “I—because it’s not important.” I sounded ridiculous to my own ears. It was important. Things needed to be said—lots of things. And I had to muster the courage to say them.
Brax shook off the snow from his jeans. “Okay, well, were you planning on talking about it ever? Or were you just going to let me hear it from your family?”
I glared at him. His hat fell off, and he bent to retrieve it. He looked as discombobulated as I felt.
I’d given up trying to read his body language long ago. But I was tired of the mixed signals. And I needed answers too.
How did we get from kissing on a starry, snow-covered night to icy-cold reality? I did the only thing possible—began trekking up the hill. “Come with me,” I called back over my shoulder.
He jogged and caught up with me, dragging the toboggan behind him.
Both of us were silent, either because our digits were about to freeze off or because we knew we were about to have it out.
Once again, I’d gotten flummoxed by his kisses. Consumed by them. The man definitely knew how to kiss.
The first time we were together, it had been all about connection and passion and the magic of feeling that someone really got you. For me, anyway.
But that was finished. So why had I let this happen now? Who had kissed whom first? I knew the answer. He had. And I hadn’t even hesitated, getting swept right along with it.
I walked up the concrete steps to the stone patio, unzipped my coat, and tossed it onto the ground.
“What are you doing?” He sounded more incredulous than angry. His dark brows were knit down, his arms crossed, tall and stark as a winter warrior in a fantasy novel. But this time I wasn’t going to let him distract me from the truth.
“Take off your clothes,” I said. “Your outer clothes,” I amended as I tossed a boot to the ground, then shed a sock. When I was down to my thermal shirt and pants, I hopped quickly over to my parents’ hot tub and lifted the lid.
Wonderful, balmy, chlorine-scented steam cut the icy air with smoky tendrils. I took one glance back and then hopped in. He was right behind me as I sank into the hot water, feeling the burn, grateful for the insta-thaw.
I looked up at him, hesitating on the brink.
He wanted answers, but so did I. “Why did you kiss me?”
Brax
I faced Mia. Tendrils of steam rose up between us into the frigid night. Moments ago, we’d been horizontal and lip-locked. Those kisses were among the best I’d ever gotten…and the worst. I’d managed to stuff all my feelings in a box for the past six months, and the lid had just been blown right off. By me. I’d done it. I’d gotten swept up, unable to stay away—again.
Despite everything, I wanted to take her back in my arms and tell her I’d meant every kiss. I wanted to give her a thousand more. I had the sinking sense that everything I was feeling wasn’t just attraction but something far more complicated, a journey I had no map for.
This was why I never should have come. I had no control when it came to her.
I had to say something, so I steeled myself. “We were close, we were touching. And I’ve had a couple of shots. It was an honest mistake.” Lies. I was as sober as Job. I’d known what I was doing, and I’d done it anyway. I’d wanted her too badly to stop myself. I tried to shove all the emotion back inside as I forced myself to look in her eyes. “Rest assured, it won’t happen again.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Good thing, because through her gray thermal underwear, I could see the soft outline of her breasts. I wrenched my gaze back up to her face. “So you’re telling me that was all an accident,” she said. “Nothing more to it.”
“Correct.”
She blew out a big breath. “Now that we’re being honest, I wasn’t going to tell you about Charlie, ever.”
All the cool I’d been trying to command dissolved. “You weren’t going to tell me anything about a guy you dated for, what…six years?” I didn’t have a right to be angry, but I found that I was.
She stabbed the air. “You’re acting like we tell each other things.”
“I thought we were friends.” I sat on an underwater ledge and folded my own arms. “Friends tell each other important things.”
She snorted. “Don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re hurt that I don’t tell you big things about my life. We started out being friends. And being more than friends, remember that? When you broke things off, you lost the privilege of hearing my stuff.” Her gaze blazed with defiance.
I blinked, chastened and surprised.
“Stop messing with my emotions.”
If only I could tell her that I’d kept her at arm’s length for her own good. Somehow, I had to find the strength to stay away, but how? “I deserve everything you’re saying. But now I’m asking as your friend. Someone who cares about you a lot.” I felt desperate, needing her to know that I meant every word. “Please tell me.”
We sat there, glaring at each other. Above our heads, snow began to fall, thick, giant flakes hurling silently down and melting once they crashed into the hot water. It felt like we were in a giant snow globe, duking it out.
“Fine.” She sighed. “Charlie and I dated for six years. When I left for residency, the distance wore us down. I was working all the time and on call, and it was difficult to see each other, but I always thought we’d get through it. At our engagement party, he took me aside and told me there was someone else.” She shrugged and met my gaze. “That’s it. That’s the story.”
She ran a hand lightly over the effervescent water and focused her gaze on it, not me, as she continued, “Anyway, I’m here for my mom, not for Charlie. People can talk all they want. And I don’t need to give him my blessing in person. Why should I? He cheated on me. I hope he has a good life. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’m sorry.” I felt helpless. I didn’t know what else to say or do. My desire to do anything to comfort her battled with my need to hold my distance, and I was a mess.
She stiffened, clearly not needing my paltry words of comfort. “It’s not your problem, so no reason to be.”
“Mia.” My voice cracked when I said her name. I had to say something, anything, to let her know that I cared, even if I couldn’t be more than a friend to her. “You deserve to have fire and passion and…and everything. Every last piece of someone’s heart and soul.”
Her mouth dropped open. She stared at me, thrown and speechless.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” I continued, my voice cracking with emotion. “I’m glad you didn’t end up with him.”
Up at the house, the back door opened. “Hey, you two,” Liam called. “We’re heading to bed. I wanted to make sure Dad didn’t lock you out.”
“Be right there,” Mia called. “Hey, could you grab us a couple of towels?”
“Sure thing,” Liam called.
She moved to get out, but I stopped her with my words. “Before you leave, please tell me who Gracie was.”
She sank back down. Blew out a sigh. “Gracie was my twin sister. She died when we were nine. Of leukemia.”
My head reeled. Died? Of cancer? My mind went instantly to the trials I survived with my sister, how we might’ve been separated, but our bond was never broken. What would it have been like to lose her permanently? I couldn’t imagine the tragedy that this family had suffered, that Mia had suffered.
I remembered the birthday cake photo, the two little girls side by side. The little brown-haired girl full of mischief. Her twin. Of course!
And of course, Mia had become a doctor—a pediatrician. I thought of her attachment to Rylee and her sister. And about how wonderful she was with the kids on the heme-onc unit, yet how difficult every single day on that ward must be for her.
Click click click . The pieces of the puzzle that was Mia snapped into place.
The back door opened. “Towels are right here,” Liam called.
Mia called out a thanks. “It’s all right,” she said softly to me. “Now you know. So I’ve been honest with you, but I still feel that I don’t know anything about you. That’s your choice. But Brax, I don’t want what happened to happen again—those kisses.” She waved her hand in the air. “Whatever that was.”
“It won’t.”
She got out of the tub, wrapped herself in a towel, and walked into the house.
I stood in the hot tub watching Mia leave, thinking about how I’d just messed everything up. Again.
My hands were clammy, my throat was dry, and I felt like a complete a-hole. She was right. I hadn’t opened up at all.
I’d panicked, just as I had last summer.
It wasn’t because I had nothing to say.
Mia was different. She’d always been different. If I’d been honest, I would’ve told her that I thought about her constantly. That no one I’d ever met could compare to her in kindness, brains, or beauty. But something inside me told me loud and clear that I couldn’t deliver what she deserved to have.
She deserved everything. A guy who’d had a normal upbringing and knew how to be part of a family. How to be a good husband and father.
I didn’t have a clue how to live like normal people. Love like normal people.
In my misery, I heard something above the hot tub motor and the bubbling of the swirling water. It was my sister’s voice, telling me that I’d had the confidence to push myself to be successful in so many ways, to never give up, but that confidence didn’t seem to extend to my relationships. I’d always believed that my upbringing had been too chaotic for me to take the chance. But what if I somehow found the strength to fight my past?
Mia deserved so much better than Charlie. I never would’ve done what he did to her.
Yet she hadn’t even felt comfortable telling me about asshat Charlie. She hadn’t trusted me enough to. And that was the worst thing of all.