Chapter 26
I can’t get my hands off him fast enough, my lips, his hands from my body. We’re tangled up together, and the cold seeps in when his body leaves mine, while every member of my family stands on the front porch watching, in various levels of shock.
Joyce has her hand pressed to her mouth, eyes wide.
Frank looks like he’s seen a ghost.
Jess is clutching her chest.
Ollie is looking around at the snow, none the wiser.
I think Addie might be smiling behind her hand.
Will takes another step back for good measure.
“We can explain,” I say to the group, looking sideways at him, hopefully conveying that he can chime in at any time.
“You can explain kissing my brother?” Jess asks, her voice rising with each word.
“Jess—”
“My brother.” She points at Will. “You were kissing my brother.”
“We didn’t—” Will starts.
“Don’t.” She turns on him. “You don’t talk.”
“I’m just saying, you left—”
“So you went after my husband?!”
“He’s not—”
“Can we please go inside?” I say, over both of them, before our family becomes the neighborhood spectacle.
Nobody listens.
Jess is yelling at Will, and he’s arguing back nonsense, and I learned a long time ago that once they get going, you can’t get them to stop, and you can’t come between them.
Unless you’re their dad.
“Kids.” Frank’s booming voice cuts through theirs, silencing them the way he has for their entire lives. “Inside. Now.”
Everyone goes into the kitchen, and I can hear Will and Jess starting again, but I hang back, turning to the kids. “Addie. Ollie. Upstairs.”
“But Dad—”
“I’ll come up and talk to you in a minute, but right now, I need you to go upstairs. Please.”
Addie looks at me, then at Will across the room, and the smile that was on her face settles into something more serious as she starts to realize the gravity of the situation. “Okay,” she says. “Come on, buddy.”
She steers Ollie toward the stairs, and then it’s the five of us, and the kitchen feels very small all of a sudden. Jess has her arms crossed, and Joyce looks pale. Frank is clearly uncomfortable, not making eye contact with anybody.
“Okay,” Jess says into the silence. “What just happened?”
Will shrugs. “I kissed him.”
Everyone looks at him.
“What can I say, I have a thing for mustaches.” I can see exactly what he’s doing. Protecting me from the fallout. “Figured I’d shoot my shot.”
He winks at me.
“Honey, you can’t—” Joyce starts.
“You never told us you were interested in…” Frank trails off, not able to say the word.
Will tilts his head, ready to argue over his fake story. “I wonder why. Look how you’re reacting.”
“We’re not upset about that,” Joyce says.
“We’re upset cause you kissed your sister’s husband,” Frank adds on, raising his voice now.
“Why?” Will asks with a shrug, casual as anything. “They’re separated.”
“We are not separated—”
“You LEFT—”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“I kissed him,” I nearly shout, getting their attention. Everyone turns to look at me, Will shaking his head as if to say ‘don’t do it’, but I am. Consequences be damned. I’m not letting them take it out on him when I started it.
“I kissed him,” I say again. “And it wasn’t the first time.”
No one says anything, so I explain. “I developed feelings for Will. And when I told him how I felt, he rejected me.” I glance at Will, and then I don’t look away because it’s easier to say it to him than anyone else.
“He said no, and I pushed until he agreed to go out with me. But I was a horrible boyfriend and—”
“Boyfriend?” Jess interrupts, her voice a few octaves higher than usual.
“Yes,” I say, even though I’m sure that ship has sailed.
“My brother Will. The criminal.”
“Don’t talk about him like that—” I defend, and she makes a sound that would be a laugh if it wasn’t so angry.
“How long have you two been— Was this going on while we were together?”
I shake my head, even though, looking back, maybe something has been there longer than I would like to admit. “Of course not, Jess. I didn’t even realize I felt this way about him until a few months ago.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, looking at her parents, who have been silent this whole time, taking everything in. She looks at me and Will and then back to me, her eyes narrowed. “So let me get this straight. You, my husband, are in love with my brother?”
It’s my first instinct to deny it.
But I remember Will outside, crying because I hurt him, because I practically forced him into this whole thing, and when he finally tried to let me in, I threw it back in his face.
And I can’t.
“Yeah,” I say, my eyes drifting over to where he’s standing, an open expression on his face that turns into a small smile. “I am.”
Joyce gasps, and Frank grumbles beside her about needing a beer.
I can’t tell what’s going through Jess’s head by the look on her face, but whatever it is, she can’t accept this tonight, and I can’t say I blame her.
I find Ollie asleep on the floor in the middle of his toys, not that I’m surprised. It’s past his bedtime, and today was a lot, even for the adults. I get him into bed and turn out the light, leaving his door open a crack before I knock on Addie’s.
“Come in.”
She’s sitting on her bed again, her sketchbook open in front of her, but even after her appointment and all the drama of the day, she looks more like herself than she has in weeks.
“Where is everyone?” she asks.
“Your grandparents left. Mom went with them.” I sit on the edge of her bed.
“Was she mad?”
“What do you think?”
Addie nods, keeping a serious expression for about two seconds before a smile breaks across her face and she bounces in her seat. “Okay, I know this is serious,” she says, with a laugh. “But I think it’s pulled me out of my depression.”
I look at her with a flat expression, even though right now, if my awkward moments make her smile, I’ll take it. “Has it?”
“Dad.” She grabs my arm, shaking it. “You kissed Uncle Will in the snow. In front of the entire family. It was so romantic! I have to tell Emmett,” she says, grabbing her phone.
The laughter fades as she puts her phone back down, a frown tugging at her lips. “Back to depressed Addie.”
I open my arm, and she leans forward into a low-effort hug. With the house quiet around us for the first time today, I almost tell her about my talk with Emmett before she speaks up.
“Dad?”
“Hm?”
“I always thought Uncle Will liked you.”
I walk downstairs expecting the living room to be empty. To be alone with my thoughts and the knowledge that I ruined what Will and I had before it even started.
Instead, he’s in the kitchen, the same as that morning, but this time, his arms are crossed, his jaw is clenched, and he doesn’t look at me.
But he’s still here.
I cross the room to reach for him, stopping halfway. He kissed me outside, but that obviously didn’t fix anything.
“Will.” I keep my voice low, even though the kids are upstairs. “I’m so sorry. And I know that’s not enough. But please, give me another chance.”
He looks at the floor.
“Come to bed,” I say, placing a reluctant hand on his arm. “Please.”
When he finally meets my eyes, the emotion from before is back, but he nods once. “Fine.” He starts up the stairs without another word, and I trail behind him, trying not to look as happy as I feel right now.
He’s staying.
He’s actually staying.
“I’m borrowing pajamas,” he announces, heading for the dresser, pulling all of the drawers open until he gets to the one he wants. “You are not getting any tonight.”
“That’s fair,” I say, sitting down on the bed. After the day I’ve had, I would rather just lie down with him.
He pulls out a pair of flannel pants and an old t-shirt, but pauses before changing. “Turn around.”
“What?”
“You don’t deserve to see my ass. Turn around.”
I face the wall, the sounds of fabric rustling behind me. I didn’t expect he would want anything to do with me tonight, so this is better than anything I could have imagined. But with him back in my bedroom, I can’t help but think of the last time he was here.
His cock inside of me, and the way he held me after…
And while I was upstairs finding an empty space where the bottle of pills should have been, building a case against him without asking him first, he was downstairs in my kitchen making scrambled eggs and bacon, calling himself my boyfriend.
And I came downstairs and talked to him like he was who the rest of the town thought he was.
“All good.”
I turn my head, and there he is, in my clothes, even after what I did, and I feel it everywhere. The thing I’ve been holding in since everything happened. Trying to be strong. To take care of Addie and forget about my own stuff. It all comes up at once, and suddenly I’m crying.
It’s not quiet or manly, or whatever I’m supposed to be doing. When it starts, it starts, and tears are streaming down my face as my shoulders shake. Will is in front of me, taking my hand and pulling me up to face him. “What’s wrong? Are you actually crying because I said I don’t want to—”
“I’m so sorry,” I force out through unsteady breaths, and it just isn’t enough to express how I feel. “I can’t believe I did that to you. I—I said horrible things, and you’re still—you’re still here, and I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve you.”
“Hey.” His hands land on my cheeks, forcing me to look at him. “Nolan, stop.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” He rolls his eyes, like he thinks I’m being ridiculous, but when he wipes my tears, his face is serious.
“I wish I’d done it,” he says, “I wish I woke up in the middle of the night and taken those pills because I wanted a little high.” I shake my head at his terrible words, but he continues anyway.
“If me going back to my old shitty life means Addie doesn’t have to hurt, and you wouldn’t have to have your teenage daughter tell you she was gonna hurt herself with ‘em—I’d do it in a heartbeat. Got it?”
“D-don’t say that,” I tell him, my eyes burning at the thought of a reality where that happened.
I don’t want to lose anyone.
“It’s the truth,” he says with a shrug. “And yeah, I’m pissed at you because you were a dick and you weren’t listening to me. And we’re gonna have a talk about that. But I can’t be too mad when you told my parents and my bitch of a sister that you love me right to their stupid faces.”
“Don’t call her that,” I say, wiping my face. “She’s still my kids’ mom.”
He pulls away now that I’ve gotten myself a little bit under control. “Well, you should’ve thought about that before. She’s my sister. It’s my job to talk shit about her.”
He pulls back the comforter and gets in, his eyebrows raised as he finishes his argument. “Are you gonna stand there all night or are you coming to bed?”
I nod, shoving my jeans down and climbing into bed in my t-shirt and boxers. He doesn’t touch me, but the space between us doesn’t feel so tense as I lie on my side facing him. And when I reach over to take his hand, he lets me.
“Addie told me something tonight,” I say into the darkness when I’m not even sure he’s awake anymore.
“What?”
“She said she’s always thought that you liked me.”
I don’t think anything of it when I say it. It was supposed to be funny. But he pulls his hand away from me, his silence saying something that he doesn’t. I can’t help but wonder if…
“Will.”
“What?”
I reach for him again, scooting closer until I can take his hand, resting against his heart. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He moves closer, and so do I, until my arm is around him and my head is on his chest, his fingers in my hair. The same as last time we were here, and nothing has ever felt more natural in my entire life.
“I love you,” I say into my shirt.
He’s quiet for long enough that I think he might not say it back, and that’s okay. I can wait, I tell myself. But I don’t have to.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice gone rough. “Right back atcha.”