Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Easton
The hotel employee smiles at me the minute I open the door. He carries the tray in and places it on the table by the window. I can tell he knows who I am, but he’s not saying anything while he waits for me to sign the bill.
“Thank you.” I hand it back to him and walk him out. After he’s gone, I go to the bedroom archway and lean against it. “How about we talk over breakfast?”
She slowly climbs out of bed, and I hold my hand out to her, bringing her to the table, where I pull out the chair for her and tuck it in.
“What do you want?” I sit on the other side of the table, feeling way too far away from her.
“Honestly, I’m not a huge breakfast person unless it’s a bagel from Hero’s.”
I lift the lid off one plate. “Probably not the same, but I did get a bagel.” I continue taking the metal lids off the plates.
“And apparently everything else too.”
She’s got one leg propped up on the chair, and I force my eyes away from her nipple poking through her cami while I wait for her to decide what she wants to eat.
“Are you a food sharer?” She takes her silverware off the napkin, positioning it in her lap.
“Why?”
“Well.” Her cheeks blush. She’s worried about asking me. “I was thinking we just kind of eat off the plates… together? I mean we shared ice cream last night, but this…”
I take my silverware out and place the napkin in my lap. “Let’s dig in.”
She picks up a salt container. “Okay if I add some on the eggs?”
I nod and lean back against the chair, watching her. She asks me which jelly I want on the toast. If I want syrup, and if so, do I butter my pancakes first.
She has no idea what a natural caregiver she is. Not that I want her to care for me, but I saw it with how she adapted to Tanner so easily. The more time we spend together, the more I’ve realized it’s just a part of who she is.
I pour her coffee and then my own, not eating right away because I don’t want her to think I’m dodging the Kenzie conversation.
“Kenzie is my cousin’s wife.” Might as well just get right into it.
Her head lifts from spreading grape jelly on a piece of toast.
“I told you about all the cousins I have, but three of us are the exact same age. Born on the exact same day.” Her eyes widen, and I nod. “Lake Starlight residents and our family refer to three of us as the Bailey Triplets. It’s me, my cousin Lance, and my cousin Brinley.”
She eats, forking little pieces here and there.
“Brinley had a best friend…”
“Kenzie,” she adds, piecing together the obvious.
“Yeah. In high school, we kind of liked each other. Now this was our freshman year… but then one night at my grandma Dori’s birthday party, Kenzie slipped on ice, and Lance caught her.”
She frowns. “You lost the girl.”
I laugh because I didn’t lose the girl. I might have thought that at the time, but I was wrong. “I lost.”
“Where were you?”
I shrug. “Not there. Probably causing trouble somewhere.”
“Probably.” She smiles across the table at me. “Eat.” She uses her fork to point at my plate, so I appease her and fork off some pancakes.
After I chew and swallow, I continue, eager to get this next part over with. “They dated all through high school, and I was good with it. Honestly. Sure, everyone thought I was dying of a slow heartbreak, but I was fine.”
She eyes me as though she’s not sure about that.
I shake my head with a smile. “Anyway, for some reason, Lance and Kenzie decided that they wanted to split up for college and do one of those if you return to me, it was meant to be bullshit things.”
“Uh-oh.” She takes a big bite of bagel smeared with cream cheese.
“Then Kenzie and I both ended up at Ole Miss.”
“No!” Her eyes widen and she halts with the bagel halfway to her mouth. “You didn’t.”
My shoulders fall. “I did.”
The bagel drops down to her plate.
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
Her head rolls back. “I was going to kick your ass for Lance.”
I chuckle. “He’s married with a kid now. Plus, just so you know, my cousin is… Lance Whitmore.”
Her head cocks to the side. “Is this one of their hotels?”
I shake my head. “Don’t feel too sorry for the guy. He’s rich as fuck and happily married now.”
“Some might say the same of you.” She arches an eyebrow, and I laugh. “All right, continue.”
“One drunken night, I ran into Kenzie at a frat party. She was crying, saying how much she missed him. I walked her home.”
“You didn’t, Easton…”
I nod, still ashamed by my actions. “I’m not sure if it was just that we were both homesick or the tequila we drank, but I know we kissed, but we were clothed when we woke up.”
“One sliver of good.”
“Anyway, Lance eventually forgave me because hello, I’m awesome.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure that’s the reason.”
“Want to know the worst part?”
“Of course.”
“After the kiss, she called me Lance.”
She takes her fork and pretends to stab herself with it.
“Yep. Anyway… years later, they got back together, married, and now have a kid.”
“And this shaped you how?”
I set my fork down. “My parents think that I didn’t like not being picked.”
“Is that true?”
“No.” I sip my coffee and put it on the table.
“I just never wanted the mess that seemed to come with a relationship. The ups and downs, breakups and makeups. Seemed too stressful and too much drama. I just wanted to focus on my baseball career. And I didn’t want to end up doing something that might hurt someone like I’d hurt my cousin.
Sure, it hurt when Kenzie didn’t want me back and picked Lance.
But I almost lost my cousin for what? A kiss? How stupid could I be?”
She touches my forearm. “It was years ago. I think you can let the guilt go.”
“After that, I preferred to keep things casual with women, no strings. It’s not like my heart was involved, but I just decided to close myself off from all of it before I hurt someone else.
Add on the fact that I never know if a woman’s intentions are pure with me, and then there’s my parents’ happily ever after fairy tale.
” I shrug. “It’s pressure I didn’t want… until—”
“Hearts and feelings suck,” she interrupts me, and I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not.
I laugh and put down my coffee. “I agree. So do you think less of me?”
“Not at all.” She pushes a plate. “I thought she was the love of your life and you were still pining away for her.”
“Not at all. But I’m kind of pining for someone else lately.”
She looks up, and her fork falls to the plate. “Easton.”
“Come on, Hadley, you know it, I know it, all of our friends know it. Shit, Tanner probably knows it.” I suck in a deep breath and ask what it is I really want to ask. “What do you say? Want to give this an honest try?”
She pushes back from the table and stares at me.
Not the reaction I was hoping for.