39. Thirty-Nine
Thirty-Nine
Sara
The next few days blur together. Joe busies himself going through the information that Mateo, Liam, and Damien have gathered. He feels confident that there are a few clues he wants to investigate. Surprisingly, the boys give him the reins and trust him.
On the other hand, I’ve been avoiding having a conversation with Joe, despite us desperately needing to have one.
We’ve crossed paths in the house, he’s even made dinner, and we watched a movie feet apart until the tension was so palpable that I eventually laid my head on his lap while he dragged his hand through my hair over and over again.
Just like a lullaby putting to sleep the heaviness in our bubble that we both need to pop, but are so afraid to.
I don’t want to lose him again, but I don’t know how to keep him either.
Liam is getting stronger every day. I’ve stayed by his side, reading books to him out loud, while Joe brings him food and I watch him make it in the kitchen.
It all feels like an alternate universe.
Each of us is navigating our feelings through our mistakes, figuring out what can be forgiven and what can’t be undone.
Liam is slowly spending more hours awake, but he still needs a lot of rest. I’m just thankful he’s okay.
Taking care of his wound, which is so close to his heart, leaves me with a sinking feeling that I was so close to losing him.
Every day brings me closer to my truth, but I just can’t fully wrap my head around what that is just yet, and that alone hurts.
I’ve also stayed busy planting flowers, not daring to go further than the garden in the backyard and calling my mom and Liam’s, since both want updates.
I don’t have the heart to tell his mother that her other son is still alive.
I told Joe he can grow some balls and find the courage to let her know.
Today is a warmer day in April, and I want to swim, dive into the pool and let myself sink to the bottom along with all of my heavy feelings.
The air is quiet, a soft breeze drifts through the trees. I close the book I’m reading and strip my dress off to just my underwear, but I don’t care. Joe is off doing God knows what, and my Liam is resting.
Plunging into the water, I savor its touch on my skin, a reminder of what it means to be alive.
I perch my elbows on the pool wall, dangling my legs peacefully.
I need this moment to breathe. The water soothes my skin, offering a temporary escape from the chaos: the shooting, Joe’s return, the tangle of emotions I can’t sort through.
The questions of who owns the Velastra, who is probably the same person behind the trafficking and the poker games.
I hear the sliding door open in front of me and tense, not ready to face either of the Laurent twins.
But when I peek one eye open, I see Joe standing there with two glasses of lemonade, watching me with an intensity that makes me shiver despite the warm water.
He’s not quite the Joe I remember, not quite a stranger.
Something in between that makes my heart ache in ways I don’t want to examine.
Against my better judgment, I look up.
“Thought you might be thirsty,” he says as he heads my way. His eyes linger on me, taking in my nearly naked body making heat rise to my cheeks.
I consider ignoring him, but I can’t. “Thanks,” I mumble, our fingers brush as I take the glass from him and I shiver.
“We need to talk, Sara.” He crouches down so we’re closer to eye level. “Really talk.”
I sigh. “We do, go ahead.” I say, taking a sip of lemonade.
“Aren’t you relieved even a tad that I’m not actually dead?”
“Do you not see how problematic your question is?” I stare into his eyes, allowing myself to indulge in his magnetic beauty.
“I thought you’d be happy, Sara, but I guess you’re doing just fine with Liam.” He stares at me. “Cause you fuck him, right?”
I don’t answer right away. Sure, I could feel guilty that a supposedly dead man I’ve mourned with every inch of me is blaming me for moving on with his twin brother, but I fell in love with Liam for who he is and for who I lost, Joe.
It’s complex, not something that can be rationalized in two sentences.
It’s written between the lines, in tendrils of words and emotions that have beckoned my heart to love two men at once.
One who was lost, and one whose soul became the most beautiful escape.
I won’t apologize or justify my impossible choices. They’re mine and I stand by them.
“You call this ‘talking’? You clearly have a hard time communicating, Joe. Maybe, just maybe, you could’ve talked to me before ripping my heart open.”
He holds my gaze, sets his lemonade beside mine, and starts pulling his t-shirt over his head, revealing the familiar planes of his chest that I know so well.
“What are you doing?”
He kicks off his shoes, strips down to his boxers, and dives into the water in one fluid motion. I freeze, unable to move, as ripples spread across the pool’s surface.
I don’t dare turn around, even though I feel the water moving behind me.
In one moment, he’s at my back, his presence so heavy I feel it pulling me under even as something in me fights to stay above the surface.
He hovers there, hesitant as his exhale reaches me across the water, slower and steadier than my rapid pulse hammering in my ears, and the energy between us is undeniable.
“Sara,” he whispers, his voice breaking slightly. “Please look at me. Being around you, not being able to be with you… baby, please.”
I should move away. I should climb out of this pool and go back to Liam, who’s recovering from a bullet wound. But I can’t look at him or even at myself, caught between the past and present, between what was and what is.
His hand hesitantly grazes my waist, and his mouth hovers at my ear. “I protected you the only way I knew how, Sara. I made grave decisions with bad people and made a deal—one that kept you alive.”
My breath catches. I’ve missed him so much it hurts. The familiar scent of him, the way his fingers press into my skin. It’s like muscle memory as my body responds recognizing his touch before my mind can catch up.
I’m transported back to before everything fell apart to a time when he was mine and I was his, and the world made sense.
Every smile and moment we spent together radiated hope and a new sense of self, a kind of survival that now feels completely out of reach.
He had kept me afloat and my splitting pieces were sowing back together and then…
he broke me… A grief so heavy it drowned me.
“That night, Joe, that night you looked for me…” His pupils track the rise and fall of my chest, and I pray he doesn’t notice how I try to conceal my breathlessness.
“What about it?” he asks, his breath in my neck.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“I was going to ask you to leave with me, to leave it all behind and run. I wanted to give you everything you ever asked of me.” He pauses, and my next breath shakes as he trails kisses along my neck.
I can’t help tilting my head to give him better access.
“They said they’d hurt you to hurt me, and when I didn’t find you…
I knew I was being selfish to turn your entire life around.
I became no one. Nothing. A dead man can’t lead killers to your door, Sara.
” He spins me around to face him, his hands cupping my face, desperation in his eyes.
“I died a thousand times every day while I was away from you, but I knew they’d be looking for us and I refused to put that on you, to subject you to a life living in fear and on the run.
” His thumb caresses my cheek as his eyes show heartbreaking honesty.
“Who, Joe? Who are these people?” I beg, my voice shaking, his pain breaking me.
He shakes his head, hesitating. “I don’t know who is behind everything, but you’ve met Charles Wayne by now.
He threatened me. He knew how much you meant to me.
I got too close to fuck their whole thing up.
So, we made a deal that I’d disappear. A stupid deal that I thought would protect you.
” He scoffs. “I only made it easier for them, they still came after you. I did not know who Tyler was, or that he was in on it. Everything unraveled before my eyes, and I was powerless. They found you and toyed with the deal I made with them. I couldn’t call you, touch you or be the man who made you smile.
Even ghosts feel pain, baby.” He laughs eerily, laced with agony, his hand trailing down to my collarbone, lower and lower…
“I watched you heal in his arms while I stood guard. Try watching from a distance as the only person who makes life worth living learns to live without you.”
His words are gut-wrenching. A part of me feels responsible, and I stare into his eyes as his hand lands at my heart. Softly circling his thumb on my nipple, I arch into his touch uncontrollably.
“What made you come back?” I exhale in a silent moan.
“Charles called me and said Liam was a dead man for blowing up the Velastra. I had enough of all this shit. I… I couldn’t be away from you anymore.”
He pushes his body forward, pressing mine against his and the pool wall as his lips find mine. One hand moves to the small of my back while the other tangles in my wet hair, and I kiss him back, letting his mouth travel us back through time.
His body shakes until I feel his tears mixing with the pool water.
He lets out a choked sob against my lips, kissing me like he’s drowning and I’m his last breath of air.
I melt into him, breaking apart completely for him, too.
My fingers dig into his hair, holding him to me with equal desperation as he holds me close.
I have craved his touch and presence for so long, he will always be my first love.
“I never stopped needing you, Sara,” he whispers brokenly between kisses. His forehead falls to mine as he cups my face. “I’m so, so fucking sorry.” Our breaths alter as we stare into another, his heart beating against mine.
“Do you love him?” he asks again, and I gasp lightly.
He needs the truth… I need to hear myself say the truth.
“I love you…” I say with a tremble and a pause. One beat too long and Joe finishes what hurts to say aloud.
“But you love him more.” His eyes close, heavy with dread.
I stare back at him, biting my lip, tears pooling in my eyes.
“Joe… t-the dev-devastation I felt.” I try to express words too stifling to comprehend.
“The pain of losing you, the grief I felt, I was breathless through it all. I had never experienced a hurt like this before. It hurt, my God, it hurt so badly.” My chest throbs as I rub my heart, my tears falling free as he stares pained into my eyes.
“Day after day, I was devastated. I cried myself to sleep… the agonizing idea of you suffering, I died with you that day, Joe. I died, and I realized how much I loved you. I didn’t have the chance to tell you.
You took that away from me. You took yourself away from me.
I wanted you, that’s all I ever wanted, desperately, Joe, you, it was you. ”
His eyes drop at our bodies touching. “Was.”
I suck in a breath as I hold him against me, our chests heaving against each other.
“I slowly, very slowly, survived you. I survived… and while I’ll never stop loving you…” I pause, holding his face between my shaky hands, “I learned to love again. I breathed life into myself again… None of it was easy, Joe—Liam and I… it wasn’t an easy decision…”
He instantly breaks inside and I feel it against my body, I circle my arms around his neck, kissing his soft skin under his ear.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know how not to love you and not to love your brother. I’m so sorry,” I say as he holds the back of my head against him, enlaced to another, forever linked to a love never truly lost, but never truly able to be found again either.
“What have I done, my baby?” he whispers, and kisses my temple, his lips staying a beat longer. “What have I done.”
It’s not a question, it’s an excruciating reveal of broken pieces leading to the unrepaired symphonies of a future we no longer know how to fit into.
His vulnerability breaks me, his eyes drifting to my lips as he gently kisses me again, and with that, softly separates from me and hauls himself out of the pool, leaving me hollow.
The absence of feeling and feeling too much crashes over me like a tidal wave. Where there should be guilt, passion, anger, confusion—there’s just… emptiness.
A void where my heart should be.
I sink deeper into the water, letting it rise to my chin. I should feel something. Anything. The betrayal of kissing Joe while Liam recovers inside.
The complicated mess of loving two brothers simultaneously.
Instead, I float. Numb.