Chapter Nineteen – Megan
I jump away from Aston, my hand flying to my mouth when I see Braden standing there. His blue eyes flick between us, the blue in them slowly getting icier, his expression getting harder.
The tension in the room rockets. I can almost feel Aston tensing next to me, see the anger and realization flooding through Braden’s body. I’m standing frozen, unable to do anything but wait.
There are a thousand excuses rolling around my mind, but the cat really does have my tongue.
There’s nothing than can excuse this.
And it’s time to be honest.
“Ryan thought he saw you follow Aston up.” Braden focuses his eyes on me. “I thought he was crazy. I told him it was some other poor f*cker, but when a couple of the other guys agreed I said I’d come up just for a laugh. Because I didn’t actually f*cking think I’d find you up here in his goddamn bedroom!”
“Bray…”
“How long?” He looks at Aston, his jaw tight. “How long have you been f*cking her?”
“Braden!”
“It’s not like that,” Aston replies equally as tightly.
“Really? You expect me to believe that bullshit?” Braden yells. “How long?”
“Since you took Maddie home.”
“That was the first time?” I nod, my hand falling away from my mouth. “Un-f*cking-believable! I go away for two days and you jump into bed with her?”
“With each other!” I step forward. “Each. Other, Braden!”
“Oh and that’s supposed to make it f*cking better is it?”
“No!” I move in front of Aston. “No, it isn’t, but you have to realize I can make my own decisions. I’m old enough to deal with the fall-out. You can’t always be there to protect me! Aston didn’t force me into anything. Do you get that? I wanted to!”
His eyes focus on me, my chest heaves, and Aston touches my arm.
“Megs-”
“No,” I say, my eyes on Braden. “As much as he’d like to believe it, it’s not just you. I’m not gonna stand here and watch him give you shit because of something we both did.”
“How long have you been f*cking each other?” Braden says sarcastically. “Because it makes the world of difference.”
“We have been in a relationship since the weekend after you left,” I correct him.
“Ha!” Braden slams his hand into the wall. “A relationship? Are you f*cking serious?”
“Yes.”
“F*cking unreal. You’ve made some shit choices, Megan, but this tops the goddamn list!” He passes through the door. I wrench my arm from Aston’s grip and follow him, not caring who can hear this conversation – if anyone can.
“The decision to be with Aston wasn’t the bad choice! The bad one was keeping it from you – and you know why that happened? You know why I didn’t tell you? Because of this. To stop this happening! I knew you’d go bat shit crazy over it!”
“So why did you f*cking do it?” he throws over his shoulder.
“Because I wanted to!”
“And that makes it better?” He stops, turning to look at me. He motions in the direction of Aston’s room. “He’s just gonna break your heart, Megan! That’s what he does. He f*cks girls and leaves them-”
“You don’t know him like I do!”
“No, but there’s a lot of girls that do!”
“No they don’t!” I yell, my foot stamping. “They don’t know him the way I do. None of you do, so don’t you f*cking stand there and tell me it was a bad decision when you know nothing – nothing – about my decision! You know nothing about us. You know nothing about how I feel, or how he feels!”
“Go on, then, Megs. If it’s such a big thing, the real f*cking deal, tell me. How do you feel?”
I look at him steadily, opening my mouth to speak.
“I love her,” Aston says from halfway down the hall. “I can’t answer for her, but I can answer for me. And the answer is I love her.”
I swallow, my heart taking up a frantic beat in my chest. He’s never said it. And now he’s admitting it. Out loud. To Braden. And anyone else listening.
“Do you love her or what she gives you?” Braden asks uncertainly, his voice still laced with anger.
Aston steps up behind me, reaching down and taking my hands in his. His fingers lace through mine, and as his chest touches mine I can feel the vulnerability in him. The only person he’s ever opened up to about anything is me, and now he has to do it to someone else.
“I love her for who she is, and who I am when I’m with her. Everything Maddie does for you, times that by a million, and that’s what Megan does for me. She’s right, Braden. None of you know me like she does. She knows everything about me – even the things I didn’t want anyone to ever know. She knows them, and she’s still here. I love her for everything she gives me, every touch, every smile, I love it all.
“You can come flying at me now and kick the shit out of me. I’ll take it, because I deserve it for going behind your back, but I won’t apologize. I won’t ever apologize for loving her, so don’t expect me to. And don’t expect me to walk away from her, because I won’t. I can’t.”
He tightens his grip on my hands slightly, and my body shakes a little. Gentle footsteps on the stairs announce Maddie’s arrival, and my eyes slide to hers. I don’t see the anger or annoyance I expect.
In them I see understanding.
“And you, Meggy?” Braden questions.
I nod slowly. “I love him, Bray. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I am. Both of us tried not to let it happen but it did, and I’m not sorry it did. I’m just sorry it hurts you so much.”
Maddie slides her arm around Braden’s, leaning against him, and he heaves out a breath.
“Y’know what hurts the most?” He looks at me, anger gone from his eyes. A hint of defeat replaces it. “You’re my best friend and you didn’t think you could tell me. You didn’t even feel for a second that you could tell me. Maybe that’s my fault, but that’s what gets me. Am I pissed you lied about it? F*cking right I am. I’m fuming. But I can’t be mad at you. No matter how much I want to slam my fist into Aston’s face and yell at you, I can’t.”
“Why not?” Aston asks. “I’d deserve it.”
Braden’s eyes go over my shoulder to meet the gray pair I love. “Because when I look in Megan’s eyes I see the same love for you that Maddie has in hers for me. You didn’t hesitate for a second to tell me you love her, when she didn’t even know yet. I could tell that from her reaction. You hadn’t told her, and I made you tell me. I’d be a f*cking hypocrite if I was mad at you for that. But just because I’m not mad doesn’t mean I want to be around you right now.”
He shakes his arm from Maddie and walks down the stairs to his room. Maddie looks at both of us, a small smile playing on her lips.
“It took long enough for you to admit it,” she says softly.
“You knew?” Aston pulls me closer to him.
Her smile grows a little and she tucks some hair behind her ear. “Of course I did. I know pain, Aston, and pain knows pain. You have some pain deep inside you, I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s there. And Megs is the softest, most understanding person I know. You two were drawn together because she could heal your wounds. I’ve known since we got back that you two had something.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?” I tilt my head to the side slightly.
She makes to follow Braden, pausing on the top stair. “Because…” She grins. “…If Braden had any suspicions and asked me if you’d said anything, I wouldn’t have had to lie to him.”
I can’t help but smile. She knows him so well. She knows him like I know Aston.
I breathe out deeply, letting myself relax against him. His arms wrap around me tightly, his face burying into my neck.
“That was… Fun,” he says dryly.
“That went well,” I say truthfully. “I was expecting Braden to punch first, ask later. That’s his usual M.O.”
“Maybe he was just so shocked you were actually there that he forgot to punch me first.”
I let out a small laugh. “I think that’s probably right.”
He releases me and steers us back into his room, nudging the door shut. I rub my hands down my face.
“What do we do now?” I look at him.
Aston grins, moving towards me. “We stop hiding, and I get to go all protective on your pretty little ass when some a*shole tries to hit on you.”
My lips curve up on one side, and he cups my face, his lips brushing across mine.
“That sounds about right.”
“Yep. We just have to clear something up first.”
“What’s that?”
His gray eyes clear, becoming raw and honest. “I’m sorry I never told you how I feel.”
“I know now,” I respond.
He shakes his head a little. “No, you don’t. You don’t know how just a touch of your hand can take away the pain from my past, and you don’t know how lying next to you at night stops the nightmares. You don’t know that you’re the first person to really make me smile, and you definitely don’t know that I’m so in love with you I can’t see or think straight. ‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.’”
He gets the British accent perfect, and I smile up at him and rest my hands on his waist, moving our bodies closer. His fingers slip into my hair, curling around the back of my head, barely brushing the top of my neck.
“Even when I tried not to, I still did,” he says in a softer voice, resting his forehead against mine. My nose brushes his and I close my eyes, just listening to him. “I stepped over the edge and started falling for you, and I’m damn sure I don’t ever want to get back up from it. I don’t know how you do it, baby, but you make me better.”
Aston touches his lips to mine, a feather-light brush, and I slide my hands around and up his back to his shoulders.
“A speech worthy of Mr. Darcy,” I mutter, smiling. He pulls his face back, his eyes lighter, his lips curved upwards. My hands move along his arms, and I hold his gaze intensely. “I love you, Aston. I don’t know how or why, I just know that I do. Everything you think about yourself, everything you’ve been told, I see and think the complete opposite. You are worth everything to me – everything. Okay? And I promise, now, that I won’t leave.”
He takes a shuddery breath, vulnerability flickering in his eyes. Instead of saying anything, he dips his face towards mine and our lips meet again. His hands slide down my back, and as I wrap my arms around his neck our bodies align perfectly.
“You don’t have a choice,” Aston whispers, his breath fanning across my lips. “Because I don’t think I’ll ever let you leave. Besides, we never had a first kiss.”
“We did. Up against a wall after you attacked me, I believe.”
“That wasn’t a kiss. That was sex.”
“Um, there was definitely kissing happening,” I remind him.
The corner of his mouth twitches slightly. “But it wasn’t a kiss – not a proper kiss.”
“You’ve kissed me hundreds of times, Aston.”
“I know. But we still never had a proper first kiss.”
I sigh, slightly amused by this. “Why is that so important to you?”
“Because you’re the most romantic person I know, and I know it matters to you.”
“It doesn’t matter that much.” I gaze into his smoky eyes. “It’s just a kiss.”
“Nothing with you is “just” anything,” he mutters, smiling. “It’s always more than it seems, and I want to give you the first kiss you deserve.”
“You don’t have to do anything. Having us is more than enough.”
“Megan…”
“You’re not going to give up on the idea of a second first kiss, are you?”
Aston shakes his head. “I’ll never give up on anything where you’re concerned. So let me have my way.”
“Fine,” I whisper.
He dips his face towards me, the tip of his nose brushing mine. My eyes flutter closed.
“I hope you’re ready for the best first kiss of your life,” he whispers. “Because it’s gonna be your last first kiss.”
His hand slides to the back of my head and pushes us together. Our mouths meet, a soft touch that becomes gently more probing. His lips caress mine slowly, and my body sinks into him. The taste of him, the feel of him, the smell of him – it all takes me over. With each brush of his lips against mine I feel myself falling deeper into him, even deeper than I am already.
I feel myself crashing into him with everything I have, crashing into him and holding on tightly to everything he has to give. Because the romantic in me wants it all, and the romantic in me won’t let it go. At all.
~
My heart is in complete contradiction of itself. Lying here in Aston’s arms, half of it is lighter than it’s been in the last few weeks. The other half? It’s heavy, like a lead weight is holding it down and pinning it to the ground.
I shift slightly, and Aston’s grip on me tightens. I run my fingers through his hair, smoothing it back from his face, and study him. Now, he looks like he’s at peace. The lines on his forehead I’ve seen so many times are now completely smooth, his mouth is slightly open, and his breathing is even and steady.
But his peace has come at the torment of my best friend – who’s somewhere in this house, probably awake. He’ll be hating himself for being mad at me, happy I found the love he has, and guilty I felt like I couldn’t tell him.
In fact, he won’t be at the house. I know exactly where he’ll be.
I climb out of bed and there’s a light knock at the door. Crap. I grab one of Aston’s shirts from the back of his chair and throw it over my head, opening the door a crack. Lila’s face stares back at me.
“I ran back to the dorm room to get you some clothes. I knew you didn’t have any and you’d be up now.” She holds out a bag.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“Hey – you don’t need to thank me. I don’t wanna be you today. Braden isn’t even here; he left Maddie a note on her cell that he needed an hour. She gets it but has no idea where he is.”
“That’s why you got me clothes.”
She laughs into her hand. “Partly. I know it’s no good all of us going and searching for him – I mean, he could be anywhere, right? You’re the one person who will find him.”
I nod. “I know where he’ll be. Tell Mads not to worry. I’ll find him. Thanks for bringing this, Li.”
She smiles and walks down the hall to Ryan’s room. I close the door behind me, turning to see Aston’s gray eyes staring at me hotly. I ignore the feeling that sweeps my body and hold up the bag.
“Lila got me clothes.”
“If I didn’t just hear that Braden’s disappeared and you’re the only person who knows where he is, I’d go and give those damn clothes back to her.” He props himself up on his elbow, his eyes locked to the top of my thighs where the hem of his shirt falls.
“You would?” I ask innocently, walking over to the bed.
“F*cking right I would.” He reaches forward and grabs my arm, pulling me forwards and catching me. I land half on him, half on the bed, and his hands creep beneath the shirt, his fingers tracing inside the line of my panties. “I would absolutely say you should sleep in my shirt, but there’s a slim chance of any sleep actually happening if you did.”
“I don’t think I would complain,” I say against his mouth, brushing lips with him.
He kisses me hard, and at a shift of his hips, his erection pushes into my bare thigh through the covers. I run my fingers through his hair and break the kiss, grinning down at him.
“I need to go find Bray.”
“I know,” he replies softly. “It’s not fair on Maddie, either, now. Shit. We’ve made a mess of this, haven’t we?”
I sit up, running my fingertips down his arm to the palm of his hand. He catches my fingers with his, linking them together.
“Yeah. We have. There’s no point lying about it, but honestly, regardless of when we told him it would have happened. He still would have been angry and needed to cool off. We know we shouldn’t have kept us a secret and we should have told him a long time ago, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. It was wrong, and now I need to go and speak to him and make it right.”
“He’s a stubborn ass. How do you know he’ll talk to you?”
I smile, shrugging one shoulder. “Because if he wanted to talk to anyone else, he wouldn’t have gone to where only I would know where to look for him.”
~
“I wondered how long it would take you.”
The wind coming in off the bay whips my hair around my face, leaving me to battle it constantly.
“Longer than it should have,” I respond, hopping up onto the rock next to Braden. I shove my hair from my face again.
He says nothing, shrugging his shoulders simply and looking out across the choppy water. His thumbs flick against each other, his feet tapping to an invisible beat. I know him well enough to know he’s thinking about what to say, so I keep quiet, waiting for him to make the first move.
“I understand why you did it,” he says after a moment of silence. “I mean, why you kept it secret. I don’t understand why you’d sleep with that ass.”
I glance at him and catch the twitching of his lips. “Umm… He’s hot?” I offer, trying not to grin. Braden bites the inside of his cheek, turning his face away, and I look down.
“Yeah, well, I guess if you have to be with someone, it should be someone I actually like.”
“You’ll never like anyone I date.” I rest my head on his shoulder and he puts his arms round mine the way we used to whenever we chatted. Before we left for college. Before games started.
“True,” he agrees. “But I can’t completely hate Aston because I liked him before, so I’m f*cked. Although I gotta admit I never imagined you with him. I imagined you with some rich bastard and a soft top car, racing down the interstates between L.A and New York for fancy dinners.”
Laughter explodes from me and I cover my mouth as Braden shakes next to me, laughing himself.
“Right – because I absolutely have the manners and patience for that, don’t I? Puh-lease, Bray, give me some credit.” I nudge his side, still giggling slightly. “And have you forgotten your mom’s charity do thing? We had to Google which fork to use because everyone assumed two fourteen year olds knew that sort of thing.”
“And then when I came here, I had to Google dating,” he muses. “Damn. We drew some short straws, didn’t we?”
“I think it’s because you were always in trouble, so by default, I was, too.” I smile and sit up slightly. “I really am sorry, Bray. I never wanted to keep it from you. It was just supposed to be once and everything kind of snowballed, then before I knew it, it was too far to do anything. The longer I left it the harder it got to find the words to tell you.”
“I get it, Megs. Sorta. It makes me feel like shit you couldn’t tell me, but I’d probably have done the same if I was you. But I wouldn’t have gotten caught.” He grins.
“I wanted to get caught.” I shrug. “At least, I think I did. If you caught us I wouldn’t have had to come out and explain it because you would have guessed.”
“You always were the wimp.”
“Hey!”
“Aston is a jackass, Megs, I know that. But he loves you. I didn’t think it was f*cking possible, but he does.” He pauses for a moment. “Then again, this is you. You could turn a gay guy straight if you really wanted to.”
“Well… I bet I could give it a good go.”
“Good luck. Aston will kick his ass, gay or not. If he’s anything like me he will.”
“When it comes to being an overprotective asswipe? Yep, pretty much exactly the same.”
Braden laughs slightly, then sighs. “I’m sorry, too, Meggy.”
“What for? I’m the one who lied.”
He turns his face towards mine, blue eyes meeting blue eyes. “Because I was so wrapped up in what I thought was best for you I forgot to stop and ask you what you wanted. I was so f*ckin’ set on keeping you away from any of the walking, talking dicks in the frat house, I didn’t realize the best thing for you was right under my damn nose the whole time.”
“He never exactly made it easy.” My voice softens slightly. “Part of the reason I never told you was because he might not say it, but he needs you and Ry. He needs the banter and friendship you provide him. It gives him security. I meant what I said when I said you don’t know him like I do. It’s not for me to tell you – I won’t betray him that way – but the guy you know isn’t the one I know. You just have to trust me when I say he’s what’s best. You know the heart doesn’t lie, Bray, and my heart tells me he’s what’s best for me. My heart tells me he’s all I’m ever gonna need, no matter how hard it gets.”
“And that’s why I can’t be mad. No matter how much I want to be. I trust you, girl. Sometimes I have to ask myself why, but it’s no damn good arguing with your stubborn ass.”
“You taught me well.”
“Too f*cking well.” He stretches and stands up, putting his hands on my waist and hoisting me up. He slings his arm over my shoulders. “Come on, then. I ran out on my girlfriend this morning, and I have to go threaten some pretty-boy ass.”
I shake my head as we jump from the rock, smiling. No good fighting it.
He still needs to be macho-man big bro.