“How’d you guess?” I said playfully.
“Because you’re staring at your phone like a smitten kitten,” Marlee cooed, draining the colour from my face and eliciting a frown on Seb’s.
“Oh for God’s sake.” She admonished us both single-handedly. “Get over it.” She reprimanded her still scowling boyfriend. “And you” – she pointed at me accusingly–“should decide what it is you really want, because your whole fake engagement comes to an end soon.” She was already walking away as her final words came slicing through the air. “You can lie to everyone else all you want, Coop, but don’t lie to yourself.”
My eyes shot to Seb’s, part - ‘can you believe her?’ - part searching. I was trying to gauge his reaction but he gave me nothing. His face unreadable, that wall I hated not being able to see through, erected, before he turned back to the coffee machine.
Replying to Evs and telling her to take however long she needed, I thought about how I still couldn’t quite believe I was going to have someone there with me for this party. She could have whatever she damn wanted because the odds were stacked in my favour now. I was not only gaining the support of someone I trusted, but I would be the luckiest bastard there walking in with her on my arm.
When I finished, Seb was staring at me intently, my coffee waiting and I nodded my gratitude.
“I will probably fucking regret this, but do you want to talk about it?” He asked, and the uncomfortable nature of his featureswas enough to crack the tension. My laugh escaped before I even realised it was coming.
Because strangely, I fucking did want to talk about it and while it was weird as fuck, he was the only person I would want to have this conversation with. And so, it was with a deep exhale that I unloaded every thought I hadn’t voiced. Every emotion I couldn’t name. Everywhat if, whyandwhat the fuck, and to his credit, he listened. Listened as if it was a completely normal thing for me to pace the floor of his kitchen and unload thirty four years of trauma. As if he didn’t have a vested interest in the parts where I unloaded the confusion, uncertainty and sheer fucking terror around feelings I couldn’t even name for his sister.
At some point, Marlee returned, a silent observer, and I still didn’t stop. I was a volcanic eruption after years of lying dormant - sudden and impossible to contain. A dam cracked open after holding back too much for too long. A storm finally breaking after days of heavy pressure in the air. And by the time I finished, the skies had darkened and I was exhausted.
“Jesus fucking Christ, I need a drink after that.” Seb said, and my lips twitched. He didn’t say a word as he cracked the tops off two beers, the sharp hiss and click filling the silence between us. He passed one to me, then lifted his own. Just before the bottles touched, in that unspoken moment of ‘I've got you’, he finally said, “You don’t need me to tell you what to do. You already know. And you’ve got us behind you.”
If I were the kind of person who cried easily, I’d have been in pieces. Because he was actually giving me his blessing and trust to navigate whatever this was with Evangeline. So, I put my beer down, came around the bench, and pulled him in for a solid hug.
“Love you, brother,” I said.
“Don’t fuck it up,” he replied, his grip tightening ever so slightly. “Because we will still hide your body,” he added, with a smirk.
“I’d expect nothing less.” I said truthfully, knowing andrespecting their loyalty to each other more than he would ever know.
We finished the rest of our beer in silence, and across the room, Marlee watched us - looking like the cat who got the canary - while I thought about my next steps.
CHAPTER 35
Eva
Ilet my head fall to the window and surrendered to the steady pulse of the tires and the lazy drift of music through the speakers. It wasn’t a long drive to work, and I’d slept right through last night, but by the end of the week I was always pretty tired.
“Can I ask you something?” Coop said, his voice still laced with sleep, his eyes darting towards me briefly before moving back to the road. We’d fallen into a pattern of soft, easy days and nights that burned hot, our bodies unwilling to part until the sunrise forced us back into the facade of something slower. It felt more like a relationship than I’d ever been in before, only neither of us wanted to admit that, rather continuing to ignore the inevitable. Only now, his tone held an undercurrent of nerves, and my stomach started to flutter.
“Does anyone ever say no to that question?” I replied, squashing my apprehension.
“I knew you’d answer with a question.”
“What did you want to ask?” I was impatient now, desperate to hear in case it was something bad.
“Do you remember that day you came to my house with Seb to swim?” The blood drained from my face. This was a topic Ididn’t want to discuss. I knew exactly which day he was talking about because it was one where I first experienced heartbreak. I just didn’t know where this conversation was headed and why he was suddenly bringing it up.
“Yeaaaah,” I nodded slowly. “What about it?”
His gaze flicked toward me, but I didn’t dare meet it, staring ahead instead in anticipation.
“Why did you really leave that day?”
I felt the air leave my lungs at the question I saw coming but still wasn’t prepared for.
Why did I leave?Why did I leave!
Because you hurt me. Because I was painfully in love with you and had been for years - albeit secretly - and you never knew. Because I’d tried so hard to look good and was hoping you’d also see me for more than my brother’s younger sister. All of the reasons were fighting for supremacy, but was now the time to be honest? Was it worth dredging up the past when it all seemed so childish, so insignificant against everything we’d become and the years which had passed?
“Because you didn’t want me there.” I stated simply.
