Her laugh came out watery as she shook her head. “Don’t b-be an idiot. I’m a grown woman.” Her hand came up to wipe under her runny nose. “God, I need a tissue.”
Hawk chuckled. “Yeah, you do. You’re a mess.”
“Thanks.”
“Come on. Your messy ass is going to sit on the couch while I bring you some tissues and hot cocoa, and then you’re going to tell me how the hell I missed my best friend hooking up with my sister for all this time.”
Hawk’s arm banded around her shoulders, guiding her towards the couch. She sat, patiently waiting for tissues, then her mug of hot cocoa, before spilling every last one of the secrets she’d been keeping from him.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ever let it get this far. It was just supposed to be fun.” She sighed, her sight laser focused on one of the pictures Hawk had displayed in a tiny frame on their television stand. It was his SEAL team, before one of their last missions, with another group of men she didn’t recognize. Stone was standing next to Hawk, his hand gripping her brother’s shoulder. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say. Except that I love him, and I don’t think I’ll ever know how not to. I’m sorry. I messed everything up.”
“Don’t be sorry for loving him, Mae.” Hawk scraped his hand down his face. “And you didn’t mess anything up. It sounds like Stone needs to get his face rearranged and then maybe he can screw his head back on right.”
“Don’t hurt him. Not using my honor as a reason. We are both grown adults. He told me from the beginning nothing serious could ever come from what we were doing. I didn’t listen.”
“Classic Mae Morgan.” Hawk’s shoulder dipped and bumped into hers, a small smile breaking out on his face.
“Yeah, classic me. Anyway, you should go back to sleep. I’m going to take a shower, crawl into bed, and not move for the next month.”
“You think the girls will let you do that?”
She shrugged.
“You think I’ll let you do that?” he asked.
“You don’t get a say.”
“I do when I know your stinky ass would start smelling up the apartment.”
God, her brother was still just as annoying sitting there, a fully grown man, as he was when they were both still kids.
“Funny.” Her reply was meant to be sarcastic, but her small smile gave her away.
“I still need to talk to him.”
“Hawk—”
“No way, Mae. It’s gotta happen. And if you’re up here crying, he can be awake too, explaining to me why the fuck he broke your heart.”
That moment was always going to come. Stone had known it from the very first kiss they shared. It was just for fun. It was just to get it out of their systems. This–this insane, written-in-the-stars attraction he felt to Mae–was wrong. She was a grown woman who could absolutely put the fiercest warrior right in their place, but Mae was still his best friend’s little sister.
There was always an endpoint. But understanding that didn’t make seeing her tears any easier. It didn’t make the hours of arguing feel any less distressing. Knowing he’d broken her heart fucking shattered Stone. He never wanted to do that. Because even in the moments when he swore it wasn’t happening, Stone had fallen in love with Mae.
God, he hated himself. The look on her face, down on her knees begging him to change his mind… it was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. His stomach pitched, but that only made him want to run harder. Faster. Longer. The pounding punishment of his feet against the pavement was the only thing that would save his sanity now. Hawk was going to find out. And then he’d lose his best friend.
To be honest, he’d expected his phone to be blowing up by now. He would completely understand Mae going back to her apartment with Hawk and waking him up to spill their secret. He’d wasted almost two years of her life.
But at the beginning, he’d had hope. They were walking towards a white dress and wedding bells. He was thinking of buying a house and hearing little feet running on the floor in the mornings to get to him. But the shadows came for him. And he wouldn’t let their poison touch her. Not like he already had.
Shit, he wouldn’t stop Hawk’s punches. He deserved them.
At least Silver Springs was quiet at that hour. It almost always was when he’d run early in the morning. Unless one of his buddies decided to join him, there usually wasn’t another soul that he’d cross paths with. It was normally a very peaceful way to start the day. But there was nothing nice about that morning.
His stomach churned more, a pain he never wanted to leave him, because it served a purpose. A reminder of how much Mae meant to him. Enough to protect her from everything, including himself.
Stone stopped in front of Dolly’s, his hands resting on his knees as he tried to suck in all the air to try and clear the ache in his chest right in the diner’s parking lot.
How had he let things get so bad? He was the first person to push his teammates into therapy. And yet, he’d resistedfor so long. What a fucking hypocrite! There was nothing stopping him from having it all, except his own stubbornness.
