“It was mine?”
My eyes squeezed shut, blocking out the low autumn night, blocking out the world. “Yes.”
He held me to him for a moment. For a few seconds, he held me so close to him like he was afraid to let go. When he pulled back, his face was a cold mask.
“You should have told me.” He didn’t move except to run his eyes up and down over me. His look was so sharp I could almost feel the cut. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you.”
My breath left my body with a sharp huff as I shook my head in disgust. “Don’t worry, Gray, I wasn’t looking for your forgiveness.” I moved away from him. “You got what you needed; you can go.”
“Who do you need to forgive you? Jett?” he asked me, his words laced with scorn.
“You’re an idiot.” I slammed the door in his face before I locked it, shutting him and the world away outside.
Why didn’t he understand? I didn’t need Gray’s pardon. To receive anyone’s forgiveness, first, I had to forgive myself.
Chapter 9: Gray
It had been a few days since the disaster that was dinner. I had stayed away from her, not that easy to do when she was fucking everywhere, but I’d managed it. I couldn’t help it, and I knew I was being a dick, just as I knew we needed to sit down and discuss it, and I knew I had to, at some point, tell my cousin that I’d fucked his ex. Not once, not twice, but three times.
And I couldn’t tell him.
I couldn’t tell him how much I hated myself for loving her. From the moment she jumped into the pool just to prove me wrong, she’d owned my heart. I didn’t recognize it for what it was when I was ten. Didn’t really understand it when I was twelve, and we made the pact not to date her.
A pact. A fucking pact.
We were all stupid. She was captivating, even with braces and hair that looked like it had never seen a brush; she was all I saw. I went out of my way to make her laugh, make her happy. All I ever wanted was for her to see me. Not as Jett’s twin or Ash’s cousin, butme.
I still don’t think she ever did.
She saw Ash flirt with girls, but she never noticed that I didn’t. I watched her eyes follow Ash in the cafeteria when he flirted with the other girls, and I saw her frown. My only reassurance was that she never, ever looked at Jett that way. They were so firmly friend-zoned; it was laughable that neither Ash nor I were good enough.
Well, Ash was good enough. I grunted as I ran. Coach had given me grief about my focus, and I had talked back to him. So, I was running laps as punishment, because Coach was a giant dick. But also because he was my coach, I respected him, and I shouldn’t have been a smartass.
My mind went back to her as I ran. I knew as soon as Ash told me he had kissed her that I was in danger of killing them both. How fuckingdarehe touch what was mine? How fucking dareshelet him touch what was mine?
But what had I done? Nothing. I pretended it didn’t matter. It was just a kiss, big deal. She’d been kissed before. And like before, I would tell her to stop it, and she would. Because she knew that she belonged to me.
But no, she let him kiss her again, and she opened her legs and let him finger fuck her in a closet at a party, like a fucking cliché. He had boasted to me that he’d had his fingers inside her, and my rage had known no bounds. I’d beat up three guys that night until I felt nothing. Jett had been furious, even more so when I wouldn’t tell him what was wrong with me. Our older brother, Onyx, had found me sitting in the dark at the end of the pool, a towel wrapped around my hand to soothe the sting of the cuts.
“You’re being reckless,” he warned me.
“I know.”
“She isn’t worth it.” Onyx looked over at me, and I stubbornly refused to meet his gaze.
“She is.”
“No, brother, she isn’t. She doesn’t care. You’re making yourself weak.”
“I’mnotweak,” I growled at him as he stood and looked down at me.
“Then stop being a fucking pussy. Tell her what you want, let her slap you down, and then get over it.”
But I wasn’t Jett, I never had been. My twin knew what to say to people, say to girls, I didn’t. However, I’d told her. I’d asked her to put a stop to it. I had kissed her to show her what she meant to me. And she had kissed me back, just as eager, just as desperate to be mine.
It had been done. I was sure of it. Then Ash told Jett and me he was dating her. Thank fuck I’d been training on the punching bag at the time, or else my fists would have connectedwith his face.
Why would she do that? I had made it clear.She was mine.
