After I take a few measured sips, I shake my head. “He’s my best friend.” There was nothing romantic about the gesture, though I can see how it might seem that way.
Simon doesn’t look convinced, but it’s not my job to put his feelings at ease. I’ve told him the truth—if he doesn’t believe it, that’s his problem. Not mine. Plus it was one average date. I don’t owe him a damned thing.
“Can I get you anything else?” He pulls my wheelchair closer, like I have much chance of getting myself mobile with a shattered leg and a broken arm, but I like his confidence in me.
I bite down the bitterness bubbling on my tongue. I hate being dependent on anyone, for anything, and ever since I woke up in that hospital bed I haven’t been able to do a damn thing for myself.
Ignoring my headshake, Simon fluffs the cushions behind me before disappearing. He returns with two pillows. As he slides them under my leg, the front door bursts open.
Apollo dumps his kit bag at his feet before striding across the room, pausing when he clocks Simon, who quickly backs away from the brooding hulk of a tall, dark, and blazing man staring him down.
He’s supposed to be in Belfast, playing hockey with his team. But he’s standing here, shoulders heaving with determined breaths. Apollo is a man on a mission. What that mission is, I have no idea. At least not until he leans over me, glides his thumb across my bottom lip, and before I can breathe, think, or register what’s happening, his lips are on mine.
Ew. I’m kissing my brother. I mean,ewwww, am I right?
Except it’s notewwww. It’s notewat all. In fact it’s kind of the best feeling in the entire world, and I find myself sinking into his kiss. My lips part. I’m not sure if it’s on a sigh, a gasp, or because I need my best friend’s tongue in my mouth, but when our tongues collide, my world shifts on its axis.
Sweet baby Jesus in the manger. Where has this come from? Apollo’s kissing me with such depth, such tenderness it brings tears to my eyes. For a moment I forget that he’s my childhood best friend. I forget that he’s the rich guy next door, the hottie who shares girls with his twin sometimes and all the fucking lines we’re crossing right now. Hell, I almost forget that pieces of my body are broken and let him kiss me.
The prince of darkness kisses like he’s claiming every single one of my kisses forevermore, like he’s claimingmeright down to my very soul.
Our kiss has barely begun before it’s over. He pulls back, his eyes raking over my features like he’s expecting me to be someone else. Is he mad? Excited? Aroused? I have no idea because his intense stare is un-fucking-readable as always. Except usually I have some idea what he’s thinking but this… huh.
We’re off script with this one.
He doesn’t say anything for a long minute, and I’m pretty sure I’ve stopped breathing. He kissed all my breath away, and now I’m suffocating, waiting for something, anything to tumble from those pretty, pouty lips of his, or for him to kiss me so I can breathe again.
He glances at Simon but doesn’t otherwise acknowledge him, or show any signs of guilt, remorse, or embarrassment. Instead, he glides his thumb over my cheekbone, plants a kiss on my forehead, and stands upright.
“I’ll wait for however long you need me to.”
Then he’s gone. I stare open-mouthed after him as he picks up his hockey gear and closes the door behind him.
What the actual fuck just happened?
My fingers ghost my lips. Did he really kiss me?
The look on Simon’s face tells me it not only happened, but he’s not all that surprised by it. Well, I fucking am. That was so out of left field I can’t even pick through my thoughts for a coherent sentence right now. But I think I’m mad.
No. I’m definitely mad. Super mad, in fact. So mad my blood’s fizzing and hissing in my veins. Vibratingly mad.
Simon rubs the back of his neck with his palm. “I guess I should, eh...” He points at the door. He shrugs. “I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
“There is nothat,” I splutter. That’s a lie. There is most definitely athat.Thatmight be new, but there is absolutely, positively now athat.
The sympathetic smile Simon offers me is like scratches on my skin. “Okay, well give me a call if you want to hang out, or if you need anything, or...” He shrugs again, and even though it’s not my fault, I feel bad. I feel like I’ve kicked a puppy.
I thank him for everything, and the second the door clicks shut behind him, I have regrets. First of all, I regret letting him leave. Panic clutches my throat as I look around the room. The walls don’t close in on me like they did while I was in the hospital. No, instead they expand, making the space too big and everything in it too far away.
My next regret is that I didn’t let Apollo figure out a nurse for me because my glass is empty and while my wheelchair feels so far away, the kitchen is most definitely further. I guess this is where I die, right here on my couch.
Punching the sofa cushions at my sides isn’t enough to let off some of the frustrations coursing through my body. I pick up a pillow to my side and throw it. The reward for my adolescent behavior is the corner of the cushion catching the vase of beautiful flowers and sending it to the floor with a crash.
“Motherfucker!”
Grinding the heel of my not-casted hand into my eye socket to prevent my tears from falling, I swallow down gulping breaths, letting the anguish wash over me in waves. The music from the last piece I performed tinkles in the back of my mind, getting louder with each note.
Before the crash, we’d finished up our performance ofThe Nutcracker. It’s alwaysThe Nutcrackerfor Christmas. I was in a quick recovery window before prepping for audition season for a summer attentive and our spring show in school. I hate my lamé gold unitard with a fiery passion, but right now, I’d give anything to wear it again if it meant I could dance.
