Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“They actually said they slept with her?” Janet presses.
“I know you’re trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and maybe cast suspicion on what Melanie said, that maybe I twisted their words or… I don’t know, maybe I didn’t hear the whole thing, but I wish you wouldn’t ask me to relive those painful moments.”
Janet offers a shrug. “I really am trying to get the full story here. We tend to forget crucial details in the heat of the moment.”
“They said what they said,” I reply. “Trust me, I’m not going to get back together with them. It was a one-time thing. Maybe I’ll just go back to dating one man, and I’ll get married and raise a typical family and this’ll be a blip in an otherwise ordinary life.”
Janet studies me carefully, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking until she bursts out laughing. “Girl? You? You’re never going to settle. Whoever you end up with is going to be perfect for you, I have no doubt. Whether it’s one man, or three or five, the number isn’t important. Don’t sell yourself short.”
I nibble on my bottom lip, considering the good parts of the affair. “I really did like being with all three of them at once.”
“I bet!” Janet shouts, startling a few birds out of the field. “I need more alcohol for the details of this particular aspect of the affair, so… glad we’ve got a bottle of white to back to.”
“It was intense. On a different level,” I say, my mind slipping back to that hot tub. “Maybe it was the emotional connection that I had with them, maybe it amplified everything about the experience.”
“Maybe it wasn’t just you,” she replies. “Maybe they, too, played their cards right. I’m guessing six hands were better than two.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And three mouths were better than one.”
“You can say that again.”
“And three cocks—” Janet is about to go overboard so I raise my wine mug to stop her.
“That’s enough,” I laugh. “But yes.”
She gives me a long, curious look. “You miss them.”
“So much already…”
“Did you give them a chance to explain the whole thing with Melanie, then? You overheard them or eavesdropped or whatever. But did you confront them about it?”
I lower my gaze—I’ve been doing that a lot lately. “No.”
“Don’t you think you should?”
“I don’t think it matters anymore. I was there. They could’ve told me. The entire situation could’ve been handled differently, but… to be honest, I was already hurting. I have feelings for these men, Janet. Feelings which I doubt are compatible with a menage of four. I was hopeful that we might figure out a way to make it work, but—”
“But learning about their affair with Melanie was the much-needed nail in a coffin you were already building, right?”
I stop and turn to look at her. “The way you’re saying it…”
“It’s not wrong nor right. Your reaction, I mean. It was already a complicated situation. I get it,” Janet says. “I’m just saying… You were in quite the rush to get out of there. Maybe you already knew that it wasn’t going to work out, hence your decision to vamoose without even confronting them about it.”
That’s food for thought and then some.
I didn’t consider it this way. Granted, I was so hurt, so offended, I set my reason aside altogether. My decision to leave was purely emotional, and the way I left things… There wasn’t room for any kind of do-over.
“It’s too late now, anyway,” I conclude. “It’s over. There’s no turning back.”
29
OSCAR
Amonth drags by when I’m nursing a broken heart.
I study the whiskey cradled in my palm, amber swirling through the cut crystal. Its bold bite, earned from years in charred oak, can’t chase away the memory of the woman who slipped through my fingers.
Sunlight pours through the living-room window, molten gold that glints off the city’s steel-and-glass skyline. Kellan strides in, a frown carving a deep groove between his brows.
“What are you looking for?” I ask him.
“My watch.”
“Which one?”
“The one I got from you for Christmas last year.”
The watch flashes in my mind—I saw it on his wrist only days ago—but the past few weeks have blurred together: client meetings, endless work, and maybe too much whiskey poured as a nightcap to dull the ache.
My brothers are just as lost.
Just as disoriented.
It’s as if we’re unmoored without Makayla.
“Oscar!” Kellan shouts.
“I haven’t seen your damn watch!” I call back.
Sensing his glare, I lift my gaze from the Scotch and find raw sadness swirling in my brother’s eyes. This isn’t us. We’ve never faced this kind of desolation, and we have no roadmap for nursing our bleeding souls.
“I’m sorry—I’ll buy you another,” I say, the weight of inanimate things suddenly meaningless.
Kellan sighs. “It’s not about that. It’s… You know what, it’s fine. I’ll find it.”
He wants to keep fighting, to cling to the brotherhood we’ve built with Bryan over the years. I’m not sure that’s possible. Callie froze us out after the resort fiasco, and Bryan isn’t thrilled with how things ended with Makayla either.