“The fourth was to stand up for yourself. Well, you can check that one off because damn, Lia, you took the world by storm today, and it was so fucking amazing to watch. I was in awe.”
“Thank you. It felt good.” She looks off to the side and says, “I can’t believe he’d just sit there and let her say those things about me. It just shows that maybe he wasn’t really in love with me, and I don’t think I was in love with him. At least not recently. It’s hard to be in love with someone when they don’t treat you like they love you. They can say the words, like he did, but he didn’t prove it. He didn’t act on his love. It’s about the little things, you know? The things you don’t even notice until they’re done. Like . . . like stocking my favorite coffee because you know I can’t drink anything else. Brian never did that.”
“I’m not that douche. And I wouldn’t want you drinking anything else.” I wink.
She smiles softly. “I think my choice today also coincides with my fifth task: following my heart. It’s scary to break off an engagement because you don’t want to disappoint people, or hurt feelings, but I just felt it, you know? After speaking with the girls, things felt off, not right. And then when Brian didn’t even defend me, I knew it was over.”
“I’m glad you listened to yourself.”
She rests her head against the couch and asks, “Did you hate him?”
I finish the rest of my drink, chugging that one pretty hard. “Brian? Yes. I did. With the fury of a thousand men.”
“Wait, you hated him that much?” she asks.
“Uh . . . yeah, Lia. The only reason I tried to get along with him was for you. Not because I thought we could be friends or that I thought he was a good guy. It was all for you.”
Her eyes connect with mine, and she wets her lips. I wish I knew what she was thinking, if I could read what was going on in her mind, because it would make this so much easier. I wouldn’t be as scared of making a move . . . when the time is right of course.
“You should have told me.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t want to influence you. My feelings on the matter should never have been taken into consideration.”
“But, Breaker, if I had married Brian, wouldn’t that have been like one of your brothers marrying someone you hated?” Not even close. But I do get her drift.
“Yes and no.” This is where I could go for it and explain what loving her means to me, but it’s too soon. I know that. I could give her a taste, perhaps. “Lia, if I have learned anything through your brief and torrid engagement with Brian, it’s this. I love you too much to be happy to love you less.”
“What does that mean?” She looks so confused and forlorn.
“It means that the only way I’ll be happy if you marry someone else is if you are one hundred percent committed to him and him alone. If you were marrying me, no fucking way could I share you with another man, best friend or not. And I wouldn’t expect your husband to love you any less than that.” Because if you married me, I would be both. Best friend and husband. Period.
She glances away, and I can only hope that something clicks inside that beautiful brain of hers. I know now that I could never give her up. That’s what love is.
Chapter Sixteen
LIA
I can’t handle it when he says things like that.
His captivating eyes tell me that I should always be put first, and it’s what I always wanted to hear from Brian. It’s the one thing I asked from him, yet Breaker offers it up so easily.
If you were marrying me, no fucking way could I share you with another man, best friend or not. And I wouldn’t expect your husband to love you any less than that.
I drop my feet to the ground and down the rest of my cider. “Do you want another?” I ask him as I walk to the kitchen.
“Sure,” he answers, but I can hear the trepidation in his voice.
I don’t bother to ask him what’s wrong because I already know. He’s worried I’m drowning my sorrows in booze, but I’m not. I’m trying to drown the red-hot emotions pulsing through me every time he looks my way. I’m aware I’m the one who asked him to be my friend—and only friend—all those years ago. I’m also aware that his sisters-in-law don’t believe he’s a relationship kind of guy. So I need to stop imagining things.
However . . . I can’t get the thoughts out of my head of how he goes down on a woman.
How he prefers his dick to be sucked.
How he’d treat his woman, like she’s precious.
Nor can I stop thinking about what his bedroom eyes look like. Are they darker? Clearer?
Not to mention, the way he so shamelessly tells me how beautiful I am . . . it’s starting to beguile me because I shouldn’t be looking at my friend like that. I shouldn’t be having these thoughts, so if I have to use alcohol to help me subdue them, then I will.
I crack a can open for us and hand him one.
“Let’s watch a show,” I say. “Or watch a movie. We can watch The Thin Man.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to annihilate me in another board game?”
“I’m trying to save your pride.”
“Aren’t you considerate.” He grabs the remote, and I suck down my drink. My head is starting to feel fuzzy, which is just what I want. I welcome all of the fuzziness.
“Oh, I recorded some reruns of Password in case you wanted to play.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “You game?”
“You know I always am.”
“Good.” He winks and then takes a large gulp of his drink as well.
“Stop.” I laugh so hard I nearly pee my pants. “Stop . . . how am I supposed to guess spoon from dairy?”
He is buckled over, laughing on the floor in our empty cider cans.
“Because you slurp dairy up with a spoon,” he says as he lies on the floor, arms spread, staring up at the ceiling. His shirt has pulled up a few inches, and I catch sight of his brilliant abs.
“You could have said spork. You’ve lost your touch.”
“I’m drunk,” he says as he kicks a few cans away. “And I just ate a donut, so my mind isn’t working well.”
I fall to the floor and crawl over to him, my hair falling over my cheeks as I stare at his smiling face. I reach out and pat his cheeks a few times. “You used to be so smart. What happened to you?”
“You and your drinks,” he says right before he wraps his arm around my waist and rolls me to the floor right next to him.
“We didn’t drink that much.”
“We drank ten cans each,” he says.
“Over like . . . ten hours.”
“Lia Fairweather-Fern, it has not been ten hours. And we’ve gulped down three in the past hour, so . . . we are drunk.”
“You might be drunk, but I’m not drunk.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “Stand and walk in a straight line.”
“Easy,” I proclaim as I roll to the side and then slowly push myself up to standing. He props himself up against the couch to watch me. I take a deep breath and say, “Watch this excellence.”
I put one foot in front of the other and start walking, my legs wobbling while I lose balance and nearly crash into the island chairs, causing Breaker to roar with laughter.
“Okay, sure, you’re not drunk.”
“That’s not my fault,” I say as I take another deep breath.