“Out.” I was halfway back to the elevators.
Punching the down button, I kept checking down the hall to make sure he wasn’t coming after me. He wasn’t. He was frozen to the wall where he’d staggered back, his head hanging and his expression blank.
His head lifted, his eyes finding mine. “I love you.”
I glanced away. I knew from experience I caved whenever he became the brooding, self-loathing version he was evolving into now. “Then start showing it.”
The elevator doors opened right then, and I lunged inside, punching the first floor button. After the doors closed, I undid my heels and took them off. I was still planning on going for a walk—alone. I needed to figure out what was going on. Inside my head. Inside my heart. I needed to, once and for all, confront the feelings I had for them both and decide who I belonged with, if either of them.
If either of them even wanted me when all was said and done, because I couldn’t be with Jacob without telling him about Matt. And I couldn’t be with Matt without confronting the reality that I’d been with his brother for years.
When the doors opened on the first floor, I slipped out and left through one of the side hotel doors that put me closest to the beach. Sand between my toes, ocean waves crashing beside me—it sounded like the perfect way to work out years of repressed feelings.
I loved Jacob. I knew that. But I wasn’t sure it was the kind of love that one should have for the person they planned to spend their whole life with. I loved the person he was when he wasn’t drinking, and I had come to fear who he was when he had been.
It was quiet everywhere tonight; that probably had to do with the storm coming. Or possibly coming, because no one seemed to know for sure if it would hit us or not. The lack of a crowd made for that much better of a walk. I needed time alone with my thoughts to attempt to untangle the web I’d spun in the years since I’d met the Adams brothers. I was no longer sure who I felt what for, that’s how interwoven they’d become.
Only a few steps onto the beach, I recognized a familiar laugh. Instantly, I felt my smile forming and all of the heaviness inside me start to lift.
Matt. He was close by. Maybe I could talk this whole mess out with him and he could provide some clarity. For years I’d gone to him when I needed someone to talk to, although this might not be the ideal topic to discuss with him since it had to do with him. And my feelings for him.
My feet moved faster. I could no longer hear his laughter, but I felt his presence. Up ahead, the hotel’s beach bar was glowing, but unlike earlier today, it was mostly empty. A handful of people were scattered around at the stools, but all I saw was him. It was kind of amusing to see Matt pressed up against the counter of some cheesy beach bar—so not his scene—but that was when I noticed he wasn’t alone.
Not alone at all.
There was a woman on the stool next to him, but really, she was as close to him as she could get before she was on his lap. My feet stopped moving as an ache spread from my chest. Her hands were all over him, and he was doing nothing to push her away. Her head was close to his, and the two of them looked at each other in a way . . . that I was not going to let myself think about.
Between them on the counter was a half-empty bottle of something, and after Matt poured some of it into his glass, he slid it in front of her. She drained it in one drink, her eyebrow lifting at him right after.
I didn’t see what happened next. I couldn’t stay to watch. Instead, I turned and ran in the opposite direction, as quickly as I could in the soft sand while wearing a dress not designed for jogging.
It wasn’t until I tasted the saltiness on my lips that I realized I’d started crying. Over what I’d seen, over what was about to happen, over this whole damn mess.
I shouldn’t even be so upset that I’d just caught him with some other woman—I had no claim to him. We were friends. He’d done what he had at the wedding because of that. He’d done what we had that night because we’d both been tipsy, I’d been all over him, and he was a red-blooded man. I might have thought he was Jacob . . . but now I wasn’t even so sure of that.
Did I really believe last night that he was Jacob? Or did I know the truth inside me?
Even that I couldn’t make sense of anymore.
Facing the fact that I felt like I didn’t know a goddamned thing anymore brought on a fresh flood of tears that dropped me to the sand. I was tired of running. Tired of burying my feelings.
I wasn’t taking another step until I confronted the harshest reality of all—was I in love with Jacob or his brother?
The next morning was painful. I had a whole new respect for the hangover and how clear liquid could make a person feel like their brain was about to start liquefying out their ears.
I awoke with a groan, reaching for the bottle of aspirin I kept on my nightstand. Except it wasn’t there . . . because I wasn’t in my condo in Miami. I was on St. Thomas. On my brother’s and Cora’s honeymoon.
My head pulsed harder with that reminder.
Cora.
How could one woman invoke so much pain, and at the same time so much joy, when I thought about her? It didn’t seem possible, but I knew better. I had countless years of evidence proving it.
“What in the hell were you thinking?”
The voice was guarded and controlled, coming from the side of the room. I’d known it wouldn’t take long for my brother to confront me, but it could have come at a better time. Like when I didn’t feel like each verbalized word was sticking another pin in the cushion that was my corneal matter.
Forcing my eyes to open, I found him leaning into the wall across from me, arms crossed, dark hollows beneath his eyes.
“I was thinking about Cora.”
His chest puffed out when he exhaled. “You were thinking about yourself.”
“Fuck off.” I wasn’t in the mood for my brother’s accusations, not since he was the first domino that sent the whole carefully constructed maze tumbling down.
“Speaking of fucking . . .” Jacob shoved off the wall, moving a few steps toward the bed. I didn’t miss the way he inspected it, like he was half expecting to find Cora naked and sprawled out beside me. “Did you?” He sniffed. “With Cora?”
“And good morning to you too, brother. Nice to see you.” I rolled over onto my back and attempted to sit up. I hated vodka. I was never coming within arm’s reach of it again. Ever. “I make it a habit not to have long, drawn-out conversations with a hangover, so you’re just going to have to ask Cora if you need an answer to that right this second.”
I tried to keep my affect flat, giving nothing away. Why was he asking me? Shouldn’t he know either way, whatever she’d decided to tell him, by now? I couldn’t imagine it wasn’t the first thing he’d wanted to know last night when he confronted her.