Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(34)

“About a week after that is when Billy showed up on campus, surprised me outside the music building. He asked me to come with him to grab a coffee.” I frowned at the memory, at my faulty, na?ve thought process. “I was so excited, I would’ve gone anywhere with him. But instead of taking me to coffee, he took me to a hotel.” What a silly fool I’d been.

“Wait.” She stopped rocking. “I thought you said you guys didn’t have sex?”

“We didn’t. We went to the room and talked, and then he held me, and then he drove me home.”

Sienna’s eyebrows lifted up at the same rate her jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

I nodded again, my lips curved in a smile. “Yes. I’m serious. That’s it. He told me he missed me and he just wanted to know me again, that he’d tried to stay away but couldn’t. We agreed to meet at the same hotel, every week.”

Her pretty brown eyes were wide as quarters. “Whoa.”

“I know. I’d been constantly thinking about being with Billy, I’d fantasized about it, all the time. And then like magic, there he was.”

“This was while you were married-slash-engaged to Ben?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling the cold shadow of shame creeping into the oasis of the quiet nursery. Mentally, I shoved it away, pushing it back. I was so tired of feeling ashamed.

“And you loved him.”

“Yes. I did,” I said, feeling calm, which was so unusual for these memories. “When we were teenagers, before I left, I was in love with him then, as much as a fourteen-year-old kid can be in love with anyone. I missed him after I left—so much—I never stopped thinking about him.”

“Even when you and Ben were married-slash-engaged? Before you came back to Green Valley, you were still thinking about Billy?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Wait, can I ask this? What stopped you two from going all the way? Having sex, I mean. If you thought about him all the time, fantasized about being with him, didn’t you already cheat? Why not take the final step?”

“Honestly? It was me. I wanted to be with him, but I wasn’t ready. My experience with sex was . . . well, let’s just say, it wasn’t great.”

“Jeez. I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is. Plus, looking back over the lessons I’ve learned in my life, I now know there’s a universe between wanting and doing. They are not the same. Wanting something doesn’t mean you’re ready for it.”

“When you two met up, at the hotel, did he push you? Did Billy pressure you to do things?”

“No. Never. He didn’t push me. I told him I couldn’t do that. All those times we met at the hotel, we rarely kissed on the lips. Sometimes, I’d kiss his cheek, or—when he’d hold me—he’d kiss my neck. That’s all we did. It was—it was—I don’t know how to describe it. It was so—”

“Innocent?”

Wrinkling my nose, I still felt like I was relating someone else’s story. “No. I was going to say, charged.”

Sienna exhaled a short laugh, and then another laugh followed. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

She and I shared a small smile, which was strange. I’d never recounted the events—even to myself—without a heavy dose of shame. It was strange to think about my younger self without the layer of loathing attached to it. Maybe, if I’d been a little kinder to myself, things might’ve been different.

“So what happened? Why’d you stop seeing him?”

Ugh.

I gathered a deep inhale and then let it go. “Billy had been withdrawing more and more, each time we were together. He’d talk less and less. And then, he stopped coming. He wanted me to leave Ben.”

“And you wouldn’t.”

“I was . . . afraid. Mostly of my father, but also of hurting Ben. He was so sweet to me, mostly. And I thought I owed him so much. But then I made a plan. I decided I’d tell Ben the truth as soon as he got home. So, he got home, and I did.”

“You told him the truth?” She stopped rocking.

“Yes. Ben told me to choose, him or Billy. But, either way, he said he would forgive us both, pray for our souls, and told me I always had a safe home with him if I came back to him.”

“Blah,” she said. “I can’t decide if that was kind or incredibly patronizing.”

“I called Billy right away. I asked him to meet me at the hotel even though he swore he wouldn’t anymore, not until I left Ben.” A rush of emotion stung my nose and eyes. “He walked in and wouldn’t look at me. And I—” My voice broke.

“Claire,” Sienna reached for my fingers like she didn’t want me to go too far, her hand sliding down and holding mine.

“I told him I wanted to talk to him, about something important. And he asked me why, what was the point. I asked him if he loved me, and he said nothing. So I asked if he hated me.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘If I do hate you, would you blame me?’” God, it still hurt, but not just because of Billy’s cold answer.

Bethany Winston, his momma, had been there. She’d followed him, concerned for her son, and after he’d left, she’d confronted me. I’d never told anyone but my therapist about it. Even now, I couldn’t seem to force my mouth to form the words. Her disappointment in me still felt like breathing in needles and shattered glass.