If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(42)

“The least-secret, secret Shakespeare Club that’s ever existed?” I offer.

“Shhh!” they both hiss.

“Oops,” I deadpan. “I said that out loud.”

Andy and Tyler look at me warily, uncharacteristically quiet given those fools never shut up.

“You…know about the club?” Andy finally asks.

“I gotta be honest, if you’ve actually been trying to keep it a secret, you’re doing a shit job.”

Tyler groans, raising his fists dramatically. “‘See, we fools! Why have I blabb’d? who shall be true to us, When we are so unsecret to ourselves?’”

“Troilus and Cressida?” I grimace. “That play is such a downer.”

Their mouths fall open in tandem, shock painting their faces. “You actually know your Shakespeare?” Tyler asks.

I shouldn’t be offended. I certainly haven’t made it a point to share much about myself with these guys. They have no reason to know I’m way more familiar with the Bard than I ever wanted to be. But with an oppressive stepfather obsessed with breaking my “headstrong will,” I got to spend Saturdays under his authoritarian eye, reading classics from ancient philosophy to Shakespeare, essays from the Enlightenment, gothic novels, twentieth-century writers, like Whitman, Capote, and Hemingway, who took themselves way too goddamn seriously. I was tasked with reading them, writing about them, then being thoroughly berated when I always somehow managed to get it wrong. Nothing was ever good enough for Edward. According to him, I was stupid, illiterate, lazy, insubordinate.

On the outside, and from my mom’s perspective, Edward was just trying to raise me to be a man of culture worthy of his old blue-blood family name that he so “graciously” adopted me into at my mother’s request. On the inside, it was hell. As he chastised me, shamed me, verbally tore me apart, I learned to go into that cold, numb place and leave myself. Edward knew exactly how to hurt me so Mom wouldn’t see. And Mom never asked questions about how sullen I was before and after those lessons because she didn’t see it—all she saw was a moody, angry boy with daddy issues who resisted a bond with the man she’d chosen to step into my absent father’s place.

I tell myself that’s how it went, because I have to. The alternative—that she saw how he hurt me, how fucked up he was, and did nothing anyway—is something even I’m not able to numb myself enough to not feel something about.

Realizing I’ve been quiet for too long, I clear my throat and shrug as I answer them. “I’m familiar, yeah.”

“Prove it,” Andy says, folding his arms across his chest.

Ren stands from chatting with his small fan, and turns, rejoining our conversation. “Prove what?”

“That Gauthier here didn’t just pull a wild, lucky guess out of his ass,” Tyler tells Ren. “He recognized a Troilus and Cressida quote.”

Ren frowns, glancing between us and looking thoroughly confused. “What?”

As Andy and Tyler catch up Ren on what he’s missed, I watch a small crowd of people part. Ziggy walks past them, smiling, roller skates clutched by the laces in one hand. Her rainbow earrings swing as she walks, and she winces a little when the new song comes on louder than the last one. Subtly, she slips her finger to her ear beneath her hair and wedges her earplug tighter.

Something snaps inside me, like a band stretched too far. I want to hold her. Press a hand to her ear and clutch her to my chest and seal out the world, until everything is as quiet and calm as she needs, as peaceful and perfect as she deserves for it to be.

“Tyler quoted the play,” Andy tells Ren. “So I told Seb to prove he’s not blowing smoke up our butts and actually knows his—”

“‘Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,’” I recite, loud enough for them to hear, my gaze fastened on Ziggy. “‘For in this rapture I shall surely speak the thing I shall repent.’”

Andy gapes. Tyler blows out a heavy breath, then says, “Poor Cressida. She was down bad for Troilus.”

Ren smiles, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “Seb! You did it! You’re in.”

“Did what?” Ziggy asks, her voice so quiet, they all lean in, cuing her to repeat herself. This time she’s a little louder than she normally would be. With the music’s volume and other people’s conversational sound to contend with, no one makes anything of it.

I just stand there, fighting a smile.

Because as I stare at her I see that moment in my parked car all over again, those earplugs wedged in her ears as she explained their purpose in this adorable half-whisper, and that hard, cold place inside me melted and ached and wanted in a way it hasn’t in so long.

“Seb just recited Shakespeare,” Ren tells her, not loud enough, given she has earplugs in, but she seems content to read his lips and lean in, eyes narrowed as she concentrates.

Her eyes widen, then she turns to me, her mouth parted. “You said it without me? I missed it!” She grabs my arm and shakes it a little. “You stinker.”

I fight another smile, inordinately pleased that she cares. That she’s touching me, even if shit, is her grip rough, almost painful. “I’ll throw a line your way at some point,” I tell her. “Promise.”

She gives me a narrow-eyed glare. “Hmph.”