Fight or Flight(60)
Hearing the melancholy tone in my voice caused Caleb’s eyes to dim with sorrow. “Nobody’s family is perfect, Ava.”
I tensed, realizing the sorrow wasn’t for me but … my God, for him. “Caleb?”
He shook his head. “No matter. Breakfast?”
I refused to let go of his hand. “What happened to your family?” His hesitation made my heart pound. “You can tell me. After what I just told you, you must know you can tell me anything. Friends tell each other stuff.”
“It’s not a happy story.” Caleb refused to meet my eyes and it made my heart pound.
“What happened to you, Caleb?”
“Not me.” He shook his head. “Well, to me, aye. But to us all.” Finally he looked at me, his eyes bright with grief that made me squeeze his hand tight. “Quinn, my brother I mentioned earlier …”
“Yes?”
“He died, Ava. He died when he was eighteen. He was high. Got behind the wheel of a car.”
I wanted to wrap my arms around him so tight but I knew somehow that kind of physical comfort wouldn’t be welcome. “I am so sorry, Caleb.”
“Aye, well.” He gently eased his hand from my grip only to rub it through his hair in discomfort.
I didn’t know what else to say. Caleb felt far away somehow. He always did in a way, a bitterness underlying in his gaze, his demeanor, that I didn’t understand until now. It was grief.
Knowing what he needed now more than ever was for me to defuse the weighted moment between us, I forced out a cheeky smile. “Well … I should thank you for your advice about Nick. Pancakes?” I threw off the duvet and hopped out of bed, feeling his gaze on my naked body as I crossed the room to my dresser for some clean underwear.
“If there’s a prize for good advice giving, I should at least get tae choose it, no?” he said, sounding relieved.
I glanced over my shoulder at him as I pulled up my underwear. “Sure.”
His eyes smoldered. “Then lose the knickers, Ava, and get back in bed.”
I shivered at that look, my body anticipating the goodness that look led to. Curling my fingers into my lacy underwear, I shimmied them back down my legs. “You know, it was such good advice,” I said, kicking the underwear off my feet, “that I think it calls for an orgasm and pancakes.” I leisurely crossed the room and got on the bed on all fours, crawling over toward him.
Caleb bestowed on me a slow, wicked smile. “Did anyone ever tell you that you are a very good friend tae have, Miss Breevort?”
I smiled back. “When I’m done with you this morning, Mr. Scott, I’ll be the best friend you ever had.”
His answering chuckle was swallowed in my kiss, and the sadness of our past histories abated for a while.
Seventeen
I’m a little surprised you agreed to meet with me, but glad,” Nick said as soon as Paul led him into my office.
I nodded my thanks at Paul, who quickly dismissed himself. Then I got up out of my chair, gesturing for Nick to take the seat in front of my desk.
He did so, glancing around the office, curiously taking it all in. I hadn’t noticed it on Saturday night, but Nick had lost weight. Enough so that his cheekbones were sharp on his once boyish face. When we were growing up, all the girls wanted to date Nick because he had irresistible pretty-boy good looks with an edge. Dark hair, soulful dark eyes, long lashes, and olive skin. Tall—almost as tall as Caleb—Nick had a lanky, wiry build. When he’d walk toward me in the school corridor with that swagger of his, I’d thought with the shallowness of youth how lucky I was that Nick had chosen me to love.
But he hadn’t loved me.
He’d been in lust with me.
When I looked back on it, he never complimented me on anything but my face and body. He never told me I was smart or funny or kind. He’d always just whispered in my ear about how beautiful and sexy I was, how he loved my eyes, my smile, my legs, my ass.
You get the picture.
I’d just been so eager for the affection that I’d never noticed his preoccupation with my appearance.
It was another reminder that what me and Caleb had was just sex too. Caleb only ever complimented me on my body and how I made his body feel. But he was honest about it, which made him a hundred times more trustworthy than this shadow of my ex-fiancé sitting in front of me.
Gaunt, exhausted-looking, he turned back to me and opened his mouth to speak.
I put up a hand to stop him as I leaned against my desk looking down at him. “I agreed to meet with you, Nick, for one reason only. You mentioned on Saturday you wanted to apologize and I need to tell you that I don’t want your apology. When you first cheated on me with Gem, I temporarily allowed myself to believe all the terrible things you said about me being vain and generally not a very nice person. But I soon realized that you said all that because you needed to believe I was the bad guy so you didn’t have to feel guilty. And somehow you managed to convince everyone back in Arcadia of the same with that good-boy charm of yours. But I don’t believe it. I know the truth because I was there.” I wanted to rage against him about how I hated him for stealing Gem from me, but the genuine grief in his eyes for his wife stopped me.
“You cheated instead of coming to me and telling me the truth. Would it have hurt? Yes. But at least the two of you wouldn’t have betrayed me. And if you would just have apologized, accepted the fact that you were in the wrong, then I could have forgiven you. I’d have had the chance to forgive Gem. Because the truth is, Nick, I couldn’t give a shit about you now. All I care about is that I lost my friend and the chance to forgive her.” Tears brightened my eyes as he stared up at me, watching as his expression darkened. “As for you, I don’t feel anything. You’re just a blip on my radar. So go home and take an apology I don’t need or want with you.”