Beautiful Sacrifice (The Maddox Brothers, #3)(79)

“I saw Travis this morning. He was fine.”

Taylor’s eyebrows shot up. “Before the beach?”

“Yes, as I was leaving the room, he was going to see Thomas.”

Taylor thought about that and then shook his head. “Damn it. Something’s going on with them. Something big. Nothing good either.”

“I think Camille has an idea of what it is.”

Taylor narrowed his eyes. “She kept it from Trenton that she was dating Thomas. She didn’t tell Trent for a long time. I’ve always thought there was a bigger reason behind it. I mean … we all know Cami. Trenton was in love with her for years. No one knew Thomas was dating her, and I assumed it was so we wouldn’t jump his shit. Now … I don’t know. It has something to do with Travis, and that makes no sense.”

“Travis looked devastated. What would do that to him?”

Taylor shook his head. “Losing Abby. That’s about it. He just doesn’t give a shit about anything else. Fuck … do you think it’s my dad? Maybe he’s sick.”

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t make sense for Thomas to only tell Travis, right?”

Taylor thought for a long time, and then he sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it anymore. It scares me and pisses me off. Camille shouldn’t know more about my family than I do or than Trenton does. That’s f*cked up.”

“You can think about it. It’s a distraction,” I said.

“From us?” he asked.

I nodded.

His shoulders fell, and he leaned forward, rubbing his temples with his fingers. “Please don’t.”

I couldn’t stand the misery anymore. “I love you. You said once that it’s not a phrase you throw around. It’s not for me either. I don’t like what you did. But I don’t like what I did either.”

“Just promise me, you’ll try.”

“Taylor—”

“I don’t care. I don’t f*cking care. We have to fix this.”

“I’m not going to drop anything on you. We have a lot to talk about. If we hit a wall, you’ll see it coming.”

“I do. I see it coming.”

“No, you don’t,” I said, exasperated.

“You don’t get it,” he hissed, leaning in closer. His jaw worked under his skin. “I have never been so afraid as I was when driving back to Estes from your apartment. I’ve never felt so lost as I did in the hallway outside Thomas’s door, waiting for him to get home. I thought I would feel better when he got there. I didn’t. I thought Tommy could tell me something that would make sense of how I felt and my fears, but he couldn’t. That feeling has only gotten worse, Falyn. Not until I saw you standing in that lobby did I realize what it was.”

I waited. The agony in his eyes made me want to look away.

“It was grief, Falyn. I haven’t felt it since I was a kid, but I remember that helpless feeling when you lose someone. No matter how much you love someone, you can’t bring them back. No matter how much you scream or drink or beg or pray … a hole was created when they left. It burns and rots you from the inside out until you stop crying for the pain to stop and start accepting it as the way life will be.”

I sucked in a breath, horrified.

“I’m not saying I don’t deserve to be left. But I’ll do anything if you’ll just give me a chance to prove myself to you. Thomas said something to me in Eakins about not sleeping with someone to dull the pain. It’s no excuse, but it was a mistake, and I’ll learn from it.”

I listened to his words and then replayed them in my mind. “I have conditions,” I blurted out.

“Name them,” he said without hesitation.

“You have to get tested.”

“Already scheduled.”

“I need time. I can’t pretend that nothing happened.”

“Understandable.”

“I’ll need patience from you if and when I have a moment of jealousy and when it takes me a little bit to remember that it was me who set this all in motion and that it’s mostly my fault.”

Taylor spoke his words slowly, each one emphasized, “This is not your fault. We both f*cked up. We both regret it.”

“That’s about the only thing I know right now,” I said.

“No. You know we love each other. And because of that, I know things will get better.”

When I nodded, Taylor sat back in his seat, only a bit more relaxed than before. Either he didn’t believe his own words, or he thought I didn’t. He slid his fingers between mine, and we waited in another awkward silence until our flight was called.





“I can’t do this.”

I heard him say the words, but thirteen weeks of work and forgiveness wouldn’t allow me to believe it. I sat on a chair in his Colorado Springs hotel room, the beige carpet and drapes mirroring my blank expression.

Taylor sat on the bed with his head in his hands. He wore only a white towel around his waist, his skin still glistening from the shower.

“You checked in two days ago,” I said.

He nodded.

“You’re going to give up now?” I asked.

He looked up at me, frustration in his eyes. I knew then that I’d lost him. Gone was the longing, the guilt, and the patience.