People always know; they just choose to listen to something other than their instincts. If everyone listened to the first warning sign their body told them, I’d bet anything they wouldn’t get into half the trouble or experience so much heartbreak. That’s what is so beautiful about being a human, that while we have logic, we are emotionally driven. Every thought, every decision comes from a feeling.
We like to deny that the human race is anything but emotional, but we are cold, violent, and mean, yet we can be loving and kind.
Everything is emotionally fueled, and when I stared at the door, my idea turned into fact. I just knew I had to get in that room, but when she opened the door, dread filled me because I hated my instincts were right.
The way she looked at me…
I want to experience that singular moment forever in my mind. The one where her eyes said she couldn’t believe she was seeing me, the relief, the flickering second of trust, and then she leaned on me for strength because someone drained hers.
I’ll be her strength whenever she wants me to be, wherever she wants me to be, and how she wants me to be. Any way she needs me, I am here. I don’t know what will happen with us. Probably nothing because she’s always been way too damn good for me, and I don’t deserve her, but I want to show her that I want to be.
I’ll be here. A year from now, ten years from now, whenever she is ready, I’ll be here waiting because Heather Thomas has been the only woman that has ever made me wonder what it would be like to fall in love. Not just with anyone.
With her.
When I get to the kitchen, I pause when all eyes turn on me. My foot is in the air, freezing, afraid to move or touch the ground, or my friends will charge at me. Sebastian chuckles as he walks by me.
“Do I have something on my face?” I ask, wiping my cheek. Have I been talking to the woman that I’ve been in love with since day one with fucking blueberry muffin crumbs on me? No one wanted to tell me? No one?
Fucking rude.
“Just being in looooove,” Gabriella singsongs.
“Heaven and Heather sitting in a tree,” Finley begins to sing, but I run up to her and slam my hand over her mouth, horrified at what she was about to say. She is muttering now, but that’s fine. She can mutter away for all I care because I don’t want anyone thinking just because Heather is here, I’m automatically going to try to be with her.
I’m not.
She has a lot of healing to do, and it’s obvious the last thing she needs is me trying to date her.
No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to date her. That’s teenage shit.
I want to marry her.
It’s always been her. It always will be.
A shadow falls over me, and I know who it is without even looking. It’s Grayson. His big, looming self stands behind Finely and places a hand on her stomach protectively. She’s recently pregnant, too, and Grayson has turned into a caveman. Huffing and puffing, grunting when anyone gets too close to her. He doesn’t let her lift a coffee mug because he is so afraid, she will hurt herself.
“Get your hand off my wife’s mouth right now, Heaven.”
His tone implies that if I don’t, he will remove it for me.
Dropping my hand, Finley goes to sing again, but I shake my head. “Please, don’t. I don’t want to risk Heather hearing it. It isn’t a time to joke or poke fun. This isn’t a cause for celebration. One of my oldest friends just went through the worst thing someone could ever go through. My feelings for her don’t matter.”
“They matter. How can you say that?” Quinn says sleepily. She has dark bags under her eyes, and only half of her hair is up in her ponytail while the other half has fallen out of it. She looks like she just rolled out of bed, but I know she hasn’t been. “Now isn’t the time to act on them, you’re right, but there is a story here, and I can’t believe out of everything we know about you, we don’t know about Heather.”
“She seems very sweet,” Jolie says sadly, stirring the cup of tea with a small, gold spoon. “I hope what’s happened doesn’t change that.”
“It will. It has,” I reply and saunter to the couch to sit down. I’ve been sucking up the pain, so Heather didn’t find me weak. Her pain is worse than mine. At least physical pain someone can witness healing, mental pain? No one can see it but you. I groan, happy as a clam when my sore back hits the cushion of the couch.
“You’re bleeding,” Owen points to the middle of my shirt.
I glance down and scoff. “Well, why don’t you look at it?” It must have happened when Heather sagged against me. I don’t care about blood or pain. As long as it helped her feel better, that’s all I care about.
But since I’m not around her anymore and in front of my friends, I can now act like a wimp. I slump my head onto the back of the couch when the pain has sweat breaking out from every pore of my body.
“My god, Heaven. Why did you push yourself like that?” Owen runs to the kitchen and opens the cabinet to grab the emergency first-aid kit while Jolie gets up from the barstool she is sitting at and snags the plaid blanket off the back of the couch, then throws it over me because while I’m sweating, I’m also cold.
A sign of infection, but I’ve been taking the pills like Owen tells me to, so if I am sick, it isn’t my fault. I followed the instructions.
“Because I needed to know it was her. After I watched the news, I had to know for myself. She needed me, so I had to become what she needed. I’d do it all over again too.” I hiss when Owen lifts my shirt and lifts it over my head. “Listen, I like you Owen, but just as a friend. The way you take off clothes…”
“Shut up, Heaven,” Owen chuckles as he pries the bandage off, tearing out some of my chest hair too with the tape. I hiss again, and Owen deadpans me with an annoyed expression.
“What? It hurts,” I mumble.
“How did you survive glass through the chest when you bitch about hair being tugged—”
“—Not tugged,” I correct him. “Yanked. It yanks, like damn wax.”
Owen inspects the wound and nods when he comes to a conclusion. That’s good. Nodding is always a positive sign. “You’ve torn about five stitches. I’ll numb you up and fix them, okay?”
“You can’t put me out or something?” I dare to ask. “I’m kidding, jeez.” I hold up my hands in surrender when he looks like the way he will put me out is if he punches me in the face.
“So,” Quinn says, holding Holt in her arms as she sits down on the loveseat in front of me. “How do you know Heather?”
“Damn it, Owen!” I clutch the leather when he shoves the needle directly into the exposed wound. “That fucking hurts!”
“No shit.”
I grit my teeth as he pokes it into my skin a few more times until the area is completely numb. “I know Heather from school when we were teenagers. Our families ran in the same circle.”
Jaxon coughs as he takes a swig of coffee because he is the only one who knows about what kind of family I come from. “Sorry, it went down the wrong way. I’m fine.”
I guess I better get on with it. They will find out one way or another. “I come from a very rich family. Well, I came from one,” I right my words. My parents are no longer my family. Not after they wrote me off after I went to prison. They didn’t fight for me because they didn’t care. I’m just someone whose dad spun the story to win him another election. I’m glad my misery could bring him so much damn happiness. “My dad is the Senator of California. Michael Haven.”