Page 68 of Craving Consequences

There is nothing left of the cake but a gloppy, melted puddle of sugar. Pink frosting bleeds into the cardboard and seeps out of the corners. The tiny rosebuds are bloated lumps seeping into the purple smear of Happy Birthday, Lauren .

On my other side, Lauren pokes her head over my shoulder and stares down at the mess.

“What’s that?”

I sigh, surprise ruined. “It was a cake.”

I feel her shift and lean in closer to read the neat scripture of Maisie’s handwriting. Her silence hangs between us long enough that I have to sneak a peek at her reaction.

“What?” she says at last. “Why does that say Happy Birthday, Lauren? My birthday isn’t until next month.”

I pull the trunk closed with more force than is necessary. I brace my good hand against the hot metal and face her.

“It was supposed to be a surprise for this weekend.” I huff, annoyed. “I guess that’s not happening.”

Lauren blinks at me. “You planned a surprise party for me?”

I gesture vaguely at the trunk. “Well, tried to.” I stare down at our feet, too tired to properly handle the emotions in her eyes. “Kind of ruined now.” I pull in a long, slow breath. “I don’t think I have the energy for a party right now, anyway.”

I need to call the boys.

I need to face Lachlan and tell him what happened before he hears it from someone else.

I need to call a dozen people and tell them the party is cancelled.

I need to tell Lauren about Van .

I need to finish packing my things.

My entire left side is on fire. My head is pounding. My stomach feels torn between needing a toilet and throwing up. My skin is sticky with blood and sweat, and I’ve never wanted a shower more in my life.

“I have to go,” I whisper. “I have to call ... so many people.”

“Everly.” Her hand extends as if she’s about to capture my arm.

Her fingers hover near the elbow not swaddled in wrapping.

“We need to talk. I know you’re tired and hurt right now, but .

.. I can’t lose you. I know that’s a lot to ask right now and I get you need space and time to think, but . .. can we talk?”

She’s not wrong.

I do need time to think when my emotions aren’t just getting off a roller coaster. I need to properly come down from the adrenaline and think.

“I don’t think you want that,” I say at long last. I put a hand up when she opens her mouth. “I slept with Van.”

Maybe it’s the swarm of exhaustion, or the absence of forethought, but it comes out without a single shred of regret or guilt. It drops into the oppressive silence that clings to us. A bomb ticking down.

It does dawn on me that I should have talked to Van before telling Lauren. This affects their relationship as much as it does ours. Vaguely, I’m aware this could ruin things between him and me, too.

But all those thoughts have come too late.

Lauren isn’t speaking. She’s not even blinking. Her gaze is fixed on my face, tight as if I’ve smacked her.

“Why ... why would you do that?” She breathes like she’s struggling to control her voice.

Too late to back down now, I push on.

“I love him.”

And Lachlan, but one life altering confession at a time.

Lauren blinks now. Her head jerks up a notch that pulls her entire body back a step. “Since when?”

That’s a good question.

Even while I rifle through my muddled brain and try to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with the two, I can’t really be sure.

Maybe it happened three weeks after I buried my parents and he found me standing over the coiled and kinked hose along the side of my house crying because Mom used to love watering the garden and I had no idea what I was doing.

I’d been so certain I’d kill her flowers.

He’d come around to see if I needed anything like he’d sensed my meltdown.

He hadn’t said a word when gathering up the resistant piping and shown me how, talking me through it gently .

Maybe it was later. Maybe sooner. Maybe a part of me always had but held back because of Lauren.

“I don’t know,” I confess at last.

She shakes her head with a dumbfounded expression darkening her features. “That is the one thing I asked you never to do.”

Overwhelmed, I glower at her. “I really don’t think you have a lot of leg to stand on, Lauren. You can’t act the victim right now.”

Her arms fold with the deliberate turn of her face in the direction of the cul-de-sac. Sue and Tyler Smithson are nowhere in sight. It is too late in the day to be feeding birds, I suppose.

“I didn’t ... I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” she bites out. “I didn’t do what I did because I secretly wanted him, and I just couldn’t stop myself any longer. I hated every second of it. What you did...”

I had set out to hurt her. That had been my plan. Unlike Bron where I wanted him out of Jefferson for good, out of my life forever, the only bridge I had to burn with her was Van.

But it wasn’t all out of vengeance and spite. I didn’t only sleep with Van to get back at Lauren. I’d wanted to be with him and Lachlan for so long that Lauren’s actions simply opened that door to do it without guilt.

“I didn’t sleep with Van to get back at you ... entirely,” I say softly, with all the honesty in my chest. “I’ve wanted him for a long time. I just stopped fighting after what happened with you and Bron.”

Lauren’s jaw tightens. Her arms remain folded, but I can see the sharp anchors of her nails cutting gashes into the soft muscles of her upper arms.

“So, you just gave yourself permission to sleep with my dad?”

I wince at the acoustics of her accusation exploding through the soft afternoon in the middle of town. My gaze sweeps our surroundings, relieved when I find no one close enough to have overheard.

“I guess the same way you thought you could just make life choices for me,” I throw back, careful to keep my voice down. “I get Bron was a piece of shit. I know he was, but it was my call to make how to handle him.”

“Handle what?” she snaps back, at least attempting to match the volume of my voice. “He belittled you, used you, hurt you. He treated you like garbage. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you enjoyed being a doormat.”

“I didn’t stay because I was wildly in love with him, Lauren. I didn’t stay because I enjoyed the way he treated me. I stayed because...” I break off and glance at the thin stream of people going about their business. “Get in the car. ”

She doesn’t argue when we both stalk to either side of the car and climb in. I wait until the door is properly shut behind us before turning to her the best I can without agitating my arm.

“I stayed because of Lachlan,” I blurt, fast, without thought. Tearing it out of my chest like ripping off a bandaid.

“Then why didn’t you sleep with him?” Lauren exclaims, hands jumping into the air and slapping down in her lap. “I have been wanting you to jump that man for years! Why my dad?”

Heat fills my cheeks. Conversations about my sex life had always been a short discussion with the lack thereof. And I know I can trust Lauren, even now with everything going on between us. Still, I hesitate.

“I did,” I whisper so low even I’m not sure I actually said it.

Lauren’s jaw unhinges. Her mouth is as wide as her eyes as she stares at me from over the console.

“Shut your face,” she gasps at last. Amusement and a familiar, comfortable grin extends across her face. “Are you serious?”

Shifting uncomfortably, I grin a little and wrinkle my nose. “Yeah.”

“Oh my God!” She gives an ear shattering hoot and claps her hands in euphoric delight. “Yes! I love this for you. The way that man would watch you ... I would kill for it. I don’t even find him attractive, but it made me all hot and bothered. ”

I chuckle and rub an anxious hand over the soft fabric keeping my arm bent against my chest.

For a second, a heartbeat, a fraction it’s like we used to be. That crippling weight is lifted and we’re both smiling like idiots at each other and there’s laughter between us.

“I need all the details. Everything. I need detailed notes,” she squeals.

My face twists into a grimace. “That’s so weird.”

She shakes her head. “Listen, the way I’ve pictured this man fucking you ... I could write a book. It would be filthy and disgusting, and so fucking hot.”

Even as I fry with the heat of my embarrassment, I burst out laughing. “Oh my God, Lauren!”

She gasps, hand flying to her chest. “It was! I knew it!”

Her wild cackle is hysterical and giddy, and so loud I have to shush her.

“Holy shit.” She sobers a pinch. “That man looks like he’d be a freak in bed. Ugh, I am so jealous. Does he have a brother?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You know he doesn’t.”

She huffs. “An uncle? Grandfather?”

I roll my eyes, lips twitching. “There’s only one of him.”

And he’s mine .

I don’t say it, but it curls around my heart like a warm blanket. It makes me ache with the need to find him and Van and crawl into their laps and let them hold me.

“Look,” Lauren shifts, all humor gone as she meets my eyes, “I don’t regret what I did.

There is literally nothing I wouldn’t do for you.

You are my twin flame. I knew it the moment we met, and I decided you were my person.

” She lowers her gaze to her lap. “I am really pissed about what you did. My dad is the only person I love as much as I love you and if anyone hurts him, I will go in for murder.”

“I would never—”

“But you will,” she cuts in. “You slept with him and his best friend. What do you think will happen when he finds out? It’ll crush him.

It’ll ruin things between him and Lachlan.

” She breaks off abruptly with a shake of her head.

“He’s still in love with my mom. That will never change.

She was his whole world and losing her devastated him.

It’s why he never remarried or had a serious relationship. No one will ever compare to her.”

It’s hard to stifle the wrench in my chest. The hard blow to my stomach, like getting kicked by Bron all over again.