Page 42 of I Could Be Yours (The Toronto Terror #6)

NATE

I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. I had a plan, and I deviated from it, and now it’s shot all to shit. I won’t get tonight with Essie. I won’t get to hold her, or kiss her, or be with her.

But maybe she’s right. Maybe this gaping hole in my chest has nothing to do with loving her. Maybe it is all the shit I’ve been keeping locked inside trying to gnaw its way out.

I can’t go back to the wedding. Not when everyone is happy and my heart has been punted into the ocean and chewed on by sharks. I don’t want Tristan or my dad to see me and ask questions. No one needs my rain cloud tonight but me.

I leave the boardwalk and take to the beach to avoid running into people. My shoes fill with sand, but I don’t stop to take them off, even though it’s uncomfortable and slows me down. I’m so up in my head that I almost trip over Connor. He’s drinking straight from a bottle of expensive champagne.

“Shit, sorry.” I stumble back and lose my footing, landing on my ass beside him.

“What are you doing out here?” His eyes narrow. “Your mother didn’t try to crash the wedding, did she? Security is supposed to be on the lookout. ”

“She’s not here. I’m just trying not to spread my bad mood around to people who don’t deserve it.”

“Ah. I get that.” He passes me the bottle of champagne. “Feel free to stick around for as long as you like. We can be morose as fuck together.”

“Why are you morose as fuck?” I’m happy to take my mind off my own problems and listen to someone else’s. I tip the bottle back and let the bubbles coat my tongue.

“Because I’m me, and my family hates me. And because Meems is getting old, and all the fucking money in the world can’t keep her here forever.”

I pass the champagne back. “I’m really sorry.” My mother might suck a bag of dicks, but my dad and my brothers more than make up for it. And now we have Rix. And my dad has Sophia. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a good guy. I appreciate you helping us out with my mother. I owe you.”

“I’m not a good guy, and you don’t owe me anything.

” He takes a long swig from the bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I just know what it’s like to have shitty parents.

I’m glad I could save Tristan and Rix from the stress of that, but I’m sorry for whatever trash that’s dug up for you. ”

We pass the bottle back and forth.

I keep trying to bury the memories of my mother, but they always work their way back to the surface. “I should probably go to therapy.”

He nods slowly. “Tristan seems to be a fan.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why you’re morose as fuck?”

I shake my head. “Mostly no.”

“Does it have anything to do with the maid of honor?”

I frown. “Why would you think that?”

“Just a sense I get. Lot of sexual tension there.” He takes another swig from his champagne. “So what’s going on?”

“Nothing anymore.”

“Your decision or hers? ”

“Hers.”

“Did you help make it for her?”

“Probably.” She would know when love is real and when it isn’t better than me. “I hurt her a long time ago. Maybe this is karma’s way of getting me back.” She set the parameters from the beginning. She was clear about what this should be. About what we could be.

He passes me the bottle again, but I decline. “I’m going to take my black cloud back to my room.”

“Sometimes things look different in the morning,” he says.

“Yeah. Maybe. Thanks for everything this week. I know you’ve been pulling strings.”

“Anything I can do to make my friends’ lives better and piss off my parents is a win in my book.”

“I’m sorry they’re assholes.”

“Me too. But I’m glad I could be helpful. I hope tomorrow brings fresh perspective.”

“I hope so, too.” Although I don’t see how. “’Night, Connor.”

I leave him on the beach and return to my room. It looks like a Brody bomb went off in here. Clothes are draped over every surface, and six pairs of shoes lie in a heap in the corner. I don’t have the energy to tidy up, so I leave it all where it is.

I change into shorts and a T-shirt and grab all the mini bottles of booze from the fridge. I can’t get the look on Essie’s face out of my head, or the conviction in her tone when she told me I was wrong. That I couldn’t possibly love her. I’m too broken. Too messed up. Too closed off and guarded.

Essie calls, but I can’t handle more rejection, or worse, her checking on me to make sure I’m okay. So I polish off the little bottles of liquor, hoping I can get drunk enough to shut off my brain.

Brody stumbles into the room a long while later. “Bro!” He weaves over to the bed and flops down beside me. “What are you doing in here?”

“Bed was calling. This is my room. ”

He rolls onto his back. “Everyone’s boning tonight.”

If I’d kept my stupid fucking mouth shut, I’d be with Ess right now. “Yup.”

“But not you.”

“Not tonight. Why aren’t you out there?” I ask.

“I was done being social. Some girl was chatting me up.”

“Someone named Tally?”

Brody snorts a laugh. “Dude, you know as well as I do that Tally is all about someone else.”

I crack a half smile. “You think so too, huh?”

“Oh yeah, the way she looks at him?” He blows out a breath. “Besides, I’m all about someone else, too.”

“You want to talk about that?” Anything to keep my mind off Essie.

Brody folds his arm behind his head. “I just have so many fucking regrets, you know? Like, I fucked up so hard in high school, and now we’re at the same university, but I’ve already blown my chance with Enid.”

“You don’t think it’s fixable?” I’m the last person who should be giving him relationship advice.

“Would you get over it if the girl you crushed on fucked around with one of your best friends?”

Essie is too amazing to stay single for long. Will I have to see her happy with someone else? Someone better suited for her? “Maybe you just need to give it a bit more time. People change and grow.” I thought I had. But turns out maybe I was wrong about that.

“Yeah.” He sighs. “You know what the worst part is?”

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t even like her friend. She just kept pushing and pushing. I wish I could take it back.”

I turn to my brother, giving him my full attention. My stomach twists as emotions pass over his face. “What do you mean she kept pushing? ”

“She was pushy, like I said.” He scrubs a hand across his face. “So I got her off.”

“Did this girl force herself on you?” I press.

“We didn’t have sex.” His jaw works, and he clenches his fists. “I just wish I could forget it ever happened. I don’t know why I’m talking about this. It’s not like I can undo it, anyway.”

“Okay, we can drop it.” But I definitely want to come back to this when he’s sober. It sounds like something happened that shouldn’t have.

He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just…my head’s messy.”

“About Enid?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know.” He drops his hands. “It’s stupid.”

“What’s stupid?” I’m having trouble following his train of thought.

He sighs. “I thought maybe Mom would show up for Tristan’s wedding. I don’t want to see her, but I do, you know? Maybe she did come, and I didn’t even recognize her.”

My chest tightens. She’ll never upend his life again, but that choice was made for him, not by him. “Tristan didn’t want her here,” I remind him.

“I know. I just thought… I don’t know. I don’t remember much about her, but I remember missing her when she was gone, and not understanding what we did that was so wrong that she left.”

“We weren’t the problem,” I assure him. “She was.”

“Yeah. I still wish I understood why, though. Like, what happened to make us all too much for her to love?” He picks at a loose string on his sleeve.

“But Tristan has made it okay. Rix is like, amazing and such a good person, and he’s so in love with her, and she’s so in love with him, so maybe there’s still hope for us, too, right? ”

“Yeah, Brodes, there’s still hope,” I lie.

His eyes slide closed, and thirty seconds later he’s out cold. I lie there for a long while, head spinning. I’m almost on the edge of sleep when there’s a knock on my door.

I drag myself out of bed and open it a crack.

Essie’s beautiful, anxious face greets me. She’s still wearing her dress, but her hair is falling out of its updo. She’s so beautiful it hurts. But she’s not mine. She’ll never be mine.

She wrings her hands. “Can we talk?”

I step outside and let the door fall closed behind me.

“I was wrong. I should have heard you out. I?—”

“You were right. What I thought I was feeling isn’t real.” I can’t trust my own emotions, and she knows more about love than I do.

Her face crumples like crushed tissue paper. “But I?—”

“My own mother doesn’t even want me. She put a price tag on my value as a human being and her son.

” Besides, she’s probably right. I just got swept up in the wedding buzz.

Everything would fall apart when we got home.

I’d make sure of that. Better to end it all now than give either of us hope just to take it away again.

She reaches out, but I step back. I can’t handle affection in the form of comfort.

“I can’t love anyone, Essie.” Not the way she deserves. “Especially not you.”