Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Because I told him not to. It was none of your business,” I said frankly.
“It was my fault.”
I rolled my eyes. What was with both Chase and my brother to think the whole world rested on their shoulders? “Don’t think so highly of yourself. I might have been hurt when you left, but I was also a horny, eighteen-year-old boy who had just given his first BJ and wanted to know what it felt like to be on the other side of it.”
Chase didn’t speak, didn’t move, and damned if I didn’t feel bad.
“I didn’t want him to tell you because I knew you’d blame yourself and come back. This wasn’t where you wanted to be. I wasn’t who you wanted. You ran away from me, but you also have a loyal streak a hundred miles wide. I knew you, Chase, and I knew you’d come back, just like Griff did when our parents died. I wasn’t going to be the reason you came back somewhere you didn’t want to be. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault. It was his, and that’s all there is to it.”
The silence stretched on so long, I wasn’t sure what to think. Finally, Chase looked over at me, his eyes watery. The sight hit me in the chest. I’d never seen Chase Hawthorne cry. Not when his dad showed up drunk to his high school graduation and made a scene, or when he got arrested for drunk driving, or when Griff left, or my parents died.
“I was scared,” he admitted softly. “Scared because the minute you kissed me, I realized I wanted it, and I felt…fuck, I felt like a dick because you were a kid, just eighteen, and Griff’s brother, and he was like my brother, which twisted my head all up. Then I thought about Griff, who was my fucking family, Kell. I only had family because of him. You and your parents, you’d only loved me because Griff had loved me, and it felt like I was stabbing him in the back. Kissing you meant losing him, my family, and I didn’t know how to do that.”
So he’d chosen Griff over me. That shouldn’t surprise me. Griff was everything to Chase. I was the little brother. Of course he would choose Griff over me, but it still hurt. Because if Chase had been serious about me, if he’d really cared about me, Griff would have understood. Being scared that kissing me would result in losing Griff meant it hadn’t been nearly as real to Chase as it had to me.
Griff had always been better than me. He’d always been the one to do the right thing. Everyone loved him, and I had always just been Kellan—the weird one, the loud one, the gay one, the one no one liked. At least not as much as Griff. “That’s not true,” I finally managed to say. “We loved you because you’re you, not because of Griff.”
Chase ignored me. “I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry for letting all that shit happen. I should have stopped you. I shouldn’t have let it go as far as it did. I was older than you, so I should have been able to keep my head on straight. And I shouldn’t have left the way I did. You deserved better than that.”
“Yeah. I did.”
Then, just like he’d done ten years ago, Chase Hawthorne wrapped an arm around me. Hugged me. Kissed the top of my head. And it felt so good…so right. I’d been with my fair share of men over the years, but none of them felt the way Chase did. None of them had their own little home right inside my chest.
I was still in love with him, but I’d never have him, and I didn’t know how I was going to deal with that.
CHAPTER FOUR
Chase
I couldn’t stop thinking about Kellan, about what he’d told me, what had happened to him when I wasn’t there. It could have been worse; fuck, it could have been a whole lot worse, but that didn’t change the fact that it had been bad, that he’d been hurting after how I treated him, and I hadn’t known.
That twisted up my insides in this way that was a constant discomfort no matter what I did. It had been four days since I left him sitting on the couch, yet he hadn’t left my mind. Kellan could have gotten hurt, and I’d never forgive myself for what happened.
If there was one thing my friendship with Griff had taught me, it was that you took care of the people you loved. That’s what I’d been doing when I left, because Griff would have lost his fucking mind if he’d found out what happened. Griff was the first person who ever loved me, and I loved him—him and Kellan both. That made this an even bigger clusterfuck than I’d imagined because before Kell had told me what happened, when he’d first opened the door, all I’d thought was, Damn, he looks good.