“Open the door.”
“God, I feel sick,” I mumble to myself.
“Open the door!” He sounds angrier.
“Did you compare us? Isn’t it every man’s dream to sleep with twins?”
“Hadley, open the fucking door,” he yells, and it’s followed by a loud crack. My bedroom door swings open and the lock falls to the ground. Grim fills the doorway, his fists clenched and his shoulders square, like he’s ready for a fight.
Vomit threatens to leave my stomach and I rush to the bathroom. Grim sticks his foot in the door before I can lock that, but I’m in too much of a rush to make a fuss as I drop to my knees and spill the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I feel his hand on my back and I swat it away. After a few minutes of sickness, I grab some toilet tissue and wipe my mouth.
Grim slides down the door, sitting opposite me. “Do you need anything?”
“Yes, a man who doesn’t lie to me.”
“I was thinking more drink or food?” He tries to joke, but I don’t laugh. He can’t talk me round with wisecracks and cheeky smiles.
“Whose idea was it to keep it a secret from me?” I whisper.
“I don’t really remember. Mutual, I guess.”
“The day you disappeared, the weird behaviour, the sudden talk of getting our own place, that was the problem that was sending you crazy?”
He nods and looks at his hands, twisting his club ring around his finger. “She asked me to stay away from you, and I tried, but it was hard. I missed you, and Mav gave me this talk about you and how you’re good for me, and I thought, fuck it, if Mav approves, I don’t care what Meli thinks.” He rests his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “You make everything feel better, and I wasn’t ready to walk away. The more time we spent together, the harder it got. When she told me she was pregnant, my first thought wasn’t about Meli or even the baby—it was how the fuck I was gonna tell you. I didn’t talk her out of the abortion because it meant I could keep us a secret and then I wouldn’t lose you.”
“You should know by now that nothing is a secret in this club. It always comes out in the end.”
“I told her we were together, and she was upset but agreed it wouldn’t serve any good if we told you. We were done, a fling, and it wasn’t worth losing you over.”
“So, you kept it a secret and now look what’s happened.”
“It was a mistake. I should have told you right from the beginning, I see that now.”
“Now, you’ve been caught.” I stand and take my toothbrush, and Grim watches from the floor as I brush my teeth. “You need to leave,” I mutter before rinsing my mouth.
He shakes his head. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
“You promised Meli you’d go back to her,” I say coldly. He follows me back into my room, watching as I get undressed. It’s still early, but I’m exhausted, and all I want to do is curl up in my bed and forget today ever happened. I pick his shirt up, the one I usually wear for bed, and hold it, feeling the soft cotton in my fingers. My heart squeezes in my chest, and I drop it to the floor and get a nightshirt of my own from the drawer. I also get clean sheets because I don’t want to smell him in my bed or on my skin, the thought causing me to shudder.
“What are you doing?” he asks, trying to take the sheets from me. I move around him and begin stripping the bed. “Hadley,” he pleads.
“It hurts too much,” I mutter. “Your smell was a comfort before, but now—” A painful noise leaves my throat involuntary.
He nods sadly and begins to change the bed for me. When it’s done, I climb under the covers and turn my back to him, praying he’ll leave me alone. He doesn’t, and I hear him walk over to the chair by the window.
I can’t take the million questions racing around my mind, so after a long silence, I eventually ask, “Did you hold her?” I’m not sure why I go with that question over so many others, like whether he enjoyed it or whether he had a better time with her.
“Huh? No. No, I told you, it wasn’t like that.”
“You listened to me rant about the man who got my sister pregnant. You suggested it was probably a random guy she met.” I groan. “God, I’m such a twat.”
“Hadley, you’re not. Don’t say that.”
“It would have bothered me, and I’d never have gotten with you had I known from the start, but the fact you went to such lengths to hide it, hurts me way more.”
“I panicked.”
“When you made me promise not to leave you, was it because of this?”
“You promised to stay,” he mutters.
“It was before I knew about this,” I snap. “I didn’t know what I was promising, but you did, and you still asked me, knowing what that meant for me, for us.”
I lie awake for hours. The pain in my heart won’t let me sleep despite how exhausted I am. Hurt begins to turn to anger around two in the morning and I look over to see Grim sleeping peacefully. I’m jealous he can sleep so easily, so fucking guilt-free now his dirty little secret isn’t weighing heavy on his mind. I get out of bed and head downstairs.
I’m making myself a hot chocolate when the door opens and I’m face-to-face with Meli. Her eyes are red and swollen, and it’s obvious she’s been crying. “Oh, sorry,” she whispers. “I thought everyone would be in bed.”
“For some reason, I couldn’t sleep,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Hadley, I am so sorry,” she says desperately. “I wanted to tell you, I told him to tell you, but he was worried it would ruin everything.”
“He was right to be worried.”
“Don’t say that. You’ve liked him for so long, and now you’ve finally got him. Don’t let something so little like this ruin it.”
“Little?” I snap. “This isn’t little, Meli. Why do you both keep playing it down? My boyfriend had sex with my twin sister—it sounds like a fucking chat show topic!”
“It didn’t mean anything.”
“Bullshit. Did he ask you to get rid of the baby?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“But I’m guessing he didn’t try to stop you either.”
“No, but he was really nice. He asked more than once if I was sure, and he was really great at the clinic. He—”
“Grim went with you?” She hesitates before nodding, and I groan. It was the right thing to do on his part, but it leaves me feeling even more in the dark. “There’s been this whole big cover-up and I didn’t see it. I feel like an idiot.”
“We didn’t mean to make you feel like that.”
“You don’t get it,” I snap. “I’ve watched him for years, and his eyes have always been on you. And then suddenly, he looked my way, and he said all the things I’ve been wanting to hear. He made all the right promises. Then to find out he had sex with you, his perfect woman, it hurts me. It makes me doubt everything he ever said. And to top it off, you knew how much I liked him, and you still went there.”
“I know,” she mumbles, looking down at the ground. “But I was certain he was never gonna be with you, so I didn’t see the harm.”