Barbette shifted, looked to me, and then shifted again. I didn’t say shit as I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter. She was on her own.
“It couldn’t wait,” she explained without explaining at all. I waggled my brows at her when she glanced at me. I was here whenever she needed me—morning, noon, or night.
When she started for the pantry, my gaze narrowed. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home,” was all she said without looking back.
She barely got her hand on the doorknob before I was pulling her back. “It’s two in the morning,” I reminded her. “How did you even get here?”
She lifted her chin, and I braced for more of her bullshit. “My bike.”
My fickle heart skipped a beat, hearing that she still had it. She was hardly without it when we were kids, and it made me wonder how much of her was still in there—trapped inside this cold, gorgeous shell.
“So your plan is to ride in the open, down a dark and empty road at two in the morning? I think you’re smarter than that.”
“Yeah, but you’re still an asshole.” She tried to pull away, but it got her nowhere except even closer to me. I could smell my shampoo in her damp hair and my body wash seeping from her warm skin. Pleasure rushed through me, knowing she still smelled like me even after washing. “Let me go!”
“I can take you home,” Ever offered.
I tossed him a nasty look over my shoulder, and he smiled. He wasn’t taking her anywhere. I’d flatten all four of his tires if I had to.
“That would be great, thanks,” she graciously accepted.
Her friendly tone baffled me. Ever had just broken their engagement in the most humiliating way. Why wasn’t she the one threatening to slit his tires? At that moment, something inside me begged for me to believe her. To believe that there had been nothing between them.
Ignoring them both, I pulled Bee over to one of the stools and pushed her down on it. “Sorry, but that’s not an option, either.”
Before I could say more, light flooded the kitchen. My head whipped toward the entrance, and instantly, my balls fought to climb back inside my body.
My mother’s hair, a little darker than her brother’s light-brown locks, was in disarray from sleep. And despite her medium height and curvy frame, my father’s robe still managed to swallow her. Her hand remained on the light switch while her cobalt blue eyes, the exact shade as Uncle Thomas’s, narrowed to slits.
“Step away from that girl, Jameson. Right now.”
I didn’t move as I stared down my mom. It was the first time I ever considered openly defying her. The look she gave me in return told me she’d kick my ass all over this kitchen, so I took a step back. Dilwen Buchanan stepped forward, ready to scold, but then Bee turned her head, and the words fell right out of my mother’s mouth.
“Barbette?”
With a shy smile, Bee waved. “Hi, Mrs. Buchanan. It’s been a long time.”
“Oh, my… it certainly has.” My mother rushed forward and stole her away from me, wrapping Bee up in her loving arms. For a few seconds, my mother squeezed Bee as if her life depended on it. “You are even more beautiful than I remember.”
I was too captivated by the tear that had fallen from Bee’s eye to hear her response. My mother held on a little longer than necessary, so Bee slyly wiped it away, the yearning I’d witnessed gone by the time my mother let her go.
How long had it been since Bee felt a mother’s touch? Or any touch that was genuine and good and free of expectations?
“What are you doing here at this late hour? Why aren’t you home in bed?”
Bee ducked her head, unable to answer. Unfortunately for me, my mother caught on and gave me a withering look. I made a mental note to make myself scarce in the morning. Graduation wasn’t until tomorrow evening, so maybe by then, this would all be forgotten.
I knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t be forgetting that look on Bee’s face, which was why, when my mother offered Bee the guest room that she’d been sleeping in herself, I didn’t argue. I was as quiet as a mouse even when she informed me that I’d be sleeping in the pool house for the rest of the night. I left without a single word spoken to either of them.
I was sitting on the patio, glowering at the pool water twinkling in the moonlight when my mother appeared an hour later. I didn’t sit up when she sat down, but if she noticed, she thankfully didn’t speak on it.
“I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I don’t ever want to see you manhandling that girl or any girl ever again.”
“I wasn’t—”
“What would you call forcing a girl to stay when she wants to go?”
I pressed my lips together and wisely kept them shut. She wouldn’t want to hear my reasons. She’d only call them excuses. And shit, maybe they were.
My mother lifted my chin, the way I’d seen my father do to her so many times, the way I had learned to do to Bee, and my troubled gaze met her understanding one. “That girl’s head might wander a thousand different paths, Jameson, but her heart… her heart isn’t so fickle. Barbette knows it as well as she knows you.”
Normally, my mother was a wise woman, but for once, she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. “I guess it’s lucky for Bee that hers wasn’t the one broken.”
“Oh, yes, it was,” she argued, making me grit my teeth. “You don’t fall apart from a simple hug unless you’ve been crushed too many times before.”
So my mother had noticed Bee’s reaction.
My fingers curled, making a fist. It was all I could do not to go to her. I knew my mother wouldn’t let me anywhere near Bee, though.
“What do I do?” How do I win her back was the question I really wanted to ask.
“Oh, I don’t think so, son. If you’re grown enough to play ‘hide the missile,’ you’re grown enough to figure this one out for yourself.”
I smiled as my mother stood. She was the one I got my affinity for dirty euphemisms from.
“So, you aren’t going to march me over there and make me apologize?” I teased.
The look she gave me made me feel as if I were two feet tall. I was once again a little boy about to be sent to the naughty corner. “I didn’t raise you to be forced into doing what’s right, Jameson. Be the man your father would be proud of.”
As if she hadn’t just punched me in the gut, she disappeared inside the pool house, probably to make sure I didn’t sneak back up to the main house. I wanted to. God, how I wanted to. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there before I crawled into one of the empty beds instead. Closing my eyes, I let sleep pull me under. Tomorrow, I had a choice to make.
Forgive Bee. Or set her free.
Bee was gone the next morning.
Somehow, she’d managed to sneak back home long before the sun had fully risen. And I knew this because just before dawn, I’d snuck back inside the main house only to find an empty bed.
As if she knew I would be coming for her, she’d left a note.
The girl you loved is gone, Jameson.
Letting you in had been easy.
To bleed you, I had to cut deep.