It was weird being in the neighborhood where you spent a big and very important chunk of your childhood. All the houses looked the same as I remembered; even the damn air smelled like it had back then. The house my mother had decided to take her own life in was still the same, too. Sure, it looked more lived in, and there were flowers that hadn’t been there when I was a teenager, but it was right where it had been, tucked among the memories I wanted to forget.
I hoped the family who was living in it now was a happier and more functional one than ours had been. I hoped the kids who were growing up in the house weren’t witnessing their mother slowly losing the light in her eyes for no good reason. I hoped that they had another house they could spend their time in if things weren’t going that great for them, someone to care about them like Logan and Emily had cared about me.
Right then, standing in front of their house in the middle of the night didn’t feel as scary as I had thought it would feel when I was on the plane. It was more like coming back home, and that was a good feeling for someone who hadn’t had a good home for most of their life, someone who had lost both his parents along the way and for a very long time hadn’t had a real thing to hold on to when things got rough.
Maybe it wasn’t as scary as I had initially thought it would be, but I was still a mess. Apart from feeling like a mess, I also looked like a fucking mess.
After spending ten minutes in front of their house, not knowing how Olive’s parents would react to seeing me, not knowing if Olive would even agree to see me, I sucked it up and knocked on their door.
When Dylan opened the door and his eyes hardened when he saw who was standing on their porch, I was still trying to get over the shock of seeing my best friend after so many fucking years.
Dylan didn’t have that problem.
My lips spread out in a smile, but that was a mistake because his whole body tightened. Instead of being happy to see me again like I’d hoped he would be, he stepped out of the house and quietly closed the door behind him.
“What are you doing here, Jason?”
“Dylan. Shit, man.” I tried to stop my smile from spreading out more, but…hell, he was my best friend, and it had been years since I’d seen him. “Man, it’s really fucking good to see you.”
His expression didn’t change.
“I’ll ask again. What are you doing here? Don’t you think you did enough damage to her already?”
I dropped my smile, but it was too late to brace for the impact his words caused. If he wanted to act like a piece of shit, so be it. So could I.
“I can see that you don’t care to see me. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t come to see you either. I’m here for my wife.”
“Wife?” He gave a humorless laugh. “Cut the crap, Jason. We both know that it’s just a game for the public even though she refuses to admit that. You are using her to look good and she is too stupid to care about it even though she knows it herself.”
“You don’t know anything about us, Dylan.”
“About us? There is no you and her, Jason. Do you know that she is in love with you? Hell, she’s been in love with you for most of her life. Are you going to keep playing this game, knowing it will kill something in her when you finally get bored with it?”
I lowered my head and squeezed my hands into fists.
“I don’t want you to see her, and I want you to turn around—”
“I don’t care what the hell you want, Dylan,” I said in a low voice. He stopped speaking. “I will get through that door even if I have to deck you to do it.”
He lifted an eyebrow and crossed his arms against his chest. “Try it,” he said. “Give me a good reason to fuck up your—”
“I’m in love with your sister, you idiot.” I took a step forward, getting into his face.
His eyes narrowed on me and he took a step forward with clenched fists. “You lying son of a bitch.”
Before he could do anything, the door behind him opened and his father walked out.
“That’s enough, Dylan,” he said in a gravelly voice, shutting the door gently.
I froze. My hands flexed and I swallowed.
In front of me stood the man I had idolized, a man who knew how to take care of his family, a man who didn’t shy away from showing his love to his children, to his wife…even to the neighbor’s kid.
Just like the houses around us, he looked just the same. He had more white hair and the smile lines around his eyes were deeper, but those big shoulders, the stance, and everything else that made him who he was just the same.
Hell, why did he have to come out? I couldn’t deck Logan. I would happily get into a fight with Dylan, but not with his father.
I took a step back and tried to loosen up my muscles.
“I don’t like the reason you are here, but it’s still good to see you, Jason,” Logan said after forcefully moving his son out of the way. There was a small smile playing on his lips. Maybe I still had a shot at getting to Olive. Maybe Logan would believe me.
Feeling like a seventeen-year-old again, I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down at the ground. Surely I wasn’t tearing up…right?
“You have no idea how good it is to see you, too, sir.”
He nodded. “I’m assuming you’re here because you want to see Olive?”
I gave Dylan a hard look and kept my eyes on him as I answered his father’s question.
“Yes, I’m here for Olive.”
“You’re not seeing her,” Dylan said as he took another step toward me.
The bastard was just itching to get his ass kicked.
“Dylan, that’s enough,” Logan cut him off again. “Simmer down.” Turning to me, he said, “Let’s have a talk before you see her, is that okay?”
“Of course,” I agreed as we both sat down on the porch steps. Wisely, Dylan chose to stand next to the door instead of getting in my face. If he thought he even had a chance of stopping me from going in to get Olive, he was in for a surprise.
I would fuck him up without a second thought.
“Olive is not saying much, so you’ll have to be the one to tell me exactly what’s going on here, Jason. I want to hear it in your own words, not some speech your people prepared for you.”
I frowned. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I won’t hide anything from you.”
“That’s not the vibe I got from Olive. I think she was trying to share as little as possible with us.”
I shook my head and rubbed my forehead. “That was before.”
“And now? Did something change?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my forehead some more. “Yes, everything changed.”
“You married Olive so it would look good for you, is that true?”
I flinched. Jesus! An interrogation was not what I needed.
“Yes.” I sighed. “Yes, my publicist thought it would save my career after everything I’d done. When I saw Olive and acted like…and then everyone else saw us together…”
I didn’t finish my sentence.
“I see. And now? What is different now?”
I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. I couldn’t decide if he was angry with me or not, but I answered honestly. “I fell in love with your daughter, sir.” Looking over my shoulder, I gave Dylan a hard look. “That’s what changed.”