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I could have stopped us. I could have been stronger, but I wasn’t. But he told me I wasn’t just a fuck. I believed him, but that was only because Nero rarely lied to me.
“Picking up some blueberries,” I said, letting that chipper morning tone flow through my words. “What about you?”
He stood there, not saying a word.
“You going to answer her or stand there looking like an idiot?” Albert said.
Nero hoisted the box. “Helping Albert move some boxes.”
“I didn’t know you two were close like that.” Then I remembered how Nero defended Albert that day in the car. What else was there about Nero that I didn’t know?
He didn’t say anything. His eyes stayed locked on mine, though. I expected to see pity in that blue gaze, but all I saw was regret. The regret hurt worse than the pity. A tight rope knotted in my stomach, and I swallowed to try to keep my composure.
“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you, boy?” Albert barked as he placed four cartons of blueberries by the register. “You two sleep together or something?”
“What? You told him?” The words came out between clenched teeth. I thought I whispered it, but apparently, I didn’t.
Albert’s eyes widened, head swinging away from the numbers on the register. A loud laugh erupted from his throat that sounded horse as if it had been stuck for years.
“I didn’t, but you just did,” Nero muttered.
Fuck my life. I closed my eyes, trying to ground myself. The last thing I needed was the town to find out. They were practically planning our wedding after that stupid kiss that started this whole mess.
“Calm down. Albert won’t say anything.”
“How the hell can you possibly know that?”
“Albert?” Nero said. “You’re not going to tell anyone, right?”
“I couldn’t give two shits about who you fuck. It’s none of my business, and it’s no one else's.”
“Your word.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Albert grumbled and swatted the air again.
“There. He won’t say anything.”
“How do you know?”
“He gave me his word.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means he’s not going to say anything. Albert doesn’t give his word unless he means it.” He glanced at the boxes in his hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I still have some things to move before I can get out of here.”
“Yeah sure,” I said.
He turned to leave, then hesitated. I waited for him to say something, anything, even if I blew him off the last time he tried. I just hated how we left things. In all the years we had known each other, we never walked away from each other angry. It wasn’t who we were. At least not to each other.
But after that kiss, everything changed.
Everything.
I waited, hoping and praying he’d try again, or that my mouth would remember how to move, and I’d say something. But the longer we stood there, staring at each other in silence, a million things left unsaid, I only felt more and more defeated.
With a sigh, Nero walked away.
Pain shot through my heart, and I allowed myself to settle into it for a moment. Nero walking away from me again hurt, and I didn’t want to ignore that pain. It hurt like hell whatever weird limbo we were in now, but the pain was there because he saw beyond the fact that I was his little sister’s best friend. He saw me for the first time in our lives, and he not only saw me, he wanted me. The pain was my reminder.
