Starting out like any other day, I woke up, had breakfast, and then spent most of the day flicking back and forth between sketching, painting, and designing a website for a client. My work had been the only escape from my life as of late, so I tended to immerse myself in it as often as I could, especially with the knowledge of my father’s secret affair.
I was doing a good job of blocking it all out when Bronagh sent me a text message and asked me to hang out with her and Georgie. We spent the morning together, and as usual, we had fun. It all went wrong when we stopped by Ryder and Branna’s house at lunchtime. Damien was there, and he was his usual friendly self. However, my past with him made me suspicious of that friendly behaviour.
He was trying with me.
I knew he was trying, but I didn’t know what he was trying. He could have genuinely just wanted to be my friend, but in the back of my mind, I was reminded that the last time he wanted to simply be ‘just my friend’, I was left heartbroken and humiliated to boot. For that reason alone, I kept him at arm’s length. If he walked into a room, I walked out of it. If he struck up a conversation with me, I politely shut him down. If he looked at me, I made it a point to look away and ignore him. I had been doing it since he returned home over a year ago, but that day, something in my attitude towards him changed.
He asked me out for lunch, and I suddenly felt like my private relationship with Dante was a noose around my neck. It was a bizarre feeling, but I felt like Damien had a right to know I wasn’t available. Not because Dante and I were in a friends-with-benefits relationship, but because I didn’t want him to have the false hope that something might develop between us. Not that he had any hope at all or wanted anything other than a real friendship, but I wanted to be as upfront with him as he had always been with me.
I knew he wouldn’t disregard the warning as foolishly as I had.
“How are you goin’ to get there?” Aideen had asked me when I told her about my meeting to interview a potential assistant for my graphic design business. “I know your car is at me da’s garage gettin’ a diesel pump repaired.”
“I was goin’ to walk.”
“I can drop you,” Damien offered, straightening up from playing with the kids. “Ry and I don’t need to be back to work for an hour and thirty minutes.”
I was hesitant. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re never a bother,” Damien said, his cheeks flaring with a little bit of heat. “We can get lunch or something after your interview, if you aren’t busy?”
Shite. Shite. Shite.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Damien asked, crossing the room, frowning.
I avoided looking in Aideen’s direction, knowing what I was about to say would set her off.
“I’m kind of seein’ someone.”
Everyone went deathly silent, even the kids; it was like they knew something was up.
“Who?” Bronagh asked first.
“Yeah,” Damien said, his voice shockingly low. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter who—”
“It bloody well does!” Bronagh cut me off.
I looked at my friend. “I was goin’ to tell you, I promise, but I knew you’d tell Aideen, and I didn’t want a big deal made of it.”
“Why would she tell me?” Aideen quizzed with furrowed brows. “And why would a big deal be made of it?”
I groaned and put my face in my hands.
“Oh, my God!” Bronagh suddenly gasped. “It’s one of ’er brothers, isn’t it?”
“What?” Aideen asked, her eyes wide. “You’re goin’ out with one of me brothers?”
I looked up, and instead of looking at Aideen, I looked at Damien as I said, “Yes.”
Damien balled his hands into fists. “Which Collins?”
I swallowed. “Dante.”
My chest constricted with pain when I saw the hurt in Damien’s grey eyes.
“I have to go,” he said and turned to walk out of the room.
On instinct, I grabbed his arm. “Wait. Look, we need to talk.”
“No,” Damien said and removed my hand from his arm. “We don’t.”
“Please, I don’t know why I’ve brought this up, but we have to try—”
“I have tried with you.” He angrily cut me off. “I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to show you how sorry I am for what I did to you. I’ve tried to befriend you. I’ve tried to give you space ... I’ve tried to show you how much I care about you, but you don’t want me. I see that now.”
“Damien—”
“No, Alannah,” he cut me off. “You’re with Dante Collins, and I’m done.”
“It’s not a relationship,” I blurted. “We aren’t datin’. He is just ... there.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Aideen angrily snapped.
I didn’t look away from Damien’s back.
“He helped me get over you—”
“By getting under him?” he snapped.
I winced. “That’s not fair, Damien. You were gone for so long, and we weren’t on good terms.”
“I left for you!” Damien shouted as he spun around to face me. “When I realised how much I hurt you, when Bronagh told me the things no one else would, I made the decision to leave to better myself but also to give you time. I didn’t know how to make things right back then, but I was always going to come back for you, Alannah. I would fix everything, but you’ve made it so hard.”
A lump formed in my throat. “I ... I didn’t know.”
Damien shook his head. “I have to go.”
He turned around and walked out of the kitchen, but I quickly followed him while everyone else stayed rooted to their spot.
“Damien, please,” I pleaded, grabbing his arm again.
I could hear the kids begin to cry, most likely from all the shouting.
“Let go, Lana,” Damien replied, his tone low.
“No,” I stated. “We need to talk.”
“What we need to do is be away from each other,” Damien replied. “Go to Dante; I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to comfort you.”
“Damien, stop. You don’t mean that.”
“Alannah. Let. Go.”
“No, I won’t.”
He turned his head in my direction and stared down at me. I could still see the hurt in his eyes, but there was anger there, too.
“Why do you want to talk all of a sudden?” Damien demanded after a few moments of tense staring. “Why not the first million times I’ve asked?”
“Because I’m ready to deal with all of this.”
“It took you long enough!”
“Don’t be nasty,” I hit back. “None of this is me fault. I’m the one who was hurt and embarrassed and have been carryin’ it around for years, not you.”
“Not me?” Damien bellowed. “I’ve carried it around since the second I did you wrong, and I fucking know it. I know what I did, and I’ve tried to make it right, but I can’t. You’ve made it impossible.”
“How?”
“By being with him!” Damien roared. “I haven’t touched anyone since I touched you. I haven’t kissed anyone since I kissed you. I haven’t looked at another woman since I was fucking eighteen, but that ends tonight. If you have moved on, then so will I.”
I felt my mouth drop open with shock at Damien’s admission, and my heart pounded against my chest, but his latter words stuck with me and held my attention.
“Fine,” I hollered, but my voice cracked ever so slightly, indicating that I was going to cry. “Go be with some bitch ’cause I won’t be ’ere when you get back. You say you’re done? Well, so am I!”
Damien humourlessly laughed. “You’ve been done with me for years, and you know it!”
I scrubbed my face with my hands, reliving our fight from a few days ago that still felt too fresh to process.
Damien’s reaction to my relationship with Dante was unexpected, and quite frankly, it frightened me how much I cared that I had hurt him. After Damien asked me out for lunch, I told him I couldn’t go out with him because I was seeing someone, and when I revealed it was Dante, I didn’t care that Aideen had reacted badly to the news, I just cared how Damien reacted to it. He reacted worse than I could have ever imagined, and I reacted out of fear when he walked away from me.
I tried telling myself that I wanted him to walk away from me, I wanted him to be done trying to salvage some sort of bond between us, but then when he did those exact things, I panicked.
He had tried talking to me for months about what happened between us, but I shut him down every single time. And when he walked away from me, I wasn’t surprised that I was suddenly ready to talk. He had changed his mind, though; he didn’t want to talk to me or have anything to do with me. He just threw Dante back in my face, told me he was done with me, and walked away. Afterwards, I immediately went home and spent the remainder of the day crying over Damien.
Something I swore a long time ago I would never do again.
I knew I had done nothing wrong. I was a single woman who could have a relationship with whoever I wanted, but for some reason, the whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because I was ashamed of hooking up with Dante, but because of his connection to the group. He was my friend’s older brother, he was Kane’s future brother-in-law, and he was Damien and Ryder’s co-worker at C.A.R.—Collins Auto Repair.
I didn’t want things to be awkward with Aideen, and I was afraid they would be now that she was aware I’d been sleeping with her older brother. Damien and Dante were sure to butt heads at work, too. They never liked each other much before they started working together thanks to a big fight the Slater and Collins brothers had a few years ago, so any hope of them suddenly becoming best friends after how Damien reacted to my sleeping with Dante was off the table.
“Everythin’ is so messed up,” I said to the empty room.
I felt like I was being punished when I just wanted to not feel so alone.
Dante was the only other person on God’s green earth who I had been intimate with since Damien, but unlike Damien, I made sure not to form an emotional bond with him. Before, after, or during sex. It was for that reason alone that I had never kissed Dante, not even accidentally.
He knew kissing was a deal breaker for me and was more than happy to oblige that rule if it meant we could tangle between the bedsheets a couple of times a month. Dante joked about my ‘using’ him from time to time, but I knew he was content with our arrangement. He never pushed for more than I offered, and I never offered more than I wanted, and that had worked for us.
Until now.
I sat up and looked down at my phone when it pinged.
What kind of problem?
I sighed. The kind of problem that sees us returning to being just friends.
Barely ten seconds had passed before my phone rang, and a quick glance at my screen showed me it was Dante calling. With a groan and a shake of my head, I answered my phone, placed it against my ear, and lay back down.
“Hi.”
“Shite, you actually answered. I’ve been tryin’ to get in touch with you for days.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to speak to anyone.”
“Babe, talk to me.”
My lips twitched. “I’m not havin’ phone sex with you.”
Dante barked a laugh. “That’d be weird since we’re just friends now. I mean, we are just friends now, right?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I’m goin’ to need all the courage I can gather to face Aideen now that she knows. I think I’d die altogether if we continued as we were and she confronted us about it.”
“Alannah.” Dante chuckled. “Aideen is my little sister; she has no say in who I have sex with. Even if she was older, she’d still have no say. I’m an adult.”
“That’s such a typical brotherly response,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “She doesn’t care that we had sex; she cares that we did it behind ’er back. She is one of me closest friends, Dante, and she is hurtin’ because I basically lied to ’er.”
“How do you know she is upset?” he quizzed. “I saw ’er yesterday, and she didn’t look mad to me.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“Well ... no.”
“Look at you?”
“For a split second ... maybe.”
“Exactly. I saw it on ’er face when I told Damien I was sleepin’ with you,” I grumbled. “She wasn’t just shocked, she was upset, and I knew it was because she was left in the dark. It was the same look Bronagh and Keela gave me. They were upset I hadn’t told them. They didn’t voice it, but I know.”
“Alannah.” Dante sighed. “You don’t have to share everythin’ with your friends. You’re allowed to have a private life.”
“You don’t get it,” I said, frustrated. “Me and the girls, we’re really close. Nothin’ is off limits with us.”
It was one of the reasons I loved my friends so much. We could talk about anything, and until I kept my relationship with Dante from them, we had no secrets. I felt fucking awful because of that.
“D’ye want me to talk to me sister?” Dante asked on a sigh.
“It couldn’t hurt. Just talk to her, though. Not Kane, Ryder, and especially not Damien.”
“About that.” Dante cleared his throat. “I tried to talk to Damien about it at work yesterday, and it ended ... badly.”
I closed my eyes. “How badly?”
“He has a black eye, and I’ve a bruised jaw and busted up nose ... but that’s only ’cause of Kane—”
“You fought Kane?” I opened my eyes, and facepalmed myself.
“He was tryin’ to break up the fight, but I thought he was jumpin’ me, and one thing led to another, and his cheek is a little bruised. It’s nothin’ ... really.”
I groaned and let my head fall back.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Dante laughed. “Tell me about it.”
“I feel like everyone is judgin’ me.”
“Fuck them,” Dante said firmly. “You’re a grown woman; you don’t need permission to have a private life.”
“Easier said than done when it’s the older brother of me best friend who I was sleepin’ with.”
“Look, it’s done. We’ve had sex, but we’re not goin’ to anymore ... or are we? I just need clarification on the no sex part.”
I smiled. “You’re such a pig.”
“That’s not a no on the sex.”
“No more sex, Date.” I chuckled, using his well-known nickname earned from his womanising ways.
“Okay, okay,” he placated. “Don’t get so down about this, okay? It’s not the end of the world, sweetheart.”
“I know.” I sighed. “It just feels like it.”
“D’ye want me to come by? You sound down, and I hate when you’re sad.”
“Nah, I’m fine,” I said, sucking it up. “I’m goin’ back to sleep. I have a feelin’ Bronagh is goin’ to come and kick me arse tomorrow. I’ve been duckin’ ’er for days now, and I know she’s reached ’er limit.”
“Shite, good luck dealin’ with that young one. That’s a storm I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
I laughed. “Thanks, Date.”
“I love ya, gorgeous. Just because we’re square now doesn’t mean I don’t have your back, d’ye hear?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I hear you, and I love ya, too.”
I did love Dante; I just wasn’t in love with him, and I knew I never would be.
“If you ever need me, or me cock, I’m ’ere for you. Besties for life.”
I laughed. “Good night, you nutter.”
I hung up on a snickering Dante and felt a tonne lighter knowing that at least he and I were in a good place. Now, if I could get on the same page with everyone else in my life, things would be hunky-dory. I threw my arm over my face and groaned, knowing in mere hours, at least one of my friends would finally succeed in getting past security in my apartment building and would be banging down my door.
God only knew how I was going to weather hurricane Bronagh.
Jesus, help me.