Teagan

Two Years and Eleven Months Ago

“I can’t keep doing this.” Kai’s voice is quiet but not quiet enough.

“Shut it,” I grit through clenched teeth.

The footsteps making their way toward my bedroom get louder, and a clamor erupts from the closet that has me shaking in my skin.

Crap!

We’ve made it too long to get caught like this. I won’t be outed in my childhood bedroom with my stuffed animals from elementary school judging my embarrassment as their plastic eyeballs peek over the box they’re stored in next to my closet.

No way.

I’ve come too far in making Kai see me as an adult for it to go down like this. I won’t have it. The rumble of knuckles against my bedroom door is pointless. The door opens, and my brother is poking his head in before I can even open my mouth to tell him to come in or go the fuck away.

“You okay in here?” Burke asks suspiciously while peering around the seemingly uneventful room.

“Yep,” I answer with a squeak while picking at a rogue cuticle on my thumb.

“I decided to come back from Tampa early. The hotel was a dump, and the highway is always empty at night.” Obviously, you cockblocking son of a … “It’s late. I figured you were asleep. I was heading to my room to pass out, but then there was a big crashing noise. So, I came up to check on you.”

“I was reading. You know how I am about my books—always way too invested. There was a twist I didn’t see coming, and it pissed me off, so I ended up throwing my Kindle across the room.” The lie flies quickly from my mouth, and Burke doesn’t look like he believes a word of it.

“Where is it?” He takes a few more steps into my space and cranes his neck, peering around the room.

“Where is what?” My nerves have me standing and taking a step closer to him.

“Your Kindle.” Oh, right. “You said you threw it.” I did, didn’t I? “Did it survive the assault, or did you break another one?” Oh crap! I have no idea where that thing is right now.

“It’s fine. It’ll live for another tale of fit-inducing romance.”

I straighten my spine and look my brother directly in the eyes while I lie to him.

Just go!

“You’re being weird. I want it on the record that I’m not fully buying what you’re selling, but I’m fucking tired, Teagan. How much trouble could you possibly be causing from inside your bedroom? So, I am going to choose to remain ignorant and go pass out in my bed. You should probably do the same. It’s late.”

He continues to look around while he comes closer.

“Good night, Teagan.” He kisses my forehead before turning and leaving me there, practically frozen. His perma-scowl is lined with stress from lack of sleep, and the way he shakes his head the entire way out the door tells me he has no idea his best friend is hiding in my closet, just feet away. The look on Kai’s face when I shoved him into that tiny space has me nervous for him to come back out.

“Good night, Burke.” He closes the door, but I don’t dare make a move to free my hostage as I listen intently for every footstep my brother makes on his way to his own room.

The door to the closet slides open. Only then do I move to lock my bedroom door.

The crashing that brought Burke to check on me makes sense when I get a good look at Kai. He lies, squished in the small space, with the closet rod hanging haphazardly, one end still attached to the wall and the other just behind his head. Piles of brightly colored clothes that belong to me are strewed about, almost completely covering the naked man in my closet.

The annoyance deepening the color of his green eyes tells me he isn’t amused.

Kai pulls himself from the floor and tosses my pink tank top, which was clinging to his shoulder, to the floor.

“We’re telling him in the morning. That’s it. I’m not going to hide in a closet in my own home. It was only a week ago when we almost got caught in my room, and the next morning, Burke gave me some sarcastic remark about the girl I was screwing. Your brother has no idea the shit he’s saying is about his own sister. We’re making this worse on ourselves.”

“No.” I look everywhere but at the man I’ve been in love with for as long as I can remember. Shit like this never happens. I was more than friend-zoned. I was kid-sister-zoned, and I crawled out of the abyss and into a world where Kai wants me—and not in a dirty, secret way, but in a public, face-the-music-with-your-overprotective-crazy-brother way. Yet here I am, refusing it all.

“No? No what? No, we aren’t making the inevitable of Burke finding out worse?”

“No. No, I won’t tell him, and neither will you.”

The blissful stage of a new relationship crashes headfirst into a brick wall. I never even lifted my foot off the gas as I drove us head-on into one huge motherfucking barrier.

“You’re joking, right?” His frustration is clear in his tense shoulders and firmly pressed scowl.

“Absolutely not.” Holding my ground makes my stomach erupt with panic.

The heated argument being hashed out in whispers is ridiculous.

“I’ve brought this up before, and you shot me down. Our not wanting to tell him isn’t about us being able to enjoy non-complicated time together, is it?”

He asks the question, but nothing about his tone makes it seem like he’s asking.

“I can’t tell him, Kai. I won’t.” The truth I’ve been hiding immediately shifts the emotions between us. Kai grunts, frustrated and baffled. He looks at me, waiting for more of an explanation, but I seem to have forgotten how to speak.

“The last time this conversation came up, you asked me if you were just another girl. I guess it’s my turn. What is this for you? Am I just some act of rebellion you need to get out of your system? Is that why you don’t want to tell him?”

Silence thunders through the room as I weigh my options. I don’t want him to think he isn’t the most important thing in the world to me, but maybe it would be easier to just let him think my time with him was just a phase.

“You have got to be kidding me. You let me risk my oldest friendship for some childish fling? You chased me. You were relentless. For what? What the hell are we doing?”

The hurt in his voice and the anger sizzling in his eyes strike me hard in the heart.

“You’re important to me, too important to me. Of course this wasn’t a meaningless game. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, but …”

“Wasn’t?” The one word is louder than anything uttered since my brother came home, and I can’t help the nerves that stir inside me, terrified Burke will hear and come back up. “Damn it, Teagan! Quit worrying about him and talk to me!”

Even though it doesn’t seem like it, Kai is just as worried as I am about my brother being only one floor below while we have this out. The way he lowered his voice back down tells me as much.

“I care about you.” Emotion clogs my hushed whispers. “But I can’t tell him yet, and I can’t put a time on when I’ll be ready. He won’t accept this, and it’ll ruin everything.”

“We don’t know that, and right now, it’s only you holding us back. What was your plan? To keep this up forever? Did you see me climbing into your window at forty years old?” He eliminates the distance between us and softly, tenderly braces his hands on my shoulders. The expression on his vulnerable face is begging me to give in. “We tell him tomorrow, or we end this, Teagan. We end it right here, right now.”

“Please don’t say that. Don’t give me an ultimatum about this.”

My head shakes in protest, and my heart pulses so rapidly that it rings in my ears.

“Because you won’t choose us if given the threat?”

His eyes plead for me to tell him he’s wrong.

“Don’t do this,” I beg.

“I don’t believe in ultimatums, Teagan. A healthy relationship is never built by forcing someone’s hand. My dad was the type of man who would give ultimatums before he solved things with his fists. I am not that man.” Relief pushes my shoulders back. “But your refusal to tell Burke also says a lot about us and where we’re going. If you’re firm in this decision, then I need to stay strong about my own choices.”

He grabs his shorts from their hiding spot under the bed and hastily covers the bottom half of his naked body. The heaviness in the weight being thrown around the room has me scrambling to come up with another solution, one that doesn’t involve bringing my brother into the light about our secret relationship.

“I just need more time. Please, give me that.”

I grab him by the waist and cling to him like the child I used to be.

“I’m out of time, babe. I’m not being unreasonable here. We’re going to get caught, and if that were to happen, it would be so much worse. Plus, every second that goes by, I’m risking my friendship with Burke. Not to mention, I’m tired of walking around this house and acting like I’m not completely falling for you. He deserves to know, and we deserve more than stolen moments. I want all the moments. I’m done hiding.”

Falling for me?

Fight for him!

I’ve waited my whole life for this! What the hell am I doing?

“I’ll be at the kitchen table in the morning. If you’re there, we’ll tell him together. If you aren’t, well, then I’ll know your decision. If you aren’t there, then I’ll eat my breakfast like it isn’t killing me, and I’ll go about my day like I’m not boiling inside, but I won’t be sneaking into your room tomorrow night, and my door will be locked tight. I won’t sneak around anymore.”

His lips crash down on mine before another word can be spoken. My knees go weak from the level of intensity in which our tongues dance, at the sexual chemistry and internal aggravation. The way his hands scrape against my scalp causes goose bumps to travel down my back, and the push of his hips against me has my stomach twisting like shoelaces. But then he pulls back, leaving me standing breathless from that kiss. I know this is our good-bye because he’ll be eating alone in the morning, and I’ll be crying into my pillow as I force myself to stay a prisoner of my own fear in my room.

Kai might be the type of man who doesn’t give ultimatums, but this one is our end.