“Reese!” Rachel practically yells. She launches herself into my arms as if we didn’t just eat breakfast together at my parents’ house a few days ago. I smile at Ben over her shoulder.
My God. Has it only been a few days? So much has changed.
“How was the drive?” I ask, opening my door wider and motioning for them to come in.
“Fun,” Rachel says. She glances over at Ben, and he chuckles as if it’s some inside joke. “You want to take those to the guest room?” She points to two overnight bags.
He nods and carries the bags down the hall, and I can’t help the dart of jealousy I feel in seeing how easy it is for Rachel and Ben. I want that. I want three years with someone who gets me, someone who will pick up the bags and take them to the guest room in my sister’s house because he knows where it is.
I realize all that takes time, and I also realize it’s exactly what I’m growing with Brian.
Rachel turns to me. “What’s wrong?” she asks as soon as he’s out of the room. Her eyes are alight with the giddiness that only comes from arriving in Vegas for a few days. It just doesn’t feel like the right time to confess I cheated on my boyfriend with his brother.
“Nothing,” I mutter. I’m pretty sure my expression doesn’t show any giddiness at all. I wonder if she can see the guilt I carry around like a bag of weights.
“Hey,” she says, touching my shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“It’s a long story.” I glance down the hall to see if he’s coming back yet. “We’ll talk later.” I nod with my head down the hall. I give her a quick hug and change the subject. “Brian made us reservations for dinner. I’ll get changed and we can get going.”
She goes to meet Ben in the guest room and I walk into my bedroom. I hear a knock at my door a few minutes later, and Rachel is already changed and ready to go.
“You ready to talk yet?” Rachel asks me.
“It’s complicated.” I dig though my closet for some shoes that’ll look okay with the red dress I chose.
“Always is,” she muses.
“How has work been?” I ask.
“I came in here to see what was up with you, not to talk about me.”
I disappear into my bathroom, avoiding eye contact. “We’ll get to my stuff later.”
She follows me and stands in the doorway between my bathroom and my bedroom. “It’s later. How about now?”
I roll my eyes. “Nice try.”
“Is something going on with Brian?” she asks.
"Not exactly.”
“Then something’s going on with you.”
I blow out a breath, ready to tell her my secret when Ben knocks on my door. “Rach?” he yells.
“You better go get your man,” I say, thankful for the interruption.
“I can’t wait to meet your guy at dinner!”
I force my eyes down to my selection of eyeshadow palettes. “Get out of here so I can finish getting ready.”
She laughs and bounds out of my room, presumably back to the man in her life, and I’m left wondering if I’m making the right choice—and I’m not talking about the eye shadows.
* * *
Rachel grins at me across the table as Brian and Ben engage in an intense conversation regarding which football team is the best. We just placed our dinner orders, and we’re all on our second drink of the night. Wine has managed to dull the ache I’ve had in my chest all day, and I’m finding myself having a good time with Brian. This division that I’ve created between us can be mended—I’m sure of it.
“If you’re having this conversation,” I say, “I need to voice my opinion.”
“Who’s your team?” Ben asks.
“Arizona.” I nod to Rachel. “Our dad has season tickets.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Brian says, looking at me as if he feels bad for me, “the Cardinals suck.”
“Almost as much as the Bears,” I shoot back at him with narrowed eyes. He laughs, and the tightness in my chest dissipates further. This is how it’s supposed to be—teasing each other with another couple about football teams instead of thinking about his brother or his secretary.
“Mid-nineties were the best,” Ben says. “The Cowboys ruled.”
“Stop living in the past.” Brian picks up his beer and takes a sip. “That shit was over years ago. Rachel, what about you?”
She rolls her eyes. “I couldn’t care less about football. I think secretly my dad wanted me to be a boy so he could have someone to toss a football with and my inner rebellious nature has caused me to hate football forever.”
Ben laughs. “I can’t get her to watch a game with me. Not even with the men in uniform.”
“Give me a baseball player any day.” She winks at Ben, who played baseball in college, and he laughs.
“Oh, our dad definitely wanted her to be a boy. They even had a boy name picked out for her.” I giggle, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m teasing my sister or if it’s because I’m a little tipsy from wine on an empty stomach.
“Richard,” Ben and I say at the same time. Ben laughs, a hearty sound that betrays such a genuine affection for my sister, and I giggle along with him.
“Don’t laugh at that,” Rachel scolds him.
“Sorry, Richard,” Ben teases.
She narrows her eyes at me. “Do you always have to tell people about that?”
I lift both shoulders and pretend like I’m sorry. For some reason, that one movement sends a dose of reality through my spine. I’m always pretending, and, frankly, I’m getting tired of it.
“You okay?” Rachel mouths across the table to me. The boys are enraptured with their football talk, so they don’t even notice us.
I lift a shoulder.
“Excuse us.” Rachel stands and gives me a meaningful look. I grab my purse and follow her.
Once we’re behind closed doors, she starts the inquisition. “One second you’re having fun, and the next it’s like we’ve lost you. What the hell is going on with you?”
I sigh heavily. “I slept with someone else a few nights ago.”
“What?” Her voice is shrill and loud, a shriek of shock as her eyebrows lift up her forehead and her eyes widen. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I want to tell her, and I will—eventually. But if I’m looking to her for some honest advice, telling her it was Mark Ashton is the exact wrong avenue to take. She’ll be too busy fangirling to give me any real guidance.
“Have you told Brian?”
I shake my head.
“Are you going to?”
I set my hands on the cool marble of the counter in front of me. “I don’t know.”
“Do you still want to be with him?”
“Yes? I don’t know. Yes.”
“Oh my God, Reese. But he’s perfect. How could you ch—”
She cuts herself off, but I know what she was about to ask. How could you cheat on him?
There’s only one reason why: the one I cheated with is inexplicably even more perfect.
“How did it happen?” she asks instead.
“It’s a long story.” I step away from the counter and toward the door.
“I’ve got time.”
“Our food will be coming.”
She stops me with a hand on my arm. “You can’t drop a bomb like that and then check out of the conversation. Talk to me, Reese.”
“I had a one-night stand with a guy a couple months ago.”
“What does that have to do with Brian?”
I step back toward the counter and stare in the mirror as I speak. “I fell for him that night, but we didn’t exchange numbers. I had no way to get in touch with him, but I felt more. I wanted more.”
“Of course you did.” She steps behind me, and our eyes meet in the mirror. Her concern over me just loads more guilt on top of everything else. I want her to be happy with Ben on her short getaway to visit Vegas, not weighed down by my mistakes. “Sex can’t happen in isolation. Women associate emotions with it, and most of us aren’t hardwired for one night only.”
“When did you get so smart?” I ask.
She lifts a shoulder and gives me a half-smile. “I’ve been with Ben a long time, but, as you know, there was a lot of experimenting before him. So what does the one-night stand guy have to do with Brian?”
I turn around and face her. “It’s his brother.”
“Oh, shit.” She starts pacing in front of me. “And you slept with him again?”
I nod. “A few nights ago.”
“Does Brian know you were with him before?”
I shake my head. “Brian has told me again and again how competitive they’ve always been, and I’m terrified his brother is only interested in me to win me from Brian.”
“Have you asked the brother about the competition between him and Brian?”
I shake my head. “Something happened with Brian’s ex and his brother. I don’t know much more about it.”
“You need to find out.”
“Do I? Or can I just leave it alone and allow Brian to move forward?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Who initiated it the other night?”
I lean against the counter. “He did, not that it matters.”
With the wine coursing through my blood, her pacing is making me a little dizzy. “Do you think he wants more?” she asks.
“He says he does, but I don’t know. I feel like it’s that competition thing.”
“Who do you want to be with?” She stops in front of me and waits for my answer.
I shrug, and then I say, “Brian.”
She sighs. She knows me better than anyone, and I’m sure she can sense that I’m saying what I’m supposed to say. I’m just not sure I fully believe it.
“You have to go with your heart,” she says. “I know you’re the logical one, the practical one. You always go with your head over your heart. But this is love, Reese. You have to choose because you can’t have both, and there has to be one who your heart is more connected to.”
I nod. I don’t disagree with her, but I have no idea how to identify who my heart is more connected to. “You’re right. And I choose Brian.”
My parents taught me well. They taught me how to save money for a secure future. They taught me how to hold onto a job and how to set goals, plan, and balance my checkbook. They taught me to invest in moderate stocks.
They didn’t teach me about taking risks—calculated or not. They didn’t teach me to follow my heart or my gut. They taught me to follow my logic and my head.
All signs point to the secure and logical choice. It’s how I was raised and it’s what I know.