I walked toward the private bar to avoid the eyes of everyone at the party. I needed a minute to get my head together. Tumbling from his words, the faint press of his lips against mine, his promises, I stumbled blindly into the room and was stopped short by the sight of my sister, Neil, and Reid drinking at the bar.
Paige saw me and stopped my retreat. “Stella.”
“Hey,” I said, approaching her.
“We’re hiding. Uncle Moto is trying to DJ now.”
Reid piped in, “How many uncles do you have?”
“A million,” my sister and I said in unison.
Paige was three sheets to something as she sat a shot of tequila down in front of me. I looked back at Reid as the blood rushed to my face. It was there, the heat, the burn, his words pulverizing all reasons to stay away from him. He loved me, and I was helpless against the pull. I needed to get away before the flames licked me and the rest of him consumed me.
“You okay?” Paige said, looking over her shoulder. “What’s going on?” she asked between Reid and me.
“Nothing,” I murmured.
Paige looked accusingly at Reid. “I thought this was over.”
“It is,” I snapped.
She turned in her seat, surveying us both. “Clearly it isn’t.”
“Paige,” I protested, realizing my sister was the most intuitive drunk in the history of mankind.
“Bullshit,” she snapped. “I could sense it then and I can sense it now.”
She glared at Reid. “She has a boyfriend, you know.”
“Stop it,” I barked.
Reid nodded with an, “I know,” his eyes burning a hole through us both.
“Paige, I’m fine,” I said, trying to keep the angry, tequila-filled Latina at bay. Seemed I wasn’t the only one with some unspoken resentment.
“You can’t get upset, Stella. I can’t ever see you like that again!”
I jerked her to face me. “Stop!”
She pulled away from my grip to face Reid head on. “No. Not this time. He needs to know.”
“Please, Paige. Please,” I pleaded.
“Know what?” Reid asked, his jaw turning to granite. Neil took a step forward. “Paige.”
“He needs to know you had a stroke the last time he left your door.”
All animation fell from Reid’s face.
“Yeah,” Paige continued. “After you decided to drop by that New Year’s Eve and pay her a visit. She had a stroke in her sleep.”
Reid stumbled back as if she’d just struck him. “What the fuck?”
Neil gauged Reid’s shock and interjected. “Paige!” he scorned, trying to do damage control, “Reid, chill out, man,” he said, backing him away from the both of us.
“It’s true,” she snapped at Neil before she looked back to Reid. “Loving you damn near killed her. She went down hard, Reid. Proud of yourself? Because you hurt her, my baby sister! She had to put medical tape on her eye to keep it closed for months so she could sleep normally.
I skipped right from horror to humiliation.
Tequila. Is. The. Fucking. Devil.
Or Paige was. I couldn’t definitively decide at that moment.
That was the most embarrassing fact about my stroke, aside from my slightly lazy eye, which everyone swears is barely even noticeable. I was over the theatrics of the whole episode, which was ironic because that’s what got me in the hospital in the first place. Waking up with my motor skills on the fritz was terrifying, but I recovered quickly. Still, my family made too much out of it. I wasn’t dying. I didn’t have a condition. I’d had a reaction. And Reid was feeding into it.
He was throwing Neil’s arms off as he tried to get to me. “Stella.” His face fell as his eyes swam with unshed tears while he tried to push past Neil, who was doing his best to try to keep him from confronting me. I remained calm because I had to. My heart was threatening to start that odd beat. As much as I wanted to push past all the debris between us, I was helpless against it. My family, my new life with Nate, even my own damn heart refused to let him past it.
“Is it true?” he asked with a haunted voice. He was so breathtakingly beautiful in that moment, vulnerable and susceptible to the cruelty of whatever venom that came at him. Larger than life, he had conquered the world, only to be spat at by the ones who set him off to do it.
Paige would never forgive herself when she sobered up.
“Reid, it’s not your fault,” I swore to him as he shattered like I knew he would.
“Goddammit, Neil,” he said, pushing at him to get to me, “just let me talk to her!”
“Stop, please,” I begged them both as I turned to glare at Paige. “Why? Why hurt him like that?”
She threw her shoulders back. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Stella. He won’t.” She looked back at Reid. “Just leave her alone. If you care about her, just leave. Her. Alone.”
Reid stopped fighting as her words hit him like blows. He jerked himself away from Neil’s clutches before he cleared the bar of every piece of visible glass.
Paige shrieked as I took a step toward him. “Reid.”
His breath sounded in gasps as he hung his head, broken. I reeled on my sister, rage boiling over. “Damn you, Paige!” I turned to Neil with a shriek. “Get her out of here!”
Paige looked between us with wide eyes and hesitation, but let Neil usher her out of the room.
I steadied my breathing in an attempt to calm his.
“Stella.” His voice was a whisper as he turned to me. A tear fell from his eyes, pain twisting his face.
“I had my first stroke when I was fifteen,” I told him. “It was not your fault.”
I saw him visibly crack in front of me with his question. “And when I left?”
I shook my head. “It was so mild, Reid. I didn’t even feel it. It happened in my sleep. The doctors think it was because I overheated and then stood in the cold.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough,” I said, hating myself for it.
“How long were you out there after I left?” he asked.
“Too long.”
“It’s not my fault, huh?” He looked me over skeptically. “Then why did you overheat?”
I shrugged. “I’ve always been emotional. Like I said, the same thing happened when I was fifteen. I was fighting with Paige, of all people, so easy for her to point the finger. That had nothing to do with you.”
“Please don’t lie to me,” he said softly. “Please, Stella.”
“This isn’t life-threatening.” Okay, that was a small lie. “I have to try to stay cool, calm. It’s not a big deal. I just can’t do extreme weather, and I can’t go postal. I’ll live a long life.” That was the truth.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Because that night was supposed to be goodbye,” I said. “Because I had Nate, Reid. I have Nate, and he takes care of me.”
Reid swallowed hard as he looked at the mess of glass on the floor.
“How the hell did we get here?”
“I was just thinking that,” I said softly. “I was thinking, if I had never asked you to kiss me, would we both be better off? And then I remembered all the good that came from it.”
“Baby,” he croaked, shaking his head as if to ward it off, “you had a stroke?” His eyes fogged, and then I saw more emotion run down his cheek. I felt it then, the ruin. The same pain I saw all those years ago when we parted.
“I did,” I said as my eyes filled. “But it’s not your fault, Reid. I don’t blame you, and if I weren’t so whacked out after, I never would have told Paige you were there the night before. She told my dad but my mother doesn’t know. That’s why you’re still alive. You should probably save yourself.”
“Damn it, Stella,” he said as he pulled me into him. I sighed, letting myself sink into his arms. We rested silently in each other, our hearts beating the same with too much between us. I had to snap myself out of it. Free us both.
“Fucking tequila,” I chuckled. “It’s just not a good look on us, Reid.”
“I ate the worm,” he murmured with his own chuckle.
“We’re like an atom bomb every time we get together,” I said as I noted the fresh weariness in his eyes that I put there.
“You finally went off, huh, Grenade? And I pulled the pin.” We both laughed inappropriately. Because that’s what we did.
“I should go,” he said, releasing me.
“Paige didn’t mean it.” I gripped his hand. “She loves you, Reid.”
“It’s so crazy,” he said. “I can sell out stadiums all over the planet, but I still can’t get your sister’s approval.” He shrugged. “Money used to be the whole fucking problem, and now it can’t solve any damn thing.”
“That was never a problem,” I said.
“God.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I just made a fucking fool out of myself.”
He sighed as he pulled some money out of his pocket and threw a wad of it on the bar to replace the glasses.
I shook my head. “You have to make a fool of yourself, Reid. In my experience, it’s the best way to show you care.”
“Didn’t make a damn bit of difference, did it?” he asked before he grabbed the bottle of tequila off the bar, not waiting for my answer. “I didn’t come here to hurt you,” he said softly. “I just thought—fuck, Stella, I just hoped—”
“Reid?” Paige said with tear-filled eyes from the doorway. “Can I please talk to you?”
I looked between them and sighed. “I’ll leave you two alone.”