Holden
It’s been days since I slept with my best friend’s girlfriend. It’s been days since I’ve slept at all. Conleigh, her name leaves a bittersweet taste on my tongue. I can still taste her on my lips and I wonder can she still feel me between her thighs. How does she do it? How does she lay next to him at night with me across the hall, knowing she would rather be lying next to me? Knowing that he will never make her feel the way that I do…alive.
I don’t know what he said to her to get her to ignore the fact that he’s a cheating slimeball. I don’t know what she’s trying to prove. Unless he was right. She got even with him and now she can move on and continue to live in denial. Is it his money? I want to believe that I know Conleigh better than that. I want to believe that she’s better than that.
I feel as though I have been on a weeklong bender but instead of being drunk from the alcohol, I’m drunk on her. Every day she gives me a weak half-hearted smile and shows up at the bar to work as though nothing has changed between us. I told her I could pretend it never happened but I lied. How can I forget the one night, the best night of my life that has ever actually meant something to me?
I know she isn’t fucking him, I lay awake every night listening like some sort of sick perverted weirdo, making sure he isn’t having what should be mine. Making sure she isn’t doing to him what she should be doing to me. I’ve played my part. I lied for her and told Ezra that she wasn’t at the apartment when he came home that night. I even drove her to Bailey’s dorm myself once Ezra passed out in a drunken haze. I even made the sorry bastard breakfast the next morning with his girl’s claw marks fresh on my back and he didn’t even notice, or if he did, he pretended not to see them.
Does he know the dirty things I want to do to the woman he plans on marrying? Does he know I want to lay her out on my bed and cover every centimeter of her skin with my cum like a crazed lunatic? Does he notice that I am always watching her, begging her to just fucking look at me like she did when I was buried deep inside her.
She doesn’t look at me often and when she does it cuts just like a knife because there is something wrong. She looks dead inside.
I’ve been trying to give her space, trying to keep my distance but I can’t keep going on like this. I don’t only want her…I need her.
I try to keep busy down in my workshop and at the bar, but I can’t stop from thinking about her. I can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking about me too. Does she really love him that much?
When I made love to her, I could feel it. We share a deep connection—a love like no other. She’s my best friend’s girl but she was meant to be mine.
There’s just one problem. Reese. My bitch of a wife. She shouldn’t still even be given that title. We haven’t seen each other in years. No, she has been off living the high life with my fuckwad brother, Wren. I thought I loved her. Damn did I want to give her everything. She wanted everything alright just not with me.
Now she’s back after what seems like a lifetime and she wants a second chance. Says she is done with life on the road and wants to settle down and get back the time we lost. I admit that it’s a tempting offer but I lost what love I held for Reese a long time ago.
She bent the hell out of my heart. Left a huge fucking dent, and I decided after she left that I would never open that part of me up again, but then Conleigh fucking happened. I tried so damn hard to ignore my pull to her. I told myself it was for the best she was with Ezra, but then I knew what he was doing behind her back. What had probably been done to me a thousand times by Reese and with my own brother no doubt. Then she willingly came to me and we shared a beautiful moment where nothing else existed but us. Our hot bodies on my cool sheets. Her heart beating wildly for me. Her sweat mixing with mine as though we were meant to always be one.
It was like a dream, one I never wanted to end. Then reality came crashing back down. Conleigh didn’t know what she wanted and the next day when I should have been fighting for her heart, I was slapped in the face with a visit from my past. My brother had returned and he had brought hell home with him.
I look up from wiping down the bar when I feel a pair of eyes on me. Bailey. What in the hell is she doing here?
“Can I talk to you?”
“You want to have a conversation with me? Won’t I kill your braincells or something if I get too close?”
She shakes her head with a grin. “Ha ha, very funny. It’s about Conleigh.”
“Okay, I’ll bite.” I take a few beers from behind the counter and show her to a table near the middle of the room, so I can keep an eye on the bar. It’s a slow day but there are a few regulars hanging around.
She takes a seat across from me and I offer her a beer. She shakes her head no but offers a timid no thanks.
I shrug and pop the cap off a bottle. “Suit yourself.”
“I know about the two of you…” she starts and I stop her.
“Let me guess, you are here to cut my nuts off and tell me to stay away.”
“Actually, I am here to ask you why you are sitting back and letting Ezra win?”
I nearly spit out my beer. “You want me with Conleigh? You hate me.” I cock a brow at her wondering what in the hell is going on. I must have entered an alternate reality.
“I wouldn’t call it hate. A strong dislike but that is only because you wounded my pride.” She shrugs when I chuckle. “I’m a vain girl who has always gotten her way and you didn’t want me. You never looked at me the way you look at her and I was jealous. I was a bitch. I’m sorry. I should have set my pride aside so you could be together. I suck.”
“Could have fooled me,” I crack at her and she glares at me. I tug on my beard. “So, I assume you have a plan to help me, right?”
“I uh…actually I was hoping you had it covered since you are such a charmer and all.” She smiles at me and it’s a genuine smile. I think this is the realest this chick has ever been around me.
“I don’t know what to do. I put it all out there to her. She knows how I feel. What more can I do?”
“You gotta fight for her. Conleigh is terrified after the shit with her dad growing up and her mom’s marriage to Ronald is a joke, but it’s what she knows. Ezra is just like her step dad. You my friend are a wildcard.”
“So, we’re friends now huh?”
“Stop being a dick for five seconds. I am trying to help you.”
“What’s in it for you? Why do you care so much whether she ends up with me or Ezra?”
“She’s my best friend. I screwed up and she shouldn’t be with that asshole.”
“I agree with you there.” I take a last pull from my bottle and ask, “Now what?”
“Now you give her hell. Don’t let a minute go by without letting her know you aren’t going anywhere. I didn’t figure you for a guy who gives up so easily on something he wants…someone he loves.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“We all have our gifts.” She grins, twirling a blonde curl around her finger.
I shake my head and let out a sigh. Then I knock back that second beer. Conleigh Meyers will be the death of me.