Chapter Thirty-Two
Riley
It had been a tough few days. Paisley and Ruben had stayed at my house for most of the time, which was nice of them, but after a while, I’d told them that I wanted to be alone. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy having them around, because I did, but I hated the way they looked at me. They looked at me like was a fragile glass that would break at the simplest touch. They felt sorry for me. And there was nothing worse than someone looking at you with pity. I felt embarrassed too that I had spent all this time telling them how much I liked Silas, and how I was hoping that the two of us would finally be a couple when he got back. It had only taken a few months for Silas to find someone else. And I had no idea if that woman was the first one that he had been with. Maybe he kissed all the girls backstage. When I saw that girl kissing him, I realized that I didn’t know Silas nearly as well as I thought I had.
I couldn’t believe that he had actually had the nerve to still come and see me. I’d been hiding in my room when he arrived. I knew he was coming because he had texted me to tell me that he would, so I’d asked Paisley to open the door and to also give him back his check. There was no way I was going to use that money after what he had done to me. I didn’t need his help or his pity. When I heard a knock on the door today, I figured it was going to be Paisley again. Even though I had told her I was fine, I knew she would still worry about me. But it wasn’t Paisley. And it wasn’t Silas. Instead, a very good-looking man stood in front of me. A man who looked remarkably like Silas. A bigger, sportier version. He looked like someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. It was the eyes though, the kind eyes that made him remind me so much the man I’d started to fall for. It was hard to look at those eyes.
“Hi, I’m Dominic,” he said. “I—”
“You’re Silas’s brother,” I said. I remembered the name. He was a linebacker for some football team. That was why he looked the way he did. “He’s spoken about you before.”
“He called me and asked me if I could come and get his stuff for him. Is that okay?”
“Uh . . . .” I half expected Silas to be waiting around the corner, ready to jump in as soon as I let his brother in. I wasn’t sure what to do. I looked at him nervously, and he obviously understood my meaning.
“He’s not here,” he said gently. “I promise you. It’s just me.”
I opened the door. “Sure, come on in,” I said and showed him to Silas’s room. He turned around to say something to me, but I told him that I would wait for him in the living room when he was done and quickly hurried off. It felt so strange to be around someone that looked so much like Silas.
I got to the living room and paced. I tried sitting down but immediately stood back up again. I walked around and around the big living room, my heart beating fast in my chest. I couldn’t relax knowing that Dominic was up in Silas’s room. Part of me wanted him gone, and part of me liked hearing sounds coming from that room again. I felt a mixture of emotions running through me as I listened to him. I heard him moving things around and felt bad that I was just making him do it alone. Silas was the one that had hurt me, not his brother. So, I swallowed my pride and made my way back to the room. When I got there, I saw him on his haunches, a drawer open as he threw things into a bag. He’d already done quite a lot in the short time that he had been there. The room was starting to look the way he had before Silas had moved in and it saddened me to see it getting empty again. Why had Silas ruined everything for us?
“Uh, hi. I’m sorry about that. I was being rude. I’m Riley, by the way.”
He smiled and came to shake my hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Riley.” He said it like he had heard my name many times before and it made me wonder what Silas had told him. I wanted to ask him, but at the same time, I didn’t want to start up a conversation about Silas if I didn’t have to. It was hard enough just thinking about him.
“Can I get you a something to drink? Beer? Coffee?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s okay. I don’t think I’ll be too long. But thank you. I have my truck here so I should be able to take most of this stuff. But I might have to leave some of the bigger things and come back for them another time. I’ll try my best to take it all, though.”
I got a good feeling around Dominic. There was something very likeable about him. Then again, I had thought the same thing about Silas. I tried not to let that influence my opinion of him. “Thank you, Dominic. That’s nice of you. I really appreciate you doing this.”
“Yeah, it’s no problem at all. I would do anything for my brother. He’s a good guy,” he said and shot me a look. I didn’t say anything. I just pulled some stuff from the closet to help him. His brother obviously didn’t know Silas at all. Or maybe he just didn’t think him kissing girls was a big deal. Maybe I had been the fool all along. After all, Silas had never officially asked me out. He had every right to be with other girls if he wanted to. Maybe I was the one that had looked into all of this too deeply. Maybe he had never liked me as much as I thought he did. Didn’t like me as much as I liked him. I felt ill at the thought.
“You know,” Dominic said after a while as he interrupted my reverie. “My brother really cares for you. I know that this is none of my business, but I think you should know that he likes you a lot. More than a lot. I’ve never heard him talk about anyone in the way that he spoke about you. I’m not sure what is going on, Riley, but I am completely convinced that my brother has fallen for you. I’m sad that things aren’t going well, but maybe you should talk to him. The guy is devastated and very confused. All he wants to do is see you.”
I looked at Dominic. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I also had to defend myself. I didn’t want him to think that I was the bad person in this equation. It wasn’t really fair to me if he thought ill of me when it was Silas that had been in the wrong.
“Oh, it’s not like that at all. I don’t think he cares about me one bit. Not in the way that you think.”
“What do you mean? Of course he does. The guy is crazy for you. Trust me; I know the guy well. The two of us are very close. I know that he really cares for you. A lot.”
I raised my eyebrows and let out a small chortle. “Really? If he likes me so much, then why is he kissing other girls backstage? That doesn’t sound like something you would do if you really liked someone. At least, that’s not something I would do.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at me in surprise.
“He was kissing girls backstage? What do you mean? That doesn’t sound like Silas.”
“No, it doesn’t sound at all like Silas. But as it turns out then, neither one of us knows him as well as we thought we did,” I said sadly.
“But . . . how do you know? I don’t understand.”
“I was there.”
“You were there?”
I sighed and nodded. “I told him I was working the night that he had a concert nearby. It wasn’t true. I wanted to surprise him. I went to watch the concert. My friend Paisley had organized for me to get backstage after he played. So I went there, ready to surprise him, and as I walked in, I saw him kissing another girl. I quickly hurried out before he could see me. So yeah, that’s why I don’t want to see him anymore, and that’s why I’m so upset with him.”
“And he has no idea that you saw him?”
“I guess not.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, Riley. That’s horrible.”
“Yeah. And look, I know that the two of us weren’t dating. I know that anyone else will probably tell me that I’m being overdramatic about the whole thing. He has a right to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants. But I really believed that we had something special going on. We might not have made it official, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real to me. I’ve missed him so much while he’s been away. I really believed that we were going to be together again. But it only took a few months for him to mess around with someone else. And that’s just the one girl I saw. I have no idea if there have been others.”
Dominic shook his head. “I’m still so shocked. This just doesn’t sound like my brother at all. He’s not like that. And when he spoke to me and asked me to come and get his stuff, he sounded so distraught about it all. It’s a weird reaction to have if he was with someone else. Maybe it’s not what you think. I know that he cares about you, Riley. I just know it. And I know that he’s a good guy. Maybe you need to talk to him. Maybe he can explain.”
I shook my head. “Or maybe the fame has already gone to his head. I’m sorry, Dominic, I know you’re sticking up for him because he’s your brother, but he really hurt me.”
He sighed. “I don’t understand why he would do this.” “You and me both.”