Chloe
Again, I expected Logan to be the one walking through my door. It was Jace. I wasn’t at all prepared to see him. His eyes were a few shades darker than Logan’s but just as striking. He’d never had stubble before, his face was always smooth but now he had short hairs around his jaw, meeting his sideburns.
I licked my lips. Seeing him in the flesh again made my heart ache. I wasn’t supposed to be able to talk to him again. I’d accepted that a long time ago but here he was, standing just outside my bedroom door wanting to talk.
“Can I come in?” he asked, looking at me the way he used to when we were each other’s everything.
I wanted to say no. It hurt to look at him. It hurt to think that everything I went through was all his fault. I didn’t have to feel like I’d lost a sodding limb. He let me go through that. But this was Jace and he was here so I sat up and gave a short nod.
“I don’t know where to start, Chloe,” he said, closing the door. I watched as he awkwardly walked to my bed and sat down. It kind of reminded me of when we first got together, before we were comfortable with each other.
Well, I knew where I wanted to start. “How could you? How could you allow us to think you were dead?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you did.” There was always a choice. It just might not always be a good one.
“Do you have any idea what would have happened to you all if anyone found out where I was and why I was in hiding? They’re terrorists, Chloe, they’d have no problem killing you as well, they wouldn’t think twice about ending your life.”
“I used to wish I’d died, too. I used to lay in bed, close my eyes and pray I wouldn’t wake up.” His jaw tightened, eyes tensed. “It was horrendous at first. I could barely get out of bed. Your mum sat on the sofa all day and night until your dad made her go to bed. Logan drank his bodyweight in whatever booze he could get his hands on. Eventually I stopped going over or really going out at all. I didn’t know what to do. We were inseparable and I suddenly had to be without you. I felt like I was walking around in complete darkness.”
“Stop,” he whispered. “Please, I can’t…”
“Painful, is it?” I spat through clenched teeth. I started crying again at the memories. It hurt just as much thinking about it as it did when I was going through it.
“You were safe, that was all that mattered. I couldn’t let anything happen to you or my family. You have to understand that, Chloe. There wasn’t another choice. You had to believe I was gone.”
I shook my head. “No. You could have found a way to tell us the truth but you didn’t. You sat back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We had to bury you so don’t you dare try justifying it. I would have never let you go through that.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve told you my reasons and I’ll never apologise for keeping you safe.”
“You just apologised!”
“For hurting you, not for protecting you.”
It was the same thing to me but I couldn’t have that pointless fight with him. He didn’t even seem to realise what his ‘death’ had done to us.
Sniffing, I wiped my nose with my sleeve. I wanted to leap into his arms and breathe him in but I was still too angry. I missed him. As much as I knew I was beyond lucky that I got to have him back in my life, I was pissed that he didn’t end our suffering.
“Where have you been?”
“Wales. A remote little village in the middle of nowhere.” He was just a few hours drive away. “I lived with the other survivor. I finished college and then we went to university together, using a student flat share as our cover.”
“God.” I stood up and ran my hands over my face. This was too much to take in.
Jace didn’t seem to think so; he didn’t stop his story.
“We helped each other. She missed home as much as I did but she dealt with the new identity a lot easier than me. Alyssa was having a hard time coming out but being April gave her the opportunity to be who she is. She picked me up and reminded me why I was torturing myself by staying away. The men that planted the bomb and killed all those people deserved to go down for it, Chloe. I didn’t want them walking the streets with you.”
I almost snipped that I didn’t walk the streets but I understood what he meant, and I knew it wasn’t easy for him either.
He stood up slowly, cautious of my reaction.
“You and my family are the last people in the world I want to hurt but I couldn’t risk it. Please, understand that. I just needed you to be okay… and you are.” His voice faltered, and I think part of him wanted to come back to me being a total mess still.
“It took a long time for me to be okay, Jace.”
“Logan helped,” he said, his voice cold, hard and detached.
It was obvious where this was going and I knew we’d need to have several conversations about me and Logan but right now I just wanted to make sense of my ex being alive.
“I don’t want to talk about Logan right now.”
“I think it’s a pretty important subject, Chloe.”
“So is you coming back from the…” I couldn’t say dead.
“You know what happened there. I did what I had to do to help put two dangerous men behind bars. Now I want to know how the hell you fell for my brother.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jace, I just did. We got closer and it happened.”
“It happened?”
“Yes. What else do you want me to say? We’ve been over this.”
“Well, maybe I can’t get my head around it.”
“Well, maybe I can’t get my head around what you did.” I was shouting now. I wanted to have a calm conversation but that wasn’t going to happen, there were too many fucked up, mixed feelings for this conversation to be anywhere near civil.
“Where does that leave us?” he asked.
I shrugged. It was too soon to decide that.
“Are you going to keep seeing Logan?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. I wanted to but I had to find out how he felt about everything. He loved me, that much I was sure of, but I didn’t know if he’d be able to stay with me now that Jace was back. Brother came before girl.
“Right,” he snapped. “I’ll see you, Chloe.”
Without another world or glance back in my direction he left as quickly as he could. My door was slammed behind me and I fell to my knees as soon as it was closed, winded by the situation and our argument. It was all way too much. I collapsed back against the bed and cried.
***
Again, Nell burst through my door as if she owned the place. I really needed to get my parents to start announcing her arrival, or getting her to call first.
“You’re still in bed,” she said as if she’d expected me to be doing anything else.
I rolled onto my back, looking up at the ceiling and groaned. “Jace stopped by a while ago.”
“Oh.” She was sitting beside me in a flash. “How did that go?”
“We argued. Big shock there.”
“Have you spoken to Logan?”
“Not yet. I figured he’ll have a lot on at home at the minute. His family needs to deal with Jace being back rather than the Chloe/Logan/Jace drama right now. We’ve waited long enough, I don’t think a few more days are going to hurt.”
She sighed. “Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, you’re running again.”
“No.” She didn’t look convinced. “I mean it, Nell. I promised him no more running and I meant it. This is just time and space so we can both deal with something that’s...” Yeah, there really wasn’t a word for what we were dealing with right now.
“You mean it? This isn’t you bolting for the hills?”
“I mean it.” I couldn’t leave him again but I could stay away long enough to let him and his brother, hopefully, sort things out.
“Okay,” she replied, nodding, her long, hair falling in her face. “Do yourself a favour though, don’t leave it too long before you talk to him again.”
“I won’t. Anyway, tell me about what’s going on in your life.”
“You want to talk about me when all of this is going on?” she asked.
I looked over at my best friend and nodded. “Of course. I kind of need to think about something that’s not my screwed up love life or my ex who’s not lying below a grave I’ve cried over more times than I can count.”
Nell’s leafy green eyes shone with mischief. She shoved her long, pitch-black hair behind her ears. “Wow, my problems seem so small compared to yours.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” I said sarcastically. “Spill.”
With a pissed off sigh, she launched into her rant, “Damon, the prick, has stepped up said prickiness. You know he had the cheek to ask me on a date. A date! Did the four thousand conversations we had about me not wanting a boyfriend not make him understand that I don’t want a boyfriend?”
I held my hand up. “Hold on, not so long ago you were telling me you wanted something real.”
“I changed my mind, Chlo, keep up!” Right. “Men are too much hassle. I mean, look at what you’re going through. I told him I understand that he wants in my pants so we’re just keeping it casual.”
“Yeah, your problems are tiny,” I muttered.
She slapped my arm. “Okay, I say we use the next few days to get your head around Jace being back and mega pissed off that his girl is shagging his brother and maybe get a little drunk too.”
“Sounds good and thanks for being so sensitive there.”
“How do we get your head around this?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t even know if Jace will ever forgive us. If he doesn’t what does that mean for me and Logan?”
“You and Logan continue without his blessing. The guy let you believe he was dead for over three years, what right does he have to walk back in and have an opinion on anything?”
“Well, he left knowing I loved him so I understand why he’s hurt.”
“No, I get it, but he needs to get over it. You’re definitely staying with Logan, right? Oh God, this isn’t going to be one of those messy love triangles, is it?”
“No. I told you I’m with Logan and not even Jace can change that. No love triangles and no confusion.”
“Good, because Logan is way hotter. Those muscles.” She wolf whistled and wiggled her eyebrows.
This was going somewhere I did not want to be.
“Think maybe we can go back to talking about anything else for a while?”
“Sure. Would you rather have your arms cut off or give birth to a twenty pound baby?”
Well, I asked for something else.