The Love Triangle (BWWM Romance) (6 page)

Speak of the devil, his green truck swerved in front of mine and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him. The pickup was an ugly hard metal, painted the worst color, and my sleek BMW would crumple up against it like paper.

“What the hell is your problem?” I shouted, blasting the horn. I got out of the car. Justin had gotten out of his truck and slammed the door. He was pissed. His face was red and he stormed toward me. I spread my feet wider a bit and balled my fists. If it was a fight he wanted, I’d been wanting to break his nose for a while.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“You’re here running me down in the middle of the road to ask me where she is?”

“She’s been discharged. She doesn’t have a place anymore, and I know for a fact she didn’t want to go with you.”

The anger inside was building. Quickly. I took a deep breath in through my nose.

“And you know this, how? You’ve seen her once. The rest of the time you haven’t even set foot near the hospital...“

“I came to see her,” he cut me off. Oh right, the night I’d stopped him.

I shrugged it off and kept going, “I’ve been by her side since the moment the accident happened and you think you know how she feels about anything now?”

“You’re the reason she was in that fucking accident!” Justin screamed. That shut me up pretty quick. My vision was starting to blur, with white spots dancing in front of my eyes. I was about to lose it, I could feel it.

“Is there a problem here?” someone spoke to my left and we both snapped our heads around to look. A police car had pulled up. Deputy Kent stood there gripping his belt buckle, looking at us like we were delinquents looking for trouble.

“No problem here, officer,” I said. Justin grumbled something along those lines. His face was still red, with a thin line of white around his lips. He glared at me, hands in his pockets and through the material I could see they were fists.

“I don’t care if you got bad blood here, but ya’ll better take it out of the street. We have women and children walking around these parts.”

Justin glanced around. I followed his lead, and there were groups of people standing here and there, gaping at us.

“I’m done here,” I said and made to get back in my car, but I waited until the deputy was in his. He pulled off with a short burst of siren.

“If you really think she’s all that sure about who she is and who she wants to be with you can go on and call her.”

The anger drained out of his face and I didn’t what I had, but it was something. “If you’re so sure she’s not with me, you go on and be with her. I don’t want to be the one to rain on your parade, trying to be the valiant knight and all, but you lost her.”

I got in my car and slammed the door, but not too soon to hear him call me a bastard. I’ve been called worse things. I put the car in reverse and pulled away from the green truck, driving around it. He wasn’t going to call her, that much I knew. If he was so sure that she wouldn’t be with me he would have already done that and gone to her.

The fact was that he asked me because he thought I still had her. I wished that were true. Now the only thing I had to worry about was that if I didn’t do something soon, I wasn’t going to have her. Ever.

Chapter 6 - Justin

“I don’t know why she chose Elijah in the first place. He’s a hard, heartless son of a bitch, and everything he does is for his own benefit. He doesn’t love her. The only person he can ever love is himself. Why doesn’t she see that?”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and scribbled something in her book. I was supposed to help her with stock take. She sat in the middle of the storage room, counting and writing and nodding, not hearing a thing I was saying.

“You really have to get over her. You’re just hurting yourself, and you’re doing exactly what she’s been doing to you.”

“What?” I asked.

“Alice. Grace can’t remember that she was a bitch and now you’re dragging poor Alice along until Grace can decide what she wants. Again. I’m getting sick of hearing about this.”

“That’s not the same thing,” I said. But I knew deep down that really, it was the same thing. And she was right. And I had to stop doing it. But I didn’t want to let Grace go. I loved her too much to give up a second chance. And I didn’t want to let Alice go. What if things didn’t work out with Grace? I didn’t want to lose both of them.

The moment I thought it, I felt guilty. Evelyn was right, I couldn’t keep doing it. But I couldn’t stop doing it, either.

I sighed. Just when I thought my fate had been sealed, this happened. I bit my tongue, picked up a box of files and flipped through them. Evelyn glanced at me.

“Don’t bother, you’re not paying attention. You just keep talking, and I’ll keep doing this, and we’ll be done before midnight.”

“At least she’s not with him. She’s at the hotel, with a nurse.”

“Don’t go see her,” Evelyn said, not looking up.

“Even as friends it wouldn’t be wrong for me to check in on her, make sure she’s okay.” Evelyn looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. Her hair was in a messy bun on top of her head, and when she looked like that, looked at me like that, she looked just like Mom used to when I was younger and I was in trouble. Where I did miss out on growing up?

“There’s nothing platonic about what you and Grace had. Not once were you just friends and you can’t be friends now. You’re making a mistake, if you go see her now it’s all going to start over again and more people are going to get hurt.”

I turned my back to her, rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. Maybe I wanted it all to start over again. Maybe I never wanted it to end.

“She’s not going to change,” Evelyn said again. “She’s either going to remember or not remember, but memory loss doesn’t change your personality. Not like that. And for a while it might be fine, and she might love you back and everything, and then she’ll end up choosing Elijah all over again.”

Her words hit me like a physical punch and I glared at her, angry because she brought up the one thing that hurt. And because she was probably right.

“What? Don’t look at me that way, you know what I’m saying is right. That’s why you didn’t fall right into her arms when you found out she couldn’t remember. Don’t be an idiot, Justin. You’re just going to go down the same spiral again.”

I sighed and nodded. I sat down on the floor next to her, hands on my knees.

“Where do you want me to start?” I asked. She shook her head and gave a half-smile, one corner of her mouth drawn up the way that Graham used to do it. I wondered how it was possible that she did what he used to do easier than what Mom and Dad used to do. Did the person you ended up with influence you that much? Who had I become after Grace?

“Get out of here,” she said with a smile. “I know you’re going to go see her no matter what I say, so you might as well get going. You’re just slowing me down talking about it all in circles like you haven’t made up your mind yet.”

I opened my mouth to protest but she held up her hand.

“I’m your older sister, Justin. I know you. Now go on, get.”

I hugged her before I got up. When I walked out of the shop, I glanced at my watch. When I’d phoned Grace earlier to find out where she was, I asked if I could come over. She was reluctant but she’d told me eight. That was enough for me. It was ten minutes to eight.

I pulled into the parking bay in the street in front of Orange House and put my cowboy hat on the seat next to me. When I got out I looked up. It was still light, the sun set a lot later in the summer, but the sun was creeping toward the horizon and it was going to be a beautiful sunset. I walked through the lobby and to the elevator, riding it to the second floor.

I paused in front of the door, and ran my fingers through my hair, pulling it together and pulling it through a hair band. I knew I didn’t look great. I still wore my dirty jeans, and my sleeveless shirt.  But this was how she knew me. This was who I was.

I knocked on the door. A moment later, a woman opened it wearing a light grey dress that had no shape, with sensible black shoes. Her hair was pulled into ponytail and she looked annoyed.

“Your visitor’s here,” she called over her shoulder without speaking to me.

“Thank you, Claudia. You can go on out if you like, I’ll be okay.”

Claudia the nurse looked me up and down like she wasn’t sure I would be able to make sure Grace was okay, but then she nodded. She backed into the room and found a coat and a purse before she left. I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.

Grace sat on her bed with pillows propped up behind her. The last time I’d seen her, the bandages around her head had been severe and her eye had looked terrible. The bandages were replaced by a square bandage and the bruise was a lot lighter, greenish-blue the way old bruises were. When she saw me she smiled.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down on the opposite bed. She looked like she was unhappy with my choice, but she didn’t say anything. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Really?” she nodded, but then her smile drained and she looked down at her hands.

“The doctor said I lost about six months. It’s not supposed to be such a big deal. But I’m confused. I don’t know who I am. I’m not supposed to feel so disorientated.”

I leaned forward and took her hand. She looked at the contact before she looked up at me.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “It’s been a hell of an accident. Even if you were lucky to lose so little, it’s still pretty traumatic.”

She nodded. “The doctor said so too. I just feel like I don’t know anything anymore. Nothing is the way I remember it. It’s suddenly scorching hot, all the deadlines I’d made for myself are over. Elijah is everywhere.” She swallowed hard. “You’re nowhere.”

I took a deep breath and I didn’t know where to start.

“Who ended it?” she asked.

“What?”

She looked up at me and her dark eyes were dark and liquid, the way it looked when she was close to tears.

“Our relationship. From all of this, the only thing I can seem to figure out is that you and I aren’t together anymore.”

It was my turn to look down. I let go of her hand again and laced my own fingers through each other, elbows on my knees.

“You ended it,” I said. “You had to choose one of us eventually, and you did.”

She was quiet for long enough that I looked up at her. She was looking toward the window where the curtains weren’t drawn. The sky was a burst of tangerine, pink toward the bottom of the window. I sighed. How long had I fought for a place in her life? Since the day I met Grace I’d known I wanted to be with her. She was one of those women you just couldn’t get enough of. She had an energy about her that never seemed to run out. Even now, when she looked unsure and despondent, there was something about her that I ached to make mine.

“I don’t understand,” she finally said. “What happened?”

Everything, I wanted to say. You chose the wrong guy. You ended up with someone that wants to change everything about who you are, break it until it fits his own mold. But I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “We just had differences we couldn’t figure out.” Differences like Elijah being a mean bastard.

“But what happened? Tell me, I really want to know.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that. If I tell you, you might just hate me all over again.” I said the last bit with a half-cocked smile, trying to make light of it. But she didn’t smile back. Her eyes stayed serious, big and drowning deep.

“I don’t hate you,” she said so softly it was almost a whisper. “I don’t hate you at all. I miss you. I know this is supposed to be what my life is like now, but I miss you. I want you. I don’t remember not having you.”

I got up and moved to her bed. Her legs were outstretched and I sat on the edge with my hand on her thigh.

“Whatever happened between us, I want you to know that I still care about you. And if you need anything, any help, I’ll always be there.”

She nodded and chuckled without emotion. “Why does that sound like you don’t feel the same about me as I feel about you?”

Damn, if she even understood how wrong that was. I yearned for her. I was still trying to get over the fact that she hadn’t chosen me, never mind trying to get over her. She looked up at me again, and tears had welled up into her eyes. She blinked and they spilled onto her cheeks.