At the outset, I thought this was simple. Not necessarily simple in execution, but simple in potential conclusions. Brooke would seduce Graham, and I would reap the benefit when Emma needed comfort and a shoulder to cry on. And here, literally in my lap, sits my hoped-for conclusion.
It’s the execution I’m having issue with.
I fully assumed Brooke would succeed in seducing Graham, but that has not been the case. The fake phone call was, for some reason, a deception I can’t slip past as easily as I’d like. Thanks to Brooke’s clever scam, Emma and Graham each believe the other is cheating. And having exclusive knowledge of the entire scheme makes me an accessory to purposefully breaking Emma’s heart. As my father would say in closing arguments—there is no other verdict to be reached.
I know how this feels—to think you love someone, to think you’re loved in return, only to be slammed breathless by betrayal. Brooke did that to me.
Absently stroking her, I notice that she’s grown quieter, still dragging in shuddering breaths. I grab a tissue box off the side table, pull a few tissues out and hand them to her. She blows her nose and dabs at her eyes, which somehow starts the whole process over again. It’s a full ten minutes before she’s calm.
“Emma,” I say, the sound of my voice like the crack of a rifle. An alarm is going off in my head, telling me not to say what I’m about to say. I ignore it. “Last fall, you never asked me about Brooke, or the pregnancy. You never asked if there were extenuating circumstances, or how I felt at the time, or if I wished I’d made a better decision.”
Her tears start to flow again, but she says nothing.
I close my eyes, inhale the familiar herbal scent of her shampoo, memorize the feel of her in my arms. I can’t say I love this girl. But I know someone who might. “You need to ask the questions this time, Emma.” My voice is soft and low.
She looks up at me, silent, and I’m staring back. Amazingly, her eyes are trusting, and I don’t know why. I don’t deserve her trust. I can’t and won’t tell her everything.
“What are you saying?” Her voice is raw, her face streaked with tears, and she has never, in my presence, been more vulnerable.
I press my lips to her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and her eyes close. She doesn’t protest. Fucking hell, it would be so easy. So easy. It’s been ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Graham may or may not have succumbed to Brooke’s lies and misleading photos. I’m positive she’s pulled out all the stops. As much animosity as there is between us, I’d have a difficult time refusing her under those circumstances—and Graham has naively trusted her for years.
“Go. Ask him the questions you need to ask. Now. Before I change my mind.” Cupping her face in my palm and pressing another tissue into her hand, I add, “And if you need to come back, come back. I’ll be here.”
Chapter 32
GRAHAM
Brooke hasn’t kissed me in two years—not since the one drunken endeavor that went nowhere, which we both pretend never happened. I’m not counting the kisses along my jaw a week ago. Maybe I should.
I am numb. Lying motionless under her practiced hands and mouth, there’s nothing but the memory of kissing Emma, just a few hours ago. Before she entered Reid’s room, with his arm around her. It’s like last fall all over again except much, much worse. My heart squeezes so tight I think it might stop beating. For the barest second, I don’t care if it does.
And then the shock begins to fade. When my brain begins to power up, it does so sluggishly, like a cold engine that might or might not catch and turn over. I register the fact that Brooke is kissing me, and that I’m sort of responding, on autopilot. Taking her by the shoulders, I push her away, gently, and sit up.
She clutches my arms, moving onto my lap, and the sensation is like having a tub of ice water dumped over me. Clarity rushes in.
Brooke sent the photo of Reid and Emma kissing last fall, taken with her phone. She sent a photo of me, asleep with my arms around her, to Reid. Now, the current batch. Again, on her phone. Something more nags at the edge of my consciousness. I shove her away and stand.
“There’s no need to confront them.” Brooke holds onto my wrist as though she can anchor me here, in this room. “Maybe the studio edicts just made it too difficult. All of that onscreen chemistry they have—it just translated too easily into real life.”
I close my eyes because all I see with them open is red. Everything, everything awash with red, like a fine spray of blood across a window pane. “No,” I say, my eyes flashing open. She blinks, hard.
She moves in front of me, grabbing and holding both of my hands, which still feel numb. “Graham, stay here with me. I’ll make you forget her. I’m right for—”
“No,” I say again, louder, and then I look down and see the naked hunger on her dazed, upturned face and the needling detail clicks into place in my brain. “Where’s your ice bucket?”
She frowns, shakes her head. “What?”
“You said you were getting ice. Where’s your ice bucket?”
Her eyes widen, shift away and come back to mine in the space of two seconds. “I—I forgot it… Graham—”
Brooke pleads that she doesn’t want me to get hurt any further. Ignoring her, I focus on a building resolve: I have no idea how long Emma has been with Reid, or what they’re doing, but by God, if she’s disregarding every murmured longing of my heart and soul, she’s going to do it to my goddamned face. I leave my room and head for Reid’s, Brooke following. I don’t know if she’s still talking. I can’t hear anything over the monster roaring in my head.