“You’ll have to fill me in, Alec. Are they still married?”
“Nope.” I closed my eyes again. “Oh and here’s the fun part. You ready?”
“I don’t know if I want to know, Alec.”
“In about a day, the shit is going to hit the fan and everyone in the world is going to believe that I slept with Demetri’s mom. Though, to be fair, I don’t even know if we slept together. Pretty sure we were both drugged. At any rate, it’s over with. It’s so incredibly over. Not only will Demetri want to kill me but Nat will be done with me, and I’m going to be ruining my brother’s music career. All because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some high-stepping, B-list actress had a camera phone.” I winced. “She cornered me tonight — April — said some things that weren’t true. It was all caught on camera. I just… It’s making me look bad and her like a saint.”
The clock ticked in the background. I still lay there, waiting for the sound of a gun hammer cocking and for Mrs. Murray to blow my brains out. Instead, I was left waiting.
Five minutes went by and then another five.
Finally I opened my eyes to peer at Mrs. Murray.
She was staring at me, and writing some things down on that damn yellow notepad. “Good.”
“Good?” I jumped from the couch. “Are you insane?”
“Same time tomorrow? Oh, and you can use Nat’s old room. Mr. Murray won’t mind if you have to stay for a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” I repeated.
“Yes.” Mrs. Murray smiled. “I may have fired myself as your shrink, but you need someone to talk to. I’ll try to take off my mom hat when we talk. Regardless, you aren’t leaving. Welcome to Casa de Murray. Try to get some sleep.”
With that she left me alone in her office and walked out the door.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Demetri
I had to sleep on it. I mean, any guy in my position would be not only pissed but scared shitless.
The group was all downstairs for breakfast. Jaymeson looked like someone ran him over with a truck and Angelica looked like someone kicked her puppy. I refused to believe that chick had feelings. In fact, if she had a puppy and it hadn’t been kicked, well… okay, maybe that was too far, but still.
Nat was in the corner eating toast, her cheeks were still puffy from all those tears, and Alyssa was baking.
One thing I learned about Alyssa. When she was stressed she made food. Which was bad for me if I wanted to keep any sort of six-pack. At any rate, I told her to stop making muffins because they were making me fat.
With a deep sigh I walked over to where Nat was sitting and pulled up a chair. “So… toast.”
Wow. Shoot me now.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s it? After everything that happened yesterday, and the first word out of your mouth is toast?”
“I’m a guy.”
“I think you were better on drugs.” This from Jaymeson.
“Not helping,” Alyssa sang from the kitchen, sweat poured from her face. The thing was going to have a stroke from making too many pancakes.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “I…” Wow, that’s as good as it got. Pathetic. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
Nat set down her toast and reached across the table grabbing my hand in hers. “You can’t, Demetri.”
“But—” I clenched her hand until my fingers went numb. “I have to. Someone has to. I just… I’m stuck, Nat. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t know how to fix him, and I sure as hell don’t know how to finish the damn fairytale.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Nat’s eyes shone with tears. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit down and cry.” She wiped under her eyes and sighed. “If he needs this… I’m going to wait.”
“But—”
Alyssa smacked me on the back of the head before I could finish my thought. Jaymeson chuckled in the corner. His face looked like someone had just run him over with a truck.
“Shut it.” I glared in his direction. “Shouldn’t you get your face fixed?”
“Shouldn’t your brother stop screwing older women?”
The room fell silent.
I looked to Nat, but she was staring down at her plate. Jaymeson needed to rein it in before I killed him.
I glanced at my phone. Five minutes until the filming would start. They always gave us a few minutes to get our shit together before the cameras started rolling. “Take a walk with me?” I nodded to Nat.
She pushed back her chair and followed me outside.
“I need to know what you know.” I put my arm around her and led her toward the boardwalk.
With a shudder she tucked her head into my chest and sighed. “He’s on antidepressants and he said he hasn’t dealt with everything from his past. That’s basically all I know. I mean… honestly, what could be so bad that he feels like he can’t even talk to us?”
I just shook my head and gave a bitter laugh. “Could it really be worse than him getting my girlfriend pregnant to get back at me and then her and his son dying in a car accident?”
It wasn’t funny but Nat smirked, because we both knew the reality of it was our lives were full of drama, and it was all self inflicted and almost too unbelievable for words.
“I guess it must be, otherwise he would tell us.”
We kept walking, and all of a sudden I was hit with the extreme gut-wrenching, leg-stumbling, mind-altering feeling of déjà vu. “Nat?”
She stopped. “What?”
I looked down at the ground as I felt my heart constrict in my chest. “I wish it was me.”
“What do you mean?”
I cupped her face with my hands, gently wiping her tears away as I did so. “I wish so damn bad it would have been me. I wish you would have given me your heart so that in the end it was me breaking it — not him. I wish I could give you a do-over. I wish so much that you would have chosen me, because in the end, I could have saved you from this. Maybe then I could have been the one to ruin you — maybe then you would be in his arms instead of mine.”
Nat’s eyes closed.
“Nat, it kills me. This freaking kills me.” I choked down a sob. “Because I can’t do anything to make it better. I can’t fix Alec. I don’t even know what his big secret is. I just… I don’t know, sometimes I wish I could turn back time.”
“But then you wouldn’t have Alyssa,” she pointed out.
“I would have found her.”
“And then what?”
“At least I could have saved you.” I looked away so she wouldn’t see me cry. But it wasn’t for me. They weren’t selfish tears. They were tears for her, tears for my brother, and tears for the life that I knew was going to be affected more than anyone else in our group.
Hers.
Nat’s lower lip trembled, but other than that there was no visible sign of emotion. I wasn’t sure what freaked me out more, her indifference or the fact that her eyes were so full of fear that I knew I couldn’t abandon her if my life depended on it. Did that make me better than Alec? Or was he truly doing what was best for her by allowing himself to deal with his baggage before it consumed them both?
“You excited?” I changed the subject and touched her stomach.
Her face broke out into a beautiful smile. “I’m terrified.”
I moved my hand and pulled her into a hug, kissing her forehead. “Nah, no reason to be terrified, that little baby’s going to have everything.”
Everything but a father. The unspoken phrase made me close my eyes so tears wouldn’t drip onto Nat’s pretty head.
If Alec knew, he wouldn’t have left. It was the only thing keeping me from running him over with my car.
“Time to go back.” I stepped away and grabbed her hand. “The production crew will want to film the drama of today.”
“They had a frenzy last night.” Nat snorted.
“Yeah, well… it was good TV, you can’t script that shit. It was media gold.”
Nat sighed. “People’s lives getting ruined always is.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Alec
I slept like shit.
I had such a bad headache that I wanted to crawl into a tiny dark hole and die, and then I thought of Nat. I ran into the bathroom and heaved all the contents of my stomach into the toilet.
This had to end. I had to end it. Mrs. Murray was right. She couldn’t fix me, but I couldn’t keep going on like this. Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders and pretending that I had a damn rainbow stuck up my ass.
Where to begin? I couldn’t just walk up to Demetri and say, “Hey man, sorry for being caught in a compromising situation with your mom. Oh, and sorry about lying to you for your entire life.”
Saying it out loud just made it sound so much worse.
I heard my phone go off.
With a groan I walked into Nat’s old bedroom and snagged my phone from the charger.
WE NEED 2 TALK.
It was Demetri.
Great. He was probably planning on running me over with his car. I’d welcome it at this point. I texted him back.
GVE ME 15.
I threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
My phone buzzed again.
IN FRNT OF THE RESORT @ SEASIDE.
I stuffed the phone into my back pocket and ran down the stairs to grab a granola bar. I needed something to eat since I’d just thrown up whatever was left in my stomach.
Mrs. Murray was sitting at the counter, a cup of coffee in her hand. Her eyes were glued to her iPad.
“Alec?” She looked tired. Her hair was thrown into a messy bun. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “Is there something you need to tell me about Nat?”
Nothing that would make her feel any better about our relationship. “No. I… I love her. That’s about it.”
“And you’ll do anything to protect her?”
“Of course.”
“Even from things like this?” She showed me her iPad and sighed. “What will you do when they do this to her in the media? I need to know you are on her side.”
“I am.” My eyes scanned the article and then my blood ran absolutely cold.
Demetri and Nat hugging.
Demetri kissing Nat’s head.
Nat crying.
Demetri cupping her face.
“Son of a—” I stopped myself, set the iPad back on the counter and stormed out of the room. I was going to kill him. What the hell was he thinking? He had Alyssa! He didn’t need to be comforting my girlfriend! It wasn’t his damn job, it was mine!
A voice in my head said I was acting insane, but possessiveness washed over me. Well, that and a mixture of insecurity. What the hell was wrong with me?
I ran as fast as I could to the resort in front of the bustling boardwalk.
Demetri was sitting on one of the park benches waiting for me.
He stood, disapproval practically radiated from him. “So the prodigal returns?”
I punched him in the face.
Demetri stumbled to the ground with a curse. I heard the clicking of cameras. Crap. I knew better than to bring all our baggage out into public, but I couldn’t control myself. Anger pulsated through my body. I wanted to punch him again, to kick him, to make him hurt. He groaned, I flexed my hand into another fist and made a lunge for him.