Page 42 of The Path To Us

“You think that’s why she’s so scared every time I leave.” He isn’t asking, he’s already come to the realization.

“I’m sure of it,” I admit, my face downturned and eyes focused on my fingers threaded together. When he makes a grunting noise, I lift my head and take him in. He looks exhausted. So weary and tired. The same as I feel. He mentioned that I was losing weight and looked tired — and as hard as it was to hear, he’s right. I barely manage a few hours of sleep at night, constantly getting woken up by nightmares of how I’m going to fail as a mother, or worse, seeing Chris watching Beau and I together, a tear trickling down his face as Beau kisses me. My love for Beau never has and never will go away, but the fact is, in a sense, I was Chris’s first. He loved me in the way I’ve always longed to be loved by Beau and pursuing anything with Beau now that Chris is gone just feels wrong.

He lays his head against the back of the couch, his face turned up to the ceiling. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “She’s focusing on what she can in a world where very few things make sense to her anymore.”

“They don’t make sense to me, either.”

“Yeah.” He blindly reaches over and grips my hand in his larger one. He yawns and his eyes flutter closed.

“Are you tired?”

“Yes, but not the way you’re thinking.”

“Staying here tonight?”

“Told Zoey I would. That okay with you?” His eyes are still closed and he squeezes my hand again.

“Of course. I consider the guest room pretty much yours, anyway.”

He grunts and slowly rolls his head in my direction, opening his eyes. “It’s mine, huh?”

“Whenever you need a place to stay, it’s yours.”

We stand up, neither of us letting go of each other. Still holding one hand, he leans in close and runs the back of his fingers down my cheek. My breath catches and I think he’s going to kiss me, his face slowly moving inches closer to mine. I tip my face up in the universal sign of ‘kiss me, you fool!’ but his lips make a detour and rather than kissing my mouth, he brushes a soft kiss against my temple. I want to stomp my foot and cry out that he can’t be serious.

“Time to go to sleep,” he mumbles so close that it causes a shiver to roll down my spine.

When he lets go of my hand, I feel the loss immediately. I want to reach over and grapple for his hand, holding it tightly so he doesn’t feel the need to take it away from me again, pulling him against me so our bodies are pressed to one another’s. I want him to want me the same as I want him.

I want to get back to last night where we stared at each other with so much need and lust pulsing between us. I want to follow him into the bedroom, or him follow me into mine, and spend hours getting to know each other in an entirely new way.

I want all that even knowing I can’t have it.

Because… I was his brother’s first.

Last night, it felt like we were getting close to crossing a line and this morning it was a hundred different kinds of awkward. Actually, it didn’t feel like we were getting close. We did get close to crossing a line. So much that I had to splash water on my face while we were watching that uber sexy show about the highlanders. I mean, it’s a good show, for sure. But the wedding night sex? Well, not the first time, but the second — it was so hot it had me practically ready to dry hump Beau’s leg.

Thinking back to last night, I can’t help but be embarrassed. Not only did I stare at his mouth for long enough to memorize it, I also lunged at him when he told me he was becoming a partner for the business. Lunge worthy? Not really. It was more because of the aftershocks of being so damn horny and turned on. Sure, it could be because of the show, but I know the truth of it. It’s all Beau. It always has been, and it always will be.

We part ways and I want to scream at the unfairness of it. I go through my bedroom routine quickly and now as I lie in my bed, one leg out and only a sheet covering me, I can’t stop myself from thinking about the fact that he’s just a few doors away. Wishing, hoping, wanting so desperately for him to be in this bed with me to quell some of this need.

What kind of mother am I, to wish to be having sex with my daughter’s uncle while she’s sleeping under the same roof? An awful one, that’s what.

I kick my legs then get up out of bed, feeling too jumpy to lie down. I’m so tired of wanting him and it not being returned. It’s exhausting.

For years, I’ve thought of being with Beau in ways that were nowhere near friendly, but lately I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. Maybe it’s how much he’s been around and all the time we’ve been spending together, or maybe it’s watching him with Zoey. I can’t help but feel like now is our time to be together. Finally. And in the next second, I realize why that can’t happen.

“Stop being pathetic,” I whisper angrily at myself, fisting my hand against my stomach.

When am I going to learn that if Beau wanted me, he’d have had me by now? It’s not as though I’ve been exactly subtle in my attraction to him. Maybe it’s time for me to move on. What happened last night wasn’t anything but the effects of two people watching a program that showed others having sex and the natural reaction to it. Sure, it seemed as though he wanted to kiss me, and possibly do a lot of other things as well, but was it his desire for me in particular?

I remember very clearly when Beau and I were thirteen and the moment I looked at Beau and realized he wasn’t just my best friend who happened to be a boy. He was a boy. And a very attractive one, at that. But I certainly wasn’t the only one who noticed him and trying to maintain our friendship while the girls in our class were working hard to get on my good side simply to get details on Beau.

As the years went by, I had to watch as he dated other girls, who made sure to fill me in on as many details of their nights together as they could. When he started dating Lizzy, it only got a thousand times worse. Because I knew what she was telling me was the truth.

“Gabi was extra chatty during study hall today,” I tell Beau from the passenger seat of his pickup on our way home from school.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, curious, for sure, but trying to pretend like he doesn’t care. He flips his blinker on as we come to a stop sign and wait for traffic to clear enough for us to turn left.

---