Page 71 of Tempt

He pressed his forehead against mine. “Nothing that happens from here will change how I feel.”

And that was the thing—all we really had was right now. I hated what he was saying. The future was uncertain. Anything could happen next. There were an overwhelming number of possibilities when it came to Toni. There was as much of a chance one of us would get hurt or arrested as there was that we wouldn’t be able to look each other in the eye. I didn’t know if our love was the kind that could survive anything.

All we had was now. And I was going to make the most of it.

Chapter 26

The whiskey had been flowing for a good hour and I was sauced. So was Nicki and I was pretty sure Higgins was drunker than he thought. Theo was the only one who hadn’t had more than a drink and seemed to be rather sober.

Over the course of the hour I’d learned that as a child Theo liked to hide in the family home and listen as the entire house went mad looking for him. He says that as an adult he now understands he liked the attention and drama because his father was terrible and his mom was gone, but for a long time he thought there was something wrong with him.

“There’s still something wrong with you,” Higgins laughed.

“At least I’m not you,” Theo shot back. Everyone laughed and I got the impression it was an old joke.

Then things turned toward the lost years and I was surprised by how much they talked about it—happily. It was good to know it wasn’t all dark horrors and unhappy memories.

“Theo had a thing for cars,” Higgins took another shot. “He had this phone with all these programs in it and he could unlock any car and start any engine. Dude… chicks loved that shit. It was his ‘move’ for a couple of years.”

I shot Theo a look. “Is this so? Was the car this weekend another one of yourmoves?”

“Oh!” Nicki howled. “He took you out in the Mercedes? He really does like you. He won’t even take me in it.”

Theo held up his hands. “You’ll get paint and charcoal all over it. I can’t have that in my car.”

Nicki looked down at her black stained fingertips and shrugged. “I don’t want to ride in your stupid car anyway.”

Then they stuck their tongues out at each like they were five.

“So what’s the deal with you two?” I waved my water glass through the air at Higgins and Nicki. The room went very silent and uncomfortable. But rather than letting it stop me, I pushed on because, dang it all, I was tired of being in the dark about everything. “Obviously there’s history here.”

Higgins shifted uncomfortably and Theo looked at his feet. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Nicki was the one that actually spoke, the guys were clearly too chicken, but Nicki was so emotionally unavailable that it still shocked me that she was ready to be so honest with someone she didn’t seem to like all that much.

“I’m in love with Darcy and he’s in love with me, but we’re terrible to each other so it doesn’t work.”

“Terrible?” Nicki was cold and Higgins was painfully blunt, but they were both very nice.

Nicki cocked her head to the side and looked at her brother. “Some people are better together. You two are better.” She looked at me. “I don’t know you, but I’d guess you aren’t quite this bold and frank on your own. He makes you feel powerful and confident. It’s there inside you, but because of him it becomes more of you. That’s good,” she smiled. “And him? He’s never happy. He’s never nice or thoughtful. Yeah, sure, he’s kind, but you can’t get close to the ice castle that is my brother.” She shook her head. “And then a month or so ago, it was like he had a personality transplant. He’s more like the boy I grew up with than the man I’ve been stuck with these last few years. I have a feeling I have you to thank for that.”

It was incredibly uncomfortable to sit there with her compliments. What she was saying was lovely and true and I loved hearing it from someone else. But she was about to turn it all around.

“But Darcy and me? We’re not like that.”

Higgins was studying his glass like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I didn’t know him terribly well, but the signs of a broken heart were universal and there was so much sadness in his eyes.

Almost as much as there was in Nicki’s eyes. “We are chaos personified and we always have been. It’s never good when you fall in love at thirteen.”

Thirteen.I knew I looked as shocked as I felt, and normally I’d feel terrible about that, but I hadn’t quite expected that one.

But Nicki just smiled. I actually think she was enjoying watching me squirm (and probably enjoying making the boys squirm, too.) “I’m a year younger than Theo and Darcy is six years older than him. I went with father to some thing at school and Theo brought Darcy along. It was love at first sight. Well,” she laughed, “it was for me. I don’t think he looked at me twice until graduation day. But then of course, he took my brother and disappeared.”

I was very quickly starting to see where this story was going.

“They were in London four years later and Theo reached out. By that point I was eighteen and more in love than ever. More fucked up than ever, too. It’s not a good combination when your big brother and the man you’re hopelessly in love with are working with drug dealers.”

“Stop,” Higgins whispered, setting his glass on the table. “Please.”

But I had a feeling Nicki was as broken-hearted as she was in love. She stared a hole in Higgins head and kept talking. “Needless to say, everything that could go wrong did go wrong in that year. We’ve tried a few times over the years since then, but it always ends the same way—with one of us broken.”

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