Page 173 of Dove
As easy as it should have been formeto tellhim.
I sputtered—the swig of beer I’d just taken spraying everywhere. Eddie thumped me on the back as I coughed.
“Damn,” he laughed. “Don’t go choking on me. Dove would have my nuts if something happened to you on my watch.”
“Don’t put Dove and your nuts in the same sentence,” I rasped, still coughing up the remains of beer I’d managed to inhale.
Eddie snickered before taking a long pull of his own beer. Silence settled over us, until we both broke it at the same time.
“I wanted to tell you?—”
“You know you could have told me?—”
We both chuckled awkwardly before Eddie gestured at me to go ahead.
I cleared my throat. “It wasn’t because I didn't trust you, I want you to know that.” It was important to me he knew that.
“I just...” I blew out a rough breath. Was I prepared to tell him about that night? What Gareth had seen, what he’d said? How it had been every single fear I’d ever had come true in the worst way?
Eddie clasped my shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, man. I just wanted to help break the ice if you were hesitant to tell me. I’ve known since we were in high school, Josh. I’ve just been waiting for you to admit it.”
“High school...” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Why didn’tyousay anything?”
Eddie snorted. “What if I'd been wrong? I wasn’t gonna be the weirdo who suggested you had a thing for your stepsister. Uh, no offense.”
Now it was my turn to snort. “None taken. Iwasthe weirdo who had a thing for his stepsister. Still am, I guess, because I really fucking love her,” I admitted quietly. “Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but staying away wrecked me. I can’t do that again. To her or me.”
Eddie’s nearly empty beer bottle tapped against the wooden swing. “So, why did you leave? I know you said Gareth and you had a fight, but you couldn’t work shit out? Sure, you two were never close, but you always seemed to tolerate his wrath. Not that you should, you know that. I still think it’s fucked how he treated you.”
Considering how loving and supportive Eddie’s family was, it had always confused him to see how my dad was with me. Aloof at best, heartless at worst. He struggled to wrap his head around the fact my dad hated me for taking my mom away from him. I would be confused, too, if I had a mom and dad as amazing as his. Eddie could burn down their restaurant and they’d still lovehim. In their eyes, he could do no wrong. The love they had for their sons ran deep and eternal.
Garth’s love for me evaporated the second I’d taken my first crying breath at the same time my mom had taken her last.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not this time, Ed. He saw me with Dove the night I left. Her graduation night. Nothing happened,” I rushed out, as if it mattered anymore when I’d done far, far worse to her than that almost-kiss years ago. “But for a minute, I let myself consider it, and he saw it. Knew that I'd been thinking of kissing her, and he flipped. Didn’t even yell. Just told me I was sick and he wouldn’t have me ruining the life he’d built for himself again, so I had to go.” I took a moment, taking a deep inhale of fresh air before I rambled on. “I was afraid to stay. Afraid of what he’d do if I didn’t go, of what Dove might think of me once the haze of alcohol faded. I hadn’t even considered the town finding out back then, but now... you know not many in town will react positively to our being together. Not when we’d been kids when we met. I don’t want them to think I...”
Fuck, I couldn’t even say it.
Eddie cursed—something in Spanish I couldn’t quite catch. “My mamá would whack me good if she heard me say this but, I’m glad that fucker is gone. You deserve to be happy, and he was taking all the happiness outta ya. As for the town, if they think you took advantage of her, they’re blind idiots. Plus, you’ve been gone for years. Dove’s an adult now. You both can make your own choices, and if that happens to mean you choose each other, so be it.”
I couldn’t exactly disagree.
But I didn’t want Eddie to feel obligated to defend me.
“I shouldn’t have let myself get that close. Dove was young and impressionable... not to mention she’d been drinking. I—I was weak.” As if that excused my dad kicking me out of the onlyplace I’d called home and stripping me of the only people who had ever made me feel loved.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Eddie argued. “Maybe you didn’t see it, but I did. Dove’s had hearts in her eyes for you almost as soon as she got here. She was practically your shadow foryears.I always suspected she had a small crush on you. Then I realized you had one back.”
I took another gulp of beer as blood rushed to my cheeks. “Can we not talk about this anymore?” I grumbled.
Eddie laughed, as if my embarrassment entertained him greatly. “Sure thing,amigo, but don’t be embarrassed. Love is something to be celebrated, or so my mamá always tells us. It kills her that most of us boys are still single. I keep trying to tell her the dating pool isn’t exactly bountiful here. El mar está seco en Haven, bro—not even one decent fish.”
I tensed, waiting for it, because I knew it was coming.
“I mean look, it’s so bad, you have to date your stepsister?—”
My arm was out, fist connecting with his shoulder before he finished his sentence.
Eddie cackled, amused by his own smart mouth.
