Page 6 of I Do, You Don't
I lie back on the bed, dress bag still in my lap. The ceiling stares down at me, blank, unforgiving. My throat tightens.
You’ve been acting differently, he said last night. Like you’re hiding something.
I am.
And the worst part? He thinks it’s another man.
He’s not entirely wrong.
There is another man. Just not the way he thinks.
Our shared brother, and she lets people believe Calvin and I are sleeping together. All because we’ve talked here and there. Sure, I’ve been secretive. I have to be. I promised. So did she.
But she told Gideon she saw something. Dropped hints. Pushed photos into the group chat with her fake little sighs and her softer little lies. And when the rumors spread, she smiled like it wasn’t her hand on the match.
Gideon thinks he’s defending a friend.
But she’s not his friend.
She’s the one who lit the fire.
And I can’t say a word.
Calvin made us both promise. No one can know, not with the circles he runs in. His world is sharp and bloody and built on secrets. If anyone knew who his real family was, we’d be targets. Collateral. Pawns.
So I stayed quiet.
For him.
And she used that silence to ruin me.
I roll onto my side, press my face into the pillow. And I wonder, not for the first time, if love is really enough to survive this much silence. On the eve of our wedding, too.
Chapter 3
Lara
The night before the wedding, I can’t sleep. Not from nerves, but from memory. It comes back as it always does, uninvited, golden-edged, cruel in its warmth. The last time everything felt easy. The last time I still believed we were unbreakable.
Before everything unraveled, there was this: one weekend where forever didn’t feel long enough.
We drove three hours to a borrowed cabin on the lake, just the two of us and a trunk of untouched groceries. The air smelled of pine, citronella, warm wood, and worn paperbacks. Sunlight filtered through the trees, softening the world into golden hour.
The water glistened like melted glass beneath a cloudless sky. Dragonflies skimmed the surface. Gentle waves lapped the shore, sun-warmed on top, cool beneath, tinged with the faint scent of algae and clean minerals. I waded in slowly, pebbles pressing into my soles, and he followed, diving under with a splash before surfacing behind me.
“Boo,” he whispered at my ear, grinning as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
I squealed, twisting in his hold, but he only pulled me tighter, pressing my back to his chest. His skin was slick, sun-warmed, his laugh vibrating against my spine.
“You good?” he asked, low.
“Mmhm.” I tilted my head to his shoulder. “I could stay here forever.”
“I’d let you.”
The sky stretched cloudless, impossibly blue. I let my limbs float, my thoughts still. The water swayed us, slow and lulling, occasional ripples brushing past like the lake itself was breathing around us.
When we got out, droplets clung to my skin; the sun dried everything but the soles of my feet. I wrinkled my nose as sand clumped between my toes, warm, sharp, impossible to ignore.
