Page 101 of Cross the Line
‘Oakley, please,’ I blurt, but I already know he can’t hear me over his own screaming thoughts. ‘Let’s just—’
‘Andthis.’ He waves a hand, motioning wildly between Dev and me. ‘This clearly isn’t new.’
From one glance, he’s got us all figured out. He knows us both so well –toowell – that our connection is obvious to him. I might have appreciated that under different circumstances, but right now, his words are like a dagger to my heart.
As I struggle to explain, Dev cuts in.
‘You’re right,’ he says easily. ‘It’s not new. Not really.’
All I can do is shoot him a pleading look over my shoulder as my brother gapes at him. Oakley probably expected denial and guilty glances, but Dev is facing this head-on, even if I want to cower.
‘How long?’ my brother finally grits out. ‘How long has this been going on?’
I open my mouth, ready to answer this time, but Dev squeezes my hand, as if to say he’s got this.
‘Well, Willow has had a thing for me for most of her life,’ he replies, keeping his voice low and even. ‘And I’ve been obsessed with her since your birthday weekend last year when she accidentally confessed her crush. But itisnew in the sense that we’ve only just acted on our feelings in the past couple of weeks.’
‘Weeks,’ Oakley repeats, his focus finally drifting down to me, his eyes hardening. ‘Since you started working for him?’
My throat tightens, and tears burn the corners of my eyes. ‘No,’ I say, the word wavering as I shake my head. ‘No, not that long.’ It’s the truth, but if Dev is going to be brave and tell the entire story, then I owe it to them both to do the same. ‘We kept it professional –friendly– for a while. But I didn’t want to ignore what was between us any longer.’
‘Wedidn’t want to ignore it,’ Dev corrects, squeezing my hand a little tighter, letting his strength flow into me. ‘We realized we wanted to be together.’
Oakley’s throat works as he swallows, his eyes still narrowed and bouncing from me to Dev and back again. I can’t blame him for being shocked and upset, and my heart aches that it came out this way.
‘So if I hadn’t let you work for him,’ he rasps, focused on me again, wearing that look of crushing betrayal, ‘this wouldn’t have happened.’
I want to deny it, but he’s right. Without Dev’s idea and Oakley’s approval, we wouldn’t have grown closer. It was the perfect set-up. And my brother had no idea what he was signing off on.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he says when I don’t answer, a maniacal note in his voice as he shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’d – that you’dlieto me like this.’ His eyes snap up to Dev. ‘Eitherof you.’
My heart pounds, and then suddenly stops. It restarts with a hard, dramaticthumpas I take in his accusation. He’s mad about us . . . lying?
‘This whole time, you kept it from me,’ he goes on. ‘There were so many chances for you to tell me, but instead, you lied. Do you understand how fucked up that is?’
I peek back at Dev, who’s staring at Oakley like he’s still trying to wrap his head around what he’s saying.
‘I’m . . . sorry?’ Dev stammers, faltering for the first time since my brother stepped out of the bathroom.
Oakley rolls his eyes and scrubs a hand down his face. ‘It doesn’tmatterthat you’re together,’ he urges. ‘You’re an adult and so is she. I don’t run your fucking lives. But it matters that you lied to me.’
Oh god. We’ve gotten this all wrong. We were so worried about whether Oakley would approve that we forgot to consider how he’d feel when he found out we were keeping it from him in the first place.
‘We weren’t sure how you would react,’ Dev says, his voice low and gentle again. ‘You literally told me to never try it with her. When the whole Jeremy thing happened—’
‘Jeremy was a pathetic excuse for a man that we should have cut off years before we did,’ Oakley spits. ‘Don’t use him to justify your bullshit. He had it coming for what he did to her.’
‘Okay,’ Dev concedes, lifting his free hand. ‘But you know you wouldn’t have approved of anything happening between Willow and me. You can’t just write that off.’
Oakley works his jaw from side to side, his teeth grinding like he’s holding back his anger until he can express it more clearly. ‘Fine,’ he admits. ‘Idon’tlike the idea of you together. At all. I don’t like the idea of another one of my friends dating my sister.’
Behind me, I can feel Dev gearing up to defend what we’ve done, his chest swelling as he takes a breath. But before he can speak, Oakley pushes on.
‘How I feel doesn’t matter, though. Because that’smyproblem. Not yours. So stop tap dancing around me like I’m an idiot who can’t handle being uncomfortable and just stoplying.’
We really did get this wrong, and I don’t know how we didn’t see it before.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, reaching out with my free hand to touch his arm. Thankfully, he doesn’t immediately shrug it off. ‘I didn’t—’
