“Jake,” I hear Maddox warn.
“You think I’m pissed because you like her?” He jerks back. Incredulity and shock line his face and voice.“Jake, I’m fucking pissed because you never said anything. We’re best friends and you didn’t tell me.”
I scoff,“Come on, Dane. It’s not a secretthat you don’t want anyone with your sisters, much less your friends. Mads and Ry are proof of that.”
“Maddox and Ryder didn’t like Tori.They just fucked her. I didn’t want her to get hurt.And those two are a heartbreak waiting to happen.” He looks over his shoulder at them,daring them. “Am I wrong?”.
“I have a past, too, Dane,” I remind him, knowing full well that’s what he really means about Maddox and Ryder. “And a fuckton of baggage.”
“Man, if you’ve been hung up on Cara this long, she is your past and baggage,” he says, the tension in his shoulders and eyes falling away. “I’m just saying that she can and has done a lot worse.”
I shake my head, trying to wrap my head around what he’s saying. I look behind him to the guys who look just as disbelieving as I feel.Either I’m in an alternate universe right now,or Dane has been taken over by pod people. I still don’t trust it.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel,” I tell himfirmly. “Cara doesn’t see me the same way.”
Even as I say it, I remember the moment earlier. The moment before it went to hell.The energy between us charged thewhole room. It was not one-sided orimagined. She may not feel the same as I do, but the attraction was there.
“Then make her see you that way.” My jaw hits the floor.
“Holy shit.”
“What the fuck?”
“What the hell?”
“I’ll be damned.”
The guys all mutter my exact thoughts while I try to scrape my jaw off the floor.He’s not just telling me he’s cool with how I feel. He’s encouragingme to go after her. To goafter the little sister he’sprotected like a momma bear for – well, forever.
He laughs for the first time since this conversation started. “I’m not that bad,” he mutters.
“You really are, brother,” Maddox tells him.
“Well, not this time. You’d be good for her, man. You should know, though, you have your work cut out for you. She doesn’t trust her own judgment anymore. Not since that bastard in Chicagobetrayed her, so it will take a lot to get her to open up.”
I nod, not knowing what to say to him at the moment. I’m trying to process how up became down and left became right.I turn away from all of them to go back to my room.
“Oh, and Jake,” he calls just as my handgrips the handle to my door. I stop without looking back at him, “if you hurt her, you die.”
And with those words, I feel like the world is right again. Almost.
Cara
I wake to soft knocking on my door. My eyes flutter for amoment in an attempt to adjust to the light streaming into the room. Momentary panic sets in when I don’t recognize where I’m at.
The door begins to open slowly. My heart begins to pound in my chest. My breathingspeeds up.
“Cara,” I hear from the cracked door.
My lungs fill with relief as I exhale. Familiarity courses through me as my panic recedes.“Come in,” I say, my voice slightly strangled.
Jake pushes the door opena bit further so that he’s standing just inside. He stares at me for a moment. I wonder if he sees the fear I felt only moments ago. If he does, he says nothing. For whichI am grateful.
“I have to leave for the venue in a little bit. Thoughtyou’d want time to get yourself together.” His eyes dart back and forth between mine as he assesses me. I assume he’s trying to decide if I’m okay after my epic meltdown.
“I’m okay, Jake.” I try to assuage his obvious nervousness.
He gives a short nod but doesn’t look convinced. “Just take your time. I’ll let you know when I need to get ready.”
