Torn (51 page)

“With wh–” I cut myself off,
feeling an overwhelming pang of guilt for my confusing feelings as it hit me that
Nate would be the only other person he’d want to share it with.

“You gonna be ok setting up for
the party later?” he asked, as he shoved the letter in the back pocket of his
jeans.

“I’ll be fine. Some of the guys
offered to come and lug the kegs of beer up to the roof. You’ll owe me a hand
with the cleanup in the morning though.”

“Great,” he groaned. “See you
later.”

“See you later,” I called as he
headed out. “Not. A. Word,” I warned as the door closed and my parents both turned
to face me, opening their mouths to speak. I didn’t often have a drink, but
right now I needed one.

“So, Torres, now that you don’t
have the excuse that you’re too busy studying, you finally gonna agree to give
me your number?” Max asked as he lifted his hand to tuck my hair behind my ear.
We’d been talking for a while, with me leaning on the rough brick wall that
housed the stairway back down to the loft, him in front of me. I’d gotten no
vibes off him tonight, other than us having a friendly conversation, so looked
up at him in surprise at his move.

“You’re asking me out?” I needed
clarification, as I wasn’t exactly the most schooled in the art of boys
flirting with me, plus I’d had three glasses of champagne earlier, and two
bottles of beer tonight. I was drunk, in fact quite drunk, for the first time
in my life. Hence the need for the wall to prop me up.

“Yeah, so?” he asked, stepping a
little closer so his pelvis was touching mine. I gulped and looked over his
shoulder to see Josh talking to David, another guy from our class. He was
glaring in my direction, visibly bristling.

“Ermmm, can I think about that?”
I asked, looking back up into Max’s deep blue eyes. He was pretty cute. Blond
and buff, with those hypnotic eyes, but I’d never looked at him that way
before. I realized he had a few strands of my hair captured between his fingers
and was stroking them with his thumb. Suddenly he was moving away, an
astonished look on his face as someone grabbed my hand.

“Sky, I need to talk to you,
right now,” Josh’s voice growled. “See you later, Max.”

“See you later,” I called over my
shoulder, as Josh pulled me around to the door and started running down the
stairs. “Josh, slow down, I’m drunk and in heels on the stairs.”

“Oh, I can tell you’re drunk,” he
hissed, squeezing my hand so hard it was almost painful.

“What’s going on with you?”

“Not here,” he snapped back,
marching through our open front door and pushing his way through the crowd of
partygoers, half of whom I swore hadn’t even been in our program. He opened my bedroom
door and virtually shoved me through it before slamming it shut behind him and
rounding on me, anger flaring in his green eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I beg your pardon?” I gave him
an unimpressed look and put my hands on my hips.

“Flirting with Max, I saw you.”

“I don’t know how to flirt!” I
retorted, which was a very, very true statement. “Besides, who made you the
boss of me and since when do I need your permission to flirt?” Alcohol was
evil. It made me more vocal than I usually was, and I was so confused about how
I felt right now that I wanted to pick a fight with him. Anything to take my
mind off my conflicting emotions. “You’re not my father, Josh Hudson, and
you’re
not
my boyfriend.”

I squealed as he took me by
surprise and grabbed me, then spun me up against the brick wall. He pinned me
to it, his palms on either side of my head, with fury leeching from his eyes
and his lips virtually on mine. I took in a sharp breath as I felt our bodies
pressed against each other’s. We’d hugged so many times, we’d been this close
more times than I could count, but I’d never seen that look in his eyes, I’d
never heard his breathing this erratic, and I’d never felt a sexual tension
radiating off him, let alone an impressive erection against my stomach.

“No, I’m neither, am I? I’m
good
old Josh
, best friend and virtual brother, and I’m fucking sick of it, Sky!
Four years, four damn years I’ve been in love with you, the last three and a
bit watching you pine, watching you suffer. You think the moment you decide to
move on, it’s going to be with anyone but me?” he snapped, the tension
radiating off his body making me tune into mine.

“Josh, I …” I shook my head,
words not forming.

“I don’t know how much longer I
can do this, Sky,” he groaned, dropping his forehead to mine. “Do you have
any
idea what it’s like to love someone for that long and get nothing in return?”

“I think I might have a small
idea, yes,” I whispered, my heart hurting as I thought of poor Nate.

“It’s hardly the same. You don’t
see him, you haven’t seen him for over three years, Sky. You’re around me every
damn day, taunting me!” His tone was sharp, laced with frustration.

“That’s unfair,” I objected,
shoving my hands under my butt cheeks to try to control them, because right now
I didn’t know if I wanted to push him away, slap him, or grab his hair and kiss
him. “I’ve never led you on and it’s not my fault that Nate isn’t here …” I
took a deep, sobering breath as reality hit me. “Except it is, isn’t it? I’m
the reason he’s there while we’re … whatever the hell we’re doing!” I suddenly
felt sick at the thought of it, at the way I was responding to Nate’s brother’s
attentions, when I’d promised Nate I wouldn’t stray.

“Fuck!” yelled Josh, making me
jump as he punched the wall to the side of my head. He turned around and
stalked over to the side of the bed, his back to me as he ran his hands up through
his hair, his knuckles visibly scuffed and bleeding. “I’m a selfish fucking
asshole
.
He’s my brother! You were his girl. He’s done so much for me, and look at me,
coming on to you. I don’t deserve him.”

“Josh, please don’t say that,” I
pleaded, hating that he was hurting too. “You know he adores you, and I know
he’d never want to see you unhappy.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he
uttered quietly, his hands still fisting his hair, almost ripping it out by the
roots. “He’s everything I ever wanted to be and I’m not even fit to stand in
his shadow. I’m the worst brother in the world. He made me his world, put his
life on hold to always put me first, and this is how I repay him?” He choked on
his last words and covered his face with his hands as his broad shoulders
slumped. I ran over and hugged him from behind, not wanting to see him so
upset, then feeling hurt when he forcibly shrugged me off. “I can’t do this anymore,
Sky. Be around you, having you touch me when it kills me inside each time. I’m
gonna move out. It’s best we take a break from each other for a while.”

“Josh!” I cried, his words
slicing through my heart. He turned around and shook his head, with a look of
devastation on his face.

“I can’t keep loving someone
who’ll never love me in return, and not when doing it makes me hate myself,
especially since it’s all one-sided. You need to decide what you want or I’m
gone.”

I stood there speechless as he clasped
my face, laid a tender kiss on my forehead, then stalked out to disappear into
the crowd, closing the door behind him. I threw myself onto my bed, dragging
down my pillow to curl around, and for the first time in years, I sobbed.

Sky

The Following Day

I woke up and groaned, covering
my eyes as the sun poured in through the uncovered windows. God damn it, I was
hungover. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes and I hadn’t even taken my eye makeup
off. I suddenly bolted upright, clutching my head, when really I wanted to
clutch my heart. He was leaving me. Josh was leaving me! I choked back a sob at
the thought of it. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it. I didn’t want
to. I couldn’t lose him too. I rushed to the bathroom and quickly showered, brushed
my teeth, and scrubbed my streaked mascara, eyeliner, and eye shadow off, then
pulled on some fresh panties and a long baggy tee. I ignored the pulsating
headache and rolled the door open. Jesus, there was shit everywhere. Why did I
have to feel so awful when the place was going to need cleaning from top to
bottom? I tiptoed my way through the debris and headed for Josh’s door, then
stopped by the kitchen island, taking a sharp inwards gasp. It had happened, it
had happened and I’d only just realized.

For the first time since I’d kissed
him, I’d woken up and Nate hadn’t been my first thought. What did that mean?
Had I given up on us? Had I really said goodbye? Did the pain I was feeling
right now at the thought of losing Josh mean I’d fallen in love with him? Or
was I just scared of losing my best friend on top of losing Nate? I closed my
eyes as I tried to decide, the conflicting voices arguing inside my head only
making it hurt even more. I’d felt a real physical attraction to him yesterday,
which was new. I’d been aware of his looks ever since I’d met him, even of how
much more handsome and toned he’d gotten over the years, but until yesterday my
body hadn’t responded to that. He was the person I turned to when I wanted to
share news, good or bad. We’d laughed together, cried together, sat in
comfortable silence together. Everyone said we were made for each other. And
now he’d been my first waking thought. What did that mean?

“Josh?” I called when I saw his
bedroom door was open. Had he gotten up and left already? Without our morning
breakfast together? “Josh, we need to talk. I think I might be ready to move
on. Remember how I told you that when I woke up and didn’t think of him first, I’d
consider it? Well, it happened. I just woke up and thought how unhappy I’d be
not to have you in my life.”

I rounded the corner to enter his
bedroom and ran into an invisible wall. I wanted to throw up immediately. Josh,
my sweet, gorgeous Josh, was butt naked, buried inside Katie Davies as he
fucked her up against his bedroom wall, grunting with each slam as he clutched
her ass. His taut shoulder blades and back muscles rippled as he pounded into
her, his biceps flexing as he held her up, his thighs solid and strong as his
hips worked. She had her legs wrapped around his waist, her eyes closed, her
head flung back against the wall, and he was biting her throat. I gasped in
shock and he slowly took his mouth off her and turned to look at me. She was so
busy moaning and panting that she didn’t even register my presence. I stood
there immobile, hardly able to believe what I was seeing, nor how he kept his
eyes on mine as he carried on fucking her without missing a beat.

I finally shook off the shock and
spun around to run back to my room, slamming the door shut and climbing up to
the top of the bed. I dragged my knees up to my chest and hugged them as I
rocked. I was hurting, so much. He’d pushed me to deal with my feelings, to question
if I was ready to let Nate go, to maybe think about a future with him. All the
while he’d been fucking Katie, who yesterday he’d denied even finding pretty?
Was he trying to force a decision from me by deliberately putting on that show for
me to see, intending to hurt me? I ignored the knock on my door that came about
ten minutes later, but that didn’t stop him from sliding it open and stepping
inside, shower fresh with a towel around his waist. He was, he was taunting me.
He’d never walked around in a towel, showing off his half-naked body before.

“Why?” I whispered, trying not to
look at his ripped torso. He was even more buff than he’d looked clothed.

“What do you want me to say, Sky?”

 “I had no idea you were even
having sex with anyone.”

“You really thought that I was
still a virgin, that I stayed celibate hoping that one day you’d throw me a
bone?” he asked, making me wince.

 “I thought we shared everything.”

“No, we’ve always kept some
things back,” he sighed, running his hands over his eyes. “It’s how we’ve
stayed such good friends. No relationship works on brutal honesty twenty-four
seven, no one could survive that.”

“But I’ve never … I’ve never seen
you with a girl before. I’ve seen you flirting, but never actually with one.”

“Because I never brought one back
here or let you see me picking any up. I didn’t want to rub it in your face
when you were trying to stay faithful to Nate. I wasn’t really studying at the
library all those nights. It was the times I dealt with my sexual frustration
by using my car, or went back to their place, before making sure I came home to
you.”