Chapter Twenty-Five

Nina

It's nearly nine in the morning when we get to Sunset Bay. I barely got any sleep overnight, even though I tried. Every time I closed my eyes, I was overwhelmed by memories of the weekend, broken up by Levi's words, and my heart aching about what needed to happen. Worst of all, I have no idea how Brayden feels.

That's my fault, I know. He texted me almost immediately after Levi was done raking me through the coals, and I blocked his calls to keep anymore texts from coming through. It was juvenile, I know. But I couldn't think of anything else that would keep me from begging him to choose me, and everyone else be damned.

I'm pissed. Levi didn't come out and say it, but it sure seemed like he thinks I'm the problem. But to be fair, I am the intruder. I've only known Brayden for a few months. Jordy has been with him for years, and it doesn't matter how I feel about Brayden, or how I think he feels about me. He's engaged to her, and that's the final answer.

"Can I help you with your bags?" Levi asks as the bus stops at the transit station. I know he's just being nice. He probably feels terrible he had to say anything at all. I shake my head no, then scoot around him and down the steps before anyone else. I stand at the far end of the bus, waiting for the driver to start unloading the bags, hoping mine is one of the first so I can just leave. While I wait, I open my phone and order an Uber, sighing when it says it's fifteen minutes away.

"You all made great time."

I turn around and there's Jordy, grinning at me. And like dark magic, I feel the weight of what I did this weekend. How wrong it was.

She wraps her arms around me in a hug, and it takes everything in me to hug her back. When she pulls away, she frowns.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I say quickly. I flash her a smile of apology. "I'm just tired. I didn't get a lot of sleep."

"I can never sleep when I'm traveling," she agrees, reaching forward to grab my bag before I do.

"Oh, I got that," I say, trying to reach it.

"Nonsense. You've had a long drive."

"It's just that I have an Uber coming—"

"An Uber? Why? You knew I was coming to get you."

I'm scrambling for excuses, anything that will get her to release my bag and let me escape.

"I just figured it's been a long weekend, and you and Brayden probably want to catch up at his place."

She laughs, shaking her head.

"Trying to get rid of me already," she teases.

Yes, I am. "Of course not, I just know how much he's missed you." Fuck, why did I say that?

She smiles, as if this is absolute news to her. "I missed him too. There he is! "

She releases my bag when he reaches us, throwing her arms around his neck and ambushing him with a kiss. His eyes catch mine, lingering for a moment too long. Long enough. Then he closes them and wraps his arms around her waist while he returns her kiss.

I snatch up my bag before she can take it back. I'm about to walk away, but she whirls around.

"Cancel that Uber," she commands, and I deflate. There's no getting around this. I pull my phone out and hit the cancel button. "I have the biggest surprise for you," she continues. "I want to be with you when you see it."

I want to look at Brayden. It's crazy how natural it feels to seek him out anytime I feel anything. But I refrain, instead following the happy couple back to the car. Brayden offers me the front seat, but I slide into the back without saying a word, using my luggage to take the seat next to me. As if he'd sit next to me in his fiancé's car.

Admittedly, this whole silent treatment is weird after the weekend we had. In so many ways, I feel like he belongs to me and I belong to him. But the fact that he never even tried to make a way for us to be together, that he's continuing to go along with this sham of a relationship after the intense connection we shared this weekend…it says novels about where I stand with him. I don't belong to him, and he is definitely not mine. I realize I fell for Brayden's charm like I was the fish and he was the lure. This whole infatuation is completely one-sided.

"Did Brayden tell you?" Jordy asks once we're on the road. Her eyes find mine in the rear-view mirror, and I shake my head.

"Tell me what?"

"You rat, you're going to make me spill the news?" She swats Brayden's arm, and he gives an embarrassed laugh.

"We weren't sitting together on the bus," he says, then he looks at me over his shoulder. There's something apologetic in his eyes, and my heart plummets.

"We set a date!" Jordy exclaims. "Well, I set the date. You know that country club Nanna always took us to? That hoity-toity one with all the ice sculptures and tiny food plates? I thought, why not throw the wedding there? I mean, it's expensive as hell, they needed the date to book it, and the non-refundable deposit is practically a house payment. But you only get married once, right?"

I want to throw up. It feels like all the air in the car has been sucked dry.

"You didn't tell me it was non-refundable," Brayden says, his jaw ticking.

"Why, you already looking to back out?" She laughs. The sound is like daggers in my heart. "It's fine, Brayden. When you see it, you'll understand. We'll be making payments on it for years, but it's totally worth it."

I stare out my window, trying to mentally escape the prison of this car. It's like a bad dream I can't escape, except this is my life on repeat. I want to kick myself over how delusional I was. I mean, I knew they were engaged, of course they're going to get married. Why the hell would Brayden choose me over Jordy, when she's tall, lean, and so glamorous, and I'm … me? The fact that I'm surprised at all just shows how utterly stupid I am. I actually believed Brayden was in love with me…

My eyes blur as the scenery whips by. Jordy is still talking, but it's to Brayden, so it's safe to tune out. I wipe away angry tears as I sit forgotten in the backseat while they plan their future together. All I want to do is go home and wrap myself up in the quilt Nanna Dot made, sink into her cozy couch, and watch some lame movie on Netflix while I cry into my popcorn. I want to shut all the curtains, as if the outside world doesn't exist, and dissolve into the house until the world forgets me too. I hope Jordy is staying with Brayden tonight, even if it kills me to think of him with her, just so I can lose myself in takeout and sappy movies and all my tears. I hope they get married and move far away so I never have to see either of them ever again.

We pull up in front of the house, and the way it calls to me is like a siren to a sailor. I can't believe how much I missed being home, though it was only on the drive I realized this. I unbuckle my seatbelt and grab my bag before throwing open my door.

"Wait," Jordy calls after me, but I'm already up the steps, my keys in my hand. I unlock the door, then breathe in the familiar scent of hardwood, decades of home cooked meals, and moth balls.

Instead, I'm met with cedar and citrus, fresh paint, and several other aromas I can't decipher—the scents of a stranger's home.

"You're going to flip," Jordy says behind me, her voice full of smiles. I can't even look at her as I make my way down the hall, my hand on the wall for support. Gray walls. When I left, they were wallpapered with lemons and yellow striping.

I reach the kitchen first, and my heart nearly falls from my chest. From the threshold, I take in the room with just my eyes. The cabinets are painted black with gold fixtures. The weathered wooden table where we used to sit with Nanna is gone, replaced with a smaller bistro table—black, to match the cabinets—and three tiny stools. Nanna Dot's towels, her quirky art, her millions of magnets—all gone—replaced with more modern art and towels, and the refrigerator remains naked.

"If I had more time and money, I'd have replaced everything," Jordy says. "I even found this mystery cabinet in the stairs, though I just nailed it shut so no one would trip over it." She grins, looking at me with bright eyes. "It's great, isn't it?"

I don't say a word, so in shock I can barely breathe. I leave the kitchen door and head to the living room, my heart aching in my chest .

"My design class needed a real-life project," I hear Jordy explaining to Brayden. Or maybe she's telling me, I'm not sure. All I know is that when I reach the living room, I want to fall through the floor.

The couch is gone. The curio, her quilts, the rocking chair—all of it, gone. Even the curtains, which are replaced with filmy pieces of cloth that do nothing to block the light or the outside world. The furniture is all modern and boxy, hardly the place to curl into and disappear. A new couch is the centerpiece of the room, a lemon-yellow leather sofa full of angles. The softest thing on it is a throw pillow with daisies on it. The rest of the room remains stark and cold.

"I never realized how big this room was until I got rid of all the clutter," Jordy says.

"Where are the teacups," I ask, my voice cracking. She looks at me with surprise.

"I sold them on Facebook Marketplace," she said. "I was able to get rid of a lot of things that way, really quickly in fact. It helped fund so much of the work I did. I didn't have a chance to get to the basement, but I bet…"

"Where's the couch?"

Jordy's eyes widen.

"Where's the chest of her crafts? And the potholders? And her candy dish?" My mind reels from all the things that were once in this one room. "Where are the pictures that were on the walls? Did you get rid of everything?"

"Not everything, Nina. Her quilts are in the closet, so are the pictures. Her crafts are in a box for us to go through. I just got rid of the unimportant stuff."

"It was all important!" I scream the words, and they feel like fire in my lungs.

"Nina, she was just trying to help," Brayden says, and I whirl on him, my eyes narrowing .

"Fuck you, Brayden." There is so much more I want to say, but I won't. I'll keep his secrets, but only because they're mine too. I was a fool to ever let him touch my body. I turn back to Jordy. "And fuck you, Jordy. This is my house, not yours. Nanna Dot gave me everything here, and you had no right to get rid of any of it. You had no right to change anything without my permission."

"We talked about this, though!" Her eyes are flashing, but I could give a fuck about her anger.

"We never talked about this. The last time you pulled this shit, I obviously hated it. So what makes you think I wanted you to do more?" I look around, searching for anything left of Nanna. Instead, all I see is fucking Jordy. "This was my home, and you've ruined it!"

"You're never going to move on if you keep living like this." Jordy waves her hand over the room. "You kept every goddamn thing she owned. It's like this place was a museum for the dead, straight out of the eighties. I could even smell Nanna Dot in the furniture."

"And that's such a bad thing?"

"It is when she's been dead for over five years!" Jordy yells. "She wouldn't want this for you, and you know it. You've had years to make this place your own, but it's like Nanna Dot will walk into the room at any moment. There's nothing that's you here."

"You don't even know me," I point out. "So how can you say that?"

"I know you aren't an eighty-year-old woman," she scoffs. "And that this house has gotten out of control because you can't let go of a goddamn thing." She takes a deep breath, then offers a pleading look. "You're drowning, Nina. This house is consuming you. Nanna Dot is gone, and it's time you moved on. I just wanted to help you let go of some of the emotional baggage."

"You had no right to get rid of anything! You have no idea how much I loved her because you obviously didn't feel the same."

"How dare you. I loved her plenty," Jordy says. "We all loved her. You don't own the exclusive rights to a relationship with her, regardless of who she kept in her will and who she left out. Maybe you're the only one who got anything because she knew you'd never amount to anything in your life."

The words hit a space in me that has always been there, a fear I've been ignoring for years. Now fed, the fear grows into a dark and wild beast inside me, transforming into something that feels an awful lot like truth.

"Get out of my house," I whisper, my eyes boring a hole into hers. I look at Brayden one last time, carving the shape of his face into my memory, along with the way he once held me and how I felt in his arms. Then I burn it all to hell. "Both of you. I don't want to see either of you ever again."

"Nina, I—"

"Get out!" I scream.

She looks like she'll argue again, but then her shoulders fall. "Can I at least get my things?" she asks.

I want to tell her no. Tell her to use her earnings from my things to buy new stuff, since she's so good at it. Maybe I'll set her room on fire, set the whole house on fire, because this place doesn't feel like mine anymore. But something tugs inside me when I see the remorse on her face. I fucking hate her. I won't feel sorry for her. But I can at least let her get her shit before she leaves. So I nod, stepping aside as she runs toward her room.

"Are you okay?" Brayden asks quietly. I glare at him.

"No, I'm not okay," I growl, then regret it immediately. I don't want him to know how badly he's affected me, or how hurt I am that he's now standing by her instead of me. "I'll be fine. I just need both of you out of here before I really lose my shit."

"I'm so sorry," he murmurs. "I didn't know she was going to…" He shakes his head. "I just didn't know, okay?"

"It doesn't matter," I say quickly.

"And about this weekend—"

"We both knew what this weekend was," I interrupt. I can't stand the way he's looking at me now, so I avert my eyes to the drab gray wall behind him. "It's done. There's no need to talk about it anymore."

He starts to say something, but the footsteps behind me shut him up.

"Come on, let's go," Jordy says. She doesn't acknowledge me as she slides past both of us and heads to the door.

"Take the weekend off," Brayden says once she's gone. "We can talk at the ranch after this week."

"I'm not coming back," I say quietly. I look at my feet. This one hurts, but I know there's no other choice. How the hell am I supposed to act like nothing happened? Every guy on the team knows what we did. But more than that, we know what we did. And if I'm around Brayden again, I'm going to forget why we're a bad idea.

"Please don't do this."

I look up at him, and I hate that I can't stop the tears that fill my eyes. I search his, looking for something to hold on to. Something that will tell me that this weekend wasn't a lie.

I find nothing but sadness and regret. It's not enough.

"I'm not coming back," I repeat. "I quit, and I'm not coming to your wedding, so don't bother sending me an invitation. Lose my number, your future wife needs your attention."