Sharing You

4

Kamryn

May 10, 2015

“WHERE IS AIDEN taking you tomorrow?”

I stopped going through different tops and turned to look at her. “I thought you were supposed to find that out, Lee!”

“You know Jace doesn’t know these things. And besides, they’ve been busy this last shift. I haven’t talked to him much.”

“Well then, why am I here looking for an outfit if I don’t even know how to dress?”

Kinlee stopped pulling boxes of shoes out of a shipment that had been delivered and walked over to where I was standing. “Well, Aiden’s just Aiden. He’s kind of a ‘what you see is what you get’ guy. He won’t try to impress you with fancy restaurants or something just to get you to like him.” She turned quickly and pointed at me. “That doesn’t mean he won’t treat you well and show you a good time. It just means he’s not going to shell out for some crazy expensive dinner on the first date to get you to think he’s loaded.”

“Thank God.” I’d had enough of people who were loaded to last me a damn lifetime.

“So don’t be too fancy, but don’t go in yoga pants, and you should be fine.”

I made a face. “Because that really narrows it down. That’s basically your entire store and 90 percent of my wardrobe.”

“Make sure the shirt is blue, or has blue in it. Or dark gray or black! We need your eyes to pop.”

“Yes, Mom,” I mumbled and walked around more when she went back to putting the shipment away.

Aiden hadn’t wasted time, that’s for sure. By the time Kinlee and I left the coffee shop the night before, he’d already texted me to see if Jace had given him a fake number, and after talking for a while when I got home, we’d set up a date that Saturday.

“How’s this?” I held up an electric-blue see-through top.

“Perfect. I just got in these black shorts, where did they go? Anyway, they’ll look great with that and your legs.”

“Yay,” I said unenthusiastically.

“Well, don’t try to sound excited or anything.”

“I am excited.” Wasn’t I?

Broad shoulders, gray eyes, and a crooked smile filled my mind. No, I was so not excited.

THE NEXT NIGHT with Aiden was going much better than I’d thought it would. We had the same humor and had spent practically all of dinner laughing to the point where I’d started crying. But everything about the date and Aiden screamed friendship to me. Those few flashes of attraction the weekend before at the barbecue had been it for me when it came to him.

All I could see was Brody. And I hated it.

I was still barely sleeping, and the few hours I did sleep he starred in every dream. If that wasn’t enough, I spent all my waking hours going over every detail about him while simultaneously trying to get him out of my mind.

When Aiden gave me a smile and I wished for it to be crooked, I realized it obviously wasn’t working. And this wasn’t fair to Aiden.

We were walking to a little coffee shop around the corner from the restaurant when he grabbed my hand in his, and my mind instantly went to Brody.

“Aiden,” I began, pulling my hand back.

“I’m sorry. Too fast?”

I stopped walking and shut my eyes tightly before looking up at him. “No, it’s not . . . it’s just—”

Understanding and disappointment came over his face, and I wished I could give him something more. “I pushed you into this, I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I belong to someone else,” I blurted out, and no matter how impossible that seemed, the moment the words were out of my mouth I knew it was true. I belonged to a man who I didn’t know and who would never belong to me. Aiden was the kind of guy I needed—deep down I knew that, but I just wasn’t into it.

“You’re seeing someone? Jace swore you were single.”

“I am single.” His eyebrows drew together, and I shook my head. “I’m not seeing him, but right now, I belong to him. And it wouldn’t be fair to lead you on when he’s all I can think about.”

“Huh. I, uh—well, I guess I have to be thankful for that kind of honesty.” Aiden rocked back on his heels and looked around embarrassed. “Does he know?”

“What?”

“This guy. Does he know that you feel this way?”

“Oh, God, I hope not.”

Surprise and confusion flashed through his eyes before he smiled widely at me. “Then I’ll wait.”

“For wh—Why?”

“Well, you were kinda obvious that you don’t want him knowing about your feelings, and you said you belong to him for now. So I’ll wait my turn.”

“Aiden,” I whispered and scratched at my forehead. “That’s not . . . I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want to lead you on.”

“And you’re not.” His smile somehow seemed to get wider as he draped an arm over my shoulders and began walking toward the little coffee shop again. “You told me how you feel, and I’ll respect that. To be honest, I don’t have a lot of time for dating, as I’m sure you can see with Jace’s schedule. Last weekend and tonight with you were some of the best times I’ve had in the last year. So we’ll stay friends, if nothing else. Just know that if you ever change your mind, I’ll be waiting.”

I sighed, but was hopeful that he was serious about staying friends. I had as much fun with Aiden as I did with Kinlee and Jace. “If you say—” I cut off on a gasp. Oh, mother of all that is holy.

My body went rigid, and if it hadn’t been for Aiden’s arm guiding me, I’m sure I would have stopped walking. Barely ten feet from us, frozen with a coffee cup halfway to his lips and his wide eyes on us, was the man haunting every second of my life.

“Hey, Brody! Where’d you go last week?”

My pulse jumped when Aiden said his name, and though I tried to keep my eyes anywhere else—the street, the cars, the shops, my feet—they kept pulling back to Brody. My eyes quickly traveled over the tight-fitting Henley shirt and perfectly worn jeans on his body, and I wished he’d been on patrol so he would’ve been in his uniform instead. A flash of Brody in his uniform went through my mind and I realized that actually would have made it harder to tear my gaze from him. Someone needed to put the man in a cardboard box. No, he just needed to leave and I needed to never see him again.

“Um, I just—I had somewhere I needed to be.” His eyes barely held Aiden’s for more than a few seconds before darting over to me, and over to where Aiden’s hand rested on my shoulder. He blinked a couple times and seemed to clear whatever he’d been thinking about. “What are the two of you up to?”

I couldn’t respond to him even if I’d wanted to tell him what I was doing here with Aiden. My mouth had gone dry, and I had to keep my hands clasped so I wouldn’t reach out toward him. I had a soul-deep yearning to be closer to him, and I knew the second I stepped into his arms I would feel like I was exactly where I was meant to be again. I’d been craving that feeling ever since we’d separated in Kinlee’s entryway, and being this close to him for the second time since then was making it practically impossible to stay away.

“We grabbed some dinner, and now we’re going over to get coffee before I take her home.”

Which means date. Brody knows I’m on a date with Aiden. Obviously, as if seeing us out like this wasn’t enough of a hint. But I hated that he knew, and I hated that I hated that. Brody’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second as he stared at Aiden, and his forehead tightened when his eyes met mine again. I would have given anything to know what he was thinking about in that moment. Because I needed him to crush the hope I had that he didn’t look happy about the fact that I was standing here with Aiden’s arm around me. I knew he couldn’t care, but I was making myself believe that he did. And that wasn’t going to help in getting me to stop thinking about him.

“Well, uh, I’ll let you get back to that. It was good seeing you again, KC. Aiden,” he grunted by way of closing the conversation. And with one last look from Aiden to me, he took off toward a dark Expedition parked at the sidewalk.

My body automatically took a step in the same direction, but Aiden started walking us toward the coffee shop again. I exhaled roughly when the sense of loss hit me.

It’s official. There’s something wrong with me. These are not normal feelings to have for someone I don’t even know. It’s not normal to crave and obsess over a man I’ve only had a five-minute conversation with. Aiden removed his arm when we got to the door of the shop, and I turned to look at the dark SUV just sitting there. The need to catch another glimpse of him, or at least hear his voice again, was so strong that I could feel this energy working its way from my chest to my arms, as if calling me to him.

“KC?”

“Huh?” My head snapped back to look at Aiden and his patient smile. I tried to feel something, anything, for the man standing in front of me. But there was nothing. My entire body was now buzzing, and somehow I knew Brody’s eyes were on me, and that knowledge sent a welcome shiver up my spine.

Aiden’s smile faltered when he noticed how distracted I was. “Did you still want coffee or did you want me to take you home now?”

“Of course, I do,” I assured him. “Let’s go in.”

When I stole a glance at the street, the Expedition was gone.

Brody

May 13, 2015

WHAT ARE YOU doing? What the fuck are you doing? I tapped my thumbs on the steering wheel of the Expedition and looked out the windshield toward the shop. It was early Monday morning, it had been two days that felt like a damn week since I’d seen her, and I felt like I was going crazy.

Casey—or KC, as I’d found out—had consumed my every thought over the last week, waking and sleeping. I knew I should forget about her and the weird moments we shared, but I couldn’t. And now here I was sitting in front of her bakery. I’d reminded myself thousands of times over the last week that I was married, that I couldn’t think of her the way I had been . . . but then I saw her on Thursday, and again on Saturday, and Saturday was what broke me. I wanted to rip Aiden’s arm off her. An unwelcome amount of jealousy and pain surged through me when I saw them walking together, and I knew then that my attempts to forget about her were futile.

The fact that it pained me at all to see her with someone else irritated me to no end as I went over everything a dozen times yesterday. But as the day wore on, I realized that what I felt for KC, as strange as it might be, was something I’d never known and something I knew I’d never experience again.

I was prepared to live with that knowledge and never act on it. I don’t know if it was the fact that Tate would have been five last week, or that Olivia came home trashed from her parents’ last night telling me that because I only make fifty thousand a year I’m a worthless piece of shit she keeps around for laughs, but I decided then that I couldn’t keep living my miserable life when there was a woman who made me feel more alive than I had in the last five years with just one look. And before I knew what I was doing, I found myself in front of her store this morning.

I shifted down in my seat as my sister-in-law came bouncing out of the bakery and over to the shop she owned with her mom, unlocked the door, and went inside. My eyes shot back over to the bakery, and even though I knew I shouldn’t, there was no talking myself out of what I was about to do.

A little bell chimed overhead when the door to the bakery opened and shut, and I heard her voice from the back of the shop. Her accent wasn’t as heavy as I remembered it, but God the sound still pinned me to the floor. “What’d you forget, Lee?”

“Uh . . . not Kinlee,” a thin guy standing behind the pastry case called out before eyeing me curiously.

KC came through a swinging door with a black apron on, covered with smudges of what I assumed was flour and cake batter. Her dark hair was pulled back, and a few loose strands had fallen in her face. She looked more incredible every time I saw her.

“Brody,” she whispered and set down a tray of cookies and puffs.

That was the first time I’d heard her say my name, and a million different things flashed through my mind. I wanted her to say it again, I wanted to hear her moan it as I had her body underneath mine, and I wanted to have her whisper it in the dark as we got to know each other on every other level, not just the intimate one.

“Well, hello, Brody,” the guy said, and KC made a face before waving him toward the door she’d just come through.

“I have this, Andy.”

Andy and KC seemed to have a short, silent conversation before Andy rolled his eyes and walked to the back. KC stared at the swinging door for a second before turning around. Her body was facing me, but her eyes darted around the bakery—looking anywhere but at me.

I didn’t know how to start this conversation. I hadn’t planned this out. I’d just known I needed to talk to her about what was happening between us. I needed confirmation that I wasn’t the only one who was slowly going insane over this—this—whatever this was. “I need to know what this is,” I finally blurted out.

No “Hi,” no “How are you.” I just went past all the small talk . . . went past everything a normal man and woman would talk about . . . and threw out the issue I’d probably been deluding myself into thinking both of us had been plagued by the past week.

Her eyes widened and met mine momentarily before touching everything else in the bakery again. She cleared her throat twice before stuttering, “What—what what is?”

I managed to close as much of the distance between us as the counter would allow and waited until she finally glanced at me again. “This.” I used my index finger to indicate the two of us. “You have to know what I’m talking about.” God, please know what I’m talking about.

She exhaled deeply and shook her head. Her eyes flickered to the front door, and then to the tray of cookies she’d just brought out, where they stayed. “Brody, you’re married,” she said softly, and the statement sounded so pained I had to grip the countertop when my hand began reaching out toward her. “I can’t—I don’t—you’re married.” Her blue eyes finally met and held mine, and I knew then that this had been tormenting her as much as it had me.

“I know. But I’ve been going out of my mind since I first saw you last Sunday, and I—I don’t know, I know this is insane, KC.” Looking to each side of the counter, I found the space to get behind it and walked over to her as I said, “One thing I’ve learned in my life and my line of work is that life is short, and I know that I don’t know you yet . . . but I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I walked away from the only person who’s made me feel alive in years, the only person who’s made me feel—whatever the hell this is—ever. Tell me I’m not alone in this,” I pleaded.

She looked around the store and shut her eyes tightly as she shook her head. I wanted to beg her to open them again, but words left me when she spoke. “You’re not. Brody, I swear the world stops when I look at you.”

My entire body relaxed, and my already quick heartbeat took off.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you have a wife. So what’s all this for, Brody?” she asked, her pained voice now laced with venom, and the relief I’d felt disappeared. “Just to make yourself feel better knowing that someone else wants you? Or are you just wanting an affair because you’re tired of your spouse? Because if that’s what you want, I suggest you go find someone else who’s looking for the same.” Her blue eyes narrowed and she spoke through gritted teeth. “Do you know that for the last eight days all I could think about was a married man who stirred up emotions in me I didn’t even know I could possess? And it’s been killing me, Brody!”

“No, KC . . . God, no. This is a weird situation, trust me, I know. I’ve been at war with myself with what I know is right, and what I don’t think I can live without. I do not want an affair. I don’t know what something between us could be called, but that word doesn’t do what’s happening between us justice. But I know that my marriage is over, I know I want you more than I want my next breath, and I know I would be insane to walk out that door and away from you.”

Her eyes fluttered shut, and a sound that was something between a whimper and a cry left her lips before she could cover her mouth with her hand. Everything in me wanted to pull her close, but I forced my hands to stay on my hips as I waited for her response. I didn’t know if she wanted me to touch her, and honestly, I didn’t know if I was ready for what would happen if I had her in my arms.

KC looked back up at me and blew out a shaky breath. “I didn’t know I could feel this for someone else, but, Brody, I can’t be the reason your marriage ends.”

“It’s been over,” I said, the truth in my words clear. “We were over before we ever got married.”

“Is that why you don’t wear a wedding ring? Or did you take it off because you were coming to talk to me?”

I glanced down to my left hand and shrugged lamely. “Um, no. Olivia wouldn’t buy one for me when we got married, and never did afterwards. But if she had, I doubt I’d still wear it.”

She nodded, seeming to accept my answer, and then shook her head quickly. “But this is crazy. Whether your marriage is over or not, you’re still married. This . . . it’s wrong.”

“I know,” I murmured. “But I can’t imagine walking away from you now, and from the look in your eyes, you don’t want me to walk away either.”

KC worried her bottom lip for a few moments as she studied me, before admitting softly, “I’ve thought of nothing but you since Jace’s house. Why do you have to be married?” She whispered the last part to herself and huffed a sad laugh. Her eyes slowly met mine as she rubbed at her chest. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. It physically hurts to think about not being with you, and I don’t even know you.”

When I saw her blue eyes fill with tears, I took the last steps toward her and pulled her into my arms. She let out a shaky breath, and her eyes stayed glued to her hands resting on my chest.

We stood there silently for a few minutes before she tilted her head up and looked into my eyes. “What are we going to do?”

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face when I responded. “I’m not sure, but we’ll take it slow and we’ll figure it out.”