You Make Me (Blurred Lines #1)(55)
Author: Erin McCarthy

As I sat in Heath’s apartment on the futon and waited for him to get home from work, I thought about all the years I had wondered and worried and deep in my heart feared that his love for me hadn’t been real. Convinced myself it was. Then tore that conviction down all over again with doubt. Before building it back up yet again, needing to believe it was real. How I had vowed to forget him, get over him, live my life as if he hadn’t existed.

But that had been impossible and I hadn’t even realized it until the wait was over, and he’d shown up in Orono. Looking for me.

I had falsely thought I was done waiting when he’d come out to Vinalhaven and we’d taken up where we had left off. After he had said he loved me. After he’d made love to me. Yet I kept waiting. I kept waiting for the truth. I kept waiting for him to share with me what he had been through, what he was thinking. What he was doing.

We liked to call it missing someone. But the truth was, it was waiting. Relentless, boring, painful, endless waiting. At the mercy of schedules, finances, or personal choice. Whatever kept them from us, what made us miss them, it was waiting. An endless stint in a hard chair at a doctor’s office, while we scrolled through irritation, impatience, agony, restlessness, fear.

As I sat on the bed, knees propped up, I picked at the skin on my thumbs. I bit my lip. I scratched my hair convulsively. I was waiting and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I didn’t understand what was happening. Why Heath had kept it from me that he was seeing Brian at the bar.

It hurt and while I knew he never lied to me, this was a lie by omission and was that really any better?

All I knew was it felt like nothing good and I felt weird, off, anxious.

I sat there doing nothing but waiting, wondering if I could be pregnant. It was possible, and if I were honest with myself, over the last few days in a secret part of my soul, I had wished I was, or at least thought I wouldn’t be horrified with the news. Which was ridiculous, because in no way were we prepared to be parents. Heath hadn’t even asked when I was due to get my period or if I was worried.

Maybe I didn’t understand him as well as I thought I did.

But I knew that was a lie.

I knew exactly what he was doing. He was getting what he wanted, plain and simple. The house, me. The future he wanted, he was building it without asking.

When Heath came in around two-thirty, he kicked his boots off at the door and looked at me in surprise. “Hey. I didn’t think you’d still be awake.”

Normally I wouldn’t have been. I went to sleep around midnight usually and let him wake me up when he got home with kisses, and a seeking hand stroking me back to reality. Then when I dozed back off an hour later, I was satisfied, sleepy, warm.

But now I just stared at him, not sure where to start. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“No? Too much caffeine?” he asked with a smile, peeling off his coat, plucking his hat off his head.

I shook mine. “Brian’s girlfriend called me. He was loaded and having a temper tantrum. She asked me to go over there to calm him down.”

“Did you?” Heath looked nothing more than curious. He didn’t look surprised or wary. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? To get sucked into his shit?”

“Funny you should say that, because it seems you’ve gotten sucked into his shit yourself. Or you sucked him into your shit, I’m not sure which one.”

I expected him to deny it, though I’m not sure why. I knew he never lied. He just didn’t tell me everything.

He just gave me a knowing look. “So he told you about the house, huh? I wish he hadn’t. I wanted to tell you myself.”

“I really wish you would have told me yourself too.”

“How was I supposed to know that you were going to talk to Brian? You never talk to him.” He gave over and sank down onto the bed beside me with a sigh. “God, I’m tired.”

I just glared at him, not sure what to say. Why the hell did he not understand that there was an issue here?

When I was silent, he glanced over at me, and he rubbed his face. “Oh, no, you’re mad. Is there any way we can do this in the morning? You can be pissed at me after a good night’s sleep.”

That made me explode. That he could so easily dismiss my upset and anger. Go to sleep? Was he freaking kidding?

“Oh, I have no doubt I will still be pissed at you tomorrow, but no, I’m not just going to roll over and be fixating on why I’m upset while you happily fall asleep like nothing is wrong. How could you be spending time with my brother without talking to me about it? You know I don’t want to communicate with him. Were you really giving him free drinks?”

“Yes.”

That was it. Yes. Just yes. No explanation.

“Why? You know he’s an alcoholic. You shouldn’t feed his addiction!” Just because I didn’t like Brian on a regular basis didn’t mean I wanted to contribute to his problems. “He’s going to kill himself and you shouldn’t be handing him the gun.”

Heath made a sound of frustration. “What do you care? He is, and always has been, a waste of space. He’s selfish, he’s lazy, and he’s cruel. He deserves everything that’s coming to him.”

“He’s my brother,” I insisted.

“That doesn’t make him any less of an ass**le. I was letting him get drunk because I wanted him to let down his guard around me. It’s that simple.”

“So you could take advantage of him?” I studied him, trying to understand, wanting to understand. It sounded so… planned. So intentional. So manipulative.

“Yes.”

That he said it so baldly made the hairs on the back of my neck raise. “So you could steal the house from him?”

“I didn’t steal the house. I paid him. He was going to lose it anyway because he hasn’t paid the taxes. So I offered him a solution. More than he was ever going to see if he just let the bank take it.”

“But it’s for sale, someone might have bought it…”

“Maybe. Maybe not. This way he got some cash, which he really needed, and I got the house. Win-win.”

I shivered. “But you didn’t discuss it with me, Heath. You just… did it. You got my brother drunk and you took our family home from him. Why did you do that? Was that paybacks for what he did?”

“There was an element of that involved, yes.” Heath leaned towards me, his eyes intense. “He stole you from me. He took everything good in my life and he ruined it. He took you, he took my place in your family away from me, and he took the only real home I’d ever had away. So was this revenge? Sure. I did it on purpose and I’d do it again.”