Bring Down the Stars

Connor was in the next room, not fifteen feet away and oblivious. Just as I had been about Mark.

I looked up at Weston. “I cheated on him. That’s the bottom line. The only truth…”

“Yeah, well, I cheated on him too,” Weston spat. “I’m his best friend. I betrayed him. Because I’m so fucking selfish and I can’t stop…”

“Can’t stop, what?”

His blue-green eyes raised to meet mine and I saw the answer floating in their ocean depths.

Wanting you.

“I’m drunk and scared to ship out,” he said after a moment. “That’s why it happened. We don’t have to tell him. It would only hurt him. He doesn’t…” Weston shook his head, his anger and disgust with himself was palpable. “He doesn’t need or deserve this right now. It’s my fault.”

“I kissed you too—”

“It was my fault and it was wrong and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Weston…”

“It won’t happen again,” he said and his voice cracked on the last syllable, unleashing something deeper than regret for betraying a friend. Something final that scared me to my core.

A thousand questions and emotions swelled in me, tangling with the confused, heated desire for him. But the barrier was up. Barbed wire now. And behind it, he was unyielding. An ice statue. Beautiful, but immovable. Immutable.

I mustered my shaken dignity. “You’re right,” I said. “It won’t happen again. But it’s not up to you to say how I deal with it. I need to tell Connor—”

“Tell him what? That we made a drunken mistake? We can’t let him go to war with the one bright spot in his life dimmed.”

I blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about, one bright spot?”

“You,” Weston said. “You make him happy. You make him proud when all he gets is shit from his parents.”

I sagged against the couch, remembering how proud Connor had been at Thanksgiving that I was by his side.

“We can’t take that away from him,” Weston said. “Not while he’s got his finger on the trigger and making life or death decisions. One hesitation, one second of self-doubt and it’s over.”

He moved toward me and my pulse jumped. His hand rose and my skin tingled in anticipation of his touch, even as guilt coursed through my veins.

“What happened tonight was my fault,” he said. “Everything. It’s all on me. Not Connor. Don’t punish him for my mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” I said. “I don’t—”

He silenced me with his hand on my cheek, and even then, my body responded to his touch and ached for more.

“You can take the guest room,” Wes said, his voice softer now, frayed at the edges. His eyes filled with pain. “I’ll sleep on the couch here.”

I stared at him a moment more, wishing I hadn’t drunk a drop of alcohol.

My truth serum…

I couldn’t think clearly and the only thing to do was to go. I rose on shaking legs and walked to the door like a sleepwalker, and Weston opened it for me.

“Goodnight, Weston,” I said.

“Goodnight, Autumn.”

I stepped into the hallway and he shut the door behind me. I fumbled my way through the dark, quiet house to the guest room and its big empty bed. The tears were already flowing. No matter how rocky, up-and-down and confusing things were with Connor, I was his girlfriend. And I cheated on him. I betrayed Connor on the eve of his deployment.

The eve of goodbye.