“My advice.”
He exhaled, raked a hand through his hair. “Maybe we should step back from this, talk about it later.”
She turned around.
Finally.Stepping back meant having space. Space was what people who were breaking up but didn’t want to be a complete asshole about it said to their partner. Once the space was in place and the nagging urge to engage each other had waned, it was easier to rationally cut ties, and rational was Tyler’s default.
She felt him come up behind her. Tensed at his close presence, not wanting to touch him and relive how happy she’d been while she’d been here, with him, not forming attachments. What a joke she’d played on herself, playing house with a man she could breathe in for the rest of her life and never grow tired of, thinking she could come out of this unscathed. She’d known from the very first moment, when she’d kissed him, before he’d even sunk into her and united their bodies, that he’d be a heartbreaker.
“Heather, why don’t you leave…”
She didn’t hear the rest. Didn’t need to. It was her punishment. She’d always been better off alone. She’d been foolish to think she might belong in Tyler’s little bubble, even though the thought of being cut off from Seth and Steven ached so much it was hard to breathe, because she’d grown to love them, too—
Love, too? As in, in addition to Tyler? She loved Tyler?
God, she did love him. Everything about him. From his spreadsheets and overprotectiveness, to how deeply he cared for everyone important to him. How he was willing to shoulder any burden if it would lighten the load for someone else. How his brooding would melt into an easy, quiet smile, how his beauty that he seemed wholly unaware of would steal her breath, and the passion that exploded from within him every time he touched her, made love to her, whether rough and dominating, or gentle and thoughtful, each time, it had been something more meaningful than a fling. She would miss all of this, but this was why she never should have allowed those roots to grow in the first place. The roots wanted an attachment, but the top soil was thin. How easily it washed away.
“I understand,” she breathed. Because she did.
If she were in his place, she’d want to wrap those boys in her arms and not let anyone or anything ever hurt them again. The physical wounds of tonight would heal, thank God. But the emotional ones would remain, and these boys would always question why they hadn’t been enough. Ask me how I know.
She swept past Tyler, picked up her backpack, gave Stevie a backward glance as he stirred, and refused to look at Seth’s still form again because it would only leave horrible memories branded in her brain—which was probably exactly how her parents had felt every time they’d looked at Monica’s body, looked at her—and slipped out the door, hastening to the elevator, punching the button, just as the door slid open and two tall men as big as Tyler, lumbered out.
One lanky and leanly muscled, blond, clad in a Stetson and low-slung jeans and a cutoff T much like Tyler would wear with boyish blue eyes, the other stacked with muscle honed in a gym, wearing a baseball T and backward mesh trucker’s cap. They sauntered off like a force to be reckoned with, both in scuffed boots, their faces etched with worry, the one in the mesh back thudding with an obvious limp.
Yet they both braced an arm on each door to hold the sensors back, ever the gentlemen that Tyler was, so she could climb inside, when shouting echoed down the hallway.
“Heart!” Stevie called desperately and charged out of the room in his oversize tie-dyed shirt she’d scored for him, his muck boots squeaking on the buffed tile.
“Where are you going?”
Stevie launched himself against her as her backpack jostled off her shoulder. The doors to the elevator began to close, but her muddy boot, and the men who had to be the other Dixon brothers, managed to pop the doors back open.
“Stevie?” the blond spoke, but Steven didn’t look up.
She wrapped Steven in an embrace, feeling the waterworks flooding her eyes as Tyler shoved out the door and began walking their way.
“Heather, wait—”
She kissed Steven’s head, squeezing him, feeling the burning curiosity of the other two men boring into her, and stepped back into the elevator, punching the door closed button and hitting the G for ground floor. There was no need to drag this out, and there was certainly no need for introductions. The blond was obviously the “pissant baby bro.” The darker-complected one in the mesh back was the spitting image of Tyler and looked like he had an inch of height on his brothers. He must be the surgeon who Tyler’d mentioned had been injured overseas and was now due to be married.
As the elevator dinged open on the ground floor, she stepped out. Rolled back her shoulders. Sought for a sliver of a smile that she’d once trained herself to so easily grasp. She was back on her own, where she should have remained. Her M.O. wasn’t distressed. So why, this time, did it feel like a knife twisted in her chest?