Page 81 of Undeniable

He took one look at me and sighed. I didn’t try to hide how upset I was and how much I’d been crying, hoping that it would make him uncomfortable enough to leave me alone. But the exact opposite happened.

Instead of immediately making an excuse to leave, he toed off his shoes, pulled the covers back farther, and crawled into bed with me.

“What are you—”

“If you’re going to lie in bed and cry on your birthday, you’re at least not going to do it alone.”

“You don’t have to do this. I’m fine.”

“Oh yeah,” he joked, readjusting the pillow underneath him and keeping several inches of space between us. “You definitely look fine. Actually, I don’t think you’ve ever looked better.”

I nearly smiled at his sarcasm, and he fixed his brown eyes on me. “We’re still friends, Ivy. So, even if you don’t want to talk about it, I’m still here for you.”

His kindness was too much for my raw emotions, and I didn’t have the strength to argue. “Okay,” I said quietly and started crying again.

“Seriously, don’t!” The yelling woke me up only a second before the door slammed open.

Startled out of a deep sleep, it took me several seconds to realize what was happening. I propped up on my elbow and yawned. My eyes were swollen from the amount of crying I’d done the night before, but I was able to open them enough and blink back the sleep to see James standing in the doorway.

He looked like he hadn’t gotten any sleep either. He was disheveled. The dark circles under his eyes were deep, and his hair was pointing in a million directions.

I’d momentarily forgotten the events of the night before, but they all came rushing back to me as I watched him.

His eyes bounced from me to the bed beside me, where Brendon was only just waking up. His arm was tossed over my waist and his front was pressed against my back. He yawned and slowly sat up as James’s eyes narrowed where Brendon’s hand was tucked around my stomach, resting just beneath my breast.

“I told you not to come in here,” Forrest said, coming up behind James, out of breath and also looking worse for wear.

Without a word, James pivoted and shoved past Forrest. I shot from the bed.

I tried to squeeze past Forrest, who was standing in my doorway, but he shot out a hand, gripping my arm with enough force to stop me. “You’re going after him?” he questioned.

“Yes,” I countered simply and shook off his hold.

I jogged down the hallway and past my parents’ closed bedroom door. I didn’t pause to consider if they had either somehow slept through the chaos and yelling or they just preferred to not know what was happening.

The screen door clattered closed behind me and I found myself stopping at the edge of the porch, right in front of the stairs. James was there, standing in the middle of my front yard. His hands were clasped behind his neck and he was staring down at the grass.

It was barely dawn, and it was still miserably humid. My dress I hadn’t taken off from the day before was already clinging awkwardly to my skin. I knew I looked like a train wreck, yet all I could think about was how James looked just as bad.

He looked broken, too.

“I wanted to tell you in person how sorry I was. How sorry Iam.That I’ve made a mistake,” he finally said and then spun to look at me. “Only to find…that.”

He pointed to my bedroom window at the front of the house, and I didn’t say anything to correct him. I knew what he assumed had happened, and I wasn’t going to argue. Maybe then he’d feel at least a portion of what I felt. The pain that was still sitting tight in my chest felt like it was never going to go away. I wanted him to hurt as badly as I did.

“James, nothing happened.”

I hadn’t heard Forrest and Brendon come out of the house, but I held up a hand to stop Brendon.

“Don’t,” I told him over my shoulder, and then I turned back to James, who looked between Brendon and me. “You got what you wanted, James. I don’t know what you’re doing back here.”

“I never said any of it, Ivy,” he forced out through clenched teeth.

“How would you know if you don’t remember?” I yelled.

Forrest put a hand on my shoulder, probably trying to stop me once again, but I shoved out of his hold and hurried down the stairs until James and I stood only feet apart. His chest was heaving and so was mine as we stared each other down.

“You’re right, I don’t remember. But I know how I feel about you. And whatever might have been said in a stupid, drunken moment doesn’t change what ended up happening. The moment I kissed you at prom, I knew I was a goner. Everything we felt this summer was genuine. What we have is real.”

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