Page 89 of All Our Secrets

I didn’t realize we were in my driveway until he slammed on the brakes and put the SUV in park. “But you always thought of me. You can’t tell me there wasn’t something between us that day and ever since. I didn’t loathe my best friend the last few years for nothing. You’re worth a spot in hell for. Peyton, the sun rises and sets on you. I worship the ground you walk on. So why don’t you let me?”

I don’t want you to be a bad guy.I’d planted thoughts in his head when I went to his room the other night. There was no way Silas King felt this much for me. The person he’d barely looked at for years. He wasn’t a bad guy, just a grouch, and I wasn’t going to let the entire town say bad things about us because of my mistake.

As I looked at the man across from me, I understood then. Why this all hurt so much.

I knew why I was so desperate to visit Silas King that night. It wasn’t because I thought he was an itch that needed to be scratched. I could never scratch what I felt for him away. It was etched onto my heart like a tattoo. What I went for that night was something more. A piece of him to keep for myself.Just mine. In our friends’ eyes, I’d always be Theodore’s wife, while people would keep pushing Becky on Silas until he gave in and married the woman. My chest tightened at the mere thought of him touching her, or anyone other than me, for that matter.

But… I’d stolen my part of the grump. I might not have let him touch me in the light, but God, I let him have all of me in the dark. His caresses would be the ones I’d think of when I touched myself. He’d carry me in my bleakest moments. What I couldn’t admit to him in person was that I adored everything about him.

I’m sorry, Theodore.

That was the best I could do. I wanted Silas King, but for Theodore’s memory, I’d let him go.

I opened the door and climbed out. “Will you help me with my things?” I asked.

His mouth dropped. “You’re going to pretend you didn’t hear a word I said?”

“I’m barely hanging on here,” I whispered, meeting his dark gaze. “Please.”

Something in my plea made his shoulders drop. “I’ll grab your things.”

I carried T.J. and waited at my door as Silas brought my things to the porch. His lips flattened as he glanced at my home. “You’ll call me if something happens?”

“You still think someone might break in again?” I wondered.

“Just call me,” he said after he backed up. “I’ll be seeing you, baby. This isn’t over. It’s only beginning.”

My breath quickened as I watched his retreating form. Silas King did not understand what I wanted. No, he did. He simply wasn’t going to play along.

Chapter Thirty-Five:

tell her

Silas

The buzzing beneath my skin made it hard to sleep that night. There was a chill from the autumn weather approaching. But the cold did nothing to dampen my desire to tear down her house wall by wall. To destroy the helplessness I carried while staring at Theodore’s home, knowing she was in there with the ghost of him. Peyton had no clue that I was sleeping outside her house again. If she did, she would have stormed out already. But Theodore knew. He stepped onto the porch and proceeded to tell me to leave. I didn’t respond. He was an idiot if he thought I’d leave her alone with a ghost. I didn’t want to leave her period. The only amount of peace I could have without pushing her too much was sleeping in my truck. A few steps away if she needed me.

I dreamed of sweetness, having known the taste of it now, but woke to an awful cramp in my neck. Rubbing the ache out the best I could, I started up the truck and left before she woke.

∞∞∞

The days to come were painful. It was like reliving walking out of the barthatday, knowing I’d made the biggest mistake of my life before I reached the exit but being too fucking afraid to speak up.

Peyton wanted distance, so I gave her as much as I could. I didn’t visit her during the day, but I still slept outside her house. I texted her when I wanted to speak to her or missed her, which was all the time. She never replied, but she fed me hope with how quickly those read receipts appeared.

When she returned to work the second week of August, I had flowers delivered to her room. I never received a thank you, but that didn’t deter me. Her lack of response made me restless, though. I missed her. I didn’t know how long I could be the good guy. What if I made the wrong choice by waiting? What if the right thing was to pull her out of that house?

Theodore was as stubborn as me. He would haunt the house forever and do what he could to get Peyton to see him. I couldn’t let that happen. Now more than ever, when I knew how far Peyton’s loyalty ran. She wanted me. We could burn a house down with the passion between us, but in her eyes, she was Theodore’s wife. And I was his best friend.

What a load of shit. Before she was Peyton Johnson, we were PeyBunny33 and MoodyKing1. The perfect duo.Peyton and King.

I’d spend the rest of my life making up for letting my woman marry someone else.

I slipped out of my reverie when Timmy placed the customer’s money in his hand.

I slammed my palms against the counter. “Kid, do you count the change before you hand it back to the customers?”

I already knew the answer, but I needed this to be a lesson. Onelearned.

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