Page 41 of Bordeaux Bombshell
Stripping our jackets off, I toss them both in the corner before toeing off my shoes. Sydney does the same, avoiding stepping in the puddle already forming from the hail we brought in with us. “If you want to blame someone, blame my dad for selling the Ridge out from under me. No one is pretending shit, you idiot.”
She’s shivering now, her shirt and jeans as wet as mine.
“You think Kel hasn’t ripped me a new one more than once since I got back? That I didn’t spend weeks apologizing to my parents? That every time I get annoyed with my mom, I’m not full of shame over it?”
I’ve been gone all day and left the heat off, so it’s cold as shit in here. Snagging her hand, I pull her with me to flip the unit back on. I don’t trust her not to disappear.
Sydney follows, poking her nail into my spine when she talks. “Fine. Whatever. But they’re not the same.”
She’s soaked, her teeth chattering. So I do the logical thing and strip off her dripping shirt. Her fierce eyes disappear for asecond when I pull it over her head, but she doesn’t blink or look away. She burns me with those eyes—like she always has.
Mesmerized, I unbutton my flannel. “Not the same as…what, exactly?” My question turns into a growl when she takes over, unbuttoning my shirt before sliding it off my shoulders. The goose bumps that spring up on my body are from the cold air, not her fingers dancing over my skin.
In a breath, her touch goes from featherlight to painful as she rakes my chest with her nails. “Asme, you shithead!”
I take half a step back, but Sydney has hold of the waistband of my jeans and grips tight.
“Do you have any idea how many times I have tried to talk to you since I’ve been back? How many times I’ve tried to apologize?” I grab the front of her jeans and start unbuttoning them, not bothering to keep my voice down as I finally get to say my piece. “When have you ever let me say more than two words before walking away, you little shit?”
“You were supposed tomakeme listen. You were supposed to fight for me.” She’s ignoring me, unzipping my jeans and pushing them off my hips.
“So you could be mad at me for that too? Nice try, Hellcat.” I drop to my knees, tugging at her hips, the wet denim uncooperative.
There’s a struggle as she tries to help, our hands slapping as we both try to peel them down her thighs. Eventually, I win, smacking her hands away and stripping her.
“We were supposed to be a team. Youpromisedme we were. And then you went and left.” If I thought Sydney’s shouting was condemning me before, it’s nothing compared to the whisper that shatters me now. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”
And with a single sentence, all the fight drains out of me. How can I argue with that? She’s right. My hands drop to my lap in defeat. “I had nothing, Syd. Everything I thought I could giveyou—everything we dreamed. It was all gone. My dad signed it away, and I had nothing left.”
Still on my knees, I reach out for her, wrapping my arms around her thighs, hiding my face from her sad eyes. Gentle hands drop onto the top of my head, combing through the wet strands. “All I needed was you, you big dummy.”
We stay like that for a few breaths. Bodies mostly naked, souls bare, as she strokes my hair. Eventually, the ache in my knees is too much, and I release her to stand. Reaching out, I tuck a wet lock of hair behind her ear. “If there’s one thing I regret, it’s leaving you the way I did.”
Sydney sighs, leaning into the palm of my hand, her eyes fluttering closed. I stroke her cheek with my thumb, a flicker of hope burning in my chest.
“You should. Sneaking off, not saying goodbye, and breaking your promise was a shit thing to do to me. Your mom called mine in a panic. I heard her sobbing over the phone while I snuck back into the house. Everyone was mad and sad and talking about it—it was the only thing anyone in our families talked about for months. And the whole time, I was completely devastated, and I couldn’t tell anyone why.”
Her words gut me. Truly, I was so busy licking my own wounds that I hadn’t thought much about the people I’d left behind. “I always thought you’d move on. Meet someone else and forget about me.”
Sydney snorts and backs away. “You think I didn’t try? I basically had to start my life over, asshole. All my plans revolved around you. Meanwhile, your mom and mine were trying to set me up with every unattached man between the ages of twenty-two and thirty who walked into Sunshine, and I had to pretend like my heart wasn’t utterly destroyed.”
I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I lean forward, intending to shut her up with a kiss, but she flinches at themovement, and I freeze. As if she didn’t just bodily reject me, Sydney shifts her weight, moving even farther away from me. It doesn’t matter that we’re practically naked, the message is clear—don’t touch.
So I switch tactics, hoping to keep her from leaving or shutting me out again. “Why didn’t you make up a fake boyfriend to explain your mood?”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
She backs away completely, snagging a blanket off the back of the couch and wrapping it around her shoulders before sitting down, pulling her knees up and tucking it under her feet like she did when we were kids.
I stay by the door, needing to keep space between us while the churning in my stomach continues. “Would you have answered?”
She picks at the edge of the blanket, not looking up. “Back then? Yeah. Now? Hell no.”
Hearing about how she felt all those years ago sits in my chest like a rock. This right here is why we’ve both let this go on for so long. She wanted me to suffer her silence. I wanted to avoid the weight of my guilt over leaving her. My friends and family missing me was one thing, but knowing how badly I hurt Sydney is a burden I’ll carry for the rest of my life, especially now that she’s said it out loud.
An even heavier burden now that I’ve had a taste of what the grown-up version of her is like. I could tell myself I didn’t want her. That it was just remnants of a past I’ll never get back. But after having her the other night, I know that’s a lie.
“So you suffered in silence? That’s not the Hellcat I know. Surely Payton would have been happy to spend a night drinking and cursing my name.”
