The following day, I wake up in an empty bed and a text from Connor. I'm not sure why it's not from James but I don't question it, instead I pick up my phone and read over the text with anticipating eyes.
We're going to pick you at twelve. Be dressed and ready.
My heart starts beating wildly in my chest. I have an hour and a half before they arrive and my mind starts racing at the possibilities of what will happen, rather than getting dressed like a sane person would.
When I finally calm down and start getting ready, I shower and then put on some jeans and a white shirt to tuck into my jeans. I finish brushing my hair and I thankfully have time to get something to eat before I leave.
As though on cue, the doorbell rings as I finis eating and I jump up quickly, putting the dirty pots in the dishwasher and putting on my shoes and jacket before opening the door.
Connor stands in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. "Glad you got my text."
"Course I did," I nod. We both see each other's texts but never reply, I notice. Connor has never once replied to mine, just like I haven't to his.
"We better get going," Connor says with a small smile and I nod, following him down to the car after I've locked up.
We get into his black Range Rover and we begin the drive to their house. I felt like my throat had closed up and I was struggling to breathe.
Whilst being home alone most of the time, sometimes studying but mostly doing nothing, I had searched on YouTube how to control my breathing since it's a recurring theme that I'm always struggling to breathe when I'm feeling anxious.
I distract myself, counting the red cars on the road and watching the yellow lines on the sides of the roads zoom past my window. It starts to work but I feel my heart going thousands of miles an hour as Connor pulls up into the driveway to his house.
He cuts out the engine, and I let out a shaky breath, closing my eyes and counting ten.
"You'll be fine," Connor assures me and my eyes snap open, looking over to him. "He won't do anything to hurt you, he loves you. He'll just be angry, probably shout, but that's just his way of expressing his feelings since he's not sure how he's meant to be right now."
"He's always angry?"
"Yeah, since you got engaged with Aiden," Connor says. "He was angry before you guys met but when you were friends, he calmed down a lot. He just got easily agitated by us because he wanted to hang with you so much."
My cheeks flush red and my heart skips a beat at Connor's reassuring words.
"Come on," Connor smiles, grabbing his keys. "We best not leave him waiting."
I nod and unbuckle my seat belt before following him to the door. He opens it up and shoots me a small smile before letting me go in first.
"We'll go get him out of his room," Connor says as James walks through the kitchen door, shooting me a smile.
"Glad you came," James says, wrapping me in a hug tightly. "I promised you I'd sort this out." He pulls out of the hug. "And I would've texted you if Brad didn't throw my phone at the wall."
I bite my lip nervously and he smiles at me.
"Don't worry, he's calmed down a little since last night," James assures me. "And we'll be waiting outside the room to stop him from doing anything to you-,"
"James," Connor scolds and I notice Tristan waiting at the top of their stairs for them. "You're gonna scare her."
"I didn't mean to," James says like a child before looking over to me again. "He won't do anything anyway, but that's not the point-,"
"We're going to go before he makes you regret coming here," Connor grabs James by the collar of his shirt and tugs him up the stairs.
I stand there awkwardly in their entrance hall as they disappear to Brad's room. My heart was beating so fast against my chest that I'm surprised it wasn't leaping out of my chest already.
After two and a half months of not seeing Brad, it's finally happening. I'm going to talk to him and hopefully figure things out between us. I can explain why I got engaged to Aiden.
I hear shouting from upstairs and a load bang before glass shatters. I almost jump at the sound, suddenly regretting coming. He doesn't want to speak, he's not ready.
After ten minutes of me standing alone in the hallway, I finally see the boys coming down the stairs with tight smiles on their faces.
"Does he not want to talk?" I ask, pushing myself off of the wall that I was leaning against. "I can go back home if you want-,"
"He said he'll be down in a minute," James tells me, swinging his arm over my shoulder. "Took some convincing but he's agreed."
I nod, remembering to control my breathing. I'm not scared, I don't think, I'm just nervous since I don't know how this could go. We could walk out of this on either good or worser terms, and I know I've only got one shot at making this work.
When I see Brad walking down the stairs, my heart beats even faster. He looked so tired, his hair was a mess and a cut was on his lip. He wore joggers and a white vest top, showing his muscles that I swear have grown since I last saw him.
I tear my gaze off of his flawless features and instead look up in his eyes. They held no emotion, I couldn't read them. He had a guard up, a wall surrounding him that he didn't want me to break down.
"Living room," he says gruffly and I know he's talking to me. His eyes were burning into me, and I nod, quickly following him into the living room.
He shuts the door behind me, and I turn to face him. I didn't know where to start, what to explain first, whether to ask him how he's been.
"You better start explaining why the fuck you wanted to talk to me now, before I change my mind," Brad says bluntly, leaning against the closed door with his arms folded. "And I don't want to hear any bullshit."
I nod, plucking up some confidence before speaking. "I, uh, I wanted to explain why I did what I did, and I want you to understand why I had to do it."
"You don't have to do shit, Jamie," he scoffs. Before, my name rolled off his tongue beautifully but now he spits it out like it's poisonous. "You could've chosen me instead of Aiden, so don't give me the bullshit that you had to leave me."
"I did," I assure him. I bet I look helpless and stupid right now. "Let me explain, okay?"
His eyes look me up and down once before they meet my eyes once more. They were still stoic. "You better give me a good fucking explanation."
I begin. I tell him from the party where Aiden confronted me, I tell him how I had barely a week to make a decision. I tell him the choices I had and the consequences of each. He stands there and listen, showing no reaction to my truth.
When I finish, he simply purses his lips and pushes himself off of the door. "How dense are you, Jamie?"
"What?"
"You didn't come and speak to me once when all of this was happening," he says, dropping his arms to the side as he steps closer to me. "You didn't ask for my help, my advice. You just kept this a secret and you fucked everything up. That's pretty dense, if you ask me."
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to change my mind," I say. "I know you'd stop me from getting engaged-,"
"Damn right I fucking would!" He says, his hand slamming against the wall. "Because I fucking care for you, Jamie! And I've lost you because you didn't talk to me like you were supposed to when you're having a problem! Now, some twenty year old man that left you four fucking years ago has you under his control for the rest of his life."
He takes a breath before continuing.
"He's not gonna love you, Jamie. He's not gonna care for you like I would've," he shakes his head, retracting his hand from the wall.
"You think I don't know that?" I argue back. "Do you think that I didn't love you? Care for you? Because I did, Brad! I lost you, too!"
"You lost me because you chose to!" He snaps. "If you really loved me, then you would've found a way out of this to stay with me!"
"Do you not understand that if I didn't choose to get engaged, that you could possibly die?" I shout at him, tears welling in my eyes already. "Yeah, we would've stayed together until Aiden got married but then someone would've over taken the gang and changed all the fucking rules and you and I both know that you wouldn't hurt someone innocent, right?"
His jaw clenches as he watched me speak, he doesn't interrupt me.
"And we both know that if you don't follow the leader's rules, you get punished," I say, the first tear escaping my eyes. "And eventually you'd wind up dead! So I'm sorry that I decided to keep you alive, rather than wish you a fucking death sentence, Brad!"
"You really think I'm that stupid?" He asks and I wipe away tears from my eyes. "You think that I'd risk getting killed when the rules would've changed? You think I'd risk leaving you? I wouldn't fucking disobey them and get myself killed because now I have something to live for, Jamie! I had you! Things would've had to change, sure, but I wouldn't have gotten myself killed because I didn't agree! Not anymore."
Tears were falling out of my eyes, uncontrollably. I just needed to breathe for a moment because the yelling was getting too much.
"But you left, didn't you?" He closes his eyes for a moment. "You showed me that you don't love me like I love you because you decided to leave."
"Don't," I shake my head, finally feeling my breathing calm down again. "Don't you dare put words in my mouth. I fucking love you, Brad. I risked my happiness with you so that I'd know you'd be alive, safe. Do you have some image that as soon as you walked out of that door the night you found out, that I'd forgotten about you? That I wasn't planning on telling you differently so that you'd be able to understand?"
He doesn't reply. His eyes burn into my skin.
"I didn't, Brad," I shake my head, leaning against the sofa I was stood behind as I continue to look at Brad. "I cried so much because I miss you, because I hated not being with you."
"Are you asking for my sympathy?"
"No," I shake my head, sniffling. "I'm asking for your understanding. I know that you tried to move on, or you did, I don't know-but I know that you felt like me at one point: you felt like everything had just turned to shit so suddenly."
"Moving on?" He questions, his eyebrows furrowing. I think he'd calmed down, that we wouldn't start yelling at each other again. "You think I could just move on?"
"I don't know what goes on inside your head," I shrug. "But I know you tried, at least. With Frankie at that party, probably other girls, too."
I'm not mad at him for trying it on with other girls, since I know he thought Aiden and I were probably getting it on, too.
He sighs. "Yeah, I fucking tried. Too many times. But I couldn't move on from you."
I hold back a smile, since I know now is not the time to smile. It would be selfish of me to show that I'm so happy by the few words that came out of his mouth.
"I don't know what else to say," I speak, wiping away the last of my tears. I think I'd got everything off of my chest for now, everything I needed to say was out in the open. "But I just came here to tell you that I care for you, that I still love you and that I'm only doing this so that you're safe."
He leans against the wall, resting his head back against it as he closes his eyes for a moment. "I wish that you'd have come and spoken to me about it before you agreed. Now you're marrying someone you don't even love."
"To keep someone I love safe," I reply.
"You don't need to keep me safe," he shakes his head, pushing himself off of the wall again. "I told you that you don't need to worry about me. And I'm going to talk to Aiden and give him a piece of my mind-,"
"Don't," I shake my head. "There's no point getting into a shouting match with Aiden."
"Shouting match?" Brad scoffs. "I'm gonna beat his fucking ass, that's what I'm going to do. For dragging you into the middle of a mess that you shouldn't be in, for taking you away from me before I could make you mine."
I fall silent, not sure what to say. I don't want him to fight with Aiden, not physically at the least.
He tilts his head to the side. "Jamie, if I had asked you to be my girlfriend before Aiden asked you to marry him, would you have still done it?"
I think for a moment. Part of me says no, because we would've been official and breaking up with him straight after would've been so cruel and different to now.
But most of me says yes. My whole goal was to keep Brad alive through this and the same consequences would've remained, even if Brad and I were together.
I shrug. "Probably."
He nods slowly, stepping towards me until he's right in front of me, his broad frame towering over my petite one. His hand softly takes ahold of mine, lacing our fingers together.
"I'm sorry," I whisper out. I don't feel the need to project my voice when he's so close to me, his touch causing my skin to tingle and his presence making my heart beat so fast.
"Me too."
"What for?"
"For not letting you explain sooner," he says honestly. "For not noticing how much stress you would've been under while you had to make the decision. For not then helping you get out of the situation. For not beating up Aiden-,"
"I get it," I laugh. "But you don't need to be sorry. It's my fault that this happened."
"No it's not," he shakes his head. "It's Aiden's. And you're gonna be assured that I'll be beating his ass next time I see him."
His hand drops from mine and he lifts my chin up with his fingers, so that I can look up at him. He brushes his nose gently against mine.
"For now, I want to know if I can kiss you?"
I was surprised the question, for when I first came into this room I was sure that I would be leaving with a broken heart.
I don't reply and instead move my hands around his shoulders and push his head closer to mine. Our lips collide against each other and my back arches as one hand holds the small of my back while the other rests on my cheek.
Our lips move together and I feel my body melting into his touch. I didn't realise how much I missed his lips on mine as much as I do, until now.
He pulls away, his eyes searching in mine for a moment. He no longer had the wall up, he was back to how I remembered.
"Never fucking leave me again, you understand?"
I smile, rubbing my nose against his gently as I bring my arms from around his shoulders, to my side. "Of course."
edited.