If There's Something

Chapter 28

  I didn't run from his room to escape the embarrassment that he hadn't told me he loved me back. I knew he loved me and I knew he had issues with expressing his feelings with words. Either way, that wasn't the reason for my quick escape. I left without waiting for him to react to my words because I didn't want to hear him say them back. I couldn't hear them. Not yet. Not when I was hiding his mother's secret from him. Not when it was going to break his heart to find out that I had been keeping it from him even though I knew. But I needed him to know that I loved him. Call it a guilty conscience if you want, but I needed him to know.

I forced myself into a cold shower to cool me down before washing the smell of sex off of me, if there was such a thing. I dried myself off and blow-dried my hair before dressing myself with a clean pair of underwear. I pulled on a pair of black skin-tight leggings and an oversized t-shirt before jumping onto my bed, seconds before Wes entered my room.

"Hey," I said coolly. "Where'd you go?"

"None of your business," he smirked, sitting on my bed. "What have you been doing whole day?"

He raised an eyebrow and for a second, I actually thought he'd see right through me and know what I did with Rush.

"I spoke to Levi," I told him. "Sorted things out with him and lay in bed talking until we both fell asleep."

"Oh, good, I was starting to worry about him," he seemed to believe me that that was all that had happened. "So you guys good for Chicago?"

I nodded and he squeezed my shoulder, sighing.

"So I was thinking," he said after a while. "We've been here all night and haven't been to a honky-tonk."

"Honky-tonk?" I asked with a laugh. "Seriously?"

"Well, you can't drink," he shrugged. "But we can still go and have some fun. You can call Micah, too. What do you say?"

"I say yee-haw!" I hooted and then laughed.

He chuckled with me and then got off my bed. "Cool, we'll go tomorrow and inaugurate the first day of our last week here," he told me and headed for the door.

"Wes?" I said, stopping him. He turned around and looked at me, giving me a questioning look. "Don't you think it's time to tell Rush?"

"That's up to Levi, don't you think?" he asked me and I shrugged.

"He's procrastinating," I sighed. "I know he's scared that Rush will react badly but Wes, Aunt Marya was his mom, too. Doesn't he deserve to know how she died?"

"He does," Wes answered solemnly. "But it's between them – they're family and it's their secret."

"I always thought of them as my family, too, didn't you?" I asked and he gaped at me. "I think it's time to tell him. I can't keep hiding it from him, especially now that we're together. It's killing me, Wes."

"I know, I'll talk to him," he told me, leaving the room.

I collapsed onto my bed and let out a sigh. Then I dialed Micah's number to tell him about the honky-tonk. He agreed right away, joking that he needed loud music and alcohol to forger that Rush had just stolen me from under him. I hinted that Rush and I had gotten further and Micah choked on the chips he was chowing down on.

"You fucked him?!" he demanded.

"Do you guys really need to make sex sound like something so horrible?" I asked, disgusted by his choice of words.

"What do you want me to call it? Making love?" he asked, making a gagging sound. "Gross. You girls are so sappy."

"Fuck you, Mic," I sighed. "You're not any less."

"I can be sappy if you end up in my bed instead of his," he said and for a second, I couldn't tell whether he was kidding or not. That was unusual because I had become a master at figuring out when he was joking and when he was serious. "We don't even have to make love if you don't want to."

"Micah," I said softly, wondering what was wrong with him. "Are you-"

"Seriously, babe?" he chuckled softly. "Don't pay any attention to me. So you got Levi talking to you again?"

"Oh yeah, I did," I said, mentally hitting myself for forgetting to tell him about it. "We're okay now. Everything is great."

"Then why do you sound like you aren't happy?" he deadpanned. "Something wrong?"

"You see right through me," I sighed and stared at aunt Marya's letter that I had in my lap. "They still haven't told Rush about his mom's death and everything-" I trailed off.

"And you're starting to feel guilty," he finished for me. "And you don't think you can hide it from him anymore but you also don't want to be the one who tells him."

"I want Levi to tell him because he deserves to know-"

"But he's going to lose his shit once he finds out," Micah added.

"What if he leaves me, Micah?" I asked softly, my heart burning in my chest.

"Why would he leave you? His mother giving him her heart is no reason to leave you, Farren," he said, his voice more serious than usual.

"Because I kept it from him?" I pointed out. "I didn't tell him as soon as I found out."

"Firstly, that is no reason to break up with you because it isn't something you should be telling him. It's something he should be hearing from his brother or his father," Micah told me sternly like I was a kid who needed a pep talk. "And secondly, he wasn't exactly acting like a saint at the time that you found you. He had played around with you and left you, calling it a mistake."

"Do you really think he's going to think that way?" I asked in disbelief.

"He would be a fool not to," Micah replied simply.

"He's going to shut me out," I sighed. "I just know it."

"Then maybe you should be rethinking your relationship," Micah mumbled and if he had been in front of me, I probably would have slapped him.

"What?" I asked, dumbfounded. "Did you really just say that?" Anger boiled through my blood and I felt my face grow hot.

"I just mean that-"

"Goodnight, Mic," I disconnected the call, putting my phone off and dropped it on the table.

I would have never thought Micah would be the one to piss me off, especially when I needed him to reassure me that everything was going to be okay.

Maybe everything wasn't going to be okay.