“Did I do something? Because you’ll have to refresh my memory if I did. I know that shit yesterday wasn’t cool, but we’ve had worse, haven’t we?”
“Yes. No. I mean…it wasn’t something you did.” He’d done nothing except find the love of his life, nothing except drive home what a failure, what a complete fuckup she was.
“Did someone else?”
“No!”
Ghost took that inopportune moment to stroll into the room. He looked at Brian, looked at Starla’s streaming eyes, held up both hands in surrender, and walked back out.
“It’s not him, is it?” Brian asked once Ghost was out of earshot.
She scoffed. Admitting he was part of the problem would lead to admitting to her feelings for Jared, and she wasn’t ready to hear Brian’s opinion on that either. “I became immune to his bullshit years ago.”
“You have to talk to me. I can’t just…accept this.”
“As my boss, you’re gonna have to.”
“What about as your friend?”
I can’t be your friend anymore.
She couldn’t be his anything. The shot of pain through her chest at the thought was so severe that she winced. If she was going to move on, if she ever had a chance at getting herself together and getting past this, leaving here was the only option. The game was over. It had lasted too long, gone into overtime, and the sole player was exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, physically.
Brian saw he wasn’t making any headway with the near-sobbing female in his company, so he sighed and shifted his weight, getting fidgety like he always did when he was upset. “Are you at least giving me some kind of notice?”
She could do that, couldn’t she? He only came in two or three days a week—surely she could suck it up that much, but only if he could promise not to put her through this every time she saw him. “I’ll stay a couple of weeks. Maybe even more, I don’t know—maybe I can stay until you find a replacement. I just wanted you to know where my head is at.”
“I don’t know where your fucking head is at,” he snapped.
“Brian—”
“This is bullshit, Star. We’ve been through too much together for you to leave me hanging without any kind of explanation.”
“I can’t. Please.” She didn’t think she’d ever been so close to begging in her life. The look in his blue eyes… She couldn’t take it. Couldn’t take it and couldn’t make it better, so her only option was to flee from it. But he stood between her and the door, and he didn’t seem to be moving anytime soon.
This was the problem, she supposed, with being close friends with the people you worked with. When everyone was happy and getting along, there was no better situation. But once hurt feelings entered the equation—and those were inevitable at some point, weren’t they?—it was a recipe for disaster. Before, they’d all been able to scream at each other, then hug it out and carry on. Not this time.
“If I crossed a line yesterday—”
“You didn’t. It’s not that. I said leave it alone. Why can’t you just leave it the fuck alone?”
“Because you’re wrong to do this, and you know you’re fucking wrong. But, hey, whatever you want. Walk away. Go ahead.”
They’d gotten loud enough that conversation up front had died out. Whether everyone was intentionally eavesdropping or simply uncomfortable with the unfolding argument, she didn’t know.
“Brian,” she said softly, attempting to catch her breath, “I’ll promise you this. If there was anything you could do to make this better, I would tell you. I promise. But it’s unfixable. You are…you’re wonderful. You’re…” Everything I want in life? Everything I can’t have? “You’re the best boss ever, and you’ve been one of my best friends since we both got started in this business.”
“I know. That’s why I don’t get it.”
It almost pissed her off. No, it kinda did piss her off. All this time, and he didn’t know? He didn’t realize just a little, he didn’t have one single suspicion? What the hell? She’d had roughly three conversations with Jared before he figured it out. Not that she wanted Brian to know. She’d never wanted him to. But it suddenly became clear to her that the alternative was that he wasn’t paying attention in the slightest, or even worse: he knew, he saw it, and he didn’t care.
Her racing heart cracked and shattered. She shook all over as she spoke her next words.
“Don’t you? I mean, really? Don’t you get it a little, at least?”
Humiliation bit a vile black hole through her as she watched his expression fall, but she was sick of humiliation. So, so fucking sick of it. She’d rather face it, deal with it once and for all, and leave it behind. Maybe if she’d dealt with it a long time ago, things would be different right now.
And poor Brian; he’d gone pale right before her eyes—quite a feat for his gorgeous olive complexion. Well, he’d wanted to know. Now he did.
“Come on,” he said, turning toward the door and walking out without another word. He took a right down the hallway, heading toward his and Candace’s office.
Starla’s heart shot from the pit of her stomach to the base of her throat, choking her. She had two choices: follow him or run and never come back. Helplessly, she chose to follow him, noting that the conversation in the front picked back up at their brief appearance. Ugh. Shoot me now.
Brian waited until she’d entered the room and shut the door behind them. She positively shook with her heartbeat now and, frustratingly, her earlier tears had yet to dry. Sighing, he took up his usual position, whether he was bullshitting with his employees or chewing their asses out—or hearing confessions of unrequited love, apparently: leaning against the front of his desk. She chose to remain standing close to the door. Easier to run that way.
“I do get it,” he said at last, just when she thought she might start screaming if only to fill the intolerable silence between them. He opened his mouth to go on.
“Wait,” she put in quickly. “Let me get this out first. There is no way, no fucking way on this planet that I would try to interfere with what you have. That isn’t what this is about. I want you to know that. In fact, I could never show my face again if I thought you—”
“I already know that. If you didn’t feel that way, you would’ve already tried to interfere with it. I know that besides whatever else goes on in your head, you’re a damn good person. One of the best.”
“No,” she said miserably, “I’m not. Candace would hate me. She’s…she’s like my little sister.”
“I don’t think Candace is capable of hating anybody. Especially her big sister. Now let me go on.” She hated that she noticed the way his broad shoulders expanded when he drew a deep breath. “Like I said, I get it. Star—I’m only going to say this once, and I don’t know if it’ll make things better or worse. But I can’t see how they could get much worse. So here goes. I’d be lying through my teeth if I told you the thought of you and me had never crossed my mind before Candace came along. You are beautiful. You’re hilarious and you’re crazy talented. We understand each other in a way I don’t think anyone else could. I realize that, and I cherish it.”
“Thank you,” she told him softly. “I do too.”
“The last thing I want to do is lose it. Which is probably why I never made a move back then, because I was such a fuckup myself that I didn’t want to fuck us up. I care about you so much. But she came along and…” He trailed off, and Starla was both warmed by the light in his eyes and heartbroken by it. Ever since they’d sat in a bar one night a lifetime ago while he’d been drowning his sorrows over Candace during their rocky inception, she’d seen that light. She’d known then he was gone.
“I know,” she said. “You don’t have to explain.”
“She’s it for me,” he finished simply. “She was the go-for-broke one I couldn’t do without.”
“I know,” she repeated. “And that’s seriously awesome. You guys are magic together. I see it. Happiness is all I’ve ever wanted for you. You deserve it. At the same time, though, it hurts. It hurts a lot.” And what he’d said was accurate—she didn’t know if the pain was made better or worse by knowing that she might’ve had a shot if she’d only spoken up. “It’s not getting better for me. Imagine seeing Candace with someone else day after day after day.”
“I’d kill someone,” he said grimly. “But you can’t say that you feel about me the same way—”
“Don’t,” she warned him. “Don’t you dare assume you know how this feels. Don’t. You have no idea.”
He simply stared at her for a moment. She bravely held his gaze until he dropped it to the floor near her shoes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t either. So I said ‘I quit.’ Make sense now? Best to let it go. There isn’t a solution.”