Page 235 of Just for the Plot

“What?” She laughs. “No, don’t be weird. I’ll just go in your place.”

And before I can stop her, she opens my door and barges in, only to stop flat in her pursuit. I know the minute Gabby sees her, because it’s asif a knife of betrayal is stuck right into my sister’s back…metaphorically held by Bower.

She’s silent for a second and then she says, “Are you kidding me?”

“Gabby,” I say, rushing into the apartment, where Bower is standing still in the middle of the living room and dining room—in just my T-shirt and nothing else—looking both freshly fucked and terrified at the sametime.

Ryland follows me in, takes in the scene, and then whispers under his breath, “Fuck.”

“Is this why you were trying to usher us away?” Gabby asks, pointing to Bower but looking at me.

“Listen,” I say in a calm, mature voice, but it doesn’t click as Gabby starts to get incredibly emotional.

“You promised me,” she says to Bower. “You promised you wouldn’t go there with him. You looked me in the eyes and said you would never. You lied.”

“Gabby,” Bower says, tears spilling down her face now. “It wasn’t planned. I didn’t…I wasn’t…”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Gabby shakes her head. “I knew this was going to happen. I just knew it. We’re supposed to be each other’s person. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me, because you were fucking my brother and knew it was wrong?”

More tears from Bower as she nods.

“So you’re not even going to deny it. You broke our relationship all for what? A quick fuck?”

“Hey,” I snap, stepping in. “That’s not what—”

“Yeah,” Bower says. “That’s what it was, Gabby. A quick fuck. Because that’s all I’m ever good at, right? No relationships, just fucking? I ruined an almost-decade relationship for a quick fuck with your brother.” She moves toward the entryway, blowing past me as my heart hammers in my chest.

Gabby lets out a sob and Ryland is by her side in an instant. “I begged you to watch over him, protect him.”

Bower, looking stoic now, just shrugs and says, “Guess having him spread my legs was far more important than protecting him.”

“Bower,” I say as I go after her before she can leave. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Why are you saying that when you know it’s not true?”

“Isn’t it, though?” she asks, making me step back. “In her eyes, that’s all she’ll see.”

“That’s not true,” I say, but when I turn to look at Gabby, Bower slips out of the apartment without another word, stealing my heart along withher.

There’s no fucking way I’m letting this happen. I’m not going to let her walk away like that. But before I can go after her, there is one thing I have to fix.

I turn around and face my sister, who is looking at me as if I just betrayed her in the worst way I could imagine.

“Bennett, why?”

Wetting my lips and trying to not let my anger get the best of me, I say, “Because I love her. Because I’ve loved her for a long goddamn time. And when she finally saw me as more than her best friend’s little brother, when she saw me as a man who would do anything for her, she let me into her heart. And I took advantage of it, because I refused to let the woman I love go.” I point to my chest. “I took advantage of the situation, Gabby. Not her. I pushed her to be with me, to break your trust, because I’m a selfish prick who didn’t care that she broke a promise with you, despite how much she agonized over it. I didn’t fucking care, because I love her and I wanted her.”

“You don’t—”

“I do,” I say with all the conviction I can muster. “I have from the moment I first met her.”

Gabby rolls her eyes, actually rolls her eyes, and when I say that my sister is the sweetest, most protective human I’ve ever known, I mean that. But to see her like this, dismissing my feelings, it cracks and breaks me. I don’t want to be the man she taught me to be.

“That’s infatuation, Bennett. There’s a difference.”

Taking a step forward, anger brimming from every surface of my body, I say, “Do not fucking tell me what I feel for her is infatuation, because I know the goddamn difference. Infatuation is what you felt for Ryland when you two first started fucking.”