We took a seat at one of the picnic tables and Cole introduced me to the other people sitting there. I listened to them all chat and laugh, smiling in the appropriate places and hoping I didn’t seem too awkward. I had such little experience socializing, and I felt slightly intimidated by all the people I’d seen before but never spoken with. I scooted closer to Cole, needing the security of a friend, and he pulled me to him as I sipped my drink.
The night wore on and I relaxed a bit, lulled by the music and the happy chatter all around. I’d always liked people watching and there was no better place to do that than at a crowded party. Everyone was at least slightly drunk and uninhibited.
I blinked when I saw Preston enter the barn, my heart flipping once. His eyes scanned the vast space, landing on me, and I was caught for a moment in his gaze, my breath frozen, unable to move. Something seemed to spark between us, as if the twinkle lights overhead brightened for the brief span of a moment, the music fading around me and then resuming in a loud burst of melody as Preston broke the strange contact, looking away.
He walked along one wall, weaving in and out of a few people, and then back toward the door again. The way he moved—and I knew his movements, had watched them all my life—made me realize that his muscles were tensed, and I had the strange idea that he looked like a pacing panther.
Finally, he moved toward a bench and I watched him as he sat down, taking a long drink from the red plastic cup in his hand. He glanced at me again, very quickly then away, and even from where I sat, he looked slightly angry. Was he still mad about the motorcycle? When I thought about it, he’d been angry, or at least tense, two of the three times I’d seen him since he’d been back. Was that about his dad? That would make sense, although I sensed his anger was at me, or with me . I just wished I understood why.
I thought back to the week before when I’d come here, and we’d sat together in the barn. I wanted that intimacy back. I wanted it to be just him and me again and not all these people, all this noise, and the way I felt out of place in the crowd, even with Cole’s warm body next to mine as he chatted and laughed.
I thought, too, about how things were the same now, but also different. All three of us were back in the same town, but we’d all grown up in the last four years. I had been a confused, overwhelmed, longing-filled girl just dipping my toes in the swirling water of romantic relationships when they’d left for college. I didn’t have much more experience now, but I knew myself better, understood the responses of my body. I was never going to love Cole as more than a friend. It was Preston I still loved, and whether or not he felt the same for me, his brother would never— could never—be a substitute.
I hoped Cole had come to the same realization and wouldn’t try to kiss me tonight because I would have to tell him no. We were better as friends. I wouldn’t go so far and tell him the reason. That the white-hot shattering feeling inside me existed for Preston but not for him. And it did no one any good to pretend it was, or to tell the lie that the absence of it didn’t matter. I’d always settled in my life—but now I realized pursuing anything more than friendship with Cole would be exactly that, I couldn’t do it. Not just because of myself, but because of Cole. He deserved a woman who was going to light up every time he entered the room. Not one who was going to look over his shoulder for a glimpse of the man she really wanted.
Yes, I loved two brothers—identical twins—but it was only one soul that spoke to mine. One soul I’d always belonged to.
I glanced at Preston again but didn’t allow my eyes to linger. I wanted to think and each time I looked at him, all my thoughts became jumbled and discombobulated.
The noise rose and fell around me, lulling me into a kind of trance where I could escape into my own head.
If I did make it clear to Cole that I only wanted to be a friend, would there be a chance between Preston and me? My heart raced with the possibility. For a moment, in this very barn, our hands had touched, and I’d thought maybe the attraction between us—that zing of electricity—might be mutual. And thinking back now, with the eyes of a woman, I wondered if maybe it had been there all along, especially that night in the Laundromat when we’d danced and he’d pulled me close. I’d been so uncertain, just a girl, and a girl who was so deeply in love that nothing seemed clear except the steady thumping of my own yearning heart.
Perhaps he’d given his blessing for his brother to pursue me once, but things changed, people changed, hearts opened. Even now, I was sitting across the room with Cole. But what if I got up and went over to Preston? What if I found the courage to help him see me in a different light than he had in the past . . . what if I made it clear that I wished he would? My heart began pounding more quickly in my chest.
The people around me suddenly exploded in laughter and I jumped slightly, coming back to myself and realizing Cole had said something apparently hilarious. I forced myself to pretend I’d heard, laughing along with everyone else.
When I looked back at Preston, he was talking to a redhead who had parked herself right next to him on the bench. He had a smile on his face and she was leaned in, talking closely, presumably to be heard over the noise. Jealousy made my tummy tighten, and I looked away again. I didn’t want to be here now. I had been right to think this might be a mistake. I could pine for Preston as I always had—it was a miserable familiarity—but I couldn’t sit here and watch him with other women, even if they were only talking. I hated it. I focused back in on the conversation around me and managed to listen for a few minutes before tuning out again.