***

I fell asleep sometime after the sun started to come up so when I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing the first thing I did was look on the other side of the bed. All the things from the night before slamming into my head. Shaw was gone. The pile of clothes I left on the floor last night was folded neatly on the end of the bed and none of her pretty little things were left. I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes while answering the call.

“What?” Something crinkled under my hip as I moved while my brother chuckled in my ear.

“Did I interrupt something?”

On a plain piece of sketch paper I had laying around for drawing up designs for clients she had written in her neat, girly scrip:

Best birthday gift ever! Thanks

She didn’t sign it, didn’t say she would call or ask me to call her. It was plain and simple and I wasn’t sure if it made me elated or furious. My brother was still waiting for a response so I shook the cobwebs loose out of my head and sat up in the bed. It smelled like sex and her.

“No I just didn’t sleep good last night.”

“That’s what happens when you bring strangers home with you, you have to make sure you sleep with one eye open so they don’t rob you or stab you while you sleep.”

I groaned. “Dude you need to get out of the Army. Not every stranger is an insurgent.”

He muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch. “Hey I’m gonna come to Denver for the week. My shoulder is acting up and I need to touch base with my Orthopedic surgeon plus mom is getting on my last nerve. Shaw refused to come over for lunch today because mom wouldn’t invite you as well and now she’s convinced you’ve somehow corrupted her darling girl. I keep telling her she needs to see someone and dad even agrees but she’s just so stubborn, I guess that’s where we get it from.”

I winced a little; glad the conversation was happening over the phone. I was sure guilt colored my face. My mom would freak out to extreme levels if she had any clue just how thoroughly I had corrupted Shaw.

“How much longer before you have to go?”

“I have to be medically cleared first and I’m supposed to meet with a VA counselor to make sure there isn’t any PTSD from the accident. I have to have a clean bill of health all the way around before I go back.”

“Well it’ll be nice to finally get a chance to hangout without all the family drama.”

“Yeah, I’ve been calling Shaw all morning so I can take her out to dinner or something for her birthday. I’m sure her moronic parents didn’t do anything again and I hate the idea that she probably had to spend it alone. You should get off your lazy ass and come with us if I get ahold of her.”

I started to choke a little. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that she most definitely hadn’t been alone but this was Shaw and as close I was to Rome he didn’t need to know what we had been doing in this room last night.

“Naw, I think she’s had enough of me. I ran into her a few weeks ago and I see her around here and there. I think it’s a nice break for her not to have to deal with me every weekend.”

He laughed a little. “You’re probably right. I’m gonna crash with my buddy Drew since I don’t think the shoulder is up to sleeping on your shitty couch and he has the room but I’ll hit you up when I roll into town. If I can’t get in touch with Shaw you and I can go grab dinner somewhere and you can disgust me with all the tales of your latest conquests.”

I rubbed a hand over my tired face and shoved Shaw’s note into the nightstand. I could still feel her hands moving all over me.

“You need to get off your butt and start pulling some conquests of your own. You’re a hero dude, chicks eat that stuff up.”

“I’m not like you Rule; I’m not twenty two and living life by the seat of my pants. I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer, in the last four years I’ve buried more friends than I’ve made, I get out of the Army in less than two years and I don’t know what the future holds for me so nailing every pretty girl in my path is pretty low on my priority ladder. Right now I want to get healthy, get our family back together and finish this tour up without any more dead bodies. One day you’ll understand.”

He wasn’t wrong. My priorities were very different from his. I made good money, had a ton of savings, drove a nice car but I was viscerally aware that the majority of my time was spent trying to outlive the shadow of my dead twin. I wallowed in superficial relationships so no one could get close to me, no one could judge me and find me lacking. I sought out girls that were easy, that had zero expectation beyond what I offered, a good time and a few mindless minutes of release but I had never had a girlfriend, never let anyone all the way in because I was scared I wouldn’t be enough once they got down to the core of who I was. I knew it was messed up, knew I was an emotional train wreak and the thing with Shaw was just bound to make it even worse.

“Whatever. A good time never killed anyone. Call me later.”

I tossed the phone on the bed and went into the bathroom to take care of business. When I went into the living room Nash was sprawled on the couch watching the early game on the flat screen. He had a mug of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other.

“Morning.”

He flicked his gaze up to me. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Did you see Shaw this morning?”

He nodded and held up the doughnut. “She left these. So what’s the deal with that? She was in the kitchen this morning so I assumed she stayed the night with you. I thought you were going to put her in a cab.”

“Where did the roommate end up?” I tried to change the subject as I got my own coffee.

“I offered to bring her back here to wait for Shaw but she was having a good time so we had a few more drinks then I called her a cab. She seemed to think it was a brilliant idea that her very intoxicated friend was going home with you, why is that?”

I grunted and sank down on the couch next to him.

“I dunno. Shaw and I have all kinds of twisted history, who knows?”

“But she spent the night with you?”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m assuming because I’ve known you since forever that you didn’t spend the night discussing politics and watching TV?”

I glowered over at him. “No.”

He shook his head and made a tisk, tisk sound. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, clearly.”

“Dude, she’s not one of those girls. You can’t just have me escort her out in the morning and never talk to her again.”

“Hey I woke up alone this morning. I didn’t make her go anywhere.”

“But you would’ve and Shaw is way to classy and smart to do a walk of shame. Man I can’t believe you hooked up with your brother’s girl. You really do have some problems, that’s a whole mess I wouldn’t even jump into no matter how hot the girl was.”

I made a strangled noise and reached forward to put my elbows on my knees. “Let’s just say I don’t think there is any real reason to worry about tarnishing Remy’s memory. I don’t know what was going on between those two for all those years but after last night there is undeniable proof that they weren’t sleeping together.”

Nash swore and his eyes got wide. “She was a virgin?”

I nodded. I probably shouldn’t be sharing all this with Nash, but I was confused and he was my best friend. I was in over my head.

“She was a virgin and gave it up to you, holy shit bro that’s like a huge deal.”

I sighed. “That’s what I thought but then she was gone when I woke up and she was pretty trashed last night so maybe it was just beer goggles and too many martinis making the choices for her.”

“She seemed fine this morning, I mean she looked hung over and pretty obviously worked over but she wasn’t nervous or weird or anything. She called Ayden for a ride and ran out for breakfast while she waited. I dunno man, she didn’t seem all swoony in love or stalker pissed off, she just seemed like normal Shaw. Granted I always thought she kinda had a thing for you.”

I turned to him with a look of bewilderment. “What?”

“She puts up with your shit no matter how bad it is. Don’t you remember that one New Year’s she showed up to get you and you brought home the redhead and her friend? That was a freak show and Shaw didn’t even blink she just tossed you your pants and told you to get it together. She lets you be all moody, surly and grumpy and doesn’t even bat an eye and trust me dude that shit gets old super-fast. She’s willing to go to battle with the only parents she’s known to show her any love because she wants them to treat you right and quit blaming you for Remy’s death, she isn’t doing any of that for Margot or Dale, and she sure ain’t doing it for Remy, the only person any of that benefits is you. Even as stubborn and self-involved as you are, you have to be able to see that.”

“But she’s Shaw. Perfect, Shaw. Even when she was little she was untouchable and aloof. She would be over at the house all the time with Remy and every time I said anything or did anything she would just look at me like I was an idiot.”

He snorted. “You were an idiot. You don’t remember being sixteen? We were nightmare and never very nice to her. You made fun of her hair, teased Remy mercilessly about spending all his time with her, you were an ass.”

“I was?”

“Dude, you still totally are. And Shaw is Shaw. She’s so freaking beautiful it hurts look at her sometimes, but she doesn’t even know it. She’s still untouchable because she’s always going to be richer and smarter than we are, but she doesn’t care about any of that. She’s cool, she doesn’t care that you’re just you, and honestly Rule, any chick that can put up with the headache that is you, well I’d put a goddamn diamond on her finger.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “I’m not that bad.”

He gave me a look. “Yeah you are. Think about it, it only took seeing her dressed as a sexy referee to get you to notice she was an actual girl after all this time. You suck.”

“But man oh man did she look good in that outfit.”

“See, total suckage. So what are you going to do now, call her?”

“I don’t know. Rome is coming to town and since I like my privates located where they are I need to keep it on the low down. I don’t think she’ll say anything to him.”

“Probably not, she knows it would drive your crazy mom right over the edge.”

“Yeah.”

“So,” he paused and gave me a pointed look. “Was it worth screwing everything up?”

I let my head fall back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “It so totally was.”

I had had the best sex of my life with a girl that I had thought was way out of my league and in love with my dead brother, yeah Nash was probably right if anybody could put up with all the crazy I was rocking I should probably lock them in quick because even I could see how seriously screwed up what I had allowed to happen last night had been.