Keeping Secrets in Seattle - By Brooke Moss Page 0,69

stop trying to dig up dirt on Alicia. I appreciate your concern. I know that you’re doing this because you care about me. I get it.”

“Just let me finish—” I reached for him, but he ducked away.

His face was stoic. “You will always be my best friend.”

“I-I…” I closed my mouth and held my breath. I’d just been rejected at point-blank range. He just looked me dead in the eye and told me that he chose Alicia over me. And worse yet, I still hadn’t told him my secret about Cameron.

Anger churned in my belly like the rolling waves of Puget Sound, tossing and turning like there was a storm brewing inside of me. My natural reaction in any other circumstance would have been to open my mouth and unleash the fury of Violet Murphy on him. Under any other circumstances, and with any other man in the world, that would have been exactly what I’d done.

If Gabe was willing to flush his life down the toilet for a marriage based on lies, was I really comfortable with sacrificing our friendship to try to save him? I pressed a hand to my aching chest. The dull, silent pain I’d gotten so used to when we were sixteen years old had returned.

I locked my jaw in place and stood at my full height. “Your decision has obviously been made.”

He released a long breath through his clenched teeth. “I hope you’ll still be my best man.”

I put up a hand to stop him. If he explained how much he loved Alicia, I was going to throw up. “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way.”

Gabe ran his hand arm, and I shuddered. “I’m so sorry, Vi.”

This time it was me who ducked away from the contact. “Don’t. I have to go.”

He looked at me intensely, his mouth turning downward. “I wish…” Gabe’s voice petered out, fading into the sound of the nearby crowd.

“You wish what?” I pressed a hand to my roiling stomach.

“I wish things had worked out differently between us.”

“Well, it didn’t, did it?”

I took off for the front of the building. I needed to find Kim and Betsy so we could get the hell out of there. The ache inside was ripping me open, and I was afraid that my soul was going to spill out all over the sidewalk, tearing open the scars that had slowly healed over the last nine years. I wondered how many times I was going to be able to withstand my heart being broken because of Gabe Parker before it stopped beating altogether.

“There you are,” Betsy called over the roar of the crowd. She and Kim came weaving through the clump of people. “You missed the whole first half.”

“It was beautiful.” Kim sucked on a cigarette. “Are you better? Did you get it all out of your system?” She blew a long plume of smoke out of the side of her mouth.

“You’re coming back in now, right?” Betsy applied a fresh coat of lip gloss.

“Do you want me to run to the pharmacy for some Pepto?” Kim reached up to smooth down my hair, which had been mussed by Gabe’s fingers just a few minutes before. “Good grief, what happened to your hair?”

At that moment, Gabe emerged from around the corner, his hands back in his pockets, and his face pointed down. Nodding curtly at my roommates, he stalked past us, ducked into the building, and was submerged in the crowds of people.

Kim’s mouth dropped open. “Gabe is here?”

I nodded pitifully.

She frowned at me. “Were you two talking just now?”

I cringed. “Yes.”

Her eyebrows pulled down low on her forehead. “Oh geez, is that why you brought us here?”

Betsy scowled. “No way, Vi. Really?”

I felt moronic. “You guys, I am so incredibly sorry. I thought this was the only way to get him to listen to me, and I didn’t want to come by myself, in case…” I covered my face. “In case this happened.”

Kim groaned. “Did you two get into an argument?”

“Yes.”

She tapped her toe on the pavement. “Did he even listen to anything you had to say?”

“No,” I said dully.

“Well, that’s Gabe Parker for you.”

Betsy sighed. “I hope you learned your lesson.”

Wiping at the sweat on my forehead, I tried to level my voice. “I…I guess I did. Do we have to finish this thing? Can we get out of here now?”

“Aww, come on,” Betsy whined.

Kim looked at me closely. “What else is wrong?”

Another flash of Cameron walking up the stairs, buckling