Page 91 of See You Again

Inhale. Exhale.

Luke’s eyes were wide, concern written all over his face. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” James snapped. But he wasn’t. The words from the night before crashed over him. Cami’s. Justin’s. The realization of what he’d lost. The night that followed.

What the fuck did it all mean? A vise clamped around his lungs, and his pulse pounded in his ears.

He’d made a mistake. A massive mistake that had changed his life.

Luke was on his feet, coming to his side. “Fuck. Breathe.”

James dragged a painful breath into his lungs. “She’s why I joined the Navy,” he managed through his teeth.

“What?”

“That day. She’s why.”

Luke recoiled. “What the fuck are you talking about? You said you needed a change. That you wanted to make your own path.”

James wheezed a laugh. Now that the words were out, his chest loosened a little. Like a bit of the poison that had been swirling there for a decade was finally gone.

“That’s true, too. But the catalyst?” He breathed past the raw pain in his chest. “I loved her.”

Luke watched him warily. “I know. You wouldn’t admit it, but it was obvious.”

“Yeah, well, it was news to me. I’d never been in love before. I recognized what it was too late.”

Luke nodded.

James was glad his brother didn’t offer any words of sympathy. If he had, James knew he wouldn’t have been able to say anything else. To his surprise, it was a relief to share what had really happened all those years ago with his brother.

“We were friends—Justin and I. Actually, he was a friend of both of us. Or, at least he was in a study group with us… I should have seen it. I missed it.” James’s eyes narrowed.

Luke leaned his hip against the end of James’s desk. “Missed what?”

“That he was in love with her, too.”

Luke let out a long stream of air. “That’s what last night was?”

“Yeah.”

“But how does the Navy fit in?”

“The Regents Gala, senior year. One of our command performances as a Bloom.”

“I remember. It was a fucking disaster.”

James’s lips twitched. “You got drunk, took the mic from the bandleader, and tried to start karaoke.”

“I’m an excellent singer. And Sweet Caroline is a classic,” Luke said lightly, but his eyes were worried.

James took a deep breath, willing his lungs to fully expand. For such a cataclysmic event in his life, it took less than three minutes to relate how Justin had lied to both him and Cami and David Bloom’s role in it.

James lifted his eyes to his brother’s pale face. If anyone could understand his knee jerk reaction, it was his brother. Luke had been the target of as many gold diggers and social climbers as he had.

“James.” Luke was appalled. “I didn’t even know her. I never would have?—”

“I know that now. But at the time….” He shrugged. “It seemed to fit the pattern of our lives. You were the fun one. The one everyone wanted to be around. I’m the boring Bloom twin. The one you could always count on to do the right thing.”