A Matter of Heart (38 page)

I go to whisper another
apology, but he says, “I’m glad you two were able to hang out since I’ve been
gone. I hope you’re not mad I told him about the fight with your mom. I’ve been
worried about you being alone.” He pauses, and I flounder once more over what
to say. “I figure if I can’t be there for you, he should be.”

I close my eyes and let the
guilt soak me. Because that must have killed Jonah to say to me, especially
with him being on an entirely different plane and all.

“Your parents are fools for
what they’ve done. I truly believe someday they’ll regret this bitterly, and it
won’t be because I made them feel it. In the meantime—I know I keep saying
this, but—please remember I love you more than anything, and . . . Kellan loves
you, too.
We’re
your family and always will be.”

A flood of tears threatens
to fill the entire apartment.

“Don’t go crying.” Jonah
knows me too well. “Because I really was just buttering you up so you won’t be
pissed off about what I’ve got to say next.”

He knows. Oh gods, he must
know.

But he doesn’t. “We have to
move to another area to complete the mission. I’m not sure when I’ll actually
be coming home now. It’s so depressing, Chloe. But I guess I’ve done a fairly
good job, because the rebels are really riled up and are marching against the
Capital today. It’s just . . . awful. I . . . I hate this so much.”

It breaks my heart to hear
him struggle. “I’m so sorry,” I choke out. “I wish I could be there, too.”

I’m trying not to look at
him while I talk to Jonah, but I can’t help but catch the look of pain on
Kellan’s face at this.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’d
hate it out here. It’s pouring nonstop, just like you warned me it would.” He
pauses for a moment and I literally feel like I’m about to fall to pieces from
the guilt. Static hisses in the space where my confessions ought to be. “I’ve
been thinking . . . since the mission’s been extended, I think you should get
Kel to take you somewhere. Away from Annar and your parents. Just—go lay on a
beach and relax.”

I cannot have heard what I
think I just did. “What?”

“I can’t stand the thought
of you being alone after everything that happened. Go pack a bag and tell Kel
to take you to one of our houses. Whichever one you want.”

“You want . . . your brother
to take me . . . on a trip?” I manage to get out.

Kellan leans up on his
elbows, shocked.

“Don’t worry, I won’t freak
out like when you two went to Hawaii. There’ll be no accusations of you two
having sex or anything.” Jonah laughs, like this is, in itself, utterly
ludicrous.

OH MY GODS. “I—”

“I’ll come and meet you two
wherever you end up, because by that point, I’m sure I’ll need a vacation, too.
And he and I haven’t gone surfing together in forever, so it’ll be win-win for
everyone involved.”

I’m surely going to hell in
a hand basket. “You’re serious?”

“Absolutely. And Chloe,
please know that I miss you so much. It’s like my heart’s been taken out, being
away from you when you’re hurting.”

I’m full on crying now, no
long able to hold the tears back. I want to tell him I’m sorry for so many
things, that I miss him, too, but I can’t actually say anything. I can only sob
into the phone.

This, of course, alarms
Jonah to no end. “Oh, honey—I didn’t mean . . . don’t cry, please.” Someone talks
to him in the background, and I know he has to go. “Damn,” he mutters. “We need
to leave; we’re hiking into a remote region and it’ll take all day to get
there. I’m told there’s no cell service there, which sucks. I’ll keep trying to
call, though. Let me talk to Kellan one more time, okay?” But before I manage
to pass the phone to the person I spent all night kissing, my fiancé has
something else to add. “Chloe, I love you more than anything.”

I babble incoherently and
end up tossing the phone at Kellan. Then I roll off him and the couch and run
straight into the bathroom so I can wash my face and possibly my senses.

It doesn’t help.

I end up on the floor, the
tile cool against my skin. I’m shaking all over, barely keeping my head above
the flooding anxiety, and nothing my mother has said,
nothing,
could be
as bad as what’s happening here.

I can’t wrap my mind around
how easy it was to deceive Jonah like that. Kellan and I lied to him, even
though technically the words we said were all true. We let him think everything
is great, and that we’re the best of friends, hanging out, and he believed it
because he believes in us.

He trusts us.

He wants his brother to take
me away to what will be no doubt some absurdly romantic tropical spot, and he
trusts us to do nothing but hang out and be friends
.
And then he wants
to come to join us, the two people he loves and trusts most in all the worlds.

I
just lied to the most important person in my life.

When I finally muster the
courage to go back out into the living room, I find Kellan sitting in one of
the chairs, head lowered as he studies his phone.

Without looking up, he says
quietly, “This sucks.”

Does it ever.

“I blocked him last night,
the moment I went into the kitchen to talk to you.” He sets the phone down. “Not
because I planned on something happening between us, but because I knew I
wanted to discuss things I didn’t want to stress him over. But then, when
something did happen, I kept blocking him.”

I bite my lip. Nod.

“When we decided to try to
be in each other’s lives again,” he says, his cuff twisting over and over
again, “I made a conscious effort to never block my brother when it came to
you. Because I wanted to show him I have nothing to hide.” He tugs at the
bracelet so hard I worry it might snap. “I’m so fucking selfish, it’s
disgusting.”

I’m no Emotional, but I can
feel the guilt in him all the way across the room. He doesn’t deserve to carry
that burden alone. The truth is, “I’m the selfish one, Kellan.”

I’m the cheater. I’ve never
been more disgusted with myself.

He laughs, but there is no
humor. “He wants me to take you somewhere.”

I don’t say anything.

“Is it wrong that I want to
do it?”

I should tell him yes.
Explain that what happened was a mistake, that it can’t happen again. Ask him
to leave.

He stands up and slowly
makes his way over to me, like he’s giving me every opportunity to bolt in the
opposite direction. And yet, the pull between us is so overwhelming that both
our bodies shift towards one another.

He doesn’t ask me if I want
to go, too. He just looks at me, hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes seeing
all the way down into my soul. And so help me, I decide to go.

Kellan’s apartment is
enormous, beautiful—like something straight out of a design magazine.
Everything in it is tasteful and understated, from the furniture to the art
hanging on the walls. You’d never guess that a nineteen-year-old male lives in
here.

I’m afraid to set my bag on
the highly polished hardwood floors in fear of scratching them. I must hesitate
too long, because Kellan takes it from me and tosses it on a couch that looks
like it costs more than a new car. “I feel like you’re a total stranger,” I
accuse as I look around.

He flushes, tugs on his
collar. “This is all Callie.”

I raise an eyebrow. “She did
this?”

He rocks back on his heels
and nods.

In a kitchen that would make
a chef weep in envy, I ask incredulously, “Do you even use this?”

“Well,” he says, “I use the
coffee pot. And the tea kettle. And sometimes the microwave.”

I’m bewildered. “Your
place,”—I gesture around us—“is . . . I don’t even know how to put it. It’s
like an adult’s home.”

His smile is crooked. “Funny
that. I just so happen to
be
an adult.”

I roll my eyes. “This looks
like it belongs to some swank stockbroker in Manhattan. Not some . . .”

“Slacker surfer dude?” he
supplies slyly. “Since we’re doing alliterations and all.”

I plant my hands on my hips.
“You know what I mean!”

My tour ends in his bedroom
so he can pack a bag for our trip. I lounge in an oversized yet comfy chair
near his bed, watching him go through his drawers, attempting to shove my guilt
down deep because if I don’t, I just might not be able to breathe. “I can’t get
over how nice your place is. You must feel like you’re slumming when you come
to visit me.”

“It’s practically the ghetto,”
he says, straight-faced. I crack a smile. “Remember, Cal did all the work. I
merely approved color schemes and signed for the bills.”

“You mean—wait. Callie
didn’t buy all the extra stuff here?”

He’s confused. “She and
Astrid are loaded, but I’m not going to let them spend that kind of money on an
apartment for me.”

“You’re renting, right?”

He doesn’t meet my eyes.
“No, I bought it. It’s mine.”

“You . . .
bought
it?”

He sighs deeply and comes to
sit on the ottoman in front of me. “Let me guess—this is another one of those
things that Jonah hasn’t told you about, right?”

“Told me what? That you
bought an apartment?”

He runs his hands through
his hair. “Jonah and I are fairly well off.”

The data doesn’t compute.
“Well off?”

He’s annoyed, but not at me.
“Gods, Jonah,” he mutters under his breath. Louder, he says, “We’re wealthy. I
thought maybe you’d guessed that, what with us owning a ton of property and
all.”

To say I’m shell-shocked
would be an understatement. “But you guys inherited those!”

“Well, yeah, that’s true.
But we also inherited quite a bit of money from both our mother and Joey. And
now that his wife Hannah’s gone, we got everything from her, too.” He scratches
his neck. “Haven’t you noticed that Jonah pays for everything when you two go out?”

“I thought he was just being
old-fashioned.” This is a joke, right?

“That too.”

None of this seems to match
what I know about him. About them. “But, Jonah lives in a shoebox!”

“He wanted to live next to
you, and that’s where you could afford.” When I simply blink at him in
response, he adds quietly, “The plan is to get a bigger place after the
wedding, right?”

Awkwardness explodes around
us. I don’t bother to answer. Instead, I think about what he’s just told me,
and how it’s incredibly difficult to wrap my mind around, despite the evidence
in front of me.

“Give me a number,” I
demand.

“Huh?”

“I mean, here’s yet another
secret! How much is he worth? Do I look like a pauper next to him?”

“That’s a question for him,
not me.”

Sometimes, my insensitivity
is a royal pain in the ass. “I’m sorry—”

“I don’t really know too
much about Jonah’s finances, so I can’t tell you what you want to know.” He
takes my hand, plays with my fingers. Touches the ring that symbolizes my
relationship with his brother. Then he sighs and lets go. “But I think I can
say he currently has more than me, considering I bought this place and
everything in it.” His cuff twists around and around.

“I didn’t mean to be so
nosy,” I say.

“No. It’s fine. It’s just—we
were sort of raised to never talk about money, so it’s . . .”

“It’s okay,” I say quickly.
“I don’t need to know—”

“No,” he says again. “You
can always ask me anything. But, if it’s okay, let me only answer questions
about myself.”

This I can do, despite my
raging curiosity why Jonah failed to ever tell me any of this. So I ask Kellan
instead about his finances, not so much because I care about amounts, but more
because this was yet another facet to him, and Jonah, that I never knew about.
Which is humbling, considering I thought I knew them better than anyone.