Just Bromantically Invested (Accidental Love #4)

Chapter 17

Madden

“B-bertha, a-a-assemble,” I choke out as soon as I get inside.

I’m in a fucking swirling daze of what-the-fuck-just-happened, not paying any attention as I stumble into the living room and collapse onto the couch. I can still hear Penn’s needy breaths in my ear, still feel him pulsing in my palm.

That was the most incredible moment of my entire life.

Rapidly followed by the worst.

Penn has a girlfriend, and what we did was unforgivable.

I know a lot of people don’t view cheating as a big deal, but to me, it’s the ultimate betrayal. It’s a way of showing you have absolutely no respect for your partner and that you’ll always prioritize your own needs.

I didn’t think Penn was that kind of person. Honestly, I didn’t think I was either.

Lana might not be on my list of favorite people, but it turns my stomach that I did something like that to her. When it comes to Penn, I lose all of my sense, and the second he touched me, I was gone. Brain cells shut down, dick taking the wheel.

It had been amazing.

Until it wasn’t.

I don’t think I’ve ever been cheated on, and my parents are still happily married, but as far as I’m concerned, the one thing a relationship should have is trust. That’s important to me. It’s what I’ve always had with Penn, but knowing he could do what he did and that I didn’t even question it? I’m struggling to figure out who we even are anymore.

Penn has always been so sweet. A loving guy with an easy sense of humor, a tendency to overthink, and an ass I want to bury my face in. Oh, and straight. Can’t forget that one.

What happened was so against all of those things it has me questioning whether I know my best friend at all.

“Was that you wheezing by the front door?” Xander asks from the doorway. “Do I need to get my stethoscope?”

“I wasn’t wheezing. I was … I was …”

He runs his eyes over me. “Seven, bring the whiskey!”

I try to tell him that I don’t need it, but who the hell am I kidding? Xander plonks himself down on my lap and wraps me up in a hug. “You’re wearing clothes. Are you depressed?”

I bury my face into his shoulder. Talking about it means admitting to what I’ve done and confessing that Penn might not be as perfect as I’ve always thought he was. “Just squeeze me, Z.”

He does. As tight as his small frame can manage. There’s a different kind of relief to having this house full of brothers who I can always turn to, and that recent worry about it coming to an end threatens to overtake me again.

After a couple of moments, I pull back. “Where is everyone?”

Xander blinks his sweet, purple eyes at me, then directs them to the door. “I … I thought they were here. Want me to get the whiskey?”

The echoing silence stretches out in a painful way.

For the first time, maybe ever, I feel alone in this house.

“Maybe … maybe I’ll go to bed?”

“Nope.” Xander pulls me in again. “Never go to sleep angry or upset. It’s a rule.”

“You do it all the time.”

“Lies.” He’s playing with my hair, maybe braiding it, and the steady action is calming. “I stew on it until I break at some point during the night and need to make up with them.”

“Hmm …” His hands in my hair feel nice. “I wish you didn’t leave it until 3:00 a.m. when I’m sleeping to do that though.”

“Here’s an idea: don’t upset me in the first place.”

That’s easier said than done. Xander feels more than most people I know, and sometimes the simplest comments are enough to set him off. Upsetting him isn’t something I’d ever do on purpose, and whether it’s 3:00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m., I’ll always be ready to make him feel better. Xander’s special—everyone in the house feels it—and with a list of insecurities as long as my arm, it only makes me want to protect him from the world. The fact he’s sitting around at home, nowhere to be, every detail of his outfit meticulously picked out, proves that. The freckles tattooed over his nose prove that. The purple contacts, the light makeup, the lack of regrowth in his blue hair.

I squeeze Xander like he’s squeezing me, as though I can put him all back together through force.

“The whiskey has eyes,” Rush says, drifting in with the bottle, and my chest gives a violent swoop at his sudden appearance. “Makes me feel borderline guilty to be drinking it. What if it has a name? A family? ”

“Hand it over, then,” I croak. “I’ll be happy to put it out of its misery.”

He passes me the bottle, and I take a long sip, and then Xander does the same. Rush sits on the floor, tossing his phone in his hands.

“Who’s breaking down?” Rush asks, looking between the two of us.

“Me.” I feel defeated even saying that. I’m the calm one in the house. I’m the one who doesn’t overthink, who doesn’t stress since stress is one of the biggest killers and can lead to a whole world of health problems. But right now, I’m stressed and overthinking, and it feels like my heart has been dragged through a shredder.

The front door opens and closes, and Christian pokes his head inside, followed by the heartwarming sight of Gabe. “What’s going on?”

I open my mouth to answer when Gabe spots my clothes.

“Shit, Mads, are you okay?” He sidesteps Christian and takes the spot beside me. With Gabe’s arm around my shoulders, Xander climbs out of my lap and slips in behind me instead. He loves to play with my hair, and I fucking love when he does it all cuddled up behind me, leaving little braids behind.

I’m in too much pain to fully appreciate it though.

Instead of answering Gabe, I swig more whiskey. Whiskey is good. It’ll solve all of my problems. At least until morning, when I’ll have a billion more.

“Where’s Seven?” Christian asks. “Never mind, I’ll go fetch him.”

And within minutes, they’re both back.

Seven walks in and halts in his steps. “Dude, you’re in clothes. What the heck happened?”

And like that, with all my brothers here, with them knowing me way too well, with them following through for me even when I’d given up on that, tears spill onto my cheeks.

“It’s … Penn.”

A collective sigh passes around the room, and then I’m being hugged from all sides. I have no idea who is where, but they just grab whatever of me is within reach and squeeze the effing shit out of me. They make that connection between my head and my gut sing, and even with how terrible everything feels, they’re here. They’re where I need them to be. And maybe with them swamping me in their love, the world isn’t as horrible as it feels.

Seven’s big hands roughly dry my cheeks. “Start again. What’s wrong?”

The last thing I want is to relive it, but we’ve all been here for each other at our worst. If there are a group of people who won’t judge me, it’s them. My brothers are what unconditional love looks like.

“Penn has a girlfriend.”

“No.” Christian squeezes my knee. “I’m so sorry.”

I shake my head as well as I can with Xander’s fingers in my hair. “That’s not … I’m not crying over that. It hurts, but they told me a week ago.”

It’s like I can read the confusion in their minds through the looks they exchange. Maybe if I can get the words out, it will make me feel better.

“I had sex with Penn.”

It doesn’t. If anything, it makes me feel worse. Admitting it rams home the nasty, selfish thing we did and cheapens what should have been the greatest moment of my life. I want to live in the memory of his eyes, the way he begged for me, how his hips canted, seeking more.

It should be a moment I hold on to forever.

Then I think of his girlfriend, completely happy and unaware at home, while Penn fucked around on her. A disgusting thought twists my stomach: Did that even mean anything to him?

Penn isn’t the type of straight man to use his gay friend for a quickie, but I also never thought he’d be the type to cheat either. The defeat makes me want to cry again.

“You had sex …” Rush repeats. “While he has a girlfriend?”

The hurt in his tone reminds me that out of everyone here, Rush is extra sensitive to that. His boyfriend of a year was using him to cheat on his fiancé, and while Rush is in an amazing relationship now, that part really got to him.

“It was … it wasn’t …” Fuck. I have no defense. Nothing. I bury my face in my hands. “They’ve only just started dating, and I … I forgot. I feel terrible.”

I can’t look at Rush, but from the sounds of things, he hasn’t gotten up and left yet. When I’m finally brave enough to look, he’s paled slightly, and his usual energy has dimmed. “Isn’t Penn straight?”

“I thought so.”

“How …” Seven shakes his head. “ How ?”

That’s the part I have no fucking clue about. Everything was normal, and then Penn got all tense, started drinking, and … “I can barely remember. We were there talking, and then his hands were on me, and … It’s what I’ve always wanted. My ultimate fantasy come to life. I’ve never felt as in love as I did in that moment, and I got so carried away. I didn’t think, we didn’t talk, we just … did.”

Xander presses a kiss to my shoulder, and I swallow thickly.

“I’ve fucked everything up.”

Gabe’s knees are bouncing up and down beside me. “Not necessarily. Yeah, it’s a mess, but you can get through this.”

“What about his girlfriend?”

“That part is messed up, but it’s for him to work out. Not you. You’ve been friends for a really long time, you love this guy, and it’s not the same with me and Christian, but if my boy messed up?—”

“I mess up literally always,” Christian cuts in.

“If he messed up in this kind of big-picture way, I’d hear him out. Draw some boundaries and then give him a second chance.”

“It’s not only on him though,” I explain. “I was there too. This is as much my fault as his. I don’t want that. I don’t want to become a different person just because I have feelings for him.”

“Then tell him that.”

Seven’s crouching in front of me and nods along with Gabe’s words. “The boundaries part is important. Nothing can happen while he has a girlfriend. Whether he tells her or not is up to him. All you can do is make sure he knows where you’re at with it all.”

“He’s not using you, is he?” Rush asks in a small voice.

“I don’t know what happened tonight. I don’t know where it came from. The Penn I know would never do that, but what if I don’t know him as well as I thought?”

None of them have answers for me.

We talk it out some more, and then they help me out of my clothes, wrap me tightly in a blanket, and we make it through the bottle of whiskey. Seven and Christian find their way to their rooms at some point through the night, but the rest of us pass out where we’re sitting.

Nothing is fixed, but knowing my brothers are on my side makes me hopeful that it could be.