A Matter of Heart (24 page)

In typical Jonah fashion, he
ignores this point entirely. In the coldest, tightest voice he’s ever used to
me, he asks, “Why are you there?”

The anger blooms and twists
until I can barely see straight. “Am I not allowed?”

“Answer the question,
Chloe.”

“Answer
mine.
”

He grates out, “Of course
you’re allowed.”

“Only because your brother
brought me here!”

Kellan’s eyes go saucer
wide, but I hold a finger out to him. Jonah asks, ice-cold, “If it’s convenient
now, please answer my question. Why are you there?”

“To eat.”

“Really.”

The words practically have
to slide out from between my teeth. “Yes, really.”

More silence.

I’m seething now. “How dare
you?”

“That’s funny, coming from
you.”

“Why don’t you just come out
and say it?”

“Say what?”

I nearly crush the phone in
my fingers. “Don’t play coy with me.”

“I’m not the one who’s
playing coy, Chloe.”

IS HE KIDDING ME? “You’re
wondering how the sex was, right?”

Silence. Kellan bolts into a
standing position and takes a few steps back. “Don’t you go anywhere,” I hiss
at him. And then, into the phone, “It was
phenomenal
.”

I
can practically hear Jonah’s head explode across the phone lines, which is
oddly satisfying and gut wrenching at the same time. So I hang up, throw the
phone as far as I can, and scream at the top of my lungs.

Kellan catches up with me as
I storm down the beach. “Where are you going?”

“That way,” I yell, pointing
in a random direction. I’m trying not to blow anything up, but I’ve got pretty
poor control. Splintered shells litter the path behind me.

“Chloe, wait.” He jogs the
last few steps, grabbing hold of my arm gently.

I stop and turn my head, so
he can’t see the tears. “What?”

“Talk to me. What’s going
on?”

“He just assumed,” I choke
out.

“He didn’t—”

“Yes, he did!”

Kellan sighs and I resume my
anger march. He follows in silence. It’s now so dark on the beach that our only
light comes from the moon and stars. The water is black and loud, no longer
magical; the sand quiet against my bare feet. I have no idea where I’m going, I
just know that I need to keep moving or I will fall apart.

At one point I veer left and
storm directly into the water. I keep going until I’m up to my waist. The water
crashes all around me, nearly knocking me off my feet.

“We didn’t do anything,” I
whisper. Like Jonah can hear it. Like it would matter in the long run. I think
back to how he reacted when he’d found out Kellan and I had ended up in a hotel
room bed together, drunk out of our minds. How he’d been blinded by fury so
overwhelming I didn’t know if he’d ever get past it.

But he had. Or so he’d told
me. Maybe not.

Kellan’s grip on my
shoulders keeps me from falling over when a wave threatens my balance. “Do you
mind if I ask something?”

I don’t turn around, but I
shake my head.

“Do you two fight a lot?”

I shake my head again.

He says, “Jonah’s at the
house right now, but I’ve told him that he needs to wait until you come back.”

I
walk out of the water and continue my march in the opposite direction of the
house.

“Why do you think he never
told me?”

Kellan shrugs. “I really
don’t know, C.”

“I tell him everything.” I
don’t need to see Kellan’s face to feel his disbelief, so I correct, “Almost
everything, anyways. I tell him the important stuff.”

“Realty is important?”

I sigh and finally stop
walking. “It just feels like the sort of thing that would be shared, you know?
With—” I can’t say fiancée, so I choose a safer, uncontestable, “one’s
Connection.”

He scrubs at his hair,
sending the longish front pieces haywire. “It’s not that Jonah hides things,
it’s just . . . some things don’t register as important to him, so he doesn’t
think about them. Our properties—”

“Wait,” I say, making a tee
with my hands. “Plural? Properties?”

Kellan bites his lip before
sighing loudly. “We own eight houses, all left to us by Joey when he died.”

“Eight,” I repeat dumbly.
“Where?”

“Maybe this could be a
specific question you can ask Jonah when we get back, one that he can answer
for you.”

I give up and change
direction, back towards the house. “There’s one in Australia,” I call out. “You
went there with Callie before moving to Annar. Am I right?”

He matches my pace. “Yes.”

I kick at the sand in front
of me. “Callie knows these things.”

Kellan
doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t have to. I’ve made my point.

I search around once we’re
back in front of his house, and Kellan knows why, because he hands my cell phone
over. He must’ve found it before chasing after me earlier. “I want to make
something clear before we go in there,” he tells me quietly.

I look up into his face,
dark in the moonlight’s shadows.

“You do not have to defend
me, if the occasion arises. In fact, I’d prefer if you don’t.”

“If he dares to say—”

“I mean it.” And it’s
obvious he does.

The unfairness of the
situation is almost too much. “We didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I know. But right now,
before we go in there, I want you to stop and try to think about this from
Jonah’s point of view. What if you found out that he and Callie came here,
while you were still in Annar?”

“That’s different,” I
insist, but he shakes his head.

“Not really. They’ve both
told you things are over between them, right? But he’d also said that prior to
what happened last year. And something happened, and it was awful, and it tore
you apart. Yet here you are; time has gone by, and there’s been distance, and
look—you’re even friendly with Cal now. But you have to admit, there’d still be
that horrible, nagging feeling that if they were alone again, far away from
you, something could happen. They could swear up and down that it wouldn’t, but
you’d still worry about it anyway. Worse yet, if they came here without letting
you know about it—”

“I don’t have to report back
every single move I make!” My blood boils. “Plus, I left a note!”

“I know that,” he says
gently, “but don’t you think that maybe, when it comes to me, you might have to
at least let him know
some
things?”

My fists clench in and out.
“He talks to you, doesn’t he?”

“It’s different, coming from
me. I’m not the one he’s engaged to be married to.”

“Why are you being so
logical?” I demand, and he smiles sadly, because he knows I finally understand.
And I hate that I do, because it’s true. If the situation was reversed, I’d be
beyond angry and hurt.

“Remember,” Kellan
continues, “Jonah and Callie aren’t Connected like we are. So, his feelings are
absolutely understandable.”

I sigh and bend down to get
my flip-flops. “Fine. Then he can be mad at me all he likes, but I won’t let
him blame you.”

“He
is my twin brother, C. I don’t need anyone defending me when it comes to Jonah.
Not even you. I’ve had nineteen years of knowing how to handle him. And
besides,” he murmurs, “defending me will only make things worse for your case.
If I have to take the hit for this, then so be it.”

A nuclear bomb is set off in
the living room and I swear that people all over the globe are marveling at the
mushroom cloud forming over the tiny island of Kauai. Any previous arguments
I’ve witnessed between these two—granted, mostly held within their heads, but
still!—haven’t prepared me in any way for what’s currently going on. Any traces
of the famously calm Whitecombs have vanished as they launch themselves into a
series of vicious insults, accusations, and opinions I never thought them
capable of.

I can’t even keep any of
their words in my head. It’s just so unbelievably crazy. These two, they are
the most in-control people I know. I am the emotional one. I am the one prone
to losing my shit. Not them, never them.

And yet, here they are,
doing so. And it’s all because of
me.

For gods’ sakes, Chloe, DO
SOMETHING!
Caleb hollers at me. I lurch forward, right in between them and
scream myself, “ENOUGH!”

They both cease yelling,
nearly out of breath; but their eyes are on each other, not me.

“I am going to talk to
my
fiancée right now,” Jonah snarls to his brother, “so get the hell out of here.”

“You better calm down,”
Kellan snarls right back, “or I swear I will grab her right now and leave until
you can get yourself under control. Do you hear me?”

“How dare—”

“I dare,” Kellan hisses,
“because, lest you forget,
I’m
Connected to her, too. And I will not
stand for you doing anything to hurt her.”

Jonah stares at him, shaking
because he’s so angry, but he finally nods, just once. Kellan continues, “I
won’t leave the house, but I will leave the room.” Then he looks at me and
says, “Remember what we talked about,” before stalking to one of the bedrooms.

I turn to Jonah. “I cannot
believe you two were talking to one another like that! Maybe we—”

“What did he mean,” Jonah
grates out, “by
remember what we talked about
?”

“That,” I inform him,
digging my heels in, “was a conversation between me and Kellan, not us and you.
I need you to calm—”

“What did he mean, Chloe?”

I should tell him that his
brother stupidly tried to get me to see things from his point of view, but I
can see the accusations in his eyes, and it enflames me. And since I’m never as
mature as Jonah is, I snap, “Maybe he was reminding me how awesome sex is with
him and how I shouldn’t put up with you screaming at me!”

His eyes narrow so much I
wonder if he can actually see me. “Hilarious.”

“What do you want me to say,
Jonah? You already have your mind made up about my guilt.” Before he can
respond, I plow on, “You had me fooled
.
You did this whole super-mature
bit of
I trust you
and
I love you
and
I may not like it, but I
understand.
You,” I point at him, “are such a LIAR!”

His cheeks are blotchy under
his golden tan. “I am not the one who lied.”

“HOW DID I LIE?”

He takes a huge breath,
still trembling. “You came here—”

“How is that a lie, Jonah? I
left you a note about it, for crying out loud! If I really was plotting to do
all the things you have in your mind with your brother, I wouldn’t have
bothered leaving a note.”

A couple of steps bring him
closer to me. “You knew I wouldn’t see it for hours.”

“It’s not like I could’ve
called. Everyone turns their phones off during Council sessions!”

He pauses, biting his lower
lip. So I keep at it. “And, it wasn’t like I knew about this house here before,
Jonah. Should I remind you that you
were the one who asked him to come
over and take me to lunch? How was I supposed to know that you apparently can
dictate where I am allowed to eat at!”

“Don’t put words in my
mouth, Chloe. This has nothing to do with that!”

But I am way beyond reason
right now, despite Caleb’s attempts to rein me in. “You want to point fingers?
Then let’s point fingers. How about when you and Callie were conveniently
making out in your backyard?”

He blinks at me, clearly
taken aback by the shift in our argument. “What in the hell does that have to
do with this? We—we’re past that, aren’t we?”

Maybe it was true earlier
today, but now it feels very relevant. “You think you can just sit high above
me, on your mighty high horse, judging me when it comes to your brother. But
you are not blameless yourself!”

“That happened over a year
ago.” He’s back to shaking, he’s so angry. “You were practically having sex with
my brother a little over a week ago!”

“WE DID NOT HAVE SEX!” I
scream. “AND YOU KNOW IT!”

“And here,” he seethes, “I
thought it was
phenomenal
.”

I feel like I’m losing my
mind. “I said that, you idiot, because it was what you were expecting to hear!”

“I hate to burst your
bubble,”—he takes a few more steps forward—“but I
never
would want to
hear that.”

“Maybe not, but you were
expecting it. Well, I hate to disappoint, but we did absolutely nothing today
but put our feet in the water and eat fish tacos and snow cones!”

“You mean shave ice.”

I shriek at the top of my
lungs, “THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY?” and promptly burst into tears.