Betrayal: Brianna's Secret (The Betrayal Series) (9 page)

While she felt embarrassed by her appearance, Abby was also glad and relieved to see Brianna looking rested and energized. Brianna radiated inner peace. Her ocean blue eyes were no longer clouded with sadness. That morning they sparkled.

 Abby’s lips curled into the sweetest, most disarming of smiles at the sight of a happier Brianna. The tears that had soaked Brianna’s cheeks the night before were nowhere to be found. With the weight of her dark secret no longer crushing her spirit, even her step seemed lighter. Abby realized she had made a good decision by coming over the night before.

Brianna skipped back to the stove to check on something baking in the oven. “I’m glad you slept well. I slept well too. I’m making breakfast pizza. I hope you’re hungry.”

“Thanks, but I can’t stay for breakfast. I have to get going.”

Brianna pulled a baking tray out of the oven and dumped it on top of the stove before turning around. “Why can’t you stay? Do you have to work today?”

“No. Today is my day off, but I need to get home to shower and take care of a few things.”

Brianna walked back to where Abby was standing. She didn’t want her friend Abby to go yet. Just being around her, seeing her face, made her feel safe, comfortable, content. Brianna wanted to be around Abby for as long as she could. “You can shower here if you want,” she suggested. Images of Abby naked in her shower with water dripping down her face and perfect little body immediately popped in her head, making her breath catch in her throat.

But she remembered she was not supposed to think about Abby that way anymore, so she dismissed the thoughts-or at least tried to.  “Please stay and have breakfast with me. The pizza is already baked. Just take an hour and eat something. I’m sure whatever you need to do at home can wait an hour. Let me feed you. It’s the least I can do for what you did for me last night. Please?”

“Okay,” Abby sighed. She really did not have an excuse not to stay. Besides, the breakfast pizza Brianna had just pulled out of the oven smelled too delicious to pass up.

“Good. Go shower. There are fresh towels in the closet inside the bathroom. You can use my electric toothbrush. There are brand new toothbrush heads in the cabinet above the sink. I will keep the pizza warm until you get back.”

Abby smiled and walked away from the dining room while Brianna went back to the stove. On her way back to the bedroom, Abby stopped in the living room to pick up her bag. She fished her phone out of it and looked at the screen.

Seeing the cracked phone screen reminded Abby that she needed to activate her new phone, the one Brianna had given her, as soon as she got home. Scrolling through her messages, Abby found a few from Kyle. They were all short and sweet and had been sent by Kyle a couple of hours earlier.

Morning Abs.

How’d you sleep?

I miss you.

I love you.

After reading the sweet messages her boyfriend had left her, Abby felt guilty but also confused. She wondered how someone as sweet and loving as Kyle could be so callous and vicious to his own sister.

Abby typed a simple
I love you too
and hit send as she made her way back to Brianna’s bedroom. She sighed, as the message traveled through the airwaves and made it to Kyle’s phone. She did not want to keep the charade up any longer, but she had to keep pretending until he returned to New York.

In the bedroom, Abby sent a few short texts to her parents, brothers and best friend Katie. After seeing how alone Brianna was because her family didn’t want anything to do with her, Abby appreciated her own family even more. She missed her parents dearly and wished she had money to go see them.

Her parents too were dying to visit New York City again and see their daughter, but it was not possible for them to do so. Abby’s father had recently been laid off from his job at a car assembly factory, and money was really tight in the Sloans’ household.

Abby missed her older brothers too. She used to hate how protective her brothers and father were of her. But after learning how Brianna’s father and brother treated Brianna, Abby felt lucky to have men in her life who cared about her so much.

Abby was about to step into the bathroom to take a quick shower when her phone, which was still in her hands, began to buzz. It was a call from Kyle.

“Hey, babe,” Kyle greeted when Abby answered. “Did you just get up?”

“No. Why?”

“You did not reply to my messages right away. I assumed it was because you were asleep.”

“I’ve been up since early. I’ve just been busy and forgot to check my phone for a while,” Abby lied, her voice shaky. Her voice always shook when she was lying or hiding something.

The shakiness in her voice did not go unnoticed by Kyle. He knew her well. It was also unusual for her to go hours without checking her phone. Like just about every person her age, Abby was glued to her smart phone. Suspicion began to creep in Kyle’s thoughts.

With her phone to her ear, Abby walked back to the bed and sat on it. “Where are you? What’s going on there?” She asked Kyle, referring to the voices and the laughter she was hearing in the background.

“I’m home. People have started arriving for the reunion, and everyone wants to see you and say hi to you. Get on Skype right now so we can all see that gorgeous face of yours.”

“Crap” was the first word that popped into Abby’s head. She had to think of another lie and quick. “I can’t. I’m not home right now. I’m at work,” Abby explained in an unusually high pitch as her heart began to pump faster.

“You’re at work? I thought you did not have to work today?”

“I didn’t, but Victoria, the cashier scheduled to work today, called in sick, and Jeremy asked me to cover for her. I’m sorry.” Abby exhaled quietly, surprised at how quickly she came up with that lie and hoping Kyle wouldn’t figure out she was lying.  “Maybe we can Skype tonight?” Abby proposed.

“Sure, honey. Don’t worry about it. We’ll do it tonight.”

“I have to go. I have customers waiting for me.”

“Okay, babe. Go back to work. I’ll talk to you tonight.”

Abby pressed the end call button on her cracked phone screen and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Another lie. Abby considered herself an honest, straight-forward person and did not like how easy the lies were coming out of her mouth lately. Disappointed in herself, Abby stuffed the phone back in her bag and headed to Brianna’s bathroom to take a shower.

Abby looked around the fancy bathroom and wished she had one just like it to relax in after a long day of standing on her feet at work. She had only seen bathrooms like that one in the movies. She couldn’t help but chuckle. Brianna’s bathroom was almost as big as her entire apartment.

After brushing her teeth, Abby pulled her hair in a bun on top of her head and stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t believe she was in the apartment of her boyfriend’s sister, a woman she hadn’t even met two weeks earlier.

Abby reflected over all the unexpected, wonderful and regretful things that had happened over the last two weeks and tried to process all the conflicting emotions she was feeling. All the reflecting and second-guessing was making her head spin.

 She stared at her reflection in the mirror and mentally cursed her bad luck. She was in love with two people but couldn’t be with either one of them. It just didn’t seem fair, but Abby understood that losing Kyle and denying herself the possibility of being happy with Brianna was the price she had to pay for her indiscretion.

Stepping away from the mirror, Abby slipped off her jeans, top, bra and panties and folded them neatly on top of a table. She stepped inside the white marble shower, drew the almost transparent sliding door shut and turned on the water.

The high pressure water felt yummy slamming against her curves. Her shower at home had such a poor flow. She wished she could’ve stayed under that warm water forever, but she remembered Brianna and her pizza were waiting for her in the kitchen. 

After getting out of the shower, Abby dried herself off and put one of Brianna’s ridiculously soft bathrobes on.  The fact that she was not wearing anything under that bathrobe made Abby feel extremely self-conscious, but she had no choice but to be naked under the soft, pink robe. She did not want to wear her dirty underwear after she had just showered.

She stuffed her dirty underwear and bra in her purse and decided to wait until after breakfast to put her jeans and top back on.

When Abby made it back to the dining room, there was a plate full of delicious-looking food waiting for her on the table.

“This smells delicious,” Abby remarked, pulling one of the dining room chairs out and sitting down in front of the plate.

“Thank you,” Brianna replied from the other side of the counter that divided the kitchen from the dining room. She poured freshly brewed coffee into two red mugs and carried them to the dining table. “Breakfast pizza is one of my specialties.”

“What’s in it?” Abby asked, looking at the array of toppings covering the pizza crust.

“Egg, bacon, spinach and cheese toppings. I made the pizza crust from scratch,” Brianna bragged as she sat down in front of the other plate. “Try it.”

“It tastes as delicious as it smells,” Abby gushed after picking up pizza pie from the plate and taking a bite.

“Thank you. Cooking is a little hobby of mine,” Brianna smiled after taking a bite out of her own pizza pie. “I wish I could eat this stuff every day, but I can’t because of all the calories. I love my job, but I hate that I have to deprive myself of so many yummy foods.”

“Well, I’m not a movie star, but I too have to watch what I eat. Stuff like this goes straight to my hips. It’s not pretty,” Abby joked.

“I doubt that,” Brianna replied. “I bet you look gorgeous even with a little bit of extra weight on you.”

Abby chuckled nervously and looked away. Abby wished Brianna would stop saying those things to her. She had made it very clear the night before that they could be friends and nothing more.

Realizing she was making Abby uncomfortable again, Brianna changed the subject. “Listen, Abby, I want to thank you again for coming over last night.” She reached over and placed her hand over Abby’s. “I used to think I was over the things that happened to me, but clearly I wasn’t. Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. And most importantly, thank you for believing me.”

“You’re very welcome, Brianna. I just want you to remember that you are not alone. You can always count on me…as a friend.”

Brianna pulled her hand away. There was that word again: friend. Brianna hated that word but reminded herself that it was either friendship or nothing. She had to accept the fact that friendship was all Abby could offer.

Brianna tried to imagine her life without that kind, gorgeous girl in it, and the thought made her very sad. So she swallowed her feelings and washed them down with a long gulp of her black, sugarless coffee.

“So, how are the rehearsals for the musical going?” Abby asked, taking another bite of her pizza.

Brianna took a sip of her coffee before replying. “They’re going well. We go live in a month. I still can’t believe it is happening. It’s a little nerve wracking.” Dropping her gaze, she paused to play with the handle of her coffee mug. “Actually, it’s more than a little nerve wracking. I’m terrified about the whole thing.”

“Why? What’s terrifying about it?”

“Performing live in a theater full of people, critics and industry people is new to me. I’ve never done stage work. I took some classes on theater acting a few years back, but that’s it.”

“But you’ve done TV and movies?”

“It’s not the same. On a TV or movie set, there is no audience. You can mess up your lines as many times as you want and just do them over and over again until you get it right. In a live theater performance, you only get one shot, and there are a lot of things to worry about. I will be dancing and singing and acting. You have to be perfect every performance. You can’t mess up. Not once. If you mess up, you get crucified in the papers the next day.”

“I had not thought about any of that, but I’m sure you’ll do fine. I’ve seen your work. You are a very talented actress, Brianna. You will knock them dead. I guarantee it.”

Brianna sighed. “You always know what to say to make me feel better, don’t you? Thank you.”

Abby gave her a half smile before taking another bite of her pizza. 

Chapter VII

“Hold on. You got a little something on your lip,” Brianna remarked, pointing at a small piece of bacon that had gotten stuck on the corner of Abby’s mouth. She moved her chair closer to Abby’s and reached to touch her lips. After brushing the piece of bacon off with the pad of her thumb, Brianna couldn’t bring herself to move her fingers away.  She began to stroke Abby’s lower lip with her thumb while watching her reflection in the pretty hazel eyes.

As she felt the softness of Abby’s lip under the pad of her thumb, Brianna began to put together a mental list of all the things she was willing to give up just to get one more taste of those sweet lips. She wanted nothing more than to lean in and take those pouty lips into hers.

She was so lost in the moment, she hadn’t noticed how uncomfortable Abby was getting. She snapped out of it when Abby reached up and gently pushed her hand away.

“I should go. It’s getting late, and I have to get home,” Abby breathed, dropping her gaze to the floor, her eyes shifting from side to side. “Thank you for breakfast,” she mumbled, getting off the chair and picking up her plate. Abby walked over to the sink and dropped her plate inside it.

Gazing out the kitchen’s window, Abby took a deep breath and wondered if it was possible for her and Brianna to have a platonic relationship. The sexual tension between them was impossible to ignore.  Abby was starting to reconsider the whole let’s-be-friends plan when she heard Brianna stand up from her chair and walk towards her.

Standing behind Abby, just inches away from her, Brianna made a decision. She wasn’t going to settle for being Abby’s friend. She wanted more. She wanted everything and was going to do whatever was necessary to make Abby see that they belonged together. She knew she would regret it for the rest of her life if she didn’t at least try.