"I'm getting married," she says, and she smiles, but it's practiced and stiff and he sees right through her.
He forces a smile on his face and congratulates her before excusing himself and escaping out the back door. Far away from the squeals of excitement and pats on her new fiancée's back.
He grimaces and suddenly he's seventeen again and guilt is flooding his veins because she's making him feel things step siblings aren't allowed to make each other feel.
He feels nauseated and he doesn't try to stop the sick from covering the ground and his shoes. He breathes hard and spits out the aftertaste.
Jake Martin has never been one for dramatics so he smiles at the right times and laughs at her husband-to-be's jokes. To anyone not looking too hard he's happy for her.
Lucky for him all eyes are on Clare and her white dress.
He watches from his bench in the back of the church and he wants to hate her, but he can't so he just hates himself for letting her make him feel this way.
He hates himself and he loves her and that's how it's always been because it's easier this way.
It's too hard to look into her big, blue eyes and deny that he loves her, but he does anyway and he always has.
He doesn't love her no matter how many shades of red he was able to make her cheeks turn when their world was four walls wide and empty.
He doesn't love her no matter how many different colors he's counted in the pools of her eyes.
He doesn't love her no matter how much he wants to stand up and shout he does when the preacher calls for someone to give reason.
He forever holds his peace instead.
He smiles and claps like everyone else and no one notices he's faking it because they're still looking at her and her white dress.
He skips the reception, but he's joined by his friends Jack and Coke back at his hotel room and things seem fine because he's numb now.
Then he's woken up by a knock on the door.
She's standing there, all nerves and beauty and he invites her in.
He reminds himself again that he's not one for dramatics, but he kisses her anyway.
He kisses her even though she should be in her room with her new husband and he should be half-wasted and inside someone else.
She tastes like chocolate and strawberries when he kisses her and he wishes he was the man she shared cheesy, romantic desserts with.
She pulls away and his stomach lurches because he's terrified she's going to run out, ashamed and embarrassed.
"I need you to tell me to stop," she says, but her breathing is short and stuttered and he knows she's torn between going back to her husband and staying with him.
So, he does.
He tells her to stop over and over again as his lips ghost over every inch of her skin. He whispers it in her ear as he takes the lobe softly in between his teeth and again when he sucks gently on the exact point of her neck that always leaves her squirming. He spells it out with his tongue on the soft, sensitive bud between her legs.
He tells her to stop over and over, but she doesn't and he doesn't and they don't.
This isn't what he imagined sex with Clare to be like.
It's not soft and planned like he figured it would be. There aren't candles burning or nervous, shaking hands.
It's rough and sloppy and more passionate than he expected and it's on the night of her wedding to another man.
He feels guilty and better all at once and it's confusing, but she's here with him and that's all that's ever really mattered.
He falls asleep with her bare skin pressed against his and the empty feeling in his chest momentarily filled.
The next morning she's still wrapped in his arms with her legs tangled in his and he wants to smile, but he can't because he knows as soon as she wakes up she's going to realize how much she regrets last night. He moves as quietly as he can and jostles her as little as possible as he shifts onto his elbows to get a better look at her.
He pushes the soft, red-brown curls from her face and holds one gently between his fingers. He admires the way it catches the sunlight just right and turns a color he's only seen in those rare moments she doesn't know he's watching when she's sitting by the window and wrapped up in a book.
Her eyes open slowly, but before she can take in her surroundings completely she smiles.
He savors that moment.
Then she's gone and he's alone again with Jack and Coke and they seem like dependable companions anyway.
He doesn't run after her or beg her to leave her husband.
Instead he pretends to be fine when she doesn't look at him the rest of the weekend.
Jake Martin has never been one for dramatics, but he's a hell of an actor.