CHAPTER 4 #3
I’d forgotten what we were talking about in that split second. “Jamie?” I wrenched back, looking into Dalton’s expression, but he wasn’t teasing. No joke. “Jamie?”
“I saw you the other day. In Jefferson. Even before I came up to you at the ice cream shop. Holding hands, laughing together.” Dalton reached up and traced a fingertip down my jaw, but I was too stiff to shiver.
“I get it. He was probably there for you… after everything. But you don’t want him, DD. Not like that. You know you don’t.”
Dalton had seen me with Jamie that day in Jefferson—and thought we were out on a date? He thought Jamie and I were together, the same way the two downstairs had thought we were together.
Dalton was right about one thing—I didn’t want Jamie. Not in the way I wanted him.
But Dalton was right about another thing—Jamie had been there for me after everything. Both he and Nellie had been there, helping me pick up the pieces of my heart I couldn’t bear to gather. Their encouragements still echoed in my mind, and so did the lie I’d told them. I’m so over Dalton Giovanni.
They’d gone through hell with me, and here I was, nearly choosing to make a return trip.
And they were my best friends. Even if I didn’t want them to, they’d follow me down.
With that thought bolstering me, I closed my eyes. “Jamie is better than you.” The knife-like words cut their way out of me, and though painful, I knew they were true. I yanked my hand out of Dalton’s. “He never would’ve treated me the way you did.”
It was then that it all came rushing back in full force—the clear way he’d broken my heart without mercy.
And even if I took him back now, then what? What would happen at the end of the summer?
“I am happy with Jamie.” The urge to cry squeezed my throat, but I forced myself to speak through it. “And more importantly, without you.”
Dalton flinched, as if it were the last thing he’d expected me to say. I could see it then—he’d come back to Addison certain I’d take him back. I watched that certainty melt in his eyes, revealing something more alarmed.
“You’ve got blood on your face,” I bit out, and yanked the door shut between us.
I half expected Dalton to pull it back open, but he didn’t. I stood still for only a moment, swaying as if on a sinking ship, before I turned and ran.
Straight back to the room Jamie was in.
The door shoved in easily, since I hadn’t remembered to lock it behind me and Jamie hadn’t gotten up. He jumped on the bed, book jolting between his hands. He let out a soft curse from being startled, but didn’t have a chance to ask any questions.
“I’m screwed.” I slammed the door shut and threw my back against it, my crushed plastic cup tumbling from my fingertips. “I’m so, so screwed.”
Jamie slid a piece of paper into his book as a mark, clearly reading the distress on my face. “You weren’t even gone five minutes. What happened?”
“Oh, what happened?” A chuckle-slash-scoff combo punched out of me. “I ran into Dalton in the hallway. He told me he made the biggest mistake of his life and asked me to take him back. He leaned into kiss me—”
“Did he?” Jamie dropped his feet over the side of the bed. His shoulders were tense as if braced for a blow. “Did he kiss you?”
“No,” I said. “Because he thinks I’m dating you.”
Everyone thinks I’m dating you.
Jamie, though, didn’t react. Not immediately. Slowly, he pushed to his feet, expression unreadable.
My mind was finally clear enough that I could mentally visualize what Dalton might’ve seen in Jefferson.
Jamie’s hands on my shoulders. His fingers catching mine when I’d nearly crossed the busy road.
When Dalton had asked where Nellie was, Jamie had said, Oh, this is just our adventure today.
I remembered thinking the way he’d phrased it had been strange.
And then, as I’d walked away, Jamie had slid his hand into mine again.
“Did you do it on purpose?” I demanded, stomping toward Jamie. “Were you trying to set a narrative or something stupid?”
“No!” Jamie lifted his shoulders as I came closer. “No, I was just being me.”
I went to smack him, in typical Daisy fashion, but the fight went out of me the second my palm met his chest. “I’m so screwed,” I muttered, eyes slipping closed.
“Because now I have to be honest. I have to tell him, no, actually, you and I are not together, and now he’ll think I was trying to make him jealous.
That my world still revolves around him.
” And I’ll have to admit that… maybe it does.
Jamie stood still, but I could feel his pulse beneath my palm. It thundered fast. “We could always do what Nellie suggested,” he said softly, words stilted as if he was second-guessing them as he spoke. Or regretting them. “And do a… fake relationship.”
“I don’t want to have a fake relationship,” I groaned. “Not with you, not with anyone. I don’t want to make Dalton jealous, or make him leave me alone. I want to—”
I cut myself off, but it’d been too late. My expression was too open, and Jamie could read me like one of his books. “You want to take him back.” There was an undercurrent of something heavy in his voice when he spoke.
I slumped forward, my forehead colliding with the center of Jamie’s chest. He rocked with the movement, but otherwise didn’t move. “I know I’m stupid,” I grumbled into his hoodie, the dark feeling circling closer. “I know it’s a bad idea. I know it. I’d be stupid if I took him back.”
Words I’d kept carefully to myself, finally spoken aloud. I felt dirty speaking them. Horrible. It was an embarrassing confession that should’ve gone with me to my grave.
“What do you want me to do, Daze?” Jamie asked finally, and I could feel his low voice hum through him, vibrating in his chest. It almost sounded desperate. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Tell me you’ll never speak to me again if I take him back.” I tipped my head up to look into Jamie’s eyes. “Tell me you’ll hate me.”
“I could never hate you, Daisy.”
“Then just—help me not be stupid.”
It was wrong to put all the burden on Jamie’s shoulders, but this was Jamie. Just like he’d known what our Day of Fun should be, he’d know how to fix this, too. Jamie, who knew me like the cover of his favorite book, would know exactly what to do.
A soft buzzing sound came then, and Jame reached into his hoodie pocket to pull out his phone. “Nellie just got here,” he said, as if that was the most important thing at the moment. “She’s downstairs.”
“Great.” I thudded my head back against my best friend’s chest. “She can see me one more time before I die of embarrassment.”
“No one’s dying.” Jamie typed something one-handed before slipping his phone into his front pocket. Then he grabbed both of my upper arms, pulling me off him, scanning my expression. The decision was clear in his eyes; he’d made up his mind. “Least of all you.”
Then he reached around me to flick the bedroom light off, leaving only the nightstand lamp on to illuminate the room.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching as Jamie approached the dresser and moved a few of the knickknacks to the sides of it, creating an empty space in the middle. “Redecorating? Right now, while your best friend is mid-spiral?”
Jamie caught my hand and drew me over to him.
He was so tall that I had to crane my neck back.
His eyes were bright, as if the light he’d turned off had soaked up into his brown irises.
For the briefest moment, we both stood staring at each other.
My best friend’s thoughts were closed off, leaving me in the dark.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked him, stiffening.
“I’m looking at you the way I’ve always looked at you.” Jamie drew in a sharp breath, and let it out slowly. “The whole reason you didn’t want to fake date me is because you’re worried about how convincing I’d be, right?”
I winced. “Jamie, I just meant—”
Jamie’s hands closed around my waist.
I hadn’t realized how large his hands were until they were on my body, ten fingers pressing into my hips, steady and shockingly certain.
I jumped at the contact, but before my brain could really wrap around how Jamie was touching me—in a very un-Jamie-like fashion—the floor disappeared beneath my feet.
Jamie lifted me without effort, and in one smooth motion, he slid me on top of the guest room’s dresser.
I grasped his narrow shoulders on instinct, gasping. “What are you doing?”
“I’m being convincing,” he muttered under his breath, nudging my knees just enough to step between them.
He pressed his palms flat to the dresser on either side of my hips, coming close.
So close that when he blinked, I could see his lashes brush the lens of his glasses. “You don’t want me to be Mr. Darcy.”
My head spun. “W-What?”
“I heard what you said to Nellie. That you need a Mr. Darcy type.” Jamie tilted his head ever so slightly. “Except Mr. Darcy was the world’s biggest idiot, too proud to show the woman he loved what he truly felt for her. You don’t want me to be Mr. Darcy.”
The dig at Mr. Darcy almost had me indignant, chasing away some of the shock. “You can’t be Sydney Carton, either.” Quiet and pessimistic would not convince anyone.
“No.” Jamie’s chest rose sharply again, and fell just as slowly as before. A bolstering breath. “I can’t.”
Jamie hooked a lock of hair behind my ear, tucking it over my shoulder, exposing my throat.
A shiver bolted across my skin as my best friend leaned closer, and the next time I inhaled, a warm, soft scent filled my nose.
The same scent that’d been on his pillows when I laid beside him on his bed. His scent. Jamie.
“Don’t go back to him,” Jamie all but whispered. His closeness, his smell, and the way he looked at me now—it all caused something to flip in my stomach. “Don’t take him back. Just let me help you.”