11. Bridget
11
brIDGET
“ D arlin’,” Chase soothed as he practically pulled me into his lap. “Is that why you ran from me at the bar?”
All I could do was nod. I couldn’t vocalize the vile things that had floated through my mind that night.
“We’re gonna get through this,” he murmured. “Healing is hard, but it’s not gonna last forever.” Damn him for smelling so good while reassuring me. It was a potent combination. “And we’re gonna talk about us,” he said as he slipped his fingers between mine, holding my hand.
“I’m not worth the effort, Chase,” I said, pushing away from him. I couldn’t pull him down into my darkness. I’d never forgive myself if I did. “You need to realize that sooner rather than later and move on.”
“No.”
I whipped my head around to look at him. Fuck.
My skull pounded in pain. “What do you mean no ?”
With the gentlest touch, he threaded his fingers into my hair and cradled the back of my head. It was a powerful placebo that dissolved the pain.
Then again, was a placebo really a placebo if it worked?
“I mean, no . I’m not moving on. You and I are meant to be. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. I have no problem waiting a little longer. So, you take all the time you need.” He leaned forward. The stubble on his square jaw grazed my forehead as he pressed a kiss to my skin. Every nerve ending in my body fired at once.
Was it possible to orgasm from a forehead kiss?
“I’m just a novelty to you,” I said as I swallowed down the desire to crawl into his arms and replaced it with stubborn resolve. “You like the chase. Wanting what you can’t have.”
“Bee—”
“You know it’s true,” I clipped. “You get off on it. I do too. Maybe we’re both messed up.”
His jaw flared, and I knew I struck a nerve. “You almost married someone else, Bridget.” He looked away, swiping the pad of his thumb across his lip. “All the shit with Mel and Kris aside, I told you out on the beach that I would be good to you. That I wanted a chance.”
“I’m not a game to be played. You don’t just get a turn because you waited in line.”
“I’m not the next man in line. I’m the last man.” Chase cupped my cheek, turning my head, so I was forced to look at him. “If all this has been one-sided, I need you to look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t have feelings for me. I know you’re going through hell right now. I will wait for you as long as it takes. But I need to know that someday you want this. Us.” He rested his forehead on mine. Our noses bumped, and his lips were just a breath away.
It would be so easy to… Just… Let… Myself …
“I will never stop loving you,” he rasped. “There has never been a time when I haven’t wanted you. And it fuckin’ hurts.”
“Don’t get it twisted,” I said, turning away, so his forehead was resting on my temple. “I’ve wanted you just as long. Not letting myself be with you hurt just as much for me as it did for you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I…” The words died on my lips.
I couldn’t say it back to him. I couldn’t let myself be that vulnerable again.
I had been ripped open, splayed for all to see. Everyone had commentary on why I stayed. Why I didn’t leave sooner. Why I didn’t tell more people what was going on.
But that was neither here nor there.
I wasn’t a statistic. I was a person with complex feelings. Someone who had been forced to make life-or-death decisions.
“I’m saying that I’m not ready to jump into a relationship, Chase,” I clipped, rising to my feet.
Luna trotted over and sat in front of me, wagging her tail and waiting for a treat.
“I’m not pushing you into one,” Chase said, standing up.
“You told me you loved me the moment I woke up in the hospital and didn’t have a fucking clue where I was,” I shouted. “You’ve been steamrolling me into a relationship from the second I became available. ”
“My love isn’t dependent on a label. I don’t care if you’re my best friend, my girlfriend, or my wife—which, to be clear, I want. And I’m giving you time to wrap your head around it.”
“I just left a monster who kept me in a pretty cage. Maybe you can wrap your head around the fact that I don’t want to be with someone who makes decisions for me,” I shouted. “If I ever date again, I want to be with someone who treats me as an equal. Not someone I owe a debt of gratitude to. Which, to be clear , I will never pay off. You’ve been my best friend for a long time. You loved me in a way I never deserved.”
I turned to walk to the cottage. I couldn’t have this conversation anymore.
“It’s time you take the rose-colored glasses off and see me for what I really am: someone who isn’t worth your time.”
Strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. His lips scraped the shell of my ear, sending a rush of shivers down my spine. “No one’s keeping score, darlin’. I love you because I do. No tally marks. No chips. No tabs.”
Slowly, he turned me and pulled me into his chest. The dress had burned to ashes, and only embers remained. Good fucking riddance .
“If you don’t hear anything else, hear this: I’m walking away, but I’m not giving up on you.”
He leaned down and dotted the crook of my neck with a kiss.
Butterflies stirred inside me, but it didn’t last.
My flight-or-flight instincts kicked in when the sensation reminded me of hands on my neck. I jerked away, stumbling a few feet through the grass.
His jaw flared and the hurt in his eyes was obvious.
He choked it down and nodded. “I love you, darlin’. Don’t ever doubt it. You’re it for me. I’ll be here for you, for whatever you need. I will give you anything you want. Unconditionally. So, if it’s space that you really want , then congratulations. You got it.” He started to walk backward toward his house, never taking his eyes off me as I stood still as a statue. “I’ll leave the porch light on. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
I started to say his name as he walked the rest of the way to his house, but I couldn’t get the words out.
Luna gave me a forlorn look. She let out a blustering huff from her snout as she obediently followed Chase inside.
“Hey, Bumble Bee,” Jase said as he rolled out on the creeper he was lying on.
He had grease smeared all over his chest as he worked on the underbelly of a plane. He dropped the wrench in his hand and wiped his filthy hands on his jeans.
“Mel is gonna kill you if you walk through the loft looking like that,” I said as I trailed my finger across the bright red stripes on the wing of the yellow biplane.
He chuckled and grabbed a grease rag. “I have a hose hooked up out back.”
“How’s the house coming along?”
My brother and his fiancé, Melissa, had just broken ground on the house they were going to build on the airfield property. I was so fucking happy for them that it made me want to pee my pants.
“Not too bad. The builder poured the foundation already. Hopefully, we won’t be crammed in the loft for long. I’m fine with it, but Mel needs more than five hundred square feet.” He rose to his feet and wiped his hands. “But you didn’t come by to talk about the house. What’s on your mind?”
“How do you know that I didn’t come by to see what was going on with the house?” I countered. “I care about where my big brother lives. Especially when it’s with my best friend. I only want the best for my sparkly little cupcake.”
He snickered and tossed the grease rag in a pile. “Your sparkly little cupcake can bench as much as I can.”
“Fine. My badass sparkly little cupcake.”
He chuckled and guzzled the water bottle that had been sitting on the wing. In this heat, he could have probably poached an egg with it.
“You want a Coke? ”
“Pops still has the fridge out here?”
Jase nodded and motioned for me to follow him. I plopped down in a decrepit lawn chair, thankful that the threadbare crosshatch of fabric actually held me up. He popped the door to the mini-fridge and handed me a glass bottle of Coke.
He reached for the bottle opener that was hanging on the wall. Before he had his opened, I nestled the edge of the bottle top on the corner of the fridge and popped it off with one smack from the heel of my hand.
“Showoff,” he muttered.
“Old bartender’s trick for when you lose the bottle opener, and there’s a rush,” I said before taking a sip.
“How you doing?” Jase asked after a long stretch of quiet.
“I’ve been better,” I admitted.
“How’s your head?”
Mindlessly, I touched the spot on my head where sutures had closed the gash left by my fall down the stairs. “Getting better. I still get headaches a lot. Driving at night sucks because headlights hurt my eyes.”
He eyed me over his Coke. “Not what I meant, Bee.”
“I’m fine.” I lied.
“Maybe one day I’ll believe that, but today is not that day.”
“Why don’t you tiptoe around me like everyone else does?”
“Because I’m your brother,” he said casually. “I’m not your friend. And I’m, uh… Not trying to get in your pants.”
“Dear God, please never say that again,” I groaned.
He snickered and shook his head. “I’m just messing with you, Bee.” He finished off his drink and tossed the bottle in the recycling bin. “But nice try on the avoidance. How’s your mind ?” he asked, clarifying this time so I couldn’t get out of answering.
“Fine.” I lied again.
“Bullshit. ”
“Jase.”
“Bee.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” I huffed. “What’s that they say in the military? FUBAR? Fucked up beyond all recognition?
“Nah. You’re not FUBAR. We all recognize you. You’re still you in there. He may have fucked with your mind and hurt your body, but he never touched your heart. Eventually, you’ll be able to see it, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did you and Chase rehearse your speeches together?”
Jase smirked. “You’re giving him hell, you know that? Dude’s fucking miserable.”
Separating myself from Chase after he helped me burn my wedding dress was like an addict going on a bender, then quitting cold turkey.
The withdrawal was painful.
It had been three days since I had seen any sign of Chase. I knew when he was home or at work—the absence or presence of his car was proof of that.
But apart from Luna showing up at the cottage door when I was off work, I didn’t see him. Didn’t hear from him. He didn’t text me. He actively avoided participating in the group chat if someone addressed us both.
But every night, the porch light was on.
It was intentional, too.
I’d watch from the front window of the cottage when he would come home from work. Chase would let Luna out. When she trotted back inside, he’d flip the porch light on.
When I came home from the bar—where two or three officers from the Beaufort Police Department always happened to be eating in uniform—the porch light would still be on.
It stayed lit all night until he left for work the next morning .
“Well, that makes two of us,” I said quietly.
“Why are you doing this to yourself, Bee?” Jason asked.
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously encouraging me to jump into a relationship right now?”
“No. I’m encouraging you to do something for yourself for once. Do something that makes you feel good.” He groaned. “For the love of God, I don’t mean do someone. ”
That made me crack a smile.
“Piss or get off the pot, Bee. I will always be on your side. Just like I know that if Mel and I ever get in a fight, you’ll always be on hers,” he said. “But don’t string the poor guy along. That’s a dick move.”
“What happened to doing things just for myself?”
“You’re hurting yourself, too. You and Chase have been thick as thieves for your whole fucking lives.”
“I’m not ready.”
“That’s fine if it’s the truth,” Jase said. “But you’re setting off my bullshit meter.”
“I can’t trust myself, much less other people,” I admitted. “I can’t do it.”
He stood, grabbing a shirt and pulling it on. “Walk with me.”
The sun was setting in pretty shades of blue and pink as we walked the length of the airplane hangars to the plot of land where he and Melissa were putting down roots.
“You trust me. You trust Mel,” Jason said. “Why not Chase?”
Because he makes me feel things that I never had with Kyle, even at our best .
“I don’t want to lose him.” Softly, I added, “When he sees what a mess I am.”
“There isn’t a person on this planet that isn’t a mess. That doesn’t mean they’re not deserving of love or happiness. ”
“It’s too soon,” I argued. We stopped where the orange netting blocked the construction site from the airfield.
He shrugged. “You’re not wrong there. And I’m not saying you move in with the guy. But leave yourself open to possibilities rather than slamming the door because of what the last prick did. He’s being patient with you. Be patient with him. He might cross lines that Kingsley painted. Set clear boundaries, and if he crosses them, you walk away and call me.”
“Mel must love being engaged to Dr.Phil,” I said sarcastically. “Do you shrink her like this, too?”
“Have you called any of those therapists the doctor at the hospital recommended?” he deflected.
“I haven’t had time.” And I really didn’t feel like being psychoanalyzed and judged.
“Did I ever tell you I started going to therapy years ago?”
I shook my head.
“I still do,” he said.
That was news to me. Jason was a rock. He was happy-go-lucky, living his best life.
“Admitting that something hurts doesn’t make you weak.” He slung his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side. “You’ve been dealing with your body healing like a fucking badass. Don’t be scared to talk about what’s hurting your mind.”
“I just want to move on with my life.”
“There’s therapy. Counseling. Support groups. You have options. But nothing ever gets fixed by ignoring it.”