Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Miles flinched as the pictures from last night flowed across his screen.
After googling Jif weeks ago, he’d intermittently checked for updates, though he always ended up wishing he hadn’t.
Still, he couldn’t help torturing himself with the gossip columns and airbrushed photos from all the events she attended. Events she attended without him.
It wasn’t his thing. They didn’t need to discuss it to both agree he had no place in that world. So why did he do it?
He didn’t have a good answer, but like a moth to a flame, he kept looking.
And last night did not go well, if the pictures gave any indication. One guy on the floor. Another one standing over him. Jif off to the side, gorgeous, but overly polished. The version of herself Miles couldn’t stand.
Beneath, a caption suggested the fight had been over her.
No, didn’t suggest.
He winced, rubbing his leg. The pain spiraled around his thigh, worse today. He’d been steadily weaning himself off the cane, gritting his teeth through the stabbing throbs traveling like lightning up and down the muscles.
Yesterday, he’d managed five minutes on the stair-stepper at the gym. The CPAT only required three, but at a much higher pace: one step per second, wearing weights. He’d made it to one step per three seconds, with no weights.
Progress, but not nearly enough.
He gritted his teeth, closing his laptop and leaning back on the couch. Nix, curled in a cinnamon roll beside him, lifted his head. His tail thumped twice, then he rested his chin on Miles’s good thigh, eyes showing their whites as he gazed up plaintively.
“Okay, boy. I’ve got you.” He scratched the dog behind the ears, then worked his way down to his belly as Nix rolled slowly to his back, body wriggling with happiness.
“I should call her, right?”
Nix whined and butted his head against Miles’s hand as it slowed, then stopped petting.
Even his dog understood the importance of good communication.
His stomach turned over, though. He’d thought they were exclusive, but they’d never actually discussed it, and the idea of Jif dating other guys...
Well, he didn’t like it.
He didn’t want any part of it.
Especially not those guys. Not that they probably weren’t fine.
Well, maybe not, if he believed the photo captions.
Fine, upstanding gentlemen didn’t usually punch each other at fancy gala events.
No, the nausea churning in his gut came from all the ways he came up short compared to them.
Maybe six months ago, he’d have been their equal—firefighters had a certain cachet when it came to sexiness—but not now.
His phone buzzed, Jif’s face filling the screen. He’d snapped the picture during their picnic date, Nix’s head tucked under her chin, her fingers scratching under his ears, her eyes closed as her hair haloed around her in the breeze, a smile—the real version—curving her lips.
He swallowed, then picked the phone up, swiping to answer.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
She sounded terrible.
“You okay?”
She didn’t respond for a long time. “Not really. I had a sucky night.”
“I saw the pictures.” The words escaped before he could stop himself, but at least his voice held only the slightest edge of hurt and confusion. He didn’t tell her he’d deliberately searched for them. He probably should.
“Oh.”
“Looked exciting.”
“Not really.” Her voice quavered. “Corey got handsy and wouldn’t back off. Donte might have overreacted. Then, Colton lost his temper. I haven’t been lectured like that since I dropped my second major in college.”
Her comment distracted him. Or maybe he wanted to let himself be distracted. “You double-majored?”
“Not quite. More like I couldn’t settle on what I wanted to do: marketing or education.
I’d have had to go to school another year to do both, and I’d finished some practice teaching, which I really loved, so I chose the classroom instead of the boardroom.
Colton claimed adding another year meant wasting more time and money, especially since so few of the credits crossed over, and I’d better graduate on time or he’d stop paying for college. ”
Miles frowned. She and Colton didn’t have the best relationship, but that sounded harsh.
“The worst part is, we’d made progress. Mom said I didn’t appreciate him enough, and I don’t tell him how much I do, so I said something on the way over.
But by the time he drove me home, he thought it had been to butter him up before causing a whole bunch of drama.
Plus, I hurt Donte, too.” She took a ragged breath, her voice cracking.
“I’m trying to do better, but it feels like everything makes things worse. ”
He didn’t want to sympathize with her. Not when he still wasn’t sure where she stood with him, with those other guys she’d named. But hearing her sniffle, he also couldn’t quite ignore her pain. “It always seems that way at first. I promise.”
She sniffed again. “How do you know?”
“Because Abby told me so when I did my orientation with her; so did all the counseling classes I had to take to get certified with Nix. And also, because change isn’t an easy path in only one direction, especially difficult change.
” He frowned as another stab of pain shot down his leg.
“PT hurts, but if it didn’t, I wouldn’t be getting stronger. ”
“I’m not sure they’re the same thing,” she replied ruefully.
“That guy, Don...?”
“Donte,” she filled in.
“Donte. Why were his feelings hurt?”
“Because I, uh...” She hedged for a moment.
Miles winced at her non-answer—an answer in itself.
Nix rolled over again, pressing his head against Miles’s thigh, and he absently petted the dog as he breathed through the pain in his chest. He’d thought... Well, it didn’t matter. He’d clearly been wrong.
“Here’s the thing: he rescued me from Corey being a jerk a couple of weeks ago, which I appreciated, and since I wanted to avoid Corey last night, I stayed close to Donte, even though I knew he wanted to ask me out.
Maybe it makes me a sucky person, especially since I’m already taken—by you, I mean.
I’m taken by you—but I didn’t tell him because then he might not have helped me. I didn’t expect him to punch Corey...”
Miles stopped listening. Taken by you. His heart flipped in his chest. “You’re not dating him? Them?” he interrupted.
“Who? Corey? Definitely not. Ugh.”
“And Donte?” he pushed, needing to hear the words. Needing confirmation, she’d chosen him, despite his imperfections, despite not being close to the same level of physical perfection as those other guys.
She hadn’t responded.
“Jif?”
She spoke, her voice hard and angry. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t like to have fun, or I haven’t done the no-strings-attached thing, but I’m not a cheater.
And yeah, fine, I should have said something to Donte sooner, but then again, Corey should have kept his hands to himself and accepted my no, so I’m not going to be ashamed that I let someone help me when he didn’t.
Colton certainly wasn’t going to step up.
He thinks I made my bed, or buttered my bread, or whatever cutesy saying you want to use for the idea that karma is a thing and somehow this whole mess is my fault. ”
Miles’s chest twisted. “He’s your brother, I’m sure he doesn’t think...”
“Last night in the car, he made it pretty clear he does, so whatever,” she interrupted him.
And now she thought he agreed. But he didn’t, and he wanted to prove it.
“You absolutely did not deserve to be treated that way. No is a complete sentence, and anyone who keeps pushing should get punched. Between the Clothes Are Not Consent campaign and the MeToo movement, anyone who’s still pulling crap like this deserves whatever retribution comes their way.”
He pressed the phone closer to his ear, straining to hear her response. Even then, he nearly missed it, her voice so small and broken he immediately wanted to gather her into his arms and simultaneously go find this Corey character and punch him a second time.
“Thanks.”
One simple word, but her self-doubt, her vulnerability, tugged at his own, reflected it, called it to the surface, and demanded it be acknowledged.
His debilitating weakness and limp had defined him since the day they’d met, but he’d never shared his own, fragile feelings. What if he did, now, and she rejected him?
In the beginning, Jif had been vulnerable, traumatized, surrounded by terrified children needing someone, anyone, to show strength.
Not the physical kind, but the emotional kind.
To show that resilience and recovery were within reach.
He’d been the person she’d relied on. Could he risk letting his edifice crumble in the hopes of explaining why he’d doubted her intentions?
He took a deep breath and splayed his hand over Nix’s ribcage, drawing strength from the dog. “I’m sorry. I’m not...”
Like them. Whole. Strong. Enough.
“... your usual type. I’m... insecure since.
.. the accident.” Every word fought being voiced, licking flames refusing to extinguish, painting his cheeks with shame he’d ever thought her shallow, flighty, silly.
She’d been through so much, so if she wanted to have some fun, who did that hurt?
And when it mattered, she’d said the hard things.
To Donte and to him. “You didn’t deserve my doubt. ”
“You have nothing to be insecure about. Not with me.” Far from the soft, broken tone of moments ago, her voice was suffused with confidence, her response immediate and reassuring.
Though the moment of vulnerability had cost him to share, it also confirmed the truth of all those classes on communication and emotional intelligence. Their relationship would be stronger for it. “I sometimes forget.”
“Then I’ll remind you. Starting with tonight. Dinner?”
He huffed, not quite a chuckle—he didn’t think he could find anything funny, yet—but close. “Are you asking me out?”
“Yes. If you need me to tell you I’m all in, then I’ll do that. There’s only you, Miles,” she went on. “No one else, I promise. We may not always quite fit, but I wouldn’t change it, and I believe we’ll figure it out.”
Miles wasn’t the type to cry. For all his work with Abby, tears were a step too far, even for him, but his chest twisted—in a good way—and he cleared his throat. “You bringing me flowers, too?”
“Why not?” Jif laughed. “What’s your favorite kind?”
“I don’t actually know.” He frowned. “Surprise me.”
And then, in his mind, he added, You always do.