December 16
Yellowstone County, Montana
“Dalton, I want you to kiss me.”
Being heartbroken sucked! It came with so much depression and melancholy. And the crying…
Jasmin was sick of all the crying. It was a side-effect of actually allowing herself to feel and when she felt, she felt everything.
But apparently there was an antidote. This date was Rachel’s idea and it was a bad one.
She’d told Jasmin that the only way to get over one guy was to get under another.
Jasmin had no intention of getting under anyone, but she needed to prove something to herself.
Kevin wasn’t the only guy in the world. He made it clear that everything that happened had been one-sided.
If their connection wasn’t real, surely she could find something of substance with someone else.
The only way to do that was to get out more.
After a few days of moping around in her pajamas, even her father had told her that she needed to leave the hotel room.
She’d decided to take the advice and agreed to go out for coffee with Dalton.
He was a bit surprised when he arrived to pick her up and the big boss opened the door, but her father assured him that he wouldn’t get fired as long as he remained a perfect gentleman.
That was the reason why Dalton was now staring at her with wide, fearful eyes and his mouth hanging open. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
They were sitting in a restaurant that was virtually empty in a low-lit corner right at the back and the semi-circular booth completely shielded them from peering eyes. She thought it was a great idea.
She shifted along the seat to get closer to him. “My dad is never gonna find out. Just kiss me.”
“Uh…okay.”
He leaned forward and gently brushed his lips against hers.
The feel of another mouth was strange at first and she gave herself a few seconds to adjust before she parted her lips.
His tongue ventured into her mouth and it felt so unfamiliar, she wanted to pull away.
She forced herself to push past the urge, but after a minute, she still couldn’t get into it.
“Do you feel anything?” she asked.
His smile showed his awkwardness. “It feels like…you’re holding back.”
“I can fix that.” She shifted, slinging her legs over his, and pulled his hand onto her thigh to make it more intimate. “Let’s try again.”
He kissed her again and it was better. Nice, sweet, and the longer she kissed him, the more she began to enjoy it.
She stopped holding back and so did he. From a completely physical viewpoint, he did everything right, but something was missing.
There were no…tingles. Even when his hand moved higher up her thigh, she didn’t feel the slightest flutter.
A few minutes in and she recognized what the problem was.
Dalton was calm, mellow. He didn’t have the same type of intensity Kevin had.
Kevin kissed her like he wanted to consume her, devour her.
His kisses were raw and possessive, claiming her whole body even when only their lips were touching.
His kisses were also a lie, so sensual and captivating that she foolishly believed he wanted her, cared about her.
He didn’t, and it was unfair to Dalton to use it as a standard.
It was annoying that she was comparing in the first place.
Dalton was a good-looking guy. He was sweet and shy, and she doubted that he even had it in him to be crude or abrasive. So why didn’t she feel anything?
His hand moved into her hair and finally something happened, a slight jolt ran through her body.
But it wasn’t because of Dalton. It was because the gesture reminded her of the many times Kevin had done that.
It made her miss him. He’d used her as a distraction, said the most awful things to her and she still couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Pathetic! Fuck dopamine and every obsessive tendency it created.
She immediately broke the kiss and sighed her annoyance. “Bastard broke my tingler,” she muttered to herself.
“What?”
She pulled her legs off his lap and gave an apologetic smile. “Dalton, I’m sorry. You’re a really nice guy and a great kisser, but…I’m just not feeling it.”
He was obviously disappointed, but he seemed to appreciate the honesty. “Do you want me to take you back to the hotel?”
“No. I didn’t say I don’t like hanging out with you. Let’s do something fun.”
“Okay. Cool,” he replied with an easy smile. “I think I know just the place for you.”
He slid out of the booth and held out his hand to help her out as well.
“I just need to make a quick stop first,” she said as they headed out the door of the café.
“What do you want to do?”
“I wanna cut my hair.”
* * * * *
“You’re a terrible singer,” Dalton said as he walked her back to her hotel room.
“Pffft! You’re tone deaf and you obviously don’t recognize talent when you hear it.”
It was a joke. Jasmin knew she was the worst singer in the world, yet the look on his face showed that he took her seriously.
Why was it so hard to find people who understood her sense of humor?
It wasn’t that she didn’t like hanging out with Dalton, but he just didn’t understand her.
Not the way… She stopped that thought dead in its tracks.
She was comparing him to Kevin again and the fact that she’d been doing it all afternoon was frustrating her to no end.
Kevin would have seen the sadness beneath her smile, but no one she’d met today had noticed that she was barely keeping herself together.
Dalton had taken her to a karaoke bar and it had been a great distraction.
She’d met his cousin Stephanie, who owned the bar, and a few of his other friends.
Once she’d pushed her pathetic feelings aside, what ensued was three hours of solid fun.
They’d pretended to be different contestants on their own version of America’s Got Talent, with Stephanie being the judge.
No one had been able to impress her. Jasmin and Dalton sang a duet together, which had everyone in hysterics.
Stephanie’s comments hadn’t been kind. A symphony of crows… being strangled, she’d said.
It was safe to say that none of them had any talents, but every time she made a joke about that, it went over Dalton’s head.
Maybe it was because she said it with a straight face, but it confirmed that he simply didn’t get her.
She decided that she would use that as a way of sifting through the statistical pool of one hundred and that meant that Dalton was definitely not one of her soul mates.
“I was kidding,” Jasmin said.
“I knew that,” he replied with a sheepish grin.
“I had a great time. Thanks for showing me around.”
“Me too. We should do it again before you leave.”
She smiled. “I’d like that. My dad and I fly back to Chicago the day after Christmas, so maybe sometime next week?”
“Sure.”
They reached that awkward moment where they didn’t know if a hug, a kiss, or a handshake was an appropriate way to say goodbye. They settled on a hug.
“I’ll see you around.”
Jasmin watched him walk back towards the lobby before opening the door to her room. As soon as he father set eyes on her, his mouth dropped open.
“What did you do?” He sounded so horrified that she felt like she was standing over a dead body with a bloody knife in her hand.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I cut my hair, Dad.”
He just stared at her in dismay, taking in how short it actually was. She’d been a bit aggressive, settling on the Shaylene Woodley pixie cut. Impulsive, but she felt like cutting off all the memories.
“I promise it will grow back,” she said when he continued gaping.
He shook his head, trying to brush it off as he walked towards her. “So I got my credit card bill for last month,” he said casually and opened the door again. “Vegas?”
“I took a wrong turn and ended up there by accident.”
He chuckled, walking with her down the corridor to the dining area. “Stuff like that happens all the time.”
“And all those drinks you see on there were nonalcoholic.”
“My baby girl is all grown up and lying to me. I’m so proud.”
“I know, right? I’m proud of me. I was really convincing with that last one.”
“You’re not the legal age to drink in this country, so I have to be disappointed and tell you not to do it again.”
He spoke with his normal no-nonsense dad tone, but she didn’t take him seriously. They had spoken about her trip enough for her to know that he was glad she had done something so outrageous.
He led her to the far end of the dining hall to a long, fluffy rug that was strategically placed in front of a blazing fire. The lights of the Christmas tree in the corner danced across the walls and carols playing in the background made her forget that they were actually at a resort.
Jasmin smiled as soon as she saw a bowl of marshmallows on the small table a few feet away from the fireplace.
He really was going to keep his promises this time.
She’d thought it would take time to rebuild their relationship.
It had taken mere days. Once they got back to Chicago, he’d go back to working crazy hours and she would soon start her new job, but she had faith that their relationship would continue to strengthen.
They had a deeper understanding now and both of them were not going to allow busy schedules to interfere with that.
He promised her that she would always be his number one priority and she believed him.
“So how was your date?” he asked as he sat down on the rug and pierced a skewer through a marshmallow.
“It was fun. We went to a karaoke bar. I was awesome.”
“I’m sure you were,” he agreed with a knowing smile. “And Dalton?”
“Dalton’s great, Dad. He’s such a nice guy, but he’s just…I mean, he…”
“He’s not like that other boy you were telling me about?”
She hadn’t told her father all the explicit details about Kevin. That would just be weird. But he knew the gist of what happened. Moping around in her pajamas for three days was a dead giveaway that something was wrong, so she’d told him why she was so depressed.
“It’s weird,” she said, slowly turning her marshmallow over the flames.
“The fact that they’re nothing alike should make me like Dalton more, but I’m so hung up on Kevin.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m ninety percent certain that I’m in love with him and a hundred percent certain that it’s just plain stupid to feel that way when he doesn’t feel the same. How do I get over this, Dad?”
She expected her father to say that she was too young and inexperienced to understand what real love was, but he didn’t dismiss her feelings.
Instead, he shrugged as if he didn’t have an answer.
“It’s only been a few days, Bhajia, not long enough for a broken heart to heal.
When someone you love hurts you, a part of you will always remember the pain.
” The distant look in his eyes made it obvious that he was recalling everything her mother had done.
“The pain will ease over time. What you need to do is let go of the anger. That’s going to take time too, but once you accept what has happened, it will be easier to forgive him. And once you forgive, you can move on.”
She nodded, giving him a sad smile. So that was step one. Acceptance. It reminded her of the story she’d told Kevin about King Jasmindeous and King Kevidius. The moral of that story was more relevant now.
Not every battle is worth fighting. Sometimes you just have to accept that losing is inevitable.
She wasn’t going to fight for Kevin. It wasn’t worth it. She accepted the fact that she’d lost him, that she’d never really had him. But she needed to find a way to get closure, close off that small chapter of her life so she could open herself up to possibility again.