32. Chapter 32
thirty-two
Noel
I wake the same way I fell asleep, beneath the right side of Jamie’s body, his bed head tickling my cheek.
The light coming through the window is tinted bright white, like maybe it snowed a bit while we slept.
Just the thought of it makes me shiver, and I nuzzle into his body heat, but I don’t fall back to sleep fast enough, and my brain makes the quick walk from snow to winter to the end of the year.
Wes and his accusations. Fate and its layers, upon layers, upon layers.
“I can feel you thinking,” Jamie mumbles.
I grin at the scratch in his usually honeyed voice. The late night still has its claws in him. “Only about coffee,” I lie. “Nothing philosophical.”
Jamie lifts his head, peering at me through one eye, nose scrunched guiltily.
“What?”
“You finished the bag last weekend. I forgot to grab you more.” He rolls to the edge of the bed and stretches his arms over his head. The iris is still perfectly intact on his skin. “I’ll walk to the store.”
“Wait.” I can feel the beer from last night making my body swell. “I’ll go too. I want the exercise.”
We pull on clothes and sneakers, and Jamie lets me borrow another Fortune hoodie, bringing my collection to four. The air is a cold slap when we head out toward downtown. The closest place with halfway decent coffee is a local bakery, and Jamie heads for the counter while I bee-line to the carafes.
I’m pouring too-hot French vanilla roast into my to-go cup when I hear a voice over my shoulder. “I know you.”
“Sorry?” I turn and smile brightly at a smallish blonde dressed in a bright green pea-coat and jeans. Her hair is pulled back and she has pearls in her ears. She’s not smiling back.
“You’re the girl from the roof.”
Oh, God . Becca. I didn’t recognize her. Why didn’t I recognize her?
I open my mouth and close it again, unsure how to make casual conversation with Jamie’s ex, and by the looks of it, she isn’t interested in niceties.
Her brows are drawn down, her mouth tight.
She looks older now, which obviously makes sense; it’s been two years.
I’m stunned and on top of that, growing hot with worry.
As uncomfortable as this little reunion is for me, Jamie really isn’t going to like it.
“Holy shit. Is that a Fortune sweatshirt?” Becca shakes her head like I’m some bad dream she’s trying to forget.
I tug nervously on the strings of the hoodie, two sizes too big for me and quite obviously not mine. “It’s… uh…” I think about lying. Is it possible to get away with her not knowing I’m here with Jamie? I know how this looks. Maybe I can text him and tell him I’ll meet him outside.
But before I make the decision, Jamie’s boyish laugh echoes through the bakery.
She recognizes it as well as I do, and her eyes track to where he’s chatting with the man behind the donut counter.
She blinks at him, then turns to me with her nose scrunched.
I feel the exact moment she puts it together.
“No way. You’re here with him?” She laughs bitterly. “Well, isn’t that interesting.”
I swallow, wishing I could say it’s not, but the fact is she has no idea just how interesting it is, me and him—us.
Her eyes narrow and what I thought might be genuine hurt morphs into indignation. “I’d love to know how you ended up with Jamie after that night. I mean, I’ve seen him around of course. I haven’t seen you.”
“It’s new.” My voice sounds like a string about to snap.
She crosses her arms across her chest and looks me up and down. “Quite the long game.”
“Sorry?”
“The show you put on that night? It was just to steal him? God, couldn’t you just get his number from one of the boys? Shoot your shot like anyone else?” I swear her fingers tremble when she tucks a stray hair behind her ear. She’s shaken. Angry.
This reaction doesn’t mesh with the villain I’ve made her out to be in my head all of these years and my skin starts to tingle with an incoming storm.
“I wasn’t shooting my… I wouldn’t… You were cheating on him,” I say with more confidence than I feel, because this part of the vision? It’s never been any of my business. Certainly not enough so that I can throw it back in her face here.
Becca and Jamie’s relationship is something I don’t like to think about for obvious reasons. I’m a bystander, a particularly intimate one, but standing by nonetheless.
Becca shakes her head like she can’t believe my gall either, bringing up her past crimes. “Wow. Well, that’s one way to spin it.” She leans in closer. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she hisses. “I didn’t… I didn’t go through with it.”
Something heavy drops inside of my chest. “I don’t understand.”
She huffs a laugh. “Good to know you did your due diligence before messing with my whole life. Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” She looks at him again and laughs. “Well, I guess I know now.”
Possessiveness scratches inside of me when she refers to herself and Jamie as “us.” It’s not a feeling I have a lot of experience with, but I try to hold onto it because underneath it is a thick and thorny fear.
I want to fire back, tell her that he’s mine , actually. I saw it. But instead, my breath starts to skip and go unsteady because I get the distinct feeling there’s something I’m missing here.
“What do you mean you didn’t go through with it?”
“I mean I didn’t cheat on Jamie the way you lied and said I did.”
“You would have,” I blurt. Or else I wouldn’t have seen it. That has to be it. She didn’t get the chance for that fate to play out because I saw it in the candle first. “If I didn’t tell Jamie, you would have gone through with it.”
Except I don’t know that for sure, do I? What if it was like the tattoo? Or the scar? What if she really would have changed course if I’d left it alone?
“How on earth would you know what I would or wouldn’t do?
I met Jamie when I was just out of high school.
” She flicks her eyes toward him again and this time I can’t bear to follow because something is unraveling, and I can’t seem to grasp the end of it to pull it tight again.
“Jamie, he’s impulsive, he always has been. He doesn’t think things through.”
I feel that scratchy instinct to defend him like I felt with Wes, but Becca has just put her foot on that same perspective, giving it more weight.
You’re not doing him any favors by coddling that part of him .
Wes must have loved Becca.
“He was talking about getting married and in the same breath talking about quitting his job and brewing beer for a living,” she continues.
“And then I started grad school, and I met someone else. He just seemed to have his head on, you know? Nothing happened. I mean, it wasn’t physical.
” Her fist tightens around her coffee until I’m afraid the cap will pop off.
“God, this is so none of your business. I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if he’d just listen.
If I’d gotten to explain, maybe we could have worked it out.
” Her voice cracks. “When you love someone the way he and I loved each other, you work things out.”
This feels so much like a shove that I actually take a step back. I feel a sensation in my chest like seams tearing. The fabric that holds us and everything I’ve found here together, coming undone.
This can’t be right.
Your girlfriend, she’s sleeping with someone else. That’s what I told him, and I was wrong.
I think I’m going to be sick. I think maybe Becca can tell and she’s glad for it. She hates me that much. Who can blame her? She had him, and now she doesn’t. Because of me.
My brain fills with nasty images. It’s not from anywhere supernatural, just my own vivid and cruel imagination.
Jamie and Becca together. Happy. I picture his smile—the one I love the best—pressed to hers, and I physically recoil.
Then I see Becca heartbroken, sobbing, because of a foolish, reckless woman at a party.
A hand lands on my waist, bringing my mind back to this awful interaction, and Jamie’s voice, soft and surprised, comes from somewhere above my head. “Becca?”
Becca looks at Jamie, then back at me. “Are you going to tell him now that we’re all standing here again? Because he’s refused to speak to me for two years.”
“Tell me what?”
“I know who she is, Jamie.”
“Good memory.” He sniffs. He’s playing this off, but I see him. He’s confused and guarded. His jaw is so tight, I want to reach up and massage it. I also want to leave. Now.
“You two should talk.” I put my hand on his chest, then think better of it and pull back.
I turn to go but Jamie cuffs my wrist, his eyes pleading. “Noe, wait.”
Despite every nerve in my body begging me to flee this conflict, my heels sink back onto the floor.
“She lied to you,” Becca says, jabbing a finger in my direction.
“I didn’t.”
“Oh my God. Will you please tell the truth?”
Jamie laughs but it’s not his usual laugh.
There’s no warmth. No childlike joy. I think of the expression “If looks could kill” because there’s a dagger in the one he’s giving her now.
“And what is the truth in your mind, Bec? Because I thought it was you sleeping with someone else when I had a damn engagement ring on hold. . ”
“That’s what she lied about!”
Jamie shakes his head, and I manage to pry my wrist free from where he’s still clutching it.
Becca doesn’t notice. She’s not looking at me. “If you’d have listened to me, you would know that.”
I picture his face that night, add it to what I know about him now. He was blindsided. He felt stupid. Of course he wouldn’t have listened.
My palms sweat, and each breath I take feels like it’s being dragged over a washboard. Maybe it’s the jagged pieces of my heart. I need to get away from this so I can think.
“I’m going,” I say. It’s a tiny thing, my voice. Shaky and weak, but they both swing their gazes toward me. Panic is rising in my throat along with bile. “I need some air. Jamie, I’ll see you… after.”