5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
K ade felt the air shift the moment he stepped foot in the bar. Like something he's been waiting for just blew in and waits for him there. For some reason, he hasn't been able to take his mind off Jess, and he wishes she'd talk to him. That he could see her. Things didn't end the way he would have liked, and he misses talking to her. She was the only person besides Drew he found comfortable enough to confide in.
Tim avoids looking Kade in the eyes, and he can't figure out why. They weren't what he'd consider best friends, but tipping at least fifty percent on every bill should earn him at least a proper hello.
"What's up?" Kade asks when he sits down.
"Nothing much," Tim says and sets the normal beer in front of him, still not meeting his gaze. "You?"
"You're acting weird. Why?"
He shrugs and turns his back to grab a bottle from the cooler and hands it to a waitress to Kade's right. "I'm not. Just a little busy."
"There's a larger group and like five people in here. The happy hour rush hasn't even hit yet. This isn't busy, so what's up, man?"
Leaning on the counter, Tim finally looks him in the eye. Kade's been in here multiple times in the weeks since he and Jess ended things, so it takes him by surprise when Tim says, "I think what you did to Jess was stupid and messed up. And I can't figure out for the life of me why you'd let her go. She's perfect for you, and you seemed happy. What the hell's wrong with you?"
"I don't know," he answers, somewhat concerned at how deep this conversation got considering they only ever had a bartender-patron relationship before now.
"I watched you come in here night after night and pick up girl after girl. Each one inevitably getting her heart broken by you, but then you met Jess. For the first time, you seemed genuinely happy. And she seemed like she was going to stick because you weren't here trolling for other girls anymore. I can't for the life of me figure out why you'd want to be miserable like you were before Jess."
"Now, wait a minute," he says and shifts as Tim pours a beer from the tap. "I wasn't miserable. I took many women to bed. Many! I'm never happier than when I have a sexy as hell woman in my bed. Getting naked with them is one of life's greatest pleasures."
"Okay."
The nerve of this guy! "You don't believe me?"
"If you say you were happy, you were happy. You just seemed happier with her. That's all. And I heard about how it all went down from her friend who came in looking for you one night. That really sucks, especially for those of us who would kill for a girl like her."
A girl like her? Something twists in Kade's gut. Does Tim have a thing for Jess? Does he want to hook up with her? And would she ever give him a chance?
Just as he opens his mouth to ask, movement from behind him catches his eye. He turns around to the large group of people, but he doesn't recognize anyone. Something feels familiar, though. Like a smell he remembers but can't place.
"Are you meeting someone tonight?" Tim asks, pulling his attention back to the bar. "Or are you just on the hunt to hook up with someone?"
Something catches his attention from his peripheral, and he turns to see Jess damn near run outside. "You tried to keep me from seeing her?"
"She doesn't want to talk to you," he says. "And like I said, I think what you did to her was messed up."
"You picked sides? You knew me first, remember?" Kade says and stands, slamming a twenty on the counter. "Some loyalty."
"Sorry, man, but she’s a good girl."
"I didn't see her car in the lot," he mutters and walks outside.
Looking around, he doesn't see her Benz, and he knows it wasn't in the lot when he pulled in. He looked, just like he does every night, and it wasn't parked here. There's no way she arrived after him because he definitely would've seen her. No, she parked out of sight so he wouldn't know she was there.
He takes out his phone to call her, pausing for a brief moment as her contact pictures brings him back to the memory of when he took it. She lies in bed, just a sheet covering her, and she wears a naughty smirk because she had no idea he was taking her picture. She'd be mortified to know he not only took it but set it as her contact picture, but he loves it too much to risk having to delete it.
The phone rings three times before he hears her voicemail. She declined the call, but he can't help but listen to her voicemail saying she's unavailable and to leave a message. It feels like forever since he last heard her voice, and he misses it. Misses her. Hanging up before the inevitable beep, he calls again to get the same result.
"If you want to play this game, I'll make it impossible for you to ignore me."
Climbing into his pickup, he drives the short distance to her place and pulls into the driveway. Looking in the small window of her garage, he sees her car. She came home. After trying one last time to call her, he walks up to the front door and knocks.
It's the first time he's been back here since the night before she caught him with Lena. The memory of chasing her up the stairs to the bedroom, both laughing and shedding their clothes before climbing into bed and finding pleasure with each other twists something inside him. Again. This keeps happening, and he doesn't know why.
The blinds shift as he knocks again, and he catches Jess peeking through the curtains. Caught her.
"I know you're home," Kade calls through the door.
"Go away."
He knocks again. "Come on, Jess. Open the door."
"No."
"I want to talk. Please?"
"About what?" Jess asks. "What could we possibly have to talk about?"
Resting his head on the door, he sighs. "I don't like how we left things."
"There was no other way to leave things, Kade."
"I can think of a few ways."
"Okay, let me rephrase. There's no other way we could have left things that didn't involve me compromising my dignity or integrity."
Is that really what she thinks? "Sure, there is."
"Like what?"
"We could've said we'd stay friends. Still talked and kept in touch."
The door swings open, and he almost falls inside with the heavy wood he leaned against disappearing on him. "And what would that have done?"
"I meant it when I said I like you, Jess. I'm just not able to be what you need in a romantic relationship."
"I don't need another friend. Especially one who's seen me naked."
"How many friends do you have who have seen you naked?"
Rolling her eyes, she leans on the doorframe, blocking any option he has of stepping inside. "None."
"You said we could have been friends if I'd told you the truth from the beginning. What happened to that?"
"I developed feelings for you. The last thing I'm willing to do now is set you up with my friends, Kade. If that's what you're looking for, you can go to hell."
"Do you really hate me this much that you don't even want to be friends anymore?"
"Trust me, it would be so much easier if I hated you," Jess says.
He tries to look into her eyes, but she won't quite meet his. "Then why can't we be friends?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "What do you need me as a friend for?"
"Because believe it or not, I liked talking to you."
"I liked talking to you, too."
"Then let's try it!"
Jess turns into the house, he takes a step forward, reading her intention as wanting to give it a shot. If he gets lucky, maybe she'd be willing to give the friends with benefits idea a shot, too, because not only does he miss talking to her, he misses the sex. Wakes up craving it. But before he can take that first step inside, she swings back around and hands him a box.
"Because I don't want to be just your friend. Maybe if you'd been upfront about everything in the beginning, we could have been. But you let me think we could be everything I thought we were for five months. Whether you believe you cheated or not, you deceived me. You knew I wanted more, and you avoided telling me you couldn't give me that. You can justify it and put a nice, neat bow on it to make yourself feel better about the situation, but it's the truth. I can't just get over that."
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
"But you didn't do anything to try and prevent it, either. You knew the moment you told me you didn't want to commit that I'd end the romantic part of our relationship, and that tells me you knew what you were doing. That you led me on, and what you did was wrong. But you did it anyway because you were getting what you wanted out of the situation."
Her words once again feel like they formed a hand-shape and slapped him across the face. "Jess-"
"You know the biggest difference between us, Kade? The biggest difference is that I would have done everything in my power to stop anyone or anything from hurting you. I sure as hell wouldn't have been the one to cause you pain if I could help it. But you didn't think about me or my feelings in all of this. You only thought of yourself, and that made you the one to hurt me. Whether intentional or not, still did. You knew what you were doing by not saying anything."
The pain in her eyes as she finally looks into his feels like a kick to the chest. Kade wishes she was angry. He can handle angry. Hell, he can handle hatred. "Jess, I'm sorry."
"Me, too. That's all your stuff, and you can just throw mine out. I don't want to see you again, Kade. Goodbye."
Jess shuts the door, and he stares at it for a minute before looking down into the cardboard box she handed him. His clothes, shampoo, and soap. Shifting it, he also sees movie tickets. She saved their tickets from the date they had the first night they slept together. An action movie she'd suggested, and he remembers thinking she was unlike anyone he'd ever met.
She watched the movie, interested and attentive, but she didn't mind when he decided it was time to focus on each other, letting him grope her right there in the theater. It was also her idea to leave the movie early before kissing his neck and rubbing his leg the entire drive back to his place.
Defeated, he lets his shoulders sag, and he knows Tim was right. Jess was different, and what he did was a shitty thing to do. Just as he turns to leave, the sound from inside the house stops him. He hears Jess crying on the other side of the door, and he remembers how she hadn't cried in front of him when she caught him with Lena. He knew she'd cried after she left that night when he saw her the following day by her swollen eyes. Now he can't help but wonder if she still cries, or if he just pulled the scab off the healing wound tonight.
Hearing her has him planted in place, and he debates whether he should pound on the door, forcing his way in to comfort her, or if he should just leave and let her heal. Knowing how much pain he caused her does something he never expected. It hurts him.
"I'm sorry," he whispers and opts to leave, walking to his pickup. Nothing he can say would do any good, and he decides to do as she asks, even if it drives him insane.