16. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
J ess sits in her office after a restless night of sleep. Who does Kade think he is? He just walked into her house like he owned the place and confessed he messed up. He just believes he can say a few words she wanted to hear months ago, and she'd fall at his feet. Not. Gonna. Happen.
But the way Landry responded to the whole situation bothers the hell out of her. That upset her more than anything with Kade. He immediately went on the defensive, and he got nasty. Jess can kind of give him a pass on being angry at the situation, but he went from one end of the spectrum to the other.
First, he wanted to get rid of Kade. Told her how terrible of a person he was, and she knew she had to stick up for him. Even though Kade hurt her, he wasn't a bad person, and he never likes to defend himself because of his upbringing. He's actually a very caring and loving person. That's the person she fell in love with.
Then, after she stood up for Kade, Landry threatened to walk. Not in so many words, but he made it clear he wasn't happy with her. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but his reaction still took her by surprise.
Landry wanted to know if she still had feelings for Kade, and she didn't think it was right to say either way, especially with both men in the same room. Not after the volatile way Landry acted. She also hasn't allowed herself to focus too much on her feelings for Kade because she found it blocked her ability to try and give herself fully to Landry. But she knows now she still cares about him. No, she doesn't just care about him. She loves him. As much as she doesn't want to, she does.
"Jess!" Tiffany's voice rings out. "You have a present!"
A present? Jessica's eyes widen as a giant fruit bouquet appears where Tiffany's face should be. "What the hell?"
"Looks like someone wants your attention!" she coos as she sets the giant monstrosity on her desk. "Who's it from?"
The woman bounces on her heels, and Jess shakes her head. "You are far too excited for this."
"I don't get things like this anymore. I'm a married woman, remember?" She holds up her left hand with a five-carat pink diamond and wiggles her fingers.
Tiffany married a wealthy man ten years older than her two years ago. She doesn’t actually need this job, but she considers it her hobby. It also pays for things she doesn't want Vinny to know about.
Sighing, Jess opens the card and reads it.
Tiffany rips it from her hand and places her left hand over her chest. "Oh, that is so sweet!"
"It seems sweet, but the moment I let him back in, he'll shred my heart into a million pieces again. I'm not sure I fully put it back together after the last time."
"You weren't officially together, remember? And I told you the moment you started dating other people, he'd come to his senses."
Jess narrows her eyes at the brunette with mile-high hair smacking her gum. "Really?"
"Hey, Vinny and I had a similar situation happen before we got married. I was seeing him and a few others, and he didn't like it. The moment he took his hideous assistant on a date, I realized he was the only one I wanted to be with. And look at us now. We're married."
This is new information. "You cheated on him?"
"We weren't together. Not officially. We spent a lot of our time together... more than I did the others, but I didn't know where we stood. I had a few guys I had been seeing when I met him who I knew were also seeing other girls. It wasn't a big deal. He became the only one when he showed me what it was like to have someone you care about dating others."
"Is that really the relationship I want? One that happened simply because he didn’t like seeing me with someone else? If I wasn't with Landry, he wouldn’t even pay attention to me."
"Maybe you jolted him into seeing what he was missing by not wanting to settle down. Vinny did that to me."
Except Jess isn't Tiffany with a long list of suitors to fall back on. Even now, if Tiff and Vinny split, she'd have three boyfriends by the end of the week fawning over her. That's not what she has or wants.
"Maybe, but if he thinks a fruit bouquet will win me over, he has another thing coming," Jess says and stands up.
"Where are you going?" Tiffany calls after her.
Carrying the giant basket into the break room, she sets it on the counter. Grabbing a plate, she folds it in half and finds a marker to write the word FREE on it.
People in the office always look for free food, and it doesn't take long for them all to filter in, chomping at the bit to get their piece.
"See if he appreciates me giving it away to others like he gave himself away when we were together," she says and pulls out her phone to take a few pictures of everyone tearing the skewers out of the Styrofoam setting.
She sends the pictures she took and expects silence. Instead, she stares in shock at the message buzzing through in her hand. From Kade.
Is he serious? She sets her phone down and works, ignoring him for the rest of the day.
T he next day rolls around, and Jess stares at her phone. Kade texted her all night. It started with asking how her day was, and he even asked if she's talked to Noelle lately. Noelle told her about the interaction they had at the bar the night he saw her with Landry for the first time, and she told him she knows about the failed pickup attempt.
To Kade's credit, he laughed it off. Said he probably subconsciously knew he'd be turned down when he picked her in the room of women. She's not his type, and he felt relieved when she threw the drink in his face. She didn’t understand why, and he told her it was because he felt like it was what she should have done when they decided to end things.
Landry had yet to reach out to her, and Jess wasn't sure if she should be the first to reach out or not. He was so angry when he left, and she didn't know him well enough to know whether his personality was the type to need space or not. She decided to wait and leave the ball in his court. After all, he was the angriest one.
"Jess!" Tiffany's voice calls from down the hall. "You have another present!"
"Dear God, please don't let it be more fruit," Jess mutters.
Her eyes widen when she sees the largest bouquet of lilies she's ever seen. Tiffany sets them on her desk and smiles. "These are gorgeous. And I can tell you they are expensive."
"Oh my God," Jess gasps and pulls out the card.
Jess can't help but chuckle, and Tiffany gapes at her. "You can't say no to him now. Look at you. You're smiling like a fool."
"It was a cute comment on the card," she admits. "But he's acting like giving him a second chance will end up with us getting married with kids. It's actually kind of creepy."
"You can say the words all you want, but I see the love on your face. You want to give in, so take the chance. What do you have to lose?"
"My dignity, for one," Jess says. "And Landry."
Making a tsking sound with her mouth, she raises an eyebrow. "I have not seen one single thing from that man. Not only is he not putting in the effort, he also wasn't giving it to you good. You never came into work with a stupid grin on your face like you did when you spent the night with this loving guy."
"He shouldn’t have to! He already put in the time and effort, and now Kade's trying to step in." She ignores the sex portion of the comment. She has no good reply.
"If he was really worried about losing you, he'd do whatever he needs to in order to remind you just what a catch he is. But that's just my opinion," she says and walks to the door. "For the record, someone can't steal you from someone else if you really belong to them. Just keep that in mind."
Rolling her eyes, she turns back to her computer for the rest of the day. If Kade thinks a fruit bouquet and a beautiful vase of her favorite flowers will get her to concede and admit she wants him back, he has another thing coming.
T he next afternoon, Paul steps into her office. "Hey, Jess."
"Hi, Paul," she says and turns to face him. "I just sent the email off to the committee with the proposed changes the client agreed to. We should hear back tomorrow if they approved them or not."
"That's great," he says and eyes up the flowers. "Who are these from?"
Sighing, she’s surprised when he moves further into the office and takes a seat in the chair in front of her desk. "They're from my ex-situationship."
"Situationship?"
"One of those situations where I thought we were in a relationship, and he thought it was just a fling. Or casual dating. Either way, he didn't want to commit, and we ended things months ago."
"But he sent you flowers?"
She nods. "He decided a couple days ago he wants me to give him another chance. That he's suddenly different and wants to be committed."
"You're dating someone else, aren't you?"
"Yes, his name's Landry. At least, I think we're still dating. He didn't like it too much to find Kade at my house when he showed up the other night."
"How do you feel about Landry?"
Sighing, she feels the conversation switch from professional to personal. Something that rarely happens with Paul. "Do you really want to talk about this?"
"I've seen you change from happy to sad to content. If you don't want to talk about it, I understand, but I’m also willing to be an ear. I might have some sage advice for you."
Why not? "I like Landry. On paper, he's everything I should want. He wants a relationship that will go somewhere. And he likes me."
"But?"
"But... there are just little things that seem so stupid."
Reaching back, Paul shuts the office door. "In my experience, it's the little things that become the deciding factors with decisions like this."
"Okay, so I like to cook for people. My best friend says food is my love language, and she's probably right. Whenever I'd cook for Kade, my ex whatever, he'd always insist on cleaning up. No matter whether we were at his place or mine, he would always do the dishes."
"And Landry doesn't."
"It sounds so silly, but it bothers me so much. It's almost like he just expects me to do everything because I'm the woman in the relationship or something. And I'm more than happy to do it. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel I'm above it or anything, but the fact he never even thinks to offer to help gets me."
Paul nods and smirks. "My wife and I had that same argument when we first married. Trust me, it's not silly."
"He also has these moments where he seems really closed off. Distant. And he can kind of be an ass sometimes. It's rarer than it used to be when we first started getting to know each other, but it happens enough to still take note of. I call it out when I see it, and he knows he does it, but he doesn’t always seem to care."
"What about the ‘situationship’ guy?"
Jess can't hide the smile creeping onto her face. "He's only a jerk when he's kidding. And he's not distant. There's no wall that he puts up. Not that I ever noticed outside of learning he didn't want to be committed to just one woman a while ago."
"The presents you've gotten these past two days are from him, not Landry, aren't they?"
"It feels like too little too late considering he broke my heart, Paul. I was devastated when I realized we weren't exclusively dating each other. He claims he's done some work on himself, and he wants to show me he's ready. But how do I trust him?"
"I get that," he says and leans forward. "But we, better than others, should know that sometimes a little work can do wonders. We do it every day. We take something existing, make a few changes, and it's a whole different space. Something magnificent. Change does wonders for everything."
She lets out a breath and leans back. "What if he only thinks he wants me back because I'm with someone else? That he can't handle that I've moved on, but if he gets me back, he'll decide he doesn't want me again?"
"What if he doesn't just want you because you're with someone else? People aren't always on the same timelines we are. My wife wasn't when I met her. I'd almost given up, but I knew deep down she was who I was meant to be with. I'm glad I took that chance."
Jess's eyes damn near pop out of her head. "What?"
"Gloria's five years younger than I am. I met her when I worked at my first architecture firm after college. She worked part-time cleaning offices while she went to college, and we started dating. She was barely nineteen. She was a freshman, and she wasn't ready to settle down. She felt she hadn't experienced enough of life yet, and we broke up."
"I had no idea."
"I don't tell many people. I'd started seeing this woman I'd met through a friend. She was nice. Pretty, smart, and she liked me. Boy, did she like me. But at the end of the day, she wasn't Gloria.
"And one day, Gloria came to find me at work. She'd quit by then, so seeing her was a shock. She told me she was ready now. She'd taken some time, experienced a little more life, and she didn't want to experience any more of it without me. It'd been about a year, and I almost told her I'd moved on. In my heart, I knew I hadn't. And if I'd let my pride and my fear of being hurt again take over, I wouldn't be with her today."
Jess smiles and puts her chin in her hand. "I wish love was easy."
Paul laughs and stands to walk over and pat her shoulder. "Don't we all? You'll figure it out. Just follow your heart. It feels things the brain doesn't see."