18. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
I t's been a week since everything started again with Kade, and Jess is more confused than ever. The morning after their date, Kade started up with the good morning texts he used to send her every morning. The same texts she used to reach for her phone to look at instinctively in the morning before she remembered she and Kade were no longer together.
As much as she doesn't want to, she's finding herself right back in the same place as she was before. Right back in love. It's only been a week, but he seems to go out of his way to prove she won't be making a mistake by giving him another chance. Even if it's just probationary, it's still worth the risk. In a way, she can see how much he's changed. Little things she never really noticed until after everything was said and done aren't there anymore. Which tells her that he's either extremely good at acting, or he really has put some work into himself.
Landry, on the other hand, hasn't spoken to her since the night he came to her place to find Kade in her living room. The last time she saw him was the night she went to the steakhouse with Kade. Seeing him with another woman caught her off-guard, and she now finds herself evaluating if anything in their relationship was real. She also sees all the red flags she just chalked up to still working on getting over Kade. It's starting to become clear why he hasn't been as successful in relationships as he should be, given what he says he wants. He has quite the vindictive side.
She also finds it difficult not to compare the two men, especially now that she's seeing the side of Kade she missed and wanted back for so long mixed with the side of Landry she feels was always there but partially hidden. Or ignored. It's off-putting to see him so vindictive and angry on top of his aloofness that still seems to come out more often than not. The last thing she wants to do is spend the rest of her life pointing out to the man she ends up with when he's being an asshole.
They're two different men, and she understands that. It's now to the point of deciding whose flaws can be overlooked and overcome.
Her phone chimes Wednesday while she's working, and she's surprised to see Landry's name when she expected Kade's.
Jess stares at the phone for a long time before responding. Yeah, they need to talk, but she's not certain where she stands right now. Maybe he wants to be done, and she doesn't need to make any type of decision herself. Maybe he decided the girl he took out that night is the one he wants to be with, and she can avoid the hard conversation about what she doesn't find appealing about him after all. She has a feeling it won’t go well.
Jess works on the drafts with the proposed changes from the Historical Society for the fourth time when her phone chimes close to when she normally logs out. This time, Kade's name appears, and she can't help but smile.
Jess focuses the next few hours on the draft, and at seven thirty, she's finally done. Leaning back in her chair, she stretches her arms above her head and prays this is the last set of changes she has to draft up. Finding a compromise between what the head of the committee wants and what their client wants has become even trickier with this project. It's almost as though the Historical Society has made it a personal challenge to make it as impossible as they can.
Grabbing her jacket, she heads out to her Benz and drives the short distance home. Instead of an empty driveway, she sees Landry's SUV parked off to the side to allow her access to her garage. He's early.
"After eight, huh?" she mutters and pulls into her parking spot on the left side of her detached garage in front of her house.
Landry meets her as she steps outside and presses the button to lower the large door. "Hey."
"Hey," she says and leads him to the front porch. Her nerves kick up, and she barely fits the key in the lock to let them inside. "How are you?"
"I'm okay. You?"
"I'm okay."
This is awkward. Very awkward. Considering they'd just found their way into bed together and ravaged each other, it shouldn't be like this. If things were working, they wouldn’t be here.
"Look, I feel like I need to explain about that night. At the steakhouse."
She'd be lying if she said the curiosity of how it all went down and who the girl was wasn't killing her. "You were on a date."
"So were you."
"Mine wasn't planned," she says. "He hijacked me in the lobby of my office and put me in a tough position to say no. I also figured the least he could do was buy me a meal at my favorite restaurant after everything that happened."
Landry sighs and moves to sit on the recliner. "You didn't plan to go out with him?"
"No, I didn't."
"I saw him pick you up, and I followed you," he admits.
Her eyes narrow, and she moves to the couch and stares at him. "You followed me?"
"I was coming here to talk to you. The way we left things... I didn't like it."
"We both have phones, Landry. Stalking isn't necessary."
"I figured it would be harder for you to tell me you chose Kade if we were face to face. Plus, if he can show up unannounced, I should be able to, too."
Jess shakes her head and sits. What the hell is this? Eleventh grade? If he can do it, so can I?
"Who was the girl?"
Letting out a dry chuckle, he rests his elbows on his knees. "A girl who's been trying to get together with me for a few years now. I called her, and she was able to call in a favor to get a table at the steakhouse. It was a game for her, and she had no issues with it."
"Did you take her home?" The fact he called up some random girl to make what should be a relationship into a game bothers her. It bothers her more than the fact he was with another girl.
He runs a hand over his face and sighs. "I saw you let Kade inside your house. I thought... well, it was a moment of weakness. If you could sleep with him, I could sleep with Holly."
The stabbing pain she expects to feel doesn't come. Instead, she feels anger for the woman he slept with out of spite. "Oh."
"I didn't want you to be the only one who could mess around with someone else."
"Tit for tat?"
"Something like that."
Leaning back, she sinks into the back cushion of the couch. "The only issue is, I didn't sleep with Kade. He gave me a kiss goodnight, but that was it."
He sucks in a sharp breath of air. "You didn't?"
"Nope. He came inside because he wanted to talk and didn't want to say it on the front porch. I told him I have a strict sixty-day rule, and he apologized for being the reason I felt the need to do that. He told me he'd wait until I was ready, whether it be sixty days or a hundred and sixty days."
"You didn't have sex with him?"
"Nope. I kissed him, but that was it. I haven't heard from you since that confrontation here, and I had no idea whether or not I should reach out or not to decide where we stood."
He rubs a large hand over his face again. "I was sure you let him upstairs when he went inside."
"Nope. You didn't want me to be the only one who messed around, but it turns out you were the only one of us who did. And on top of that, you slept with a woman out of spite who clearly has feelings for you. That sounds healthy."
She doesn’t care how sarcastic she sounds. What he did was cruel.
"You told me you still have feelings for him!" he shouts and stands. "Do you have any idea what that feels like?"
Jess nods. "I can imagine it wouldn't feel great, but I never said I did. I said I didn't know. Which I didn't at the time because I wasn't allowing myself to think about it. I couldn’t think about it because I put all my effort into us. And trust me, I don't want to have feelings for him. At least, I didn't."
"You're falling in love with him again?"
"I don't know... maybe? He's doing everything I loved when we were together and doing whatever he can to show me things are different. I don't know if I trust him yet, but he's putting in effort."
"How the hell is he doing that?" he asks, anger still flashing in his eyes.
Jess takes a deep breath and settles herself. She doesn't think Landry would ever physically harm her, but his anger scares her a little. "He texts me every morning. Then he talks to me throughout the day. He sent me gifts at work with notes saying he should've been doing it all along. Then he showed up in the lobby last week and asked me to dinner. Up until that point, there wasn't even an indication I was going to give him another shot, but he kept trying. He put himself out there."
"And what's he doing when you're not with him?" Landry asks. "How do you know he's not out screwing every other woman out there while you're putting him on a bullshit probationary period?"
His anger silences her. Bullshit probationary period? He knew why she did it, and he said he was fine with it, but he clearly wasn't. And the night he thinks she slept with Kade is the night he sleeps with someone to get back at her. This isn't the man she wants to be with. He may check off every box on paper, but in person, he's not a good man.
"Well?"
"As far as I know, you're the only one of the three of us to sleep with someone else in the past week."
His jaw clenches, and his nostrils flare. "That's not fair."
"To point out you're condemning him for something you did when you're the only one we know definitively did anything of the sort?" Sighing, Jess stands. "I'm done, Landry."
"Because of him?"
"Because of you."
Jaw dropping, he stares at her for a few moments before speaking. "Me? I've been here. Every day since I met you, I've been here."
"Have you, though? You still have a wall up. You clearly have an issue that you had to wait sixty days from the day we met to climb into my bed, and then you lied to my face, telling me it was fine. You have this vindictive side when you're angry, and you have no boundaries when it comes to hurting people when you feel slighted. What you did with that girl wasn't fair to anyone involved, including her."
Looking at the ground, he nods his head. "You'll do anything to make yourself feel better about choosing Kade after everything he put you through."
"This isn't about Kade, Landry. I haven't chosen him. This is about you and how you come across. The way the little things mix with the big things."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means that it shows me the type of person you are, and just because we both want a long-term relationship that ends with marriage and kids doesn't create a solid foundation for a happy life. It's how you haven't talked to me for almost two weeks, but you'll follow me and get a last-minute date to show you can do what you believe I'm doing. How you don't text me in the mornings or ever offer to clean up after I make us dinner. The way you pull away and make it nearly impossible to get to know you without you exploding. You're here, but you're not fully here. The part I can't get past is the person you become when you're angry."
"I'm not allowed to be angry?"
"You're one hundred percent allowed to be angry. What you're not allowed to do is cast judgment on someone's character or act like you have them and an entire situation figured out to say hurtful things because you want to go tit for tat. You're not allowed to use someone to get back at a person. Did you even think about how what you did would make me feel? Or worse, how this Holly girl feels about it knowing you're not calling her the next day? She probably thought she had a chance to get you to like her and see her how she sees you."
He scoffs. "Like Kade treats women, you mean?"
"Then how the hell does what you did make you any better than him? Because the way I see it, there's not much difference in the man he was and this man in front of me."
"That's rich, Jess. Real rich. You know what? You have fun with your ex. Let him break your heart again. You deserve it. I can't believe I thought I could fall for a bitch."
She nods her head and walks to the door, holding it open. "Goodbye, Landry."
Taking the door from her hands, he slams it shut behind him, causing her to jump. Whether or not she decides to give Kade a chance, she knows this was the right decision. Landry may have looked good on the outside and when it came to checking off the boxes of what she wanted in a man, but that doesn't account for the real-life version of the man she now knows. And certain things can't be overlooked.