22. Will
Chapter twenty-two
Will
“The beach house is free if you need it,” Blake offers, and I appreciate it more than he can imagine.
Unfortunately, now isn’t the right time for me to take him up on the invitation.
Besides, the walls of that house carry all the memories of the woman I’d be trying to forget.
Whispers of a future. Whimpers of nights shared, our bodies entwined.
Everything that may be further out of reach after meeting Jewel today.
She wants time, and I’ve got a lifetime of it to give her.
But when she no longer wants to treat me, it’s impossible to imagine that any length of time I give her will be in my favor.
A kernel of fear, far greater than anything I experienced on a mission, takes root in my heart, sending a chill through my bones.
A life without Jewel would be an emotional wasteland that I don’t think I could come back from.
But whatever way the scales tip, I can’t regret what we were in those precious though brief days together.
The only regret was the bad decision to let her go in the first place.
Jewel came into my life unexpectedly, and with the effect of a Category 5 hurricane.
Ripping through all the plans I’d made for my future and tossing them into disarray.
Sure, I’d made promises to my friends that I couldn’t break, not even for her.
But I could have tried harder to see her when I returned from South America.
“Hey, did you even hear me?” Blake asks, giving my shoulder a nudge.
I crawl out of my pit of despair, leaving my somber mood behind and turning to face my friend and former teammate. “Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately, I can’t leave the city right now with my treatment.”
A frown pulls his brows low. “That’s what I don’t get. Why are you here in Brooklyn getting treatment?”
My next breath is shallow, not filling my lungs the way it should. “Do you remember me telling you about that woman I met when I stayed at your place?”
He nods like the pieces of a puzzle are finally slotting together. “She lives here in Brooklyn.”
While Ben and Parker knew I’d met Jewel, it was Blake who I’d talked to most about her. Given that she grew up in Southampton, he remembered some of the local kids. And while he wasn’t sure he’d met Jewel, he’d known her father as a local handyman.
“She’s my physiotherapist.”
A chuckle rumbles up from his chest, filling the air and rising above the general chatter of the busy bar. “Fuck, I didn’t know that. How’s that going?”
“Frustratingly slow. This injury is worse than the bullets I’ve taken.” To be fair, the two gunshot wounds I’ve sustained over the last ten years barely penetrated my flesh.
“Not what I meant. But I get the message. You don’t want to talk about the woman. What was her name again?”
“Jewel.” Even saying her name is like a hand squeezing my throat.
Picking up my beer, I spin my barstool a full one-eighty, so my back is wedged against the solid edge of the wooden counter.
Out of habit, my gaze roams the room, checking the entry and exit points.
From this point, I have a clear view around the whole space, which is small but open, and one of the reasons I chose this bar.
That and the fact that it’s local and only a short distance from my rented Airbnb.
Blake turns beside me, mirroring my actions.
Surveillance of our surroundings is embedded in us as thoroughly as our DNA.
“I thought that was over months ago?” he asks.
It’s a fair assumption on his part, as I’d tried to convince myself that it was too.
“The long distance idea went to shit when I went down to South America.” Blake and his business partner, Luke Steel, also a former teammate, know what we do.
And though they don’t get actively involved in operations anymore, the expertise that their cybersecurity company can offer has been invaluable.
“She thought I’d ghosted her and blocked my calls.
It’s only now that I’ve been able to explain what happened. ”
His gaze narrows like he’s trying to figure something out, so I’m expecting the question before it comes.
“That was months ago. What made you come looking for her now?”
My hand goes to the injured area of my leg that’s stretched out straight in front of me, while my other leg is bent at the knee and resting on the foot of the stool.
“Nearly dying from a knife-wielding asshole had a lot to do with it. And realizing that I’d thrown away my chance at a different kind of future.”
He nods knowingly. Blake has found his happy future, so he gets it in a way that Parker and even Ben don’t.
“So how’s it going with Jewel this time around?”
“She’s asked for time.”
Normally, I’m a patient man. I can lie prone for hours on a jungle floor, the damp bed of moss seeping into my bones.
Or hide for days in a cavern carved into the rugged slopes of an Afghan mountain.
But not knowing when I’ll see Jewel again eats at my resolve to wait, plummeting my thoughts into a lonely hellhole that could be worse than the physical ones I’ve been to.
“That’s savage, man.”
“Mmm,” I murmur and drink my beer. Savage is a fair assessment.
One half of the bar’s double doors swings open, and in walks the very woman I’d just been talking about. It’s like saying her name has conjured her up. The glass nearly slips through my fingers as all the air leaves my body. I rub my free hand across my eyes just to make sure I’m not imagining her.
Fuck. She’s here. Although it’s not such a stretch since her practice, my rental, and this bar are all within the same block radius. My heart leaps at the possibility of speaking to her again, even if it’s only to say hi.
But those hopes are quickly dashed when a tall blond man follows her through the doorway.
My gaze narrows to the point where his hand lands on the small of her back.
That’s where my hand belongs, not one attached to some suit from the city.
A burning desire to break every one of his fingers accompanies the jealousy streaking through my veins like a bolt of lightning just hit me and lit me on fire.
“No fucking way.” The expletive is ripped from my mouth along with a piece of my heart.
Blake’s eyes bore into the side of my head; the questions are bound to follow.
But I can’t deal with that when I’m willing Jewel to look up and see me.
To pay attention to me like she’s paying attention to the other guy who’s helping her with her coat.
To share her smiles with me like we did in Southampton.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Blake’s voice barely penetrates through the fog in my brain as I continue to stare at the couple. The only acknowledgment I can make is a sharp nod.
Her soft laughter drifts across the room, seeping into my chest and wrenching another stabbing pain from my heart.
What the fuck did he say that’s so funny?
But that’s when she turns. Our gazes find each other among the dozens of others with the pinpoint accuracy of a sniper’s spotting scope.
She freezes, a beautiful alabaster statue draped in sapphire blue, which adds a depth of color to her eyes, making them sparkle in the beams of light that fall around her.
I can’t look away even if I wanted to. And I know I should.
Her gaze darts away first, back to him.
“Will, you do realize you’re staring at them. It’s a little awkward when she’s obviously on a date.” Blake’s words register enough that my eyelids shutter closed briefly before opening and dropping to the floor.
She’s on a date. The knowledge sits with the heavy weight of defeat across my shoulders.
It never occurred to me that she would have moved on.
And it fucking should have. I’m an idiot, and my fist tightens around my beer as I fight the urge to bang my head against a nearby wall. A stupid fucking idiot.
Three gulps of beer do nothing to shift the lump of regret stuck in my throat. Another nudge from Blake, and I train my glare on him. Doesn’t he get that I need a minute here?
He ignores it. “She’s walking toward the bathrooms, alone. If you want to speak to her, now’s your chance.”
Without a word to my friend, I snatch up my crutch and thump across the floor after her. A frosted glass swing door separates the long hallway from the main bar, and about halfway along the hall, a plastic restroom sign points down a set of stairs.
Great!
One hand on the right rail and my left gripping the metal stick, I hop my way down them.
Though I try to avoid stairs, I’ve become reasonably adept at navigating them, and it no longer causes me to grimace in pain.
Jewel is nowhere to be seen when I reach the bottom, and I lean against the wall to wait.
One minute ticks by, then a second. And as the third slides into the fourth, Jewel appears. There’s no surprise in her expression when she sees me, just a look of resignation, like it was inevitable that I was going to follow her.
“You didn’t mention that you were dating.”
“We’re not. This is just a drink.”
Arguing over semantics is just going to piss me off more. I can’t let it go. “And how many drinks have you been out to with the guy upstairs?”
Jealousy is an emotion I’ve never had to navigate in the past. Yet it flows through my body unheeded by filters and coats my words with a cool, detached aloofness that I normally reserve for business associates.
“This is only the second time,” she admits with tiny embers of defiance in her gaze.
“I guess this is what you meant by needing time.”
She flinches. Her crestfallen expression is the admission I was searching for.
“That’s my bad for assuming you were free. I’m sorry.”
I stiffen my stance, and an arrow of pain shoots down my injured leg, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the one seizing my heart. This is love, and it hurts worse than a hundred knives piercing my skin because she’s moved on with some other lucky bastard.
“Goodbye, Jewel.” I turn and leave, each step heavier than the last.
What else is there left to say? She isn’t interested in me being anything other than her patient. And now not even that.
We’re done. I’ve lost her. And now all that’s left is for me to leave her for good this time.