Chapter Four
Jase
She was waiting for me when I pulled in the driveway, her white BMW parked in the double carport.
As if she belonged.
As if we were still together.
Fury jolted through my veins like a hit from an energy drink.
I didn’t live in her corner of social media, but I knew about that video where she claimed Hannah was the reason we weren’t together.
I also knew Hannah had been humiliated, in person and online, because of that video.
She’d done that to her sister, the one she’d been closest to, the one who loved her best.
Setting my jaw, I slammed the truck into park and pushed the door open.
Elizabeth jumped out of her car and ran around the hood of my truck. “Jase.”
Her arms outstretched, ready to embrace me, she caught one look at my clothes and came to a dead stop. That halt was so fast it would have been comical if I hadn’t been so damned mad and disgusted.
My mouth twisted. I was filthy head to toe after being knee deep in dirt, working on an excavator, and I stunk to high heaven.
Guess that threw a kink in her planned little reunion.
Glancing around for a camera, I swallowed my smartass comment.
Not worth my time.
I ignored her and strode for the back door.
“Jase.” Pique sharpened her voice. I kept walking. “John Carpenter.”
Then I rolled my eyes. She wasn’t my mama, and that only worked for Mama. As I unlocked the back door, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Heels clonked on the concrete, clattered on the step behind me.
I glowered over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“No, you don’t.” Arms folded, I turned, blocking the door. No way she was getting in my house.
That was reserved for Tyler now.
Her eyes hardened, at odds with the way her mouth dropped into a pout I knew she considered cute and enticing.
Probably because once upon a time I’d given into anything she wanted when she pursed her lips like that.
“Jase.”
Was she just planning on saying my name until I caved? That was on me, too. Lots of times, I’d given in because it was easier, and I’d wanted her to be happy.
“It’s been weeks.” She sniffed, a big, affected, pitiful-me sound. “Months.”
“Elizabeth, we’re done. I’m done. I don’t want anything to do with you, and there’s nothing to say.”
Tears – and real hurt – glimmered in her eyes.
I didn’t give a shit.
She’d singlehandedly killed anything soft I felt for her. She’d done it with a series of awful deliberate actions. The girl I’d fallen for, the one I’d have done anything for? She’d been gone a long time, if she’d ever been real at all.
I jerked my chin toward her car. “Need you to leave.”
She scoffed.
Anger scorched my nape. Didn’t intend to waste anymore of my time with her. Grasping the doorknob behind me, I shoved the door open and turned to step inside.
I shut the door in her face. And threw the lock – loudly – for good measure.
Ignoring her pounding on the window, I stripped off in the laundry room and headed for the shower. I had plans with Tyler, the second night this week since Sunday, and I wasn’t letting Elizabeth cast a pall on that.
In the shower, I scrubbed off layers of dirt and sweat and diesel. I needed to let Tyler know she’d showed up. Tyler wanted easy with me, and that meant open transparency about anything and everything. She was not the type to like surprises.
Elizabeth better not fuck this up for me.
The way I was gone on Tyler already wasn’t lost on me.
The pull wasn’t all physical – that was hot as hell – but I knew from Mama and Daddy and Grandma and Grandaddy you had to like the person you were with.
I liked her. She was upfront, no bullshit, and I liked that.
I lived in complicated problems and figuring things out every day, all day long.
Being with a woman I didn’t have to constantly diag was refreshing.
Guilt speared through me, and I stuck my head under the water, rinsing my hair. Elizabeth’s parents’ shit had done a number on her. I knew that. I’d done what I could to be steady and loving, to provide stability for her when we were together.
She’d sought attention and validation elsewhere, in that damn YouTube channel, on social media platforms, in people she didn’t know. She’d turned mean and vindictive, and I got how a person’s upbringing affected how they navigated the world.
Colt Calvert was complicated because his mama lost a baby at birth when he’d been a real little kid. She’d struggled, and it affected him.
Tate was impulsive and sometimes self-destructive because his brain got stuck in those years when he’d lost everything, from his mama to the farm that was home to his daddy.
Elizabeth was looking for what her mama doled out with conditions and her daddy couldn’t give her.
But those lacks didn’t excuse her behavior. Colt and Tate had issues, but underneath it all, they were decent. Hannah had the same parents as Elizabeth, a similar hurt from her mama. She wasn’t out lying and trying to destroy people.
I’d loved Elizabeth, at least parts of her, but the Elizabeth who chose external praise and likes over basic decency? She’d uprooted that love like a bulldozer with a root rake and left a fertile, plowed field for someone pure and honest like Tyler. Not flawless or perfect, but genuine.
I liked her, and I felt like I could love her one day. Like we could be something fine and longlasting.
She reminded me of Mama and Grandma, neither of whom held back their thoughts and feelings. I thought they’d like her. Mama had grown frustrated with Elizabeth pretty quick, and Grandma had always given her a pinched look.
All that should have been my first clue, but teenage boys are dumb. Hard to think critically with a chronically hard dick and wet dreams.
My time in the Air Force, followed by her time at Southern, had kept us separated more than we were together. Maybe without that, I’d have figured it out sooner. Although maybe not. Daddy said I was wired to do things the hard way. And I hated to give up before something was fixed.
When I emerged from the house, showered, shaved, and dressed to take Tyler to dinner, Elizabeth was gone.
On my way to Tyler’s, I swung in at the CVS and jogged in to grab condoms. They only had the one register open up front, of course, and I tapped the box against my thigh while I waited for the older lady in front of me to sort out exact change.
“Hey, Jase.” A tap landed on my shoulder moments before Nicole’s sugary voice made me cringe.
Not having to deal with her had been another benefit of no longer being with Elizabeth.
They’d roomed together at Southern, and sometimes I wondered if Nicole influenced Elizabeth’s behavior or vice versa. “What are you up to?”
Passing the box of condoms over to the clerk, I ignored Nicole. She already had her phone out, texting, and of course she was messaging Elizabeth about what I was buying.
My phone started blowing up before I even made it across the parking lot to my truck.
I thumbed open the text thread, tapped her contact and blocked her. Should have done it weeks ago.
We weren’t together. My life wasn’t her concern anymore.
Probably should have texted that before I blocked her.
Minutes later, I pulled into Tyler’s driveway – she rented a little three bedroom place in a neighborhood where several people I’d gone to high school with lived. Parked behind her SUV, I tapped my thumb on the steering wheel and released a long breath.
I had to tell her. Didn’t think she could be mad at me. I mean, I wasn’t responsible for Elizabeth showing up, but you never knew. Elizabeth stayed mad at me, all the time, for shit I didn’t know annoyed her.
Like breathing.
Tyler emerged from the front door, shrugging a khaki coat on over a white blouse and jeans. I scrambled out of the cab. “Hey, I was coming up to the door to get you.”
She fixed me with the long-suffering look I always got when I tried to treat her right, holding doors or pulling out a chair. “I’m capable of walking to the truck.”
“You know what I mean.” I hustled around to open the passenger door. She eyed my hand on the door and rolled her eyes before climbing up.
“Colt was the same way about doors.” She snapped the seatbelt into place. “What is it with you guys?”
All right, I didn’t have to get bent out of shape because she was comparing me to Colt.
He was an all right guy, quiet, hardworking.
I mean, I didn’t want my mistakes when I was eighteen held against me, so I shrugged off that mess about him hooking up with his cousin’s girlfriend at a party.
He was drunk off his ass that night, and that girl, Nicole’s older cousin, was a piece of work.
The whole thing never set right with me.
Still.
Tyler had dated him for almost a year. I didn’t want her thinking about him while she was with me, and I sure didn’t want her comparing me to him.
“It’s how we were raised.” Pretty sure he’d gone through cotillion classes the year before I did. I stepped back and shut the door, hoping she’d forget about him before I got behind the wheel.
When I hopped in my seat, Tyler was finishing up a text and tucking her phone away. Engine running and a foot on the brake, I gripped her headrest and half-turned toward her.
She shot a sidelong glance at my arm, then the gearshift. “I think it works better if you put the truck in reverse.”
“Well–” I played with a strand of her dark hair. “–I was thinking about kissing you first.”
With a smirk, she tapped the end of my nose. “That’s an end of the night activity, flyboy.”
I lowered my head, closing half the distance between us. “We can make our own rules, sugar.”
“Sugar.” She shook her head. “You have lost your mind.”
“Can I kiss you hello or not?”
A hand at my nape, she pulled my mouth down to hers, a quick, firm kiss. Grinning, I straightened and shifted to reverse. Once we were on our way, she gave the CVS bag, contents visible through the thin plastic, an arch look. I shook my head.