7. Jace
SEVEN
JACE
Payton stares, her eyes blown wide like no one’s offered her a drive home before.
Hell, I think I did once in the past, but she found a different way home from the party that night, opting to go with another classmate. I’ll admit, that shit hurt, but she acted normal the next day at school, so I moved on and read nothing into it.
“Get in,” I repeat, leaning over to the passenger door to pull the handle and push it open. It swings, nearly hitting her, but still, she stares down the road, debating if she’s going to run or accept my offer.
After another moment, she sighs and climbs inside the truck, buckling up. Her eyes sweep the area, and that’s when I notice her skin’s a bit paler than earlier—a reaction I doubt having to do with my early arrival.
“You okay?”
“What?” She jerks my way, her throat swallowing. “Y-yeah. Good timing on your part, that’s all.”
She’s hiding something, but I pull away from the curb and drive in the direction of her house, figuring the vehicle might not be the best place to get into it.
“I should consider myself lucky I was coming by early.”
“Fawn heard what happened this morning and suggested I go home to relax.” As I turn the corner away from the diner, she sends a final peek out the window before shrinking into the seat. Whatever happened, at least she’s settling.
“That’s nice of her.” It’s the least they can fucking do after the shit Bennett pulled. More than once, I debated hunting that fucker down to get a few more punches in today.
“Helping was nice of you .”
“Nah.” My fingers flex over the steering wheel as I turn down the single road near the edge of town, slowing down to prolong the trip. “It was the right thing to do. But I’m not here to debate ethics and morals, just see you.”
I allow my eyes to leave the dirt road to study her, noticing the way she’s pressed against the door to create as much space between us as she can. It’s cute how skittish she’s become, but also not, because it makes me want to destroy Bennett.
“Seeing you this morning wasn’t expected.” It was, because Brad mentioned her working there, but I won’t admit that.
“Being back wasn’t what I expected.” It’s a statement that opens the opportunity for me to ask for details, but her house comes into view, and I’ll be damned if I’m beginning this kind of conversation for her to end it early. Plus, I still have to figure out what had her so spooked outside the diner.
I park in front of her house, and she twists to face me. “Thanks for the drive.”
“No problem. It’s kind of a far walk from here to the diner, especially when mornings still retain the frost. No car?”
“Can’t afford one.” Her cheeks flush red, and her lips roll together like she’s said more than she meant to.
“I only afford this because it’s a business write-off.” Not completely true, but it quells the look on her face enough that the knot in my stomach begins unwinding.
Hand on the door, she pauses, her hair flicking over her shoulder as she twists back. “I’m not doing anything but relaxing, so if you’re not busy…drink? I don’t have beer, but I think I have wine. And pop. Water too.”
Feeling like a damn victor, I turn the vehicle off and snag the keys and my wallet, then immediately hop out and around the front of the truck to finish opening her door, offering my hand to help her out.
Her hand, warm and fucking soft, slips into mine. “Gentleman.”
“My mother raised me right. Are you telling me Bennett didn’t help you from vehicles?” Teasing slips into my tone since we both know the answer to that, but it doesn’t stop the shadow from passing over her expression—or the guilt I feel for bringing it up.
“Aaron didn’t help me with much.”
She leads me to her house, unlocking the door while I study the surrounding area, noting the place I hid when watching her through her window. The woods are vast, though I’ve never really had a reason to be this far away from home; nothing’s over here except a forest that eventually connects with the next town’s boundaries.
“Coming?” She glances over her shoulder, holding the door open, and I stride up the two wooden steps with chipped blue paint and through the entrance.
It smells like her. Like morning dew right before sunrise, left behind by the night’s chill. The chill I anticipate seeing her in very soon. There’s a faint whiff of apple cider in the air as well, reminding me of the body spray she wore in high school.
At least not everything has changed.
She kicks off her shoes with a happy moan that does things to my dick, then rolls her neck before dropping her purse a few steps from the entrance. “Didn’t realize how long of a day it’s been. Feels good to be home.”
She heads for the kitchen, leaving me standing in the small entrance cut out of the house—a three-by-three-feet tiled area consumed mainly by a shoe rack and coat closet. I kick off my shoes and step into the attached living room, noting the old-fashioned rug and couch.
“Take a seat,” she calls from the kitchen. “Wine?”
I despise wine. “Sure.”
She returns holding two glasses of red, handing me one before dropping onto one end of the couch. She sips her drink, some of the colour returning to her unusual paleness as I settle on the opposite end, stretching my legs out as far as the distance between me and the wooden coffee table allows for.
After a moment of awkward but comfortable silence, she releases a giggle and drops her head onto the couch’s backing, eyes staring at the ceiling.
“What’s funny?”
“This. You. Me. A year ago, I never imagined this being my future.”
You and me both. “Didn’t ever think you’d return to these parts, if I’m honest. You never even came to visit your parents on holidays.”
“Moving back home wasn’t part of the plan,” she murmurs with a sigh before taking a long drink. I’m about to come out and ask what I’m dying to know when she rolls her head to the side, and her mouth spreads into a slow smile. “We never hung out in school, did we? Like outside of it, I mean.”
“You hated me.”
“And you hated me.” Her smile expands, breaking open my chest bit by bit. “We both know we were lying on those fronts. Maybe we should have given actual friendship a shot.”
“I’m happy we didn’t,” I reply with a tip of my glass, my words surprising even me. “What we had was perfect in our own way. Fun.”
“You tormented me.” She snorts. “Of course, it was fun for you!”
“Torment is such a strong word,” I drawl in an almost mocking tone. “Let’s not make it sound worse than it was.”
Her laughter wakes a part of me that apparently went to sleep with her absence. A part that grins back. Like I told Brad, it’s not like I sat around waiting for the woman. I dated others in the years past, but with her in front of me again, it’s like none of them existed.
“You really are the same, Jace.”
“So are you.” Her face falls, laugh lines smoothing out for a frown of misery, and I’m kicking myself for making the happiness on her face disappear so quickly.
“I’m not the same. Not at all.” Her voice gets thick with impending tears, but she forces them away behind a swig of wine.
This is my opening, and, this time, I won’t miss.
“I have to ask…”
“I know.” She sighs, her shoulders dipping like they’re holding the weight of her world. Which, perhaps they are. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“You went to Guelph for school.” She was excited to have gotten accepted to her dream school and journey across the country. I can recall her excitement like it was yesterday, the sight of her joy so damn beautiful. “For a vet med degree.”
“Yeah.” She sips her drink, sloshing the liquid around in her mouth as she considers. “I got the degree. Never made it to the job part, though. A few months after leaving here, Aaron texted me, saying he was in Kitchener, which is close to Guelph. We hung out a few times, and he used all the right words to get me back. A few months later, we got an apartment together halfway between the two cities. He drove to his school, while I took transit to mine since student loans and day-to-day expenses maxed me out, leaving no budget for even a cheap car. We graduated and moved to Toronto, figuring we’d both find work there. He wanted to live deep in the city, but I argued for the outskirts—like Ajax, Pickering, or Mississauga—to save money. It wasn’t our first fight, which probably should have been a clue.” She pauses before adding, “Clue number one million technically. God, I’m fucking stupid for making excuse after excuse for him.”
“You’re not stupid. You wanted it to work, so you rationalized his behaviours to yourself.”
“No, I’m an idiot,” she counters. “I continued to look the other way. He started saying how I’d changed over the years, and not for the better. I began stress eating, and he became uninterested. We were wildly incompatible in the bedroom. He was boring, and I wanted…more.” She stops abruptly with a nervous chuckle, shaking her near-empty wine glass. “Fuck, what’s in this stuff? Sorry for babbling.”
“Babble all you want.” You’re confirming what I hoped for.
Red tinges her cheeks, but she shakes her head and continues. “It was one thing after another. And then the email came, saying my credit card had a huge balance owing. I assumed my card got hacked, until checking my account and noticing the kinds of purchases being made. So I confronted him, and learned despite him being well-off due to his parents, he maxed out my card and left me with the debt. Bars, clubs, restaurants…jewellery stores.”
“He claims you cheated on him.”
“Other way around.”
The stem of the wine glass becomes fragile beneath my grip, and I wish I’d hit him harder this morning. Hard enough to send him six feet under, perhaps. While fire ignites within my veins, Payton keeps talking, her words only sparking the flames hotter.
“That was nearly a year ago, and given the hellish time we were together, I don’t miss him. But he left me with a debt so high, I can’t pay it all off. Add that to living expenses and paying back my student loans, life in Ontario got too unaffordable. I spoke with my parents, but they had nothing to help, except this place. They suggested I move back to save money by living here, then get a job to begin working at the debt. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be living here the rest of my life.”
I wouldn’t mind that one bit, but the sentiment that she must will always linger.
“Sadly, there’s no vet clinic in town for me to get a job at. Closest one is the next town over, but I couldn’t walk it. Fawn was nice enough to give me a job. It’s not even living here that’s the problem either; in some ways, I’m okay with it. Being in big cities made me remember how much I enjoy small-town life, but when I learned Aaron, for some reason, returned too, that was a hard fucking pill to swallow. I swear, he knew I’d come running home, so he did too.”
This whole conversation is a hard fucking pill to swallow.
“Anyway…” She stands, swinging her empty glass back and forth. “I think I need more. I’ll be back.”
And I think Bennett needs a fucking hammer to his skull.