40. KAYLA
40
“ H e’s going to be such a heartbreaker,” I huff, shaking my head with endearment.
I look at Charlotte sitting on the rocking chair on her porch, with Logan on her lap. He’s the spitting image of his father even at four months old and I just know he’ll be just as handsome one day.
Charlotte lets out a pained moan, rolling her eyes as she keeps rocking him back and forth until he sleeps. “God, I hope not.”
We all laugh at that, knowing every detail of Charlotte and Hunter’s difficult start.
“If he’s going to pull the shit his father did, I’ll be dragging him home by his ear and giving him a lesson in finding his balls.”
“Charlie,” Julie titters, “so old-fashioned. If he finds it earlier than seven years, he’ll be an upgrade compared to his dad.”
“Right.” Charlotte laughs.
I sip my sweet tea, glancing between my friends.
When I met Charlotte and Julie last year, they were mostly Rae’s friends. But since I’ve been back in North Carolina, we’ve been spending a lot of time together and now they feel like my friends too. They never treat me like a teenager even though they are all a few years older and most of the time, it feels like they are the three sisters I never had.
“Men. They have the biggest mouths, but they are scared shitless when it comes to commitment,” Rae mutters. There is a frown on her face as if she’s pissed at Jensen for something, but I know it’s really Bodi who she’s talking about. She made it no secret she wanted to strangle him when I took residence in her guestroom. She even bickers with Jensen about it.
“They are just like any other human being.” A kind smile tugs on Charlotte’s lips as the sun lights up her face. “They just feel the need to hide it. Us women try to hide our fears, but not our humanity.”
This woman lost her mother, the only relative she had, while her heart was broken by the man she loves, and she still looks like the epitome of compassion.
I don’t know how she does it.
“How can you be so calm about it when Hunter made you wait for him for seven years?” I tilt my head in curiosity.
Charlotte glances at Logan. “He made it all better.”
“I thought babies make everything worse?” Julie deadpans.
“Jules!” Rae scolds as I chuckle.
“Well, I wouldn’t suggest getting one unless you’re solid,” Charlotte adds with a smile, “but when I look at him, he makes me forget all the pain and sorrows Hunter and I endured before this. It wasn’t fun. God, he drove me mad. But it was worth it. I think the three of you will feel the same one day.”
“Gotta find a man who’s worth my time first,” Julie mutters. A frown slides onto Charlotte’s face but before she can open her mouth, Julie raises her hand. “Don’t you say a word!”
Charlotte snaps her jaw back together, averting her gaze as if she’s saying never mind .
“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” I move my gaze back and forth between them while Rae does the same.
“Right,” Julie blurts.
“Hold up.” I lift a finger in the air. “What does that mean, Jules?”
“I don’t know. Things between Jacob and I have always been…”
“Complicated?” Rae chimes in.
“Yeah.”
“There’s nothing complicated about it, Jules. You deserve better,” Charlotte says sharply, though her gaze stays friendly as ever. “And we all know it.”
“Way to sugar coat it, bestie .”
Charlotte shrugs, running her thumb over her baby’s tiny eyebrow. “I’m getting too old to sugar coat things.”
I stiffly a laugh, loving how she perfectionated her polite, yet don’t give a fuck, attitude. “Do you still love Jacob?”
“I don’t know what I feel,” she snorts. “And until I do… this subject,” she waves her glass around our circle, “is not something I’m willing to discuss. No offense.”
“Can’t blame you.” Considering the situation I’m in, I get it, and I decide to not press her on it even though we all can see she’s not telling us everything.
“Did you hear from him?” Julie asks, cautiously.
Damn, should’ve seen that one coming.
I shake my head.
“He’s ghosting her,” Rae growls. I love her even more for it. “She called him to pay her respects for his father, but he didn’t even bother to pick up the phone and let her. I know he’s hurt, but he’s acting like a straight up asshole. I told him as much when I called him a couple of days ago.”
She did. I could hear her all the way up in my room, and as much as it made me giggle, I also felt sorry for him falling under her wrath.
“It’s okay, Rae.”
“No, it’s not okay.” Rae is getting all worked up again, her anger clearly not simmered down even a little and protective of me. “He doesn’t want a relationship for whatever stupid reason he has found. He’s damaged. Fine. Aren’t we all? But he doesn’t have to ghost you when you’re trying to be his friend after his father died.”
That definitely hit me like a brick in the face when I was already down. I loved his dad. I wanted to go to the funeral and say goodbye. Thought about it for days. But I didn’t want to make that day any harder for Bodi than it already was.
“He must be really hurting.” Charlotte offers me a sympathetic smile. “But it doesn’t give him the right to hurt you like he is. You deserve better than that.”
I know I do. Up until this year I didn’t, but now I do.
Leaving Stanford was the hardest thing I ever did, but it showed me what I was capable of. Working for Bodi wasn’t the most glamorous job in the world, but it was fun. It was challenging, and it made me feel useful. Like I had a purpose. A responsibility. Bodi’s friendship, his affection, it only added to that feeling, showing me how I wasn’t the useless little girl that Trent wanted me to believe I was.
I deserve better than his asshole behavior and somewhere deep down, my heart still believes he cares as much for me as I do for him. Maybe he even loves me. But after two weeks of silence, when all I did was try to be there for him, I realized you can’t force someone to love you. To listen to you. To be your friend.
“How were you able to wait for Hunter as long as you did?” I cock my head at Charlotte. My eyes hurt, but I try to hide the pain through my smile.
“I didn’t.” She shrugs. “I tried to move on every single time. I tried to live my life and at some points, I actually did. But every time he strutted back into my life and knocked me down with his beaming smile and flirty comments.”
“So you just kept breaking your own heart over and over again?”
She gives me a smile that tells me I’m fucked, but is encouraging at the same time.
“It’s the one and only flaw of the heart… its ability to switch owners in the blink of an eye. You can hold on as tight as you want, but as soon as it belongs to someone else, you can only pretend you control it. Because, in reality, you don’t have any control at all.”
“You are not really selling the whole love thing here, Charlie,” Jules huffs.
Charlotte ignores Julie, keeping her gaze fixed on mine. “If his heart is yours, he will come back. Eventually.”
“What if my heart is his instead?” The thought alone is terrifying, but I can’t stop it from flashing through my mind. What if I love him, but he really doesn’t love me?
“Then one day, someone else will walk into your life, determined to snatch you away from him.”
Her response settles me down a little bit.
I want to believe there is hope.
I just don’t want there to be hope without Bodi.