Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
jade
Of course Lenni would choose now to be out of town—now that I’ve spent hours replaying my night in Reeve’s bed and telling myself it’s okay to want it to happen again .
. . just as long as I’m talking about sex and not the rush of exhilaration I felt at hearing he wants me at his game.
Now that I’m in desperate need of a levelheaded sounding board, Lenni has to run off to her hometown to attend her brother’s fall play.
Fortunately for our carpet, which I’ve just about worn a hole through with my pacing, she’s due back at any minute.
The second she walks through the door, I take her duffel bag, toss it to the floor, and squeeze her tight. “Don’t ever leave me again!”
“Um, nice to see you too.” She pulls back to search my face, giving me an uncertain smile. “Everything go okay while I was gone?”
“Come in. Sit down.” I push her toward the couch. “I already poured you a glass of wine.”
She sits as instructed and picks up the red plastic cup filled with wine. “We’re out of wineglasses, I take it?”
“Dishes may need washing, but I can’t think about that right now.” I suck down a slug of wine from my own cup before flopping onto the couch. “I slept with Reeve. Twice.”
A slow smile moves over her face. “So it’s finally happened.”
“Finally?”
“I should really start playing the lotto, what with my knack for knowing exactly how things are going to turn out.”
“So you’ve been expecting this. Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”
“I hate your respect for my privacy sometimes! If only you’d pried, I wouldn’t have been wrestling with this by myself.”
“Wrestling with what exactly?” She raises a knowing eyebrow.
“Ugh, fine. I like him.”
Lenni snatches a pillow off the couch, buries her face in it, and lets out a little shriek. When she uncovers her face, she’s wide-eyed and beaming. “I cannot believe this. I mean, I can, because the chemistry between you two could light a room on fire, but still. You and Reeve for real?”
“Slow down, ‘for real’ can have a lot of meanings, and none of them probably apply to us.”
Lenni cocks her head. “If there wasn’t something special here, I’d have been hearing about it for weeks. You never keep anything to yourself,” she says knowingly, and I don’t like that smug smile on her face.
“I only kept it to myself because I thought it would end. And because it’s weird. It’s not like we’re a real couple.”
“No? You’ve had plenty of situationships like that, and I still managed to learn the size and shape of those dudes’ dicks the same day you did.”
I curl my lip and look away because she’s right.
“What’s different?”
“I don’t know. Everything.” I stare down into my cup of wine. “Everything is different with him.”
Lenni’s silence begs me to go on.
“I don’t know what’s happening. I’m confused and I am not used to feeling that way. I loved Sam. I liked the guy I dated before him. I found that baseball player dude annoying but a great fuck. I always know how I feel and what I want with men.”
“And Reeve?”
“I don’t know what to think. He’s everything he seems to be: arrogant and annoying and crude.
But then there’s everything underneath that I almost can’t believe I understand so well.
He’s so alone. And he has all this good stuff in his heart to give; it’s like he’s overflowing with it because he’s never had anyone to give it to. ” I sigh. “Do I sound nuts?”
“You don’t sound like my Jade. You do sound like someone in love, though.”
I put my hand on hers. “Oh, no, I am nowhere near that far gone, girl. Believe me.”
Lenni keeps her lips pressed tight together, but her blue eyes say it all.
“It just can’t be. Football comes first for Reeve, and he’s definitely not looking for a relationship.”
“Jade! Did you learn nothing from what I went through with Cam? I was in the same exact place as you last year.”
“No, you assumed Cam put football before everything else. Reeve straight up told me. It’s the only thing that matters in his life.”
It crushes me to see my brilliant, tenacious, always-has-a-plan best friend slowly deflate. “So you’re saying you guys don’t have a future. Okay. That’s not new for you.”
“No, but what’s new is feeling a little . . . sad about it.”
“Aww, look at you being vulnerable.”
“Yeah, yeah. It won’t happen again,” I grumble.
Her mouth twists uncertainly. “Have you let him know there are real feelings here?”
“No!” I say. “And I don’t plan to.”
“What if he feels the same way?”
“We’re both better off if we don’t get into that.”
“So . . . you’re just going to pretend you don’t really like him?”
I shrug. “I’m just going to focus on the fun stuff. The stuff that won’t get anyone hurt.”
“Ah.” She raises her eyebrows. “Good luck with that.”
“I don’t need luck. Reeve makes it easy to focus on the fun stuff.”
“Oh?”
I put my hand on my chest and sigh. “Lenni, I just can’t tell you.” A memory washes over me, his muscles rock hard and straining as he held me in place, thrusting into me with perfect rhythm. Only when I open my eyes do I realize I closed them at all.
Lenni’s grinning. “Still with me?”
“Barely.” I reach for my wine and take a big swallow, then stand up. “Okay, maybe we leave it at that for today.”
“Your choice.” Lenni takes a sip from her cup, but as I head for the kitchen, she stops me. “Actually, Jade?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t hate me for saying this, but the last couple weeks? This is the happiest I’ve seen you in—no, you were the happiest I’ve ever seen you. Period.”
A familiar longing wells up inside me, tugging at my chest. “You’re right. He makes me really, really happy. Happy in a way I never expected from anyone, least of all Reeve. But I don’t know what to do with that. Rearrange my life?”
“Maybe.”
I shake my head. “If Reeve and I understand one thing about each other, it’s that we have big plans, and a relationship has no part in those plans.”
“Cam and I aren’t giving up our respective plans to be together.”
“You and Cam are different. Love is for people like you.”
She smiles. “You’re a force of nature, Jade, but I just dare you to try and stop love.”
“You only prove my point about you being different. You think love is the showstopper, but even if I was in love with him, it wouldn’t change a thing.
Football is always going to come first for Reeve.
And I’m not going to sacrifice my plans for a relationship that’ll eventually die out like they all do. ”
Lenni sighs in exasperation. “What do you call the opposite of a hopeless romantic?”
“Hmm. A hopeful realist?”
“More like a loveless grinch.” She smiles and sits back. “But have it your way. Keep on living your lies and keep on fighting the one thing that makes you happy.”
I wave her off and head for the kitchen, then open the fridge, but by the time I do, I’ve forgotten what I was looking for. Is Lenni right that I’m fighting the one thing that makes me happy?
Technically, I guess so. Reeve—his kiss, his touch, just his presence—is my only source of joy right now, and I’m definitely working to downplay that. And Lenni is well versed in how it feels to fall in love.
But the thing is, I’m not trying to experience love. I don’t want to. I want to learn how to be happy without it. Without him.