FOUR JADE
FOUR
JADE
“You busy?” I ask as soon as my best friend, Hayley, answers her phone.
“Um, no. Declan’s at summer camp and Maisie just fell asleep. What’s up?”
I met Hayley my freshman year at CU Boulder.
We were both in the education program and were partnered on a project.
But while I kept going, Hayley stopped her degree when she got pregnant with her oldest, Declan.
Now she is married with two kids. Even though she lives in Colorado Springs with her little family, it is often hard to break away to see each other.
But it doesn’t mean she isn’t just a phone call away.
“I broke up with Brian,” I blurt out.
“To break up with someone, you have to be in a relationship with them. Could you really call Brian a relationship?”
Her question stings, but the truth always does.
“Technically, yes.”
“Uh-huh. So technically, how did it go?”
“Surprisingly, not that bad. He almost acted like he expected it.”
I liked Brian. We had a lot in common. Our relationship was easy. But if I am honest with myself, I don’t want easy. I want…more.
“That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Mmm. I never pictured the two of you together. It was too…”
“Easy?”
“Friendly. The one time you guys came down for New Year’s, it just seemed like there wasn’t any heat. I didn’t sense any physical attraction between the two of you. There was no sexual tension.”
“Because there wasn’t.”
“But you had just started dating. You guys barely even kissed each other at midnight.”
We barely kissed at all. There were no physical displays of affection—public or otherwise.
And I had been okay with that. There was more chemistry in my kiss in the bathroom with Shep than in the few kisses I had shared with Brian in the months that we had dated.
It made breaking up with him significantly easier than it should have been.
“So what finally prompted you to break up?”
“Finally?”
She sighs. “Oh, Jade. I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming.”
“I…yeah,” I finally admit.
“So, what happened?”
“Shep kissed me.”
One night our freshman year, I’d told her all about Shep—my first love, my first kiss, first everything, including my first heartbreak.
“What? Way to make me wait for the good stuff! I need details, girl.”
“Well, technically, I kissed him.”
“Details. Now.”
“Remember how I texted you about the reunion?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Danielle asked me to give a tour of the school—”
“Fast forward to the lip-lock please.”
“It all plays a part of it. This whole damn year plays a part in it. Every time I turn around, there he is, looking seven different kinds of sexy and smelling better than anybody has a right to,” I grumble.
I may have stood a chance of keeping him in the past—if I’d been able to keep my distance.
“You kissed him on the tour? Was Brian there?”
“No, not on the tour. At the reunion dinner. Well, after the dinner part. Yeah. He was there.”
“Did he see? Is that why you two broke up?”
“No, he didn’t see. We were in the ballroom and a song came on. Mine and Shep’s…”
“What song?” she asks.
“Why does it matter?”
“I’m trying to set the scene. Living vicariously through you.”
“Why do you need to do that? You’re married and have two beautiful babies.”
“We’ll talk about me later. What song?”
She’s not going to get away with avoiding the question, but I humor her.
“‘Don’t You Wanna Stay’ by Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson.”
“Awww. I love that song.”
“So the song comes on and I’m looking around and wondering if he remembers it, and his eyes meet mine and I just know.
He remembered it. And knowing that? I just—I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel.
And then all I wanted to do was run away from all those feelings—I had to get out of there.
I left and went to the bathroom, and one minute I’m lecturing myself at the sink and the next I glance up and he’s there. ”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. Not really anyway. He said he wanted to talk, and we basically started to argue. He has this way of getting all growly when he’s worked up…”
How many times had that growl vibrated against my ear as he came? Or against my inner thigh when he—
“And you decided to kiss him?” she asks, interrupting my journey down memory lane.
Maybe more like Memory Highway since that bitch has been wide open since the kiss last week. Road closed, my ass.
“It’s not like I decided. Not really. One second we were arguing and the next…we weren’t.”
“Because you were kissing his face off.”
I giggle at her description.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“What would you say?”
The way his lips had molded to mine, the way his fingers gripped my hips, there isn’t a word to describe it. Not one I know of at least.
“I–I’m not sure.”
“Then what happened?”
“Someone tried to come in, but he had locked the door—”
“That’s so fucking hot.”
“It didn’t feel that way in the moment,” I tell her.
But it had. That illicit sensation that we were somewhere someone could catch us. Heat filters through my blood.
“Have you talked to him since?”
“No. He said he wanted to talk later, but it’s like he disappeared. And it’s been almost a week. The only way I know he’s still around is because his garage is open.”
I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit I’ve cruised by a time or two.
“What if he wants to get back together? Have you thought about that?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure people will talk if I jump from one relationship to another…”
Because people love to talk about drama when the hottest thing going is The Sweet Spot bakery adding a new cookie or brownie to the menu.
“Screw them. What do you want?”
I sigh. “Him. It’s always been him if I’m honest. I never stopped loving him, never stopped wishing he would come back.
Then he did, and I wasn’t sure what to do or what to say.
We hadn’t talked in twelve years. It hasn’t even been a week yet, but it feels like longer than all the years we were apart. ”
“Maybe he’s giving you space,” she suggests.
“For what?”
“To break up with your boyfriend.”
“I did that already!”
“Did you tell him that?” she asks.
“Well, no. But it’s because he’s been avoiding me.”
We also live in a town the size of a postage stamp, and gossip travels from one side to the other faster than a blink, but I don’t go into that part. She knows, she’s been here before.
“Maybe you should go track him down. He can’t avoid you if you’re in person. Tell him.”
My doorbell rings, and I uncurl from the couch to peer through the peephole.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“What?”
“He’s here.”
“Who? Shep?”
“Uh-huh.”
Heat, anger, desire, curiosity—all fizzle through my body in a joint effort that creates a clammy sensation along my palms.
“Answer the door. Call me later. I want details!”
The line goes dead, and a knock reverberates against the wood.
The smirk he shoots me when I open the door tells me he knows exactly where I was—just on the other side of the door.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
The question comes out harsher than I mean for it to, and his smirk slips slightly before it comes back stronger than before.
“You know why I’m here.”
I cross my arms across my chest.
“Maybe. Are you finally done running from me?”
I’ve managed to push his buttons. A muscle tics in his jaw, and a flame sparks in his dark brown eyes. He brushes past me and into the house.
“Damnit, I don’t know why you want to play twenty questions with me when all I want to do is talk about the other night.” He runs his fingers in his hair like he’s done it a hundred times today. Based on how it looks, I might be right.
“Twenty questions? Are you serious? I haven’t even begun with the questions. It’s been almost a week, Shep. Why now? What does it matter?”
“It matters,” he grits out through clenched teeth.
“Why? You’ve avoided me since the reunion. Hell, actually more like twelve years—”
“I don’t go after something that’s not mine. You were with Brian.”
“Not twelve years ago I wasn’t.”
“Fuck.”
He flops down on the couch and rests his head in his hands.
“Why?”
It’s the question I’ve always had. The one I never got an answer to. Not then. But I need to know now.
He glances up and his eyes meet mine, the regret in them as clear as if he’d said it out loud.
“I…I didn’t know what else to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were leaving the next day.”
“We talked about that. You knew I was going to college, but I told you I was coming back. And we’d have weekends and breaks until then. My plan was always to come home.”
“I didn’t have a future. You did.”
“What do you mean you didn’t have a future?”
Understanding is starting to dawn, but I need him to say it.
“I wasn’t going to school. All I knew was fixing cars in my uncle’s garage. What kind of future was that going to be for us?”
I sit on the floor in front of him.
“So you broke our hearts for my own good?”
“I didn’t mean to. I hated it.” He reaches out a hand, and his calloused fingers rub along my jaw until he cups my cheek. “You deserved your future. Not me holding you back to your past.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
He nods.
“I’m just a mechanic, Jade. All I have to show for myself is an old garage and calloused hands.”
“I love your hands.”
I reach up and cup his hand against my cheek.
“You deserve better. But I can’t stay away. Not anymore. I fought it for a long time.”
“You just moved back last year,” I remind him.
“Twelve years, babe. From the second I said the words.”
“I wish I had known that then.”
His shrug says more than he does.
“Can’t change the past.”
“No. You can’t.”
We’re silent for several breaths, but we don’t move. My hand still cups his where it rests against my cheek. The scent of leather and vanilla swirls around us in a deliciously scented fog.
“Shep.”
“Hmm?”
“I broke up with Brian.”
One side of his mouth kicks up at my news.
“I know.”
“Stupid small town. So what’s stopping you now?”
His brown eyes turn so dark they’re almost black, but the fire in them is unmistakable.
“Not a goddamn thing,” he says and yanks me into his lap.