Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Wolf
It had only been three nights without Jade, but it felt more like a month.
I still half-expected her to be in my bed when I woke up, her bare legs draped over me.
Every time I checked my phone, a pussy-ass pain tightened my chest when her name wasn’t there.
She was too easy to love, to need…to miss.
And what made it worse was that I knew exactly how hard missing her was.
I’d spent the past year and a half doing it.
I knew I had overreacted by kicking her out.
I’d almost texted her countless times, but the fact that she’d kept that penguin…
It fucked with my head. Had me questioning things I shouldn’t. My mind still wasn’t right.
I’d skipped class that morning, too down to go, too worried I’d see her across campus and the heartbreak would really set in. So, what did I do instead? Rummage through that damn box of notes and rip up my heart. Maybe I thought if I hurt enough, it would ease some of the regret.
Halfway through the box, I pulled out an origami squirrel and carefully unfolded it. “
True love is knowing a person’s faults and loving them even more for them.” –Unknown
And if that didn’t have me feeling like a complete bag of shit, nothing would.
Did I really think Jade would have turned it in? No. If she had planned to do that, she would have given it to Cassie the minute she got her hands on it, and I’d already be in jail instead of wallowing in self-pity.
Someone knocked on my bedroom door. “Hey, we’re going over to Sally’s Bar,” Bellamy said. “Wanna go?”
I didn’t feel like being social, but I also didn’t feel like listening to Bellamy lecture me about needing to get out. “Maybe I’ll meet up with you guys later.”
“Come on, man.”
“I’ve got to go to Mrs. Seaton’s. I’ll shoot you a text when I leave.”
“Okay.”
As much as I didn’t want to leave the house, it was the last Tuesday of the month, which meant I was supposed to go to Miss Seaton’s to play board games.
She’d probably spent the whole day baking cookies and snacks, so I’d just have to suck it up for a few hours.
Maybe by then, I’d have my head sorted out anyway.
I went through a few more notes, each one breaking me more than the last. When it was time to leave, I called for Dog and grabbed my keys from my dresser, glancing at the dusty outline of the rat cage.
God, I’d really fucked up because a missing rat cage shouldn’t make me sad.
An hour later, Dog hopped onto Miss Seaton’s recliner and curled up, taking in the late afternoon sun streaming through the trailer window. I shuffled the Rummikub tiles around on the table as Miss Seaton eased herself into the chair across from me.
“You aren’t as chatty as usual.” She glanced at the plate of cookies beside me. “Haven’t hardly touched your snickerdoodles…”
Because that knot in my stomach had crushed my appetite.
She pulled a few tiles from the pile and placed them on her board. “Something on your mind?”
A lot of shit was on my mind. “Just football. School.”
“Mm-hmm. So, it ain’t got nothing to do with that girl you had up in the Wal-E-Mart? The same pretty young lady you had waiting for you in your truck a few weeks back when you dropped off Mr. Dog?”
What was it with grandmas and their intuition? “No.” I could feel Miss Seaton staring at me as I counted out my game pieces.
“Mm-hmm.” She laid three tiles on the table. “I been around long enough to know lovesick when I see it. You looked mighty happy when she was by your side. And now, you look like you’ve done been rode hard and put up wet.”
I still didn’t make eye contact. “I’m fine.” I took a tile from the middle of the table. “Your turn.”
“Neither me nor Jesus like lies… Now, get to talking.”
I hoped my shrug deflected her probing. “There’s nothing to talk about.” There were a million things to talk about. Half of them I couldn’t exactly tell her—stealing drugs, confiscating drugs…
“Oh, hodgepodge.” She waved a dismissive hand through the air before raking the game pieces to her side of the table. “We ain’t playing this game ‘til you tell me what’s goin’ on.” One of her gray brows lifted. “You wanna steal the only joy an old woman has because the cat’s got your tongue?”
I had a feeling she wouldn’t let it go.
“How’d you meet her?”
Sighing, I leaned back in the chair. “She was my high school girlfriend.”
“High school sweetheart? Now, I know you weren’t dating her a few months ago…”
“We broke up in my first year of college. And…”
“So, that’s why you haven’t had a girlfriend. Wouldn’t take my suggestion and get on Plenty O’ Ladies.”
“No. I just?—”
“I may be older than dirt, but I still know a nice-looking young man when I see one. And you being the big football star and all. I know you gots all kinds of girls lining up to date you, and that the only reason you wouldn’t have one is if you had one—” She touched a gnarled finger to the middle of her chest. “Right here.”
She was right. I had dated Nora to convince myself Jade wasn’t the one and only, and that had gone down like flies on shit.
Nora was pretty, sweet—the kind of girl most any guy would love to date, but it did nothing for me besides prove just how right Jade was for me and how wrong any other girl would be.
“And that pitiful look on your face tells me I’m right. Seemed to me like you two were something again—the way you looked at her. The way she looked at you.”
“Yeah. We were, but…” I screwed it up. “I think it was a mistake.” The pain in my chest had convinced me of that. Maybe I should have taken more time, gone on a few dates, and kept some distance instead of jumping right back in with both damn feet.
She shook her head, and her voice took on a sympathetic tone.
“Love ain’t ever a mistake. You’re just scared, and you best get your butt unscared in a jiffy.
Else you’re gonna end up like me. Living alone and regretting.
And regret is a real pain in the rear.” She shoved the tiles back to the middle of the table, then laid down a set.
Looked like we were playing again. “When I was twenty, I met Otis. Handsome fella. Funny. The light of my life. We spent over a year together. Talking ‘bout marriage and a family. Then he got accepted into some fancy university out in California, and I got mad. Thought I should’ve been enough to keep him here, in Pikestown. Selfish of me, but I was young. And you youngins tend to be stupid half the time.”
I managed to get a sequence of tiles together and place them on the table. “What happened?”
“Well, he moved. I stayed here, all hurt. Of course, he wrote. Even came to visit, begged me to come out there. Said it was pretty. All sunshiney and palm trees.”
I wouldn’t have needed sunshine and palm trees to move to the other side of the world . Jade would have been enough. “If you loved him, why didn’t you go?”
“‘Cause I was scared. Scared of moving and leaving the only life I’d known behind. Scared that I loved him more than he loved me—you know, ‘cause he’d picked—well, I thought he’d picked California over me. Mostly scared that I’d mosey on over there just to be left.”
She shook her head.
“Eventually, I guess he figured I didn’t care enough about him, and he went on with his life.
Took me too long to figure out that I was really the one who had left.
‘Cause I was stubborn and let my own hurt feelings get my head in a tizzy.” She folded her arms over the table and leaned in.
“And I tell you what, I have regretted it every day of my life. Because real love—and I don’t mean that shallow kind of love that makes you all hot and bothered, I mean the kind that fills your soul with peace, that you breathe your next breath for—that kind of love ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
“Most people won’t find it once in their life, sure as hellfire not twice.
And when you lose that, you don’t ever get over it.
It’s why I stayed alone. Trying to give myself to another man would have been a lie.
Wouldn’t have been fair to whatever Blow Joe I settled for because I never would have loved someone the way I did my Otis.
” She placed one tile next to mine. “So, whatever dumb stuff is goin’ on in that head of yours, snuff it out. ”
That was what I’d been trying to do for days.
After three games of Rummikub—all of which Mrs. Seaton won—she sent Dog and me off with a Tupperware container of snickerdoodles.
When I pulled onto my road, I noticed Jade’s Jeep parked across the street.
A sliver of hope sprang in my chest when I pulled into the drive.
Maybe she wanted to talk, or maybe she wanted to chew me out.
By the time I got out of the truck, she’d crossed the street.
Dog shot off toward her, gave her a few licks, then took a lap around the yard.
“Hey,” I said, walking toward her.
“You sent my mom six grand?”
I had, but something about admitting it seemed selfish, or maybe I was afraid it could have come off as manipulative, given the circumstances. And that was the last thing I wanted her to think I was trying to be. “The penguin charity did…”
“No. You did,” she said softly, tears building in her eyes. “She’s not a penguin. Why would you do that, Wolf? That’s…” She shook her head. “It’s six. Thousand . Dollars.”
“I told you I was going to help you… And I wanted to do it for your dad because?—”
She grabbed my face and kissed me, and fuck me, did that feel good. So, definitely not chewing me out…
When she broke the kiss and pulled back, I grabbed her waist, not ready to let her go. “So, does this mean I don’t have to beg for you back?”
“You were going to beg?”
“Lost you once. Can’t really handle losing you twice.”
“I can’t handle pushing you away twice.” Her gaze dropped to the concrete for a second before meeting mine again.
“I’m sorry I had that stupid penguin. I think, maybe…
” She fiddled with the sleeve of my shirt.
“I needed to feel like I had some control. But I promise you, I never would have used it. Even when I ‘hated you,’ I couldn’t have. ”
Deep down, I’d known that. “It was stupid of me to kick you out. I just…” I swallowed because what I was about to admit was a lot. For me, at least. “The way I love you scares the shit out of me.”
“Me too. But I don’t think I can live without it. Without you.” An uncertain smile pulled at her lips. “I’ll beg if I have to.”
“Oh, I’ll make you beg. Just not here.” With that, I picked her up and tossed her over my shoulder. She laughed as I carried her across the yard and up the porch, Dog beating us to the door.
“You know, my legs work.”
“They won’t in a few minutes.”
“Oh, my God.”
I’d bet everything I had that her cheeks were bright red right then.
I kicked the door closed behind me and carted Jade up the stairs to my room. I had every intention of fucking her to the point she couldn’t question we belonged together.
“Just club me over the head and drag me by my hair; why don’t you?”
“Tomorrow,” I said, throwing her onto my unmade bed. I ripped my shirt over my head, then yanked my jeans down before caging her on the mattress with my arms.
When my mouth was a breath from hers, she pressed a finger against my lips. “Just promise me one thing. Don’t ever tell me to get out of your life again. Unless you really mean it.”
I pulled her hand away, then swept my hands up her bare thighs, pushing her skirt higher with every inch. “Trust me. I won’t. You’re it for me, Jade, and I’m fucking sorry I acted like you weren’t. I don’t want a life without you.”
“I don’t want one without—” Her breath caught when my fingers brushed her panties—“you.”
“And just so you know,” I said, sweeping her underwear to the side. “You’re not getting rid of me again.”
“I never wanted to.” She moaned when I pressed a finger inside her. Another finger followed, and her back bowed. “I never should have let you. I’m sorry.”
The heat of her pussy around my fingers was too much. I needed to be inside of her, to feel her wrapped around me. To know she was mine. “Fuck this.” I ripped her panties down her legs. “I need to feel you.” And with that, I slammed into her in one hard, deep thrust.
“Fuck,” she gasped, clamping around me.
God, I needed her. Needed this. I pulled out and drove deeper. The headboard slammed against the wall. “I love you,” I said, reaching the end of her. “I fucking love you.”
Her nails dug into my back. “I love you, too.”
There was no part of her I didn’t want, no part of me I hadn’t already given her years ago. I fucked her hard, then slow, covering her mouth with mine between whispered I love yous.
“Oh, fuck. Wolf.”
She gripped me so tightly, and right when I felt her reach that edge, I let go, groaning before collapsing on top of her.
After I’d caught my breath, I looked at her. “Next time you want to try to blackmail me for blackmailing you, make sure it ends just like this. You screaming my name.”
She whacked my sweat-slicked chest. “You’re such a smug asshole.”
“Yeah, but I’m your smug asshole.”
She wrinkled her nose. “And so cheesy.”
I kissed her, hard and long. Loving her scared the shit out of me, but losing her scared me even more. And one thing I was sure of, I’d never lose this girl again. Ever.