Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Honest to God, I must’ve lost my mind.
That was the only excuse I could come up with as to why my rear end was parked in a chair at a table waiting for Jase to bring our drinks over.
Then we were going to catch up.
Catch. Up.
How does one catch up with the only man they ever loved?
What exactly does small talk look like with a man you know biblically?
So, how the heck have you been? Who did you love enough to marry and have children with? Yeah? Awesome. Let me go puke my guts up now.
Then there was the small fact, Jase looked like he was itching for a fight. Let’s not forget I knew him, knew him. I might not have been in his life for a very long time, but I knew him down to his soul.
I knew what it meant when his tone changed from sarcastic to antagonistic.
And then there was the big, honking elephant in the room—me ghosting him.
That was a conversation I wasn’t ready to have, mainly because it made me look like the bad guy—which, of course, I was, but that didn’t mean I was ready to admit my immature jealousy that had caused me to cut him out of my life because I couldn’t handle knowing he had moved on.
Further from that, I didn’t want to know about his ex-wife. I didn’t want to know anything about the woman with whom he’d fallen in love and shared a life, even if they were no longer together, and that meant I was still that same dumb, immature, jealous girl.
If I were smart, I’d run out of the bar.
Been there. Done that. Lived with the guilt and regret.
That had to be why I was still there waiting on Jase. That and I’d lost my mind.
“I forgot how fascinating it is watching you when you’re a million miles away,” Jase drawled from across the table. “Every thought. Every feeling. It plays like a picture reel.”
I blinked him into focus and once again my heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest.
Why did men get better-looking with age?
Why did Jase still have that slow drawl that gave me butterflies?
Why did his presence still give me a sense of peace?
And most importantly, why when he looked at me, did I feel seen and accepted?
Up until I’d met Zoe, he was the only person in my life who didn’t rush me or get impatient when I was thinking.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.
Jase’s eyebrow winged up. Just the left one.
Thankfully, that was new, I’d never seen him do that before.
Maybe he’d changed in the years we’d been apart.
Maybe he was a monumental prick now. Maybe this reunion was a good thing, and I could apologize and walk away with a clear conscience and not worry about running into him at school because he’d become the Supreme Leader of Dickheads.
It was possible.
He hadn’t been very warm and cheery when I showed up.
Because you ghosted him—twice—you ninny.
But there was still Juni and Colson’s mom to worry about.
His ex-wife.
Shit.
Lucas was only a few weeks into the school year. It wouldn’t be too traumatizing for me to switch him to private school.
“Right,” Jase smoothly said into the silence. “Let’s start over. It’s good to see you, Rae.”
Rae.
Sweet baby Jesus that hurt.
No one but Jase called me Rae.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I whispered, afraid if I spoke any louder, he’d hear just how much I meant it.
Torture.
Pure torture.
“Let’s start with something easy,” he suggested. “How’s your mom?”
She misses you.
She’s still low-key pissed we broke up and still doesn’t understand why I let you go.
“She’s good. She sold our old house and moved into a condo in Ravenwood.”
Jase looked thoughtful when he shared, “Not too far from me. I’m over in the Griffin Park neighborhood.”
When we were in high school, houses in that neighborhood were just starting to be built.
Since I’d recently spent time on Zillow trying to find a house to rent or buy, I knew that area wasn’t exactly inexpensive and the houses were fairly large—way more space than I needed for just me and Lucas, not to mention out of my price range.
“I bought it at foreclosure,” he told me.
“Foreclosure?”
“You were thinking about my neighborhood. You’ve probably spent time looking at real estate before you moved back.
Houses are expensive in Griffin Park. I got mine because it was in foreclosure, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
The timing wasn’t ideal, but I wanted to give my kids something better than the townhouse we were in.
Something permanent. So I bought it even though closing was two days before Christmas. ”
“Please tell me you didn’t subject your children to moving on Christmas? Lucas would instigate a rebellion if Christmas morning deviated even minutely from tradition.”
Tradition.
We hadn’t had a holiday without Zoe yet.
The knife that had been lodged in my chest since I was told Zoe was dead twisted.
“No, I paid an extra month’s rent on the townhouse so my kids could have Christmas without the house being in boxes.”
I didn’t need to know he was a good dad.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“How have you been? What area did you move to? Why’d you move home? Are you married? Did you stay with journalism or switch to marketing like you were thinking? Where have you been the last decade?” he tossed out questions. “Take your pick.”
There was a lot there. Almost none of them I wanted to answer.
So I went with the one that was intentionally impersonal.
“Marketing. I mean, I switched to marketing. After I graduated, I worked for a small company, gained experience, and learned all the things they don’t teach you in college, then I moved to a large firm.
About four years ago, I went out on my own.
I only take on five or six clients at a time, depending on their budget and the scope of the project. ”
“Damn, Rae. That’s impressive.”
It wasn’t. Not really. My business was small. I wasn’t rolling in money, making millions, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I’d never been the type of person who had champagne taste and caviar dreams.
“Lucas and I get by. I could take on more clients, but that would mean I’d have less time with my son. And you know me, less is more when it comes to materialistic junk that no one really needs anyway.”
“Yeah, I know you,” Jase noted.
It wasn’t so much what he said, or even the tone in which he said it that conveyed the meaning behind that statement. It was in the way his face had taken on a hard edge. The way his brown eyes had sharpened that told me I’d said something very wrong.
“Listen, Jase—”
His phone ringing stopped me from attempting my second apology.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” Jase said, while pulling his phone out of his pocket. His frown deepened when he looked at the screen. “Hey Shay, is everything okay with the kids?”
Shay?
Kids?
I knew a Shay Bowman in high school. She was a year older than me, and her sister Iris was a year behind me.
Oh, no, please Lord in heaven above tell me the preppy, popular, beautiful, captain of the cheerleading squad Shay Bowman is not Jase’s ex-wife.
“Yeah, I’ll meet you there,” Jase said into his phone, but his eyes were zeroed in on mine. Intense. Unhappy. Worried. He dropped his phone from his ear but didn’t break our contact. “Sorry to cut this short, but I need to go. Shay’s taking Cole to the emergency room.”
“Of course. Is he okay?”
Jase stood, pocketed his phone, then reached around to his back pocket, unearthing his wallet.
“She thinks he broke his arm,” he clipped as he fished through his wallet.
“I don’t have the time it will undoubtedly take for me to convince you to give me your number so we can meet for coffee and finish catching up.
” He reached across the table with a business card between his fingers.
Out of politeness, I took his offering. “My cell number is on that. I hope you call. And when I say that, Rainy, I mean I really fucking hope you call.”
I nodded, not wanting to verbalize my lie.
I wouldn’t call.
I couldn’t. There was too much water under the bridge, too much heartache and feelings wrapped up in regret.
Instead, I said, “I hope Colson’s okay.”
“Right,” he clipped. As he said, he knew me. He knew when I was prevaricating. “It was good seeing you, Rae. And welcome home.”
Welcome home.
Why did that hit harder than it should’ve?
I might’ve been back in Hollow Point but I wasn’t home.
I hadn’t had one of those since my freshman year of college and I’d let him go thinking I was doing the right thing setting him free. Then at twenty when I cut him out, I’d set myself adrift.
Now I was a castaway.
Lucas and I were drifting through life doing our best, and with Zoe gone, life had become exponentially harder.
“It was good seeing you, too,” I lied.
I watched as Jase walked through the bar. His strides sure and commanding. His broad shoulders looked like he could take on the weight of the world.
Why was the universe so cruel?
Why after so many years apart did I still love him like he was the air I needed to breathe?
That should’ve been impossible.
“Girl!” Sophie chirped from the seat Jase had vacated, making me jump in surprise. “How do you know Jase?”
Shit.
“Um…”
“Oh no, don’t even think about getting shy on me now.”
For such a sweet-looking woman she sure was a demanding demon.
“We, ah, went to high school together,” I hedged.
Sophie gave a ‘you’re so full of shit’ shake of her head.
“The sparks sizzling between the two of you did not say high school friends. Don’t make me get Chelsea over here with a pitcher of margaritas.
I’ll totally get you drunk. So drunk you’ll spill all your secrets and have a five-day hangover for my troubles. ”
Sparks?
Had there been sparks sizzling between me and Jase? If there were, those embers were nothing more than him nursing a grudge, and maybe new anger from me being an asshole and driving away from him last week.
“He was just shocked to see me. It’s been a long time.”
“How long?”
“Fifteen years…give or take.”
Sophie let out a low whistle. “Damn, fifteen years and he still looks at you like he’s not sure if he wants to toss you over his shoulder and run away with you or pick a fight so he can toss you over his shoulder and take you to bed for some good old-fashion angry sex.”
Sex?
It had been so long since I’d had sex, I wasn’t sure if I even remembered what sex was like.
That was a lie. I couldn’t erase the memory of sex with Jase if I tried—and I’d tried, a lot, for years. But everything about him was imprinted—mind, body, soul. I couldn’t forget him.
“I think you misread the situation. Trust me, he’s mad at me, not interested.”
“Why would Jase be mad at you?”
My first inclination was to brush off Sophie’s question. Change the subject to her and Valentine to get myself out of the hot seat.
But for some reason, I couldn’t do it. Heck, I didn’t want to brush her off but opening up to her felt like a betrayal to Zoe.
Like I was replacing her. Sure, I had other friends besides my bestie, but none of them knew about Jase.
Or Mark. They were good enough friends to understand that Lucas’s dad was a no-go topic and they’d never pushed, they simply accepted my boundary.
Now I had no one who knew the sad tale of high school sweethearts gone wrong.
“My best friend Zoe died earlier this year,” I blurted out.
“No, not my best friend, my sister. Not blood, but bond. She was there for me when I found out I was pregnant with Lucas. She held my hand while I was in labor and was the first person to hold my son. She lived with me and helped me with Lucas until he was six months old and I got the hang of being a mom. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have made it.
Zoe was more than Lucas’s beloved aunt. She was his second parent and my voice of sanity.
“That’s why I came home. I couldn’t stay in Florida without her. I couldn’t drive down a street or go to a restaurant or a park or even pick Lucas up from school without the pain of losing her crushing me.”
All of that was true, but I left out the part about Zoe’s creepy husband following me.
“Rainy,” Sophie whispered. “I hate that you lost Zoe.”
Just hearing her say Zoe’s name knocked the wind out of me.
“So you see,” I wheezed. “I have to stay away from Jase.”
“No, darlin’, I don’t see, but I don’t have to. If that’s what you need, then that’s what you need.”
God, that was something Zoe would say. Maybe that’s why I let my secret slip. “I still love him. Seeing him feels like salt in old wounds that never healed. I owe him an apology, and one day when I’m stronger, I’ll give it to him. But right now, I can’t take any more pain.”
Sophie let that settle between us. Her soft, warm brown eyes stayed steady on me, giving me exactly what I needed from her—no pity, just understanding.
“If it’s not too much for you, tell me about Zoe,” she gently asked.
The conversation was far too heavy to be had sitting in a pool hall with a woman I barely knew, yet that didn’t stop me from telling my new friend all about the best friend a girl could have.
And when I was done, some of the weight had lifted. Not all of it, not even most of it, but it felt good to talk about Zoe.