Chapter 19 – Josie
chapter
nineteen
Josie
Why couldn’t I stop that buzzy feeling I had every time I was with him?
See, that buzzy feeling got you kissed last night. Now you have to deal with Marcus.
Damn Marcus. I knew what I had to do. I had to tell him. And break up with him.
Things had been off since long before I came to Loveland. I’d thought coming here would fix things, but all it did was make the distance between us worse.
And then you can kiss Waylon whenever you want.
A flush crept up my neck. Jesus. I wasn’t dense. There was something brewing there, but I wasn’t just going to jump from one thing to another.
I really had come to Loveland for myself, and I didn’t want to lose myself in another charismatic hockey player with more charm than sense.
It wouldn’t be like that with Waylon.
Maybe not, but it was very complicated and messy, and maybe I needed a minute to focus on me.
Mhmm, that’s why you keep touching your lips like that.
I dropped my hand immediately.
I was just getting home after the run when I saw Lena coming out of her door. She took one look at me, and her eyebrows rose.
“Come on over,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Give me ten to shower.” I took fifteen.
When I went to their place, armed with my hair care products, Kimmy was on the couch in an oversized sleep shirt, cross-legged, eating pretzels from a bag. Her eyes went immediately to my face.
“Sit.” She pointed at the armchair with a pretzel.
I sat. I spread the setting lotion into my palms and started sectioning my hair, going through the motions, trying to feel normal by detangling, dividing, and twisting. My hands knew what to do.
The rest of me was still standing in a dark room with Waylon’s hand cradling my jaw and his mouth on mine and the sound he’d made against my lips that I was going to hear every time I closed my eyes for the rest of my life.
“Josie.” Kimmy’s voice had gone careful, which meant she’d been watching me for a while.
“You look like someone just turned you inside out.”
“No. I just finished a run. It was a bit short today.”
“Did you run alone?”
Shit. Did she know? There is nothing to know.
“Sometimes. But sometimes I run into Waylon.”
Lena and Kimmy shared a glance. “Waylon, huh?”
I focused on my hair, sectioning, adding product, twisting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only a man,” Kimmy said conversationally, to no one in particular, “makes a girl look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re dreaming,” she said. “Lena, tell her.”
Kimmy didn’t wait. “Marcus doesn’t make you look like that.”
“Sorry, have to agree there,” Lena chimed in.
She settled into the loveseat with her mug and said nothing else, which was worse than anything Kimmy was doing. Lena’s silences always meant something.
“Fine. Waylon drove me home last night. We got stuck at work together. No big deal. We ran this morning. We’re friends.”
“Does he do that a lot? Drive you home?”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
“Interesting,” Kimmy said.
“Kimmy.”
“I’m just noting a thing. You’re buzzing. Visibly. You’re sitting there trying to do your hair, and you look like you got struck by lightning and liked it.”
She grinned. Lena pressed her lips together in a way that said she was trying to hold back a laugh.
“Honey, if I’m being honest, Waylon is way hotter than Marcus.”
My mouth hung open. “What?”
“He is!” she said with a laugh.
She looked at Lena. Lena looked back with the expression of a woman saying I know, but let her get there.
I kept working on my hair. Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The window over Lena’s desk showed a sky going from black to heavy gray.
“Can I ask you guys something?”
“What do you actually think of Marcus?”
Nobody said anything. Kimmy put the pretzel bag down. Lena wrapped both hands around her mug. I kept my eyes on my twist because I could not look at them while I asked the follow-up.
“I mean it. I’m not going to be upset. I’m asking because I want to know what you actually think. Not what you’ve been polite enough not to say.”
More silence. Long enough that I finally looked up.
“You really want to know?” Lena asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding.
She looked at her hands. Then at me. “He makes me uncomfortable. The way he talked to you at the party. Like you’re something he owns.
Like your feelings are an inconvenience.
” She paused. “I didn’t say anything because you were with him before we knew you, and it’s not my place to come in and tell a woman her relationship is wrong.
And then well… honey, he doesn’t act like he has a girlfriend.
I figured you guys had an arrangement or something. ”
It wasn’t like I hadn’t suspected. And it wouldn’t be the first time. “Well, I needed to hear that. Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m sorry. Shit. I feel bad.”
Lena set her mug on the side table.
I shook my head. “No. I asked for the truth.”
Kimmy piped up. “Okay, since we’re telling the truth. He doesn’t have a job. When you said he’d been fired, back at game night, I was confused, because he brags about his dad saying he should only focus on school and hockey.”
WTF? “Wait. If he doesn’t have a job, where does he keep disappearing to?”
Kimmy splayed her hands. “That I don’t know. But he certainly doesn’t work there.”
Well shit.
The room got quiet. I finished the last twist and pressed my palms flat on my knees.
“You don’t seem surprised.” Lena’s voice was gentle.
“I—” I stopped abruptly, gathering my words.
“I knew. Him. He’s cheated before. He swore those were one-offs because the distance was getting to him.
And while he’s a dick, he’s usually sweet to me.
But I’m dealing with Jekyll and Hyde with him.
When I call bullshit, he makes me feel crazy.
And when he can sense I’ve had enough, he love-bombs me or completely avoids me so I can’t break up with him. ”
Lena’s voice was soft. “We, uh… we heard you guys fighting the other day.”
My face went hot. “Well, that’s just perfect.”
Kimmy was by my side in a second. “I’m so sorry. I was taking the trash out, and I couldn’t help but hear.”
“It’s not your fault. I just feel so stupid.”
“You don’t have to tell us anything,” Lena said.
“But we are asking,” Kimmy said, “if you’re okay. And if there’s anything you need.”
I pressed my lips together. Looked at the window. Looked at my hands. The same hands that had been fisted in Waylon’s shirt last night, pulling him closer, and remembering it hit me so hard my fingers curled against my knees.
“I need to end it. I’ve needed to end it for a long time, and I’ve been telling myself I couldn’t.” I swallowed. “But I need to. It just won’t be simple. It never is with him.”
Neither of them said finally or we told you so or we’ve been worried.
“Whatever ya need,” Kimmy said. “We’ve got you.”