Chapter 21
W hat. The. Fuck. Had. I. Done.
I lay stiff as a board with the sheets in utter disarray, my tired, spent body tangled up with Jenna’s, and I was about to have a panic attack.
Or a heart attack.
You know in the movies when the guy gets the girl, it fades to black, and the scene opens on the next morning with the sheets precariously draped over the two main characters who look like they’re fused together?
That is an accurate description of what the morning after the best night of your life looks like, and I’m not exaggerating when I say I saw stars.
Jenna and me, we just fit.
I read her body like it was my second language and she made me feel things I’d never felt before.
I came harder than I ever had. I was ready to go again faster. Every time I sank into her it felt like I’d died and gone to heaven.
It was perfect. She was perfection.
She must have felt me watching her because she stirred awake and stretched her whole body like a snoozing cat.
She smiled coyly and then buried her pretty face in my neck.
“Why haven’t we been doing that all along?” she sighed, her voice still sleepy.
This was the moment I’d look back on and know everything turned to shit.
I closed my eyes, kissed her hair, and then untangled myself from her gorgeous warm body, turned away from her, and searched for my clothes.
“ Scott ?” She dragged my name out and I winced.
How the hell was I gonna play this?
I heard the rustling of sheets and turned to see her scrambling up to the headboard.
The headboard I’d propped my back against sometime during the night and had her ride me long and slow.
“Scott.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“I’m sorry. Last night was a mistake.”
She inhaled a sharp intake of breath and my fists balled at my sides. I’d only managed to slide on my boxers. I needed the rest of my fucking clothes.
Luckily we’d stripped off—God help me—in her bedroom, so I was able to throw everything back on in record time.
“Cupcake.” Her name was a plea. I just didn’t know what else to say.
“No. Don’t call me that.”
“I . . .”
Her hands ripped through her hair, and she banged her fists on the bed.
“Are you being serious right now? You’re gonna treat me like a one-night stand? Is that it?”
“N-No. I would never.”
“Are you ashamed of me? What the fuck has gotten into you?”
“Hey. Calm down for just a sec?—”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down.” She gritted her teeth, practically spitting the words out.
“Jen—”
“This is insane. Look at our life. We. Are. A. Joke! We live five minutes from each other. I named my life’s work, my passion, after a nickname you gave me. What am I doing?” She shook her head. “My whole life revolves around you, around us. It has to end. I can’t do this anymore.”
Those last few words were barely audible, but they sliced through my heart all the same.
I’d done so well. I’d kept it all in for so long, but now I was losing her to nothing. This was too soon and too severe. She was cutting me out of her whole life. But she didn’t need to.
No Jenna? Forever? That wasn’t the deal. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go down.
“I just . . . Things are more complicated between us. I . . . We can’t do that again. We’re . . . We can’t. I don’t want to be in a relationship. I don’t want to settle down. Ever.”
She threw her head in her hands. “What does that even mean?”
“It means what it means. I won’t ever settle down.”
“Scott. You’ve had girlfriends. I’ve met women you’ve dated.”
“I’ve never really dated. Not since my second year of college.”
She growled and her face took on a shade of pissed-off I’d never seen. I took a step back.
“What planet do you live on? And see all those things I just said about us? They haven’t fazed you. You like why I named this place Cupcake. You love having me close by. Why is that, Scott?”
What kind of question was that? “Because we’re best friends.”
She shook her head. “Why are you ruining this?” she whispered. “Last night was incredible. I know you felt it. Don’t lie to me.”
My chest was still burning from the lie I’d just told.
I went over to the window and looked out of it, unseeing. I couldn’t tell you what the weather was doing or what was going on in the street below. I could see nothing except Jenna curled into herself and the look on her face.
My knuckles turned white as my fingers dug into the windowsill.
“Just tell me once and for all . . . Do you love me? And not just like a best friend.”
I stayed still.
“Don’t be a coward and turn around,” she snapped, and it nearly broke me.
When I eventually did turn, her eyes had filled and a fat teardrop spilled over, wetting her lashes and trailing down her cheek. I moved back over to the bed and reached over, ready in case another fell.
The truth was on the tip of my tongue. Of course I loved her. I’d loved her my whole life. I’d love her until the day I died. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.
So, just say it. I ordered myself.
Break out of this prison you’ve locked yourself in. I pleaded from within .
Take a chance. I dared .
But the fear was paralyzing. This would hurt her, but not as much as me leaving her and possible kids behind. Not as much as me choosing other lives over theirs.
It was fucking cruel.
So, I gathered every shred of strength I had. Fortified my heart behind a steel-trap door and lied through my fucking teeth. Again. My heart roared and beat against the door, but I’d locked it tight.
“No.” I shook my head slightly, the swallow I took practically choking me. “I don’t feel more than friendship for you.”
She nodded. “Finally, an answer,” she said, her tone so cold it made my skin erupt in goose flesh.
“It only took ten years and a drunken fuck to get you to open up.”
“Jenna.” I took a step forward, but she lurched back, pulling the sheet around her tighter still.
“Don’t touch me,” she said through gritted teeth.
I felt a pressure behind my eyes.
“I’m sorry. I understand, okay. But you promised nothing would change.”
“Yeah then I had the most amazing night of my life, and you woke up not even able to look at me.”
“That’s not what this is about. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t talk to me like that. I understand just fine.”
She climbed down off the bed, taking the sheet with her, and stomped out of the bedroom.
I followed because I couldn’t not.
“Can you go now? I’m gonna need some time. Space.”
“We need to talk?—”
“No. I-I said I needed some space. That starts right now.”
“No!” I boomed back. “This is so fucking unfair. I told you we shouldn’t sleep together, and you goaded me into it.”
Her eyes flared in fury, and she grew taller. “I didn’t force you to put your dick in me five times, you asshole.”
Everything in me tensed at her words. “Stop that.”
She deflated and rubbed her hand over her face.
“Please leave.”
“Let’s just take a minute to?—”
“I SAID GO!” she screamed and slammed the bathroom door in my face.
I wanted to stay. To fight, but I couldn’t breathe.
It felt like my SCBA set was failing me in the middle of a working fire. I was gasping at nothing. I bolted out of her apartment, took the stairs two and then three steps at a time and when I finally barreled through her door and sucked in a lung full of oxygen, I collapsed back against the cold glass of Cupcake as pain lanced through my body.
How was this the right thing to do?
Why was I doing this? Surely this was irrational.
Why couldn’t I just have her?
Why couldn’t I have the career I loved and the love of my life?
There were firefighters all over the city, for fuck’s sake, all over the world, who lived long and happy lives. Who had the best of both worlds and were able to play the doting husband, father, and brave smoke eater.
But that’s when I heard them, the wailing and groaning of Ladder 177 starting to pick up speed as Ryan Newy accelerated and leaned on the bullhorn. Maeve—the lieutenant on the opposite shift—gave me a two-fingered salute as the rig maneuvered by, but I couldn’t even find the strength to lift my hand. I was frozen yet again.
Because I knew.
My Jenna deserved more than I could ever give her.
She deserved the promise of forever.
Every time I went to tell her. Every time the words wanted to fall out of my mouth, I’d remember how utterly useless I’d felt the day my mom collapsed to the ground as my aunt’s legs had given way from beneath her in our driveway.
After laying her husband to rest, packing up a home—a whole life—and moving out to be with us, the grief had finally won out.
That memory had left a huge mark on me. It had changed me on a basal level.
Who the fuck would do that to someone?
The fear of not being able to protect the ones I loved had weaved itself through my entire being and shaped every thought and action I’d had after every decision I’d made since then.
Hence the resolution not to pursue Jenna after taking, and passing, the FDNY firefighter entry exam.
The possibility of that happening to Jenna—I couldn’t fucking stand the thought. It made my stomach riot. It made my heart bleed.
Lying like that and the look on her face hurt like I might die from the pain, but it also made me more determined than ever.