17. Chapter 17 #2
“That was shitty of her,” she says, tipping her head in the general direction of the bar, and I know she heard Kelly say the thing about us not being “ride home from the hospital” friends.
Jesus, this day sucks. The last three days have sucked.
“Yeah. It was shitty,” I say. An early fall drizzle has cropped up while we were inside, and I tip my face to the sky, imagining it washing away the last hour of my life. Unfortunately, when I open my eyes again, I’m still in this parking lot.
“What’s going on here?” Em asks, staring at the side of my face.
“I think I’m having a moment.”
“Should I call an ambulance?”
I shake my head. “No cure.”
Em nods, tucking her hands in her coat pockets. “Is this about your psychic girlfriend?”
“Please stop.”
“Come on, Jamie.” She waves a hand at me. “I’m not wrong about that lovesick look on your face. You obviously like her.”
I give my best derisive snort. Of course I like her.
She’s beautiful, and funny, and so fucking sweet I could get a cavity just looking at her.
She’s timid in a way that makes me want to wrap my arms around her and protect her from the world like goddamn Captain America, and when I’m not playing out superhero fantasies in my head, I’m thinking about taking her clothes off.
“Liking her isn’t the problem,” I say.
“Enlighten me then.”
I mean to tell Em I don’t want it, or I’m not looking for the complication. All my standard lines that I feed Greg and the guys on a regular basis, but instead what comes tumbling out of my mouth is, “I have no business with a woman like Noel. I’ll just fuck it up.”
I may have already, I just don’t know how.
I admit I don’t see it coming when Em’s response is to drive her fist into my bicep. Hard.
“The fuck?”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’m injured, you demon.”
“I barely touched you. What is your problem ?”
I rub at the numbness in my arm. “I’m trying to be realistic.”
“No, Jamie, you’re being a coward. You’re playing down on purpose so you don’t fail. You’ve been doing it since we were kids, and it’s starting to get real old.”
I gape at her like a fish gulping air. “Taking that bartender’s therapy license a little far, aren’t you?” Em and I are close but typically we keep it pretty light. It’s not like her to deliver advice that doesn’t come cloaked in a joke.
From the look on her face, though, I’m not getting off with a joke. “Since you mentioned it, why are you behind the bar every night? You own the damn place.”
“I like bartending. How did we get here?”
“Because it’s the same damn thing. You feel comfortable bartending. And you’re comfortable with the Kellys of the world because you think they can’t hurt you.” She flicks my shoulder. “How’d that work out, huh?”
“From one commitment-phobe to another?” I snap. “Not so great.” I’m being a dick, but this conversation is grating on me, and I know her too. She’s been dating Cara Andrews exclusively since this summer, and she still won’t admit she doesn’t want to see anyone else.
“First of all, this is my speech, so screw you. And second, you’re not afraid of commitment, Jamie. That’s never been your issue. You’re afraid of being the guy no one will commit to .”
Em can tell by the way I flinch that she’s made a direct hit, and her expression softens. “Sorry, but it’s true.”
I drag a hand over my mouth, my ribs aching less from the break and more from the beating muscle behind them that’s been bruised for the last two years.
I fucking hate that Em knows me this well, but it’s like Noel said: You can’t hide from family.
I guess that includes friends who have known all the previous versions of you.
I have a list of those versions of me I’d rather forget, but the one that involved a ring and a humiliation that makes Kelly’s seem like a minor slight, that one won’t go the hell away.
Em leans back on her heels in a way that feels like the laying down of a sword. Probably because she knows I’m about to go down a hole that’s tougher than any shit she could give me.
Becca and I didn’t just break up, we imploded, and the wreckage is still stuck in my skin like shrapnel.
Even after two years, I struggle to hide the way it gets to me when she comes up in conversation.
Of course, like the rest of my bad decisions, she’s still hanging around this zip code, so it happens from time to time.
Now, the memory comes without my permission. Becca’s face the night I asked her about what Noel told me. Her shocked expression layered over a pitying one.
“ How did you know ?” That’s what she said. Not “ It’s not true .” Not “ Let me explain .” But “ How did you figure it out ?”
And to be fair, I hadn’t figured it out.
Noel told me. What I thought Becca and I were doing was so far from what was actually happening.
I had a ring, and she had a better option.
I felt like I’d been dropped back in school, confused and struggling to keep up with what everyone else understood.
Praying no one could tell. If Noel hadn’t seen it, who knows how long it would have continued, me stupidly unaware that I was the butt of the joke.
But she did tell me. I returned the ring, turned down the job, and two weeks after that, I got the money like Noel said I would. It was the proof I needed of what was for me and what wasn’t, and I’ve kept my heart stored safely at Fortune ever since.
And that worked out just fine until now.
Until Noel showed up again, and all the defense mechanisms I’ve spent the last two years honing crumbled with one wide-eyed, blushing smile.
I feel like I’ve been in one of those highway trances where you look around and find yourself home without remembering making the decisions that got you there.
Here I am, obsessing over Noel, without ever deciding to let myself get here.
“Look,” Em says when I’ve been silent long enough that the rain is starting to soak us both. “I get it. If you don’t try, you can’t fail, right?”
I let out a tired laugh. “That’s one benefit.”
“But you also can’t move up. Be better. Grow. All I’m saying is this fear you’ve been hiding behind lately, it isn’t you. Stop counting yourself out before you even play. You’re too good for that shit.”
I nod, but a bigger realization is settling onto my shoulders, heavy and painful, and demanding my attention.
The real problem is that it’s Noel who’s too good for that shit.
She’s too good for me to pretend this is still some business arrangement when it’s become so much more than that.
And she’s too good for me to just let this go the way I did with Becca, without even trying to figure out what went wrong.
Em’s right. If I want a chance at keeping Noel around, I’m going to have to tap into that part of me who used to not be so afraid to take a risk.
“Are you gonna charge me for this?” I ask Em to break a little of this tension.
She shakes her head and sighs like I am insufferable. “I hate that you made me compliment you just then.”
“Had one at the ready though, didn’t you?”
“Whatever. You still leaving?”
I nod. For the first time since she’s been out here busting my balls, Em smiles. “You going to call your girl?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna call her.”