We all laugh. Nate goes on to tell us all about his band and even shares some funny green room stories. I’ve heard the rated R versions of these stories, but he alters them a bit so they’re PG.
I mean, come on, he’s telling them to my parents.
***
I wave goodbye to my parents as they stand on the porch to watch us drive away. My dad’s arms are wrapped around my mom as she stands in front of him, and I watch him place a kiss on top of her head. I want that—that forever type of love. I always knew it was real because I’ve seen it with them my whole life, but after New York I never thought it would be for me.
And now I know it is.
I turn to look at Nate, a smile warming my face as my heart beats for him. “So, what’d you think of my parents?”
He laughs. “They’re great. But what’s important is what do you think they thought of me?” He stops at the sign at the end of my block and turns to look at me. I squint my eyes and tilt my head like I have to think about it, but I don’t make him wait long.
“They absolutely loved you.”
He smiles and nods in agreement. “I got that vibe too, but it’s good to hear it from you.”
“And I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it from Mom constantly.” I laugh.
We drive the rest of the way, talking about my parents and everything that happened. I tell him what a big deal it is that my dad told him to call him Hank. Even Rachel calls him Mr. Fitzgerald. I can tell by the pride on his face that my dad’s approval means a lot to Nate. Even though he lives far away from his family, he’s definitely a family man—the guy who wants to be taken home to meet the parents.
We’re almost back at his place when it starts to rain. We’re about to pass the coffee shop near his apartment complex and the thought of a warm cup of coffee sounds really great.
“Do you mind if we stop to get some coffee?”
He flips on his blinker and turns into the parking lot of the coffee shop.
Chapter 21
“I’m surprised this place is so busy,” I say to Nate as we climb out of his truck and into the rain.
“Why? Their coffee is sent straight from the gods. It’s always busy here.”
“If the gods have a hand in their coffee shop, they should’ve made a drive-thru,” I grumble as we walk across the parking lot.
He laughs and takes my hand. “I’ve never known you to be lazy. Walking across the parking lot isn’t that far.”
“It is when it’s raining.”
He opens the door, chuckling at my response. “You Southern Californians are so funny. A little sprinkle and you pull out umbrellas. This is nothing.”
We get in line and I stand in front of him, my back to his chest as he wraps his arms around me. I turn my head to look up at him and narrow my eyes. “You Midwesterners are so funny. You don’t know when to shut it.”
That makes him laugh hard and he throws his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he lets out that laugh I really love. I hear a thunk and a splash come from the side of the room and I turn to see what happened. Across the tables I see a girl looking in my direction, eyes wide in surprise. I turn and look behind me, expecting to see something crazy that would cause that kind of reaction, but all I see are people sitting at tables and drinking coffee.
I turn to look back at the girl. She looks about my age and is very petite, probably only five feet tall with a very slight frame. Her blonde hair is long and wavy and she’s got the biggest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Then I realize that her eyes aren’t focused on me—they’re focused on Nate. He’s reading the menu, obviously oblivious to the girl who’s staring at him, so I elbow him lightly to get his attention and he looks down at me.
“Do you know that girl?” I ask, nodding my chin in her direction.
“What?” he asks, squinting his eyes.
“Do you know her?” I say, gesturing again in her direction.
He opens his eyes a bit in understanding and turns to look her way. I know the moment he sees her that he knows her because his arms tense around mine and his spine straightens, pulling his chest away from my back. I can hear his breathing halt and I swear I can hear his heart speed up—or maybe that’s mine. The girl’s surprise is still there, but she starts to smile, and as her lips start to lift I can feel Nate tense even more.
“Next,” the cashier calls, but I barely hear him. Nate doesn’t hear him at all. I step forward and Nate’s arms fall from around me. I gesture the next person forward and take Nate’s hand as we step out of line. My back is now to the mystery girl, but Nate is still facing her, the tension radiating from his body. His face is blank, his jaw slack as he stares in her direction. It’s almost like he’s seen a ghost.
“Are you gonna clean that up?” I hear someone ask from across the room.
I’m about to ask him who she is when I hear a soft voice right behind me say his name.
“Hi, Nate.”
I turn around and see that she’s standing a bit to the side of us, those big eyes focused on Nate. He clears his throat, letting go of my hand to run his fingers through his hair. When he replies, his voice comes out low and empty.
“Hey.”
“It’s been a couple of years, huh?” she asks, her voice shaking a little.
“Yeah, Hannah. It has.”Hannah? “I thought you’d moved back to San Francisco with your parents after everything happened with …” he clears his throat, “with everything.” The exchange sounds harmless, but there’s an edge to his voice—he sounds wary and concerned. His eyes then flick to mine briefly and he shifts in front of me, his left shoulder in front of my right.
Hannah? I run through my memory for something involving that name and then it hits me. Hannah, his ex-girlfriend. Hannah, who carried his child. My heart starts pounding at the realization.
“I did. I just moved back a couple of weeks ago. I got a job at a law firm Downtown. I’m a paralegal now. Doing really well,” she explains, her voice becoming steadier with each word. “Do you live around here?”
“Uh, yeah. Sort of,” he says, shifting his feet and moving further in front of me. He’s either intentionally trying to block me from view or he’s forgotten that I’m standing here.
There’s an awkward lull in the exchange, nobody saying anything. I place my hand on Nate’s arm to let him know I’m here for support. Seeing Hannah—the reminder of his greatest loss—has to be hard for him and I want him to know I’m here.
My movement must have gotten Hannah’s attention because I see the change in her expression the moment she realizes someone else is standing there. It’s like she hasn’t seen me standing right here the entire time. I can feel Nate shift again as Hannah and I look at each other—Hannah’s face a picture of annoyingly adorable shock, and mine a mask of confusion.
“Hannah, this is my friend, Jenna. Jenna, this is Hannah.”
Friend?
I turn to look at Nate, feeling disoriented, my heart straining with each painful beat as I try to stave off the tears that have started to well in my eyes.
Friend?
But he’s not looking at me—he’s still looking at Hannah. I try to shake off the punch to the gut at the introduction and give her a little wave. “It’s nice to meet you.” My voice sounds flat and unconvincing as I try to keep it from cracking.
She shakes her head, taking herself out of the daze she was in. “Uh, you too.”
We all stand there in silence for a moment longer until Hannah turns back to look at Nate. “I can’t believe I just ran into you like this.”
“Yeah,” Nate replies, his voice sounding constricted. “What a coincidence.”
“It is a coincidence,” she states emphatically.
He sighs and both hands come up to push his hair off his face. “Hannah, I—”
“I just want to talk for a minute. Please …”
“I don’t know …”
“Please.” She’s begging. She glances over his shoulder at me and I
feel Nate tense.
“Yeah, fine,” he says abruptly. “Let’s talk.”
He turns around so his back is to her and closes his eyes. He looks conflicted, tension wrinkling his eyes as he clenches his jaw. When he opens his eyes, they won’t meet mine as he asks, “Would you mind giving us a second?”
“Sure,” I say quietly. “I’ll go get our coffees.” I try to sound supportive because I know this must be hard for him, seeing her out of the blue like this, but I’m feeling really uncertain about what’s happening here. And it’s not helping that the word friend ringing throughmy mind as I step back into line. I look over my shoulder to see they’ve moved away from me and are standing over by the table where they keep the cream and sugar.
I shake my head, trying to rid those thoughts from my mind. We’re together and he loves me—he’s just shocked to see her. I order our coffees and wait for the baristas to make them. I keep my back to Nate and Hannah, even though I want to look. I’m trying to trust him and give him the space he needs to deal with this, but when the girl hands me our cups, I have to turn around so I can get to the table with the sugar and creamer. I keep my eyes down as I head over there, but I know with each step I’m moving closer to where they are and the temptation to look up is killing me. When I get there, I realize that they’re closer to the table than I thought. In fact, they’re so close that I can hear some of what they’re saying. I start adding sugar to my coffee as Nate’s raised voice cuts through the noise of the coffee shop.
“… really changed the way I live my life. There are things that happened with us that will always connect us and I still … Dammit, Hannah …”
“I know. Just please think about it,” she requests, her voice raised.
I hear Nate sigh and then he starts talking again but it’s too quiet for me to hear what he’s saying. I glance up and what I see has my heart dropping to the floor. My heart continues to pound even though it’s on the ground and my eyes start to sting at what I see in front of me. They’re standing close and her hand is on his shoulder. His eyes flick to mine and I see them widen a bit when he realizes I’m watching them. I look back down, my heart racing and my stomach turning over. I watch them out of the corner of my eye and I see Nate look in my direction before pulling out his phone and typing something in.
Maybe her phone number?
My hand shaking, I rip another packet of sugar and scatter the crystals, more of them landing outside of my cup than in. I continue to add more and more packets of sugar, even though I’ve added plenty, hoping that I can get myself together before Nate comes back over here. When I’m as together as I’m going to get, I look back up to see Nate turn around and walk toward me, his eyes on the ground. He looks up and I can see the pain there. I can see he’s struggling with something, but I can also see the love in his gaze. I start to feel relieved that he’s finally done talking to her, but then he stops. Turning back toward Hannah, he whispers something to her and her eyes start to water as she nods, looking a little surprised with what he just said.
She looks … hopeful. And Nate looks conflicted.
As he starts to walk away from her and back to me, I see her mouth move as she says something to him. He doesn’t turn around, but he pauses in his stride and nods his head before he continues over to me.
“Ready?” he asks, his voice tight.
I nod and pick up our coffees, following him out of the building and into the car. There aren’t a lot of things that would cause me to doubt my relationship with Nate. I know how he feels about me and what we have. I know it’s special. But what just happened in there is making me doubt him.
Doubt us.
The word friend echoes in my head as I think about all the things I just saw: the conflict in his eyes, her hand on his shoulder, his glance over his shoulder to make sure I wasn’t looking when he took out his phone, her hopeful smile. Everything I saw and heard is making me ask questions of my own.
Why did he introduce me as a friend?
Why would he get her number?
What happened during the parts of their conversation that I didn’t hear?
Does he still love her?
We climb into the front seat of the car and I set the coffees in his cup holders. Nate grips the steering wheel hard, his knuckles turning white under the pressure. He doesn’t start the car so we’re forced to sit in tense silence.
“Nate? Are you okay?” It’s fairly obvious that he’s not okay—he’s barely even breathing, each inhale and exhale moving through his clenched teeth—but I don’t know what else to say.
He just shakes his head. “Just give me a minute, Jenna.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head again.
I should give him a minute to work through the encounter we just had with his ex, but my insecurities take hold of my voice and I say, “Are you sure?”
“Jenna,” he warns.
I want to know the answers to my questions. I want to know what happened between them. I want him to tell me everything. I want him to ease the uncertainty that is brewing inside of me.
“Because running into her out of the blue like that had to be hard. What did she—”
“I said to give me fucking minute!”
I know a lot of things caused this explosion: the interaction he just had with Hannah and the reminder of the loss of his daughter. And, yeah, I know I pushed him several times when he asked me not to, but his outburst shocks me, bringing tears to my eyes. I feel like I should apologize for pushing him, but my words seem to be fueled by jealousy and insecurity instead of understanding and compassion.
“Well, fuck me, right? I’m just trying to talk to you!”
He turns to me, his eyes pained and angry. “I just asked for a fucking minute! What the hell is your problem right now, Jenna?”
“I don’t know, Nate? Maybe the fact that you sent me to get coffee while you exchanged phone numbers with your ex-girlfriend?”
His eyes widen. Based on his reaction, I now know that’s exactly what he was doing when I saw him with his phone. And based on his surprise, it’s obvious that he thought I didn’t see him. My eyes fill with tears and one falls, rolling down my cheek and dripping off my chin.
His face softens and he reaches over to wipe the tear track from my cheek, but I pull back. He doesn’t let the rejection stop him. “It wasn’t what it looked like. She just wants to talk about what happened with us.”
I narrow my eyes. “You just talked to her.”
“There’s a lot of stuff that she wants to talk to me about,” he explains, his vague answer only fueling my anger.
“Are you going to call her?” I ask, my voice harsh to hide the pain beneath it.
He groans and runs his hand over his face. He looks out the windshield before looking over at me. “Yeah, I think I have to.”
I let my head roll back against the headrest. “Have to?” I whimper, unsure of what that means.
Nate reaches over and takes my hand in his and the comfort of his touch is reassuring, but I think this may be the one time his touch isn’t helping. So I ask a question, hoping that his answer will.
“Do you still love her?”
“What?” he asks, his head reeling back.
“I just … I want to know if you’re still in love with her.”
He groans. “Is this what all that was about?” he asks, sounding a little annoyed.
I flinch at his tone and pull my hand away from his. “Why don’t you just answer the question?”
“Seriously, Jenna?” he says, sounding almost condescending.
“Yes, seriously. Answer my question,” I demand. “The more you avoid it, the more I feel like you’re hiding something, Nate.”
His eyes widen for a moment. It’s just a moment, but now I know that he is hiding something. It feels like a fist is squeezing my heart as I look at him and wait for an answer that isn’t a lie.
“I love you.”
I ca
n see in his eyes that he does love me, but it doesn’t take away the pain of knowing that he’s hiding something.
“I know you love me, and I love you,” my voice shaking, “but I saw you guys talking in there. I saw the hopeful looks she was giving you. I heard some of the things you said, about you always being connected—”
“So you don’t trust me?” he interrupts, getting a little defensive.
I groan in frustration, his reluctance to open up starting to wear on me. “I trust you, I do, but you have to understand how that all looked to me.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Jenna. I’m just … there’s a lot I haven’t … Shit!” He slams the steering wheel. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
But you are …
I shift so I’m facing forward, my tears trailing down my cheeks as I look out at the parking lot. Everything that happened with them may have been perfectly harmless, but the fact that he’s so unwilling to share makes me think that it wasn’t.
“If you trusted me, this wouldn’t be a problem,” he says flatly, almost sounding defeated.
“If you were open with me, this wouldn’t be a problem. You’ve never had issues with opening up to me before, Nate. What’s difference now?” I reply, not turning to look at him.
“And you’ve always had issues with trusting me, so maybe I should’ve known better than to get involved with you.”
I wince as his words cut through me—slicing me open and leaving me completely wounded. He picked my weakness and he used it to take a dig at me. They always say that the people we love are always able to hurt us the most and isn’t that the truth.
I don’t even know what to say to that.
“Maybe we just need a little break from this,” his voice cuts through my pain.
His statement shocks me. Completely.
“What?” I turn to him, my voice shaking as I ask the question.
“This is just too much.”
“What is too much? Are you ...” I pause, swallowing through the tears before I clear my throat. “Are you breaking up with me?” As much as I’m hurting, I don’t want to lose him. I just want him to open up.
In My Bed Page 24