“What happened?” Wide-eyes stared me down. “Did you sleep with him?!”
At least that question Ally had the decency to whisper.
“No!” My cup clinked onto the table. “But I’m afraid that I want to.”
“And what does he want?” Tammy finally chimed in.
“I mean, he’s a guy, Tam. Of course he wants that. But he also wants payback.” I was always the confident one in front of them—the strong one—and now, I sat there like a nervous-Nelly all because of Chance Ryder. “Sorry, Al. Probably not what you want to hear about your brother.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “Well, maybe if you’d stop reminding me that he’s my brother, it wouldn’t be so bad… Kidding! It doesn’t bother me. I just want to be here for you, J. I don’t want you to think I’m not on your side because I’m related to… the other side.”
“Yeah. I know. Anyway. I don’t want to make this a whole drawn-out thing. I just needed to get out of the house after yesterday and I needed to tell you guys—“
Cutting me off, Ally asked, “What happened the other night?”
I blinked. Oops. “What was bound to happen at some point if Chance and I were left alone for long enough… He helped me move all of my stuff yesterday morning; the way we were, it was almost as though the snow had taken us back in time.” My throat thickened. “Anyway, so there was that. And then some other stuff happened, where I’ll just say that it’s a good thing that if it had been your couch, Tam, all of your pillows would have ended up on the floor…”
“For certain things, I would make an exception…” Tammy murmured, drawing stares from both Ally and me—since when would any sign of mess be ok with Tammy? She quickly spoke again. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Finish your story, Jess.”
I nodded, saying, “And then, the past rose up between us like a mountain. Nick called and Chance said he would have to call him back. I asked what was going on, why he’d missed his appointment, and told him that if Nick was involved with something to be careful.” I’d practiced the next words several times this morning so that I wouldn’t choke on saying them. “And then he lashed out, reminding me just how involved I’d been with Nick.”
“Oh, Jessa,” Tammy gushed.
She would acutely remember the sobs, the vomiting, the utter despair from that night when she picked me up. It was the only time that I’d completely trusted everything about my life to her because there were a few hours where I didn’t want to live it, knowing what I’d done; I’d given myself one night to get it all out—and in the morning, I swore to myself that I would never cry over it again. I’d done what I had to. Second-guessing the decision would destroy me.
“What an asshole.” Ally was fuming.
“He’s not an asshole, Al. It’s not his fault that I haven’t told him the truth.”
She wasn’t convinced, saying, “Still that’s no excuse. He’s just angry at the world. It’s been eight years; he shouldn’t have brought it up like that.”
“Are you going to tell him the truth? Maybe it’s time…” Tammy suggested, her calm and soothing voice always the quiet amidst the storm.
“Will it make any difference? I’m afraid at this point, it would only make things worse for him…”
“Not if he wants you,” Ally said. “Yeah, the reason you did it doesn’t exist anymore but it certainly did eight years ago.”
“What if he doesn’t really want me?” I asked quietly. It was my biggest fear. That none of this was real—that it was all a ploy, for payback.
A game to him… But for me, it was a game of Chance—literally—to see how far I was going to fall.
Ally burst into laughter. “Yeah, I’d sooner believe someone telling me that it was never going to snow in Aspen again than the idea that my brother doesn’t want you—or only wants to hurt you. The only person he’s fooling is himself if he thinks that he could actually do something like that. Being around the two of you in the same room… let’s just say that it’s like watching the longest, slow-burning fuse that ever existed. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when the forced distance and forced distaste blew up.”
Heat spread into my cheeks. “Tammy?” I turned to my other best friend and asked, wondering what her thoughts were.
She gave me the look that parents give their children when they are about to tell them something that they don’t want to hear—like that you have to eat all of your vegetables before dessert or that you have to put a coat on because it’s cold outside.
“I know why you did what you did, J. But I’ve always believed that the two of you belonged together—maybe not then, but maybe now.”
“I figured that moving back here would mean admitting the truth to him. But when I learned about his injury, I was afraid it would be like rubbing salt in his wound.” I held up my hand. “No, I need to tell him that if I want to be with him. I can’t let him continue to think that I ever wanted Nick. But I’m afraid to tell him the rest…”
“About the…” Tammy began to ask, ducking her head before she was able to get the word ‘baby’ out.
“I can picture the variety of responses that I would get to the truth about why we broke up. For the life of me, I have no idea how he’ll react to hearing that and I’m so afraid to find out,” I said softly as tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
“I can’t… imagine… what that was like for you, Jessa,” Ally said. “All I can tell you—and this is from recent personal experience—is that the only way you can ever be with someone that you love is to tell them about the things that have almost killed you. And that’s on both ends, although you know what happened to Chance and his career and you obviously know about yourself, so you know what’s almost broken him. He doesn’t know about Nick or the baby… so he can’t love you if you won’t let him.”
“I-I don’t know that I love Chance.” As soon as the words left my mouth, they became a lie.
“You might not, babe, but we do,” Tammy said softly.
A few moments of silence lapsed; heavy realizations always seem to stall time briefly, allowing their veracity the opportunity to sink in.
“I do know that if I want to be with him, I have to tell him about Frost. And I have to tell him about the baby.”
“Well, then it sounds like you know what you want… and that you know what you have to do.”
And it was the scariest realization of my life.
Ally held a donut out to me and said, “Eat. And then forget about my brother’s stupidity and tell us all the juicy details! Relive those endorphins, babe!”
And just like that, Ally, our ray of sunshine, lightened the mood. Her, and the donut.
We sat and talked for another hour or so. I told them probably more than they wanted to know about what happened between Chance and me before we moved onto other topics. Ally showed us photos on her phone of some of the designs that she was working on for Emmett’s boards—some of which were for the school.
“You sure you’re ok, Tam?” I asked again once we were back in my truck.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “You know the unknown is always the hardest for me.”
“Still no word?”
“They are still talking about having me go to Denver in a few weeks to have more tests done.”
“If you want me to go with you, just let me know,” I offered gently.
“Thanks,” she replied with a half-hearted smile that killed me. “Jessa?”
“Yeah?” I glanced over to her as I pulled into the parking lot of her apartment.
“If you don’t see it, maybe it’s time to read yourself again.”
She didn’t know that I’d been choosing cards almost daily; it wasn’t a full reading though.
“Maybe,” I agreed, hugging her over the arm rest as she got out of the car. “Let me know about Denver.”
This morning had been filled with hurt and agitation, but just a few hours with my girls had put things into much-needed perspective.
Seven of Cup (Reversed): You are hiding something from yourself that probably has to do with subconscious emotions. You are refusing to examine yourself and ask what it is that you truly want.
“HONEY,” I BLINKED AT BETTY’S voice, “I know you think that I’m just here to stare at Mr. Master’s very fine rear-end, however, I do prefer to do it under the guise of some sort of exercise.”
I shook my head. I’d zoned out again, leaving Betty sitting on the leg machine waiting for my next instructions—instructions that were the last thing on a mind currently consumed with inappropriate thoughts of the giant dick from my weekend.
I mean because Chance was a giant dick. Not that I was thinking about his giant dick.
Ok, maybe I was thinking about that a little… a little too much.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I’d been out of it all morning—and not just because I’d made sure to be up at the crack of dawn so that I could get a workout in and blow off some steam. Coming home to a still-empty house yesterday after coffee and brunch with my girls was defeating—until I walked into the kitchen.
A case of La Croix sat on the countertop with a note taped to the top.
‘To make up for last night.’
For the cans that he drank of my water? Or the words that he said? Both.
This was Chance. Notes and gifts, followed by whispered apologies between sheets when not even a molecule of oxygen could separate us. The reminder of our past made me angrier than the fact that he had come and gone before we could talk.
The back of the note told me why.
‘Don’t wait up, J-bird. Have to go with Frost. You better think of me when you moan tonight.’
I actually laughed, the cocky ass assuming that I would have to pleasure myself without him around. In defiance and expectation, I stuck around downstairs for most of the evening with the secret hope that a change of plans would bring him back sooner. My lonesome evening was filled with various play-by-plays of how to break the truth of our past to him without it destroying either or both of us. I tried to shore up some sort of defense incase that wasn’t possible.
But sure as shit, when night fell I swore I was so emotionally exhausted that sleep would come easily. Instead, the only thing that came easily was me. Thinking about Chance. My lip was still indented from my teeth biting it as the image of Chance’s face buried between my thighs the hottest piece of personal porn I’d ever seen. After the first round, I stripped out of my pajama shorts—that were soaking wet—and fingered myself again to the image of Chance losing it as I swallowed his dick.
“Why don’t you just tell me about it?” Betty asked. “Then I can give you an answer and we can move on with this silly business.” She harrumphed, sliding her legs to the side of the seat, preparing to dismount from the machine.
“Miss Betty,” I said with a small chuckle, “I don’t think there is an answer to this.”
“Honey, at my age, there is always an answer to everything.”
Sighing, I moved to her side, helping her off the seat and leading the way over to the mats where we could stretch.
“Does this have to do with that devastatingly handsome ex-beau of yours?”
“You know, I’d feel marginally better if you at least wouldn’t reference how handsome he is every time the subject comes up. Devastating? Definitely. Handsome? I refuse to comment on.”
“Oh dear. Did you sleep with him already?” she exclaimed. “I bet my Bridge group that it would be at least another week. Oh, bugger…”
“Betty!” I gasped. “Are you seriously betting on my sex life?”
“Well, dear, when you get to be my age, you have to take what you can get.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I opted for a groan that fell somewhere between tortured and entertained.
“Well, you can keep your money because I didn’t sleep with him,” I retorted as though it were some kind of retaliation.
“Oh, wonderful!” She paused. “Wait, is that the problem?”
“No!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, I see,” she nodded. “You want to sleep with him; that is the problem.”
“Maybe. But it’s so much more than that.”
“Is it?” Those annoyingly perceptive eyes caught my gaze. “Honey, don’t make life harder than it is. If you want to sleep with him, then do it.” She paused to adjust her pants. “But not until next week because I have ten dollars on the table.”
“Why do I feel like your advice is slightly tainted for your own benefit?”
She chuckled and continued, “It is. But it’s also the truth. You are making this too difficult, dear. Maybe I wasn’t clear the last time I suggested this, but even with my old, decrepit eyes, marred by cataracts,” Man, she was laying the drama on thick today, “I can see just how much you want that man; I don’t blame you. And the way he looks at you…” She trailed off and shook her head.
“And how is that?”
“Like you’re one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”
Yeah, maybe because the two of us were history.
“So, you think I should sleep with him—for the ten dollars—and because I want to? Even though there are lies between us? A past? And the fact that he insists on his intent to hurt me?”
She bent her head towards me conspiratorially, “Let me tell you one of the two secrets in life: the things that bring us the greatest happiness will always have the greatest ability to hurt us. If you avoid the potential for hurt, dear, you avoid the potential for true happiness, too.”
I swallowed down her words. I did want Chance. I wanted to help him. I wanted him. Badly (if this weekend was any indication.) I wanted him to know the truth. I wanted to love him. And mostly, I wanted him to love me. Again.
It had been eight years, maybe I shouldn’t be as comfortable with that realization as I was.
“Plus,” she continued, stretching her hips like I’d shown her yesterday, “after I win this bet, I’m going to make another one that he won’t be able to hurt you in the end. It’s like that time I had heart surgery. I was not thrilled with the doctor or the fact that he had to cut my chest open, but as much as I might hate the process, I’d be dead without it—without him. So, he can be miffed about what happened between you two, but you don’t destroy the one thing that can save you.”
She shrugged her shoulders like she’d just explained to me how two plus two equals four. “Self-preservation, dear. Pure and simple.”
There was a good chance she was going to win her ten bucks and subsequently lose it—but I wasn’t about to tell her that now. I barely got through a few things that I wanted her to start trying at home to improve flexibility before she was up and about to run off towards Kyle since he just finished with his morning appointment.
What. A. Riot.
“Alright, Miss Betty. I will see you next week.”
“Keep me posted, dear.” She waved and began to walk away. “Oh!” Spinning back to me, she added, “I know what I was going to say. My advice, dear, to both of us, is this…” She paused again. “Oh, drat. I keep forgetting the stupid thing. What is it that you young folk say nowadays?” I gaped. “Ah! ‘You only live once!’”
YOLO.
And then she was gone.
Seriously. Y.O.L.O. was her advice. Laughing, I made my way up to the lounge area where I could write my notes before grabbing lunch.
‘YOLO’ was fine. My concern wasn’t about living once… My concern was that I’d only loved once.
“So, what’s the over-
under for today?” I looked up as Kyle came to stand next to me in the gym. It was five-of one so Chance wasn’t late yet.
“He’ll be here.” There was no way in hell he was missing another appointment according to his note; Kyle didn’t need to know though that I had insider information because I was now living with the man in question.
One eyebrow raised. And then before there was any more debate, my gorgeous ghost strolled in—his eyes trained only on me because I was the one he was haunting.
“Good luck.” Kyle sent me a half-smile and then had the good sense to make himself scarce before Chance made it over to us.
He had the same sweats on that he was wearing Friday night. I kept my eyes focused on his ‘devastatingly handsome’ face, knowing that he’d worn them on purpose. But keeping my eyes above his waist wasn’t helping much. Today, he had on a tighter work-out shirt that molded to every inch of his torso.
My, oh my.
“Hi.” I asked thickly, swallowing slower than my mouth was watering. He looked fine and his eyes weren’t bloodshot so I knew that there was a good chance that at least drugs weren’t involved with the situation with Nick.
“Hey.”
“You want to change?” And maybe put some shorts on instead of the sweats that make me want to drool.
He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “I’m good… unless that was your way of telling me that you’re interested in taking off my sweats again.”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “No.” I walked towards the calf machine, expecting him to follow me.
“Really?” He smirked, taking a seat. God, I hated that smirk for rubbing my lies in my face. Clink. Another ten pounds added to the weight from where we should have started on Friday.
“I see you weren’t kidding.” He didn’t balk at the weight, only wincing slightly as his legs began to move.
“How does that feel?” I smiled triumphantly.
“Like you,” he grunted.
“I don’t understand.” And I should have kept my mouth shut.
The Winter Games Box Set Page 95