by Owner
“And you both speak your mind…don’t give a shit what other people say.”
I nod. “Anyway, she started asking me all these questions about what I want out of life and why I’m not trying to live my life more like Sage or Emily.”
“And?”
“And, like you said, I was honest. She’s dying, Ned. And she’s my friend.” Then my eyes rim with water. I turn my head, swipe at the corners. “She’s trying to make some sort of peace, and I’m proud of her for doing it. Especially for someone who’s been so strong-willed her whole life. Sage’ll just have to get over it.” I steel myself, turn back to Ned. “So back to you and Sage.”
“My answer hasn’t changed,” he says matter-of-factly.
I can’t help but think he’s lying, or not facing whatever is between them. And I don’t mean the way he used to fawn all over her when we were all together. I’m not the jealous type, but this situation bothers me. For a while now, my instincts have told me to fight whatever it is that’s happening between us, but part of me wants to see what’s there. “I don’t want to ruin something that’s meant so much to me. Sage, Emily…you. I care about you, too, Ned. I do, but I also don’t want to get stuck in some friends with benefits love triangle with you and Sage.”
“Should I repeat, there is no me and Sage?”
I look him dead in the eye to make sure we are clear. “So nothing happened last night after her party?”
He pauses, looks out toward the ocean. “No, not really.”
“Bingo.” I’m not mad. I have no right to be, but I knew something was up. What I am is disappointed, and relieved at the same time. Because this means there will be nothing more than friendship between me and Ned.
CHAPTER 22 - NED
“Dammit, Jax.”
She pops up from our seat in the sand and heads toward the water. I grab our cups and follow saying, “Listen to me. Nothing happened, we just had…a moment.”
I wonder if she hears me above the crashing waves. But when I catch up to her, she turns to me and says, “Oh, a moment. What the hell does that mean?”
Her voice isn’t angry, but something rises up in me—a kind of heat or fear. I’m not sure why I should have to defend myself but I do. “She was upset.”
“About me?”
“Yes…but no, there was something else.”
Jax’s attitude changes instantly, her love for Sage is more important than anything else happening here. It’s one of the reasons I admire her so much. “Is she okay?” she asks softly. “What is it?”
Given Sage’s family history, I don’t want her to worry. At the same time, it’s not my place to share Sage’s frozen egg situation with Jax. “Yes, she’s fine. It’s complicated, but there is something she’s been struggling with. And it has nothing to do with you or her grandmother.”
“But you can’t tell me.” She looks out to the ocean, folds her arms across her chest as if she’s cold. “She mentioned her fears about not becoming a mother, so I’m guessing it’s something to do with that. But I’m not asking for details.” The wind is strong closer to the waves. Her hair wrestles around her head. I resist the urge to wrap my arms around her. But now more than ever I want to hold her. “I understand, you don’t want to betray her trust,” she says. “But what happened between you two?”
“She cried. I held her. You know how she is, keeping it all in until she can’t any longer. It got intense, for a second, but nothing happened because I didn’t want anything to happen.”
“Or she didn’t.”
I try not to get pissed at the comment, reminding myself that this reaction is not unfounded. I’ve acted like an idiot in the past, being obvious about my attraction to Sage. “We both didn’t,” I say. “I was only being a good friend to her when she needed one. And since she didn’t have you…” I say, risking a beating.
She ignores the last comment, determined to get this out. “So you two have never hooked up?”
Shit, she asks the tough questions. I hesitate, but when she turns to look me in the eye I find it impossible to lie to her. I want her respect. I decide right then I will answer anything she asks. I only hope she doesn’t ask the one question I don’t want to answer. I stop and face her. “It happened a long time ago, a one-time thing.”
I gauge her reaction, hoping she’s not hurt. Her eyes are difficult to read under the light of the moon and a distant light near the boardwalk. She stares at me for a long time. Her expression changes and she finally says. “I’m sorry I pushed you to tell me. I don’t know why I had to know.”
I let out a sigh and a grin that tells her I’m calling out the always-straight-forward Jax. “I think we both know why.” I take her hand in mine. “It’s okay, Jax. I feel it too. I’m not saying we have to do anything about it now, but something is there.” I bring her hand to my chest, wanting to kiss her so badly, but resisting. For once in my life, I must play it cool. Use your head, jack ass. I press her hand to my heart. “Here.”
Startled, Jax sucks in ragged air, shakes her head, then lets it fall against her hand onto my chest. “Doesn’t that worry you a little?” she says, without lifting her head.
“No,” I say, then pause. “It scares the shit out of me. I couldn’t stand it if I ever lost what we have now.” I put my hand on the back of her head, and we stay that way for a moment. My chest tightens, making it difficult to breath. Too much, too fucking fast. I need to breathe, so I say, “I mean, yeah, you’re a pain in the ass sometimes, but…”
Jax yanks her head up, pulls her hand away and punches me in the arm. Then she takes off down the beach. “C’mon.”
We walk side by side in silence, our hands brushing up against each other a couple of times before I finally grab hers, interlocking our fingers. We walk toward the pier. I wonder if she’s cold, heading into the wind, but I have nothing to offer her but my arms. After a few minutes, she says, “You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to.”
“I want to,” I say even though I’m embarrassed. “It was junior year in college,” I said. “I was dating DeeDee, remember her?”
“Oh yeah. Big rack, laughed sort of like a hyena?”
“Thanks, yeah, that would be her. She was pretty freaking smart, you know. I think she’s a botanist now.”
“Very impressive. So you cheated on the future botanist?”
“No, I didn’t. Not really.”
“There’s so much gray in your world,” she says sarcastically.
“Do you want to hear the damn story or not?”
“Yes, please proceed with the damn story.”
I forget we’re holding hands for a second and wonder if I should let go for this part of the story, but I don’t. “I went to visit Emily one weekend, without DeeDee. We went out. Sage and Eric joined us. Emily went back to Eric’s place that night, but I still needed to crash at her and Sage’s place. When we got there, Sage wanted to keep drinking. I knew something was wrong with her that night, but didn’t say anything until then.”
“She was upset about her mom,” Jax says. We all remember that time.
“Yeah, it was before the surgery, so she was pretty worried. And you know her freaking family. No one seemed to give a shit what she was going through. She was trying to be strong for Sierra who was I think twelve at the time.”
“So you were there to hold her, like last night? Only you didn’t stop things that time.”
“Some of the details are fuzzy. We actually drank ourselves to sleep before anything happened.”
Jax gives me a confused look as we veer away from the pier and head toward the boardwalk. “So?”
“So my phone rang sometime in the middle of the night, but we were passed out. Sage woke and answered it.”
“Let me guess. It was DeeDee.”
“Yep.”
I gave Jax a brief rundown on my conversation with my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. How she accused me of sleeping with Sage, and how it took me all of about five minutes
to convince her that I hadn’t. Because Nice Guy Ned didn’t do shit like that. Nice Guy Ned was dependable, predictable. She actually used that word, and a second later we broke up anyway. Her decision.
“So you did it out of spite?”
“I’m not going to lie. I was pretty worked up. But after we were both awake at three in the morning and Sage was finally ready to talk, she broke down. I wasn’t thinking about DeeDee.”
“And who would say no to Sage, right?”
“That sounds so fucking pathetic, but that’s what happened.” We reach the boardwalk, stop and lean up against a brick wall. “I regret it, Jax. Because if that was ever going to happen, I didn’t want it to be that way. Especially…”
“What?”
I shake my head, not sure if I should say it.
“You might as well, finish. What do you want to say?”
“It’s like she blames the whole thing on me.”
“Do you really think she feels that way? How can you be sure?”
“Comments she makes, then she blows it off pretending she was joking.”
“I’m sorry,” Jax says. “You know Sage has to try and control everything in her world. It probably just scared her that she was vulnerable.”
“I guess,” I say, unconvincingly.
Then Jax turns to face me, pulls me in for a hug, her head resting on my chest. “Don’t let it get to you,” she says. “Let’s put it behind us and not talk about it again.”
“That works for me.” I’m relieved it’s out in the open, but because there is still another secret between us, it leaves me worried. And the only person I can talk to is Emily, so I suggest we head back to our cars before I do something else I’ll regret.
We stand in the church parking lot, Jax with one hand on her open door.
“So where do we go from here?” I ask.
She gives me a smile I’ve seen a million times before. But now it’s as though it’s only for me. “We go home,” she says. “And think pleasant thoughts about each other.”
I lean down, plant a kiss on her cheek. “I can do that.”
She stands on her tiptoes to deliver one to my cheek. “Good.” Then she climbs into her car. “Call me sometime. We’ll see what we come up with.”
●●●
Back at Emily’s, I find my twin awake on the couch, watching a DVR’d show that makes me want to live in a third world country: The Bachelor. Some asshole with an already inflated ego, lets women compete for his attention, for his love. And then, when he sends them packing, they bawl their eyes out as though they’re surprised he didn’t pick them. It’s all so freaking automated.
My sister shushes me when I begin to vent about her viewing choice. I’m sure she needs to unwind after today, so I leave for the kitchen to grab a snack. The rest of the house is silent, kids and hubby already tucked in. Eric probably works in the morning. I see whoever was in charge of the dishes after Jax and I left failed to complete the task.
A leftover tub of popcorn from the party catches my eye. Nice. I slide it over to the dishwasher, ignoring the fact that a ton of grubby little fingers probed through this and grabbing my own handful. I’m starved. Being honest, admitting feelings, resisting urges, takes a toll on a loser like me.
I pull open the dishwasher door and slide out the bottom tray. Carefully, quietly, I load plates and bowls into the tray with minimal clankage. If Emily hears me doing this, she’ll run in and take over, defeating the purpose of helping my sister. When I finish, I check out Sophie’s gifts, still piled on the dining room table. I pick up the little guitar Jax gave her, smiling at how similar the two girls are. How my niece is determined to copy everything Jax says and does. It wouldn’t be so terrible if Sophie ended up taking after Jax.
“Isn’t that adorable?” I hear behind me.
“Hey, sis,” I say, turning around.
Emily carries over a yawn and sits in a chair at the table. It pains me to see her looking so drained—not fun party drained, but life drained. She always was the worrier in the family, the what if girl. Always thinking something bad might happen. I contemplate bringing up the dreaded topic, but this probably isn’t the best time to see if she’s given any more consideration to therapy.
“So did Mr. Right find true love yet?” I ask, hoping to get a smile.
“No, maybe next week.”
I try again. “Well, once he has sex with each one of them, I’m sure he’ll discover which is his soul mate.” Pause for effect. “And at least the losers got a romp with a really hot guy, on TV, for everyone to see.”
Nada. I sit next to her, put my hand on her arm. “You should get to bed.”
“I will. I just need to get to those dishes.” She looks over to the sink, then back at me, sleepy but smiling. “I love you.”
“I know. So did Sophie have a good time today?”
“I suppose she did. But she spent the majority of the party huddled in a corner with her best friend Keeley. I could’ve saved myself some stress and money and invited her over for a play date.”
“That’s the girl who moved?”
She nods.
“Sophie told me about her.”
“Yeah, actually only she and her mother moved. Divorce. Dad still lives nearby. So what are you doing back here?”
“It’s nothing. Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“Bullshit, Neddy.”
“Such language from a mother. See how exhausted you are.”
“Now that I don’t have to tackle those dishes, I have some newfound energy. So what is it? And bring me some of the popcorn while you tell me.”
She will drag this out of me, but still I hesitate. I retrieve the popcorn tin and take a seat across from my sis. We both dig in as I try to figure out how best to verbalize the mess in my head.
“Any day now,” she says with a mouthful.
“So…I know we’ve talked about this before, but do you think it’s completely idiotic for friends to date?” Hearing the words come out of my mouth bring me back to fourteen-years-old again. Emily may only be two minutes older, but somehow I always look up to her.
She rolls her eyes, swallows, and says, “Oh my God, Neddy. Sage again? I told you you shouldn’t have gone to that party.” She slides the tin back to her, digging in for another handful. “Please tell me nothing happened. I love Sage, but you two together?”
My mouth hangs open during this rant. I should have realized she’d assume I meant Sage. This day is killing me. I shove my elbow on the table, let my forehead fall to my fist, close my eyes. “No, not Sage. Last night was a favor.”
“Look we’re both exhausted, just tell me what the hell you’re talking about. Because if it’s not Sage then I don’t kno…” A slamming noise and vibration on the table cause my eyes to pop open. Emily’s hands rest flat in front of her. Her eyes are wide as she leans toward me. “Holy crap. Are you talking about Jax?”
I can’t hold back a grin of embarrassment, I guess, but don’t answer. She can tell everything from my eyes. I need her to tell me what to do, the same way she always has.
She sighs exaggeratingly loud. “Wow.” Then she sinks into her chair, letting loose a hideous set of giggles. “Thanks, I needed that.”
“That is seriously fucked up,” I say, letting my head fall to the table, knocking against it several times. I stay that way until she stops. I finally lift my head up. “What?”
“I should’ve known,” she says. “You too have been all buddy buddy lately. And today, you were staring at her from across the yard with that goofy grin.”
“Could you make this any harder?”
“Yeah,” she says.
It’s nice to see a genuinely happy response from her, that wasn’t elicited by some special kid moment. “Can you be serious? This is important to me.”
She nods. “I’m sorry, Ned. I’m not sure what advice I can offer you. I’m not going to tell you it’s stupid, because I love you and I love Jax. I always want y
ou to follow your heart. So have you spoken to her about this?”
I fill her in on the last couple hours with Jax as well as what happened with Sage last night.
“This is serious if you were willing to tell her about your hook-up with Sage.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t want to screw this up…whatever it is. I don’t even know if anything will happen between us, but if it does, I want to start fresh.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Oh, I see. So you told her about…”
“No!” I cut her off, not even wanting to hear the words come out of her mouth. “I can’t,” I say looking down at my hands.
“Ned, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. She might even be happy.”
“If Jax ever found out, I bet happy would be the last word to describe her reaction. I’m thinking more along the lines of pissed as hell.”
CHAPTER 23 - SAGE
I pull up to Oak Grove to find Jax and Travis sitting on the bench outside looking like two kids waiting for their ride after soccer practice. It’s been less than a week since Sophie’s party where Jax and I were civil to each other, for Emily’s sake mostly. She didn’t need another reason to be stressed. We should talk this through, but it’s not a high priority for me right now.
Travis holds a small, brown bag in his lap. We’re still supposed to be just friends, but a tiny surge of excitement trails up my body as I wonder if he brought me something. This is the longest relationship I’ve had with a man without receiving so much as a flower. I’m doing all the work here. Between my grandmother’s request and my new client, I’ve had plenty of excuses to commute my ass down here to see my new best bod, I mean best bud. At least Christine has been more lenient lately. It could be because I’ve shared with her what’s going on with Rose. Surprisingly, she even set up a consultation with one of our senior money managers for advice.
They both stand when they see me walk toward them on the sidewalk. I try not to eye the package, now in Travis’s hand at his side. “Hi.” I give them both smiles and hugs, trying to stay positive after the text my father sent me moments ago. He was supposed to be here today as well, promised he’d help me with some of this if even to provide moral support. But he only seems to be moving farther away from me, and from Rose.