by Leona Lee
Then she crawled from my lap, took a deep breath, and climbed out of the car, blowing me kiss. “I’ll see you around, boss man.”
I mimed catching the kiss and smacked it to my lips. “See you around, Jordan.”
Watching her make her way into the building, my heart squeezing with each step that she took that carried her farther away from me, I was struck by the sudden realization that I hadn’t felt that way since Anastasia.
Holy fuck.
I loved her.
Chapter Twelve
JORDAN
I arrived at Lucky’s ten minutes early, and I wasn’t at all surprised to find Nicole already there, seated at a booth in the back with a huge box next to her. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to get this meeting over with.
The difference was that I wanted to get it over with because I wanted to look her in the eyes and explain my side of what happened. It wasn’t going to be easy. Nicole probably wanted to get it over with so she’d never have to see me again.
The thought of losing her forever made my heart clench again and pushed tears to my eyes. The bell above the door of Lucky’s tinkled when I entered, drawing Nicole’s eyes to me. Her shoulders heaved on a deep sigh, and she momentarily closed her eyes, as though she was praying for the strength to make it through the encounter.
My knees turned into jelly, causing my stride to falter as I crossed the trendy coffee shop where Nic and I had been getting our fix for years. How was it that in the space of twenty-four little hours, my best friend felt it necessary to pray for fortitude to survive a meeting with me.
Well, you did lose your virginity to her father, my subconscious said snarkily. I winced. This was all my fault, and I knew it. Nicole’s eyes opened, but she studiously ignored me as I made my way toward her.
In the past, there would’ve been a steaming mug of coffee waiting for me on the table in one of the brightly colored takeout cups that Lucky’s used. But it wasn’t the past. A single cup was clasped between Nicole’s palms. She hadn’t even chosen her usual pink or red. It was an ordinary white one.
My heart sank. I knew her well enough to know without a shadow of a doubt that it meant she was more upset than I could’ve imagined. I hated that I was the cause of it.
It wasn’t like I’d been expecting her to welcome me with open arms, but she looked at me like I was a stranger when I slid into the booth with her. In fact, it didn’t look like she saw me sitting there at all.
“Your stuff,” she said, nodding to the box next to her in that same flat tone from the night before. Her fingers closed around the keys that were lying in front of her.
She’s leaving, I realized. Just like that. She wasn’t planning on giving me the chance to explain anything. “Nicole?”
Her eyes snapped to mine, a hint of fire in them for just a second before it burnt out, and the stony expression was back. “What?”
“Will you please hear me out?” I begged, tears welling in my eyes.
Nicole scowled, a deep, ugly scowl that cut me to the bone, as did the disgust that shone bright and judgmentally in her eyes. “No.”
“Don’t do this, Nikki. Please don’t do this.” I caught her wrist when she made to stand up, circling it lightly between my thumb and index finger.
She looked down at my hand like I’d burned or shocked her, shaking herself free with a look of incredulity growing on her features.
“You’re asking me not to do this?” Her voice was practically a hiss. “Me? After what you’ve done? I’m the one who shouldn’t do this?”
“Nic, please—”
“Fuck!” she spat out. “Can both of you just stop with this Nicole, please bullshit. God, I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you. You. Fucked. My. Dad.”
She paused for a beat between each word, leaning forward in the booth and capturing my gaze with her furious one. “There are no amount of Nicole, pleases in the world that makes that okay. He’s forty-fucking-eight for fuck’s sake. It’s gross.”
“That’s not fair,” I told her, leaning forward myself by sliding my elbows over on the booth. “I mean, you have every right to be angry with us, but saying it’s gross because of his age, that’s a little hypocritical don’t you think?”
Nicole’s eyebrows shot up, and she crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “Seriously?”
“Yes, Nic. Seriously. You dated that guy, what was his name.” I searched my memory for a split second and snapped my fingers when it came to me. “Justin, just last year. He was fifty-six. That’s eight years older than your dad. I don’t remember the age difference being ‘gross’ then. In fact, I distinctly remember you telling me that silver foxes were the new boy toys. That expression, that’s gross, just in case you were wondering.”
Nicole rolled her eyes, her posture radiating anger and indignation with her muscles all locked. “That was different.”
“How is that different?” I arched an eyebrow at her and sat back in the booth. “That’s bullshit.”
“It’s not, because he might’ve been older, but he didn’t have any children,” Nicole whisper- yelled. Even so, the woman sitting at a table nearby shot us a puzzled glance before she went back to slamming on the keys of her laptop.
Thank god Lucky’s was nearly empty that day, because we were definitely causing a scene, and the fewer people around to witness my public humiliation, the better. But I still wasn’t letting Nicole go without a fight. Public humiliation or no.
“Yeah?” I asked. “What about Remy then? The guy you dated just after Justin. He had three children.”
Nicole scoffed. “Fine, it looks like I’m going to have to spell everything out for you today. Neither Justin nor Remy had children that I was friends with. Best friends. You know, the kind that you can trust to keep their hands off your fucking dad?”
“I get that, Nic. I do, really, but it just—”
“If you say ‘it just happened,’ I’m going to projectile vomit on to you. Things like that don’t just happen. You didn’t trip, and he didn’t happen to fall into you.” She grimaced when she said the words “into you,” and her skin paled like she was really going to puke, but she pressed forward. “And then you went ahead and lied to me about it. I asked you point blank that morning who the guy was that you were with.”
“I know that, but—”
“No, you wanted to talk, so I’m talking. I asked you straight up, remember? I even pointed out that you were with my dad that night, and you denied it. You lied to me. Christ, how could I have been so fucking stupid?”
“You weren’t—”
“No, you know what? You’re right. I wasn’t stupid to not see it coming. I was stupid for trusting you in the first place. I never thought you would do something like this to me. How could you?” She choked back a sob, then jumped up from the table and stormed out of the restaurant.
I didn’t know what was in the box she left behind, but it didn’t matter. If it was gone when I got back, then so be it. I rushed out of the cafe after her. “Nicole, wait!”
Damn, I’d forgotten how fast she was.
By the time I made it out the door, she was already at the corner. Bless the little red hand blinking at the crosswalk. Without it, I had no chance of catching up to her. Light rain had started to fall while we’d been inside, but I was born and bred in Seattle. A little rain didn’t scare me.
I took off down the sidewalk, hurrying to where Nicole was waiting to cross the street. Tears were streaming down both of our faces when I reached her.
“Leave me alone, Jordan,” she said, turning her back on me. “I can’t even look at you.”
The little red hand blinked into a white walking person, and Nicole started to run, but I caught her by the arm. “You can’t do this to me, Nic, and you can’t do this to your dad.”
She yanked free and turned to face me, a thunderstorm brewing behind her eyes. “Again, with this. I’m not doing anything to either of you. You’re the ones who’ve
done this to me, and you won’t even stop pestering me for long enough to process it!”
“You asked me to come here today.”
“I know,” she said with a loud sob. “Because I thought it was better to get rid of your stuff as soon as possible. I thought I knew you, Jay. I really did, but—”
“I love him, Nicole.”
She froze. “What?”
“You heard me,” I told her, stunning myself with my confession as much as I seemed to have shocked her, but as soon as I said the words, I knew them to be true. “And I think he loves me, too.”
I marveled at that fact, because I knew that it was true, too, even if he hadn’t actually said the words. The way he’d been looking at me that morning, there had been pure love in those gorgeous green eyes.
Unfortunately, while I was basking in the glory of the revelation that I was well and truly in love for the first time in my life, Nicole’s expression had contorted into one so pained that it stopped my thoughts in their tracks.
“You’re my best friend. Or you were. You’re not supposed to be my fucking stepmother.”
Ugh, when she put it like that... “I’m sorry, okay. I never meant for this to happen, but it did. I can’t help how I feel about him, or how he feels about me, but you’re still my best friend. If you can’t support us, that’s not okay with me. I can’t lose you, Nic. And neither can he.”
“Maybe one of you should’ve thought about that before,” she retorted.
“Trust me, we did. Neither of us wanted it to be this way, but it is. We fell in love, and there’s no coming back from that.” In my hearts of hearts, I knew that no matter what happened, there would be no coming back from Brad. Not for me.
I also knew that I would never find another friendship like the one I had with Nicole. I didn’t want to live without her. She was my best friend. That friend I could call no matter what the time was, the one that I called with good news and bad, that I celebrated with and mourned with.
I was that person for her, too.
“Is this really what you want?” I asked her. “Do you really want to turn your back on both us?”
Nicole paused, then threw her arms out in exasperation. “Is it what I want? No, of course not. You haven’t given me much of a choice though, did you?”
“The choice is yours, and you know it. You can sit down with us, talk this through so we can all work this out, or you can write us off and never speak to us again. I truly hope that you don’t choose to shut us out, but either way, it’s up to you. We haven’t made any choices for you.”
“What do you want from me?” she huffed. “The two people that I trusted the most lied to me and betrayed me. How is the choice mine?”
“We did do both of those things. I’m not going to deny that, but it’s your choice how we go forward from here. I’m not asking or expecting you to forgive me today, or tomorrow, or the day after that. All I’m asking for is the chance to earn your forgiveness. Don’t give up on us, Nic. Please.”
Nicole sighed, poison green eyes searching mine. “What exactly is it that you are asking from me, then?”
“Come to your dad’s house tonight at seven, just to talk. Or to listen. Whatever you choose to do. But please just come?”
Her eyes narrowed onto mine, her chest rising and falling with sharp, angry breaths. “I’ll think about, but only if you let me walk away right now.”
She spun around and marched away from me without another word. I watched her disappear into the crowd, being swallowed up by the army of gray and black coats on the sidewalk.
I walked back to the cafe slowly to collect my things. My hair was dripping wet, and my clothes were soaked through from arguing in the rain, but that didn’t matter. Because despite the cold and the wet, there was hope blooming warm and wild in my stomach.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d gotten through to her. I was sure that I did.
Chapter Thirteen
BRAD
“Stop pacing, baby,” I told Jordan. “I’m not particularly attached to that rug, but I’d rather not have it on fire when Nicole gets here.”
I set down my tumbler of scotch on the glass side table next to me and reached for her hand.
She took it and let me tug her forward. I spread my knees, making space for her to stand between them. Planting my hands on her hips, I leaned forward to press a soft kiss onto her stomach.
“Where is she, Brad? She was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.” Jordan looked like she was on the verge of tears again, and I didn’t blame her. I was rapidly losing hope that Nicole was going to show up myself.
But I would deal with my disappointment on my own time. For now, I had to focus on Jordan. Pulling her onto my lap, I tunneled my hands into her hair and held her face close to mine, locking our gazes together. “I know she was supposed to be here already, and I don’t where she is, but whatever happens, we’ll get through it, okay? If she doesn’t come tonight, we’ll keep trying until she does.”
My voice was soft, reassuring, and it worked. Jordan sighed, but nodded. “You’re right, I guess. I was just so sure she was going to come.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nicole shrieked from the doorway to the living room. Which was when I realized what the scene must look like from her perspective.
From the way I’d tugged Jordan onto me, she was almost straddling me, her long, flowing skirt covering my legs. Our faces were so close together, and with Jordan’s back to the door, blocking us from complete view, it would’ve looked like we were making out.
I’d started a fire earlier in my stone fireplace, which cast the room in a slight glow while the shadows of flames licked across the walls. The wood crackled and popped softly, but we’d been speaking in such low tones that Nicole wouldn’t have heard us anyway.
It looked like we were fucking right here.
Rising quickly, I brought Jordan up with me and then set her down gently. At least this way, Nicole would see that we were both completely clothed and that things weren’t, in fact, what they looked like.
“Nicole,” I said. “I know what that looked like, but it’s not. Don’t leave.”
She stood frozen on the threshold, so still that I wondered if we’d managed to shock her into some kind of seizure, but then her shoulders drew up, and she crossed her arms. “Fine, so it wasn’t what it looked like, but it was still disgusting to see. Just like this whole goddamn relationship.”
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Disgusting? Your friend was beyond worried because she thought you weren’t going to show. I was comforting her. How is that disgusting?”
“Not this again,” Jordan muttered beside me.
“What’s disgusting is that you were comforting ‘my friend’ by kissing her,” Nicole snarled, making air quotes with her fingers when she said “my friend.”
“I wasn’t kissing her just now, I’ll have you know.” I shrugged, lacing Jordan’s fingers through mine. “But I do plan on kissing her in the future, whether you’re around or not.”
Nicole’s eyes dropped and zeroed in on our joined hands like a laser. “Like I said, disgusting. This was a mistake.”
Jordan stopped her. “I thought we’d covered the gross slash disgusting thing with Justin.”
“Who’s Justin?” I asked. I hadn’t met many of Nicole’s boyfriends. She didn’t keep most of them around for long enough, and the ones she had brought home to meet me were all jackasses that never stuck around anyway.
Nicole shot Jordan a warning look, but Jordan squeezed my hand and glared at Nicole, not breaking eye contact with her while she told me. “Justin is an ex-boyfriend of Nicole’s from last year. He was fifty-six.”
“Fifty-fucking-six, Nicole? Really? That’s nearly a decade older than I am.” My free hand went to my hair, shoving through it over and over again as I tried to control the rage that was starting to boil in my stomach.
Nicole’s eyes tore from Jordan to stare me down. “Yes, fifty-fucking-six. You have a
problem with that?”
“You were twenty-five. He was fifty-six. That’s an age difference of thirty-one years. Jordan and I are only twenty-two apart, but we’re gross and disgusting?” How the fuck had I not known about this guy?
My daughter had the good sense to look ashamed for all of about five seconds before she stuck her chin out defiantly and took up arms again. “I wasn’t friends with his kid, and I never lied about it.”
My glare softened, and I motioned her toward the couch. “Fair point. Will you sit down, please?”
Nicole didn’t move for a few beats, her eyes alternating between Jordan’s and mine before she sighed and sank into what she’d coined her spot on the couch years ago. Her dark hair spilled over the gray material, and my own eyes stared back at me, so much hurt in them that it made me want to slay dragons to protect her.
Again though, the only dragon I could slay was myself. What a fucking mess.
Lowering myself back into my seat, I reached for my tumbler, then thought better of it and reached for Jordan instead. She was hesitant to come to me, glancing at Nicole who was still staring daggers at us.
Fuck that. I needed her if I was going to say what I knew I had to say, so I tugged on her hand a little more roughly, and she sank back onto my lap, blue eyes wide and questioning.
Wrapping my arms around her delicate waist, I shifted to have clear view of Nicole and made sure to meet her gaze dead on. “I love Jordan, honey. I need you to know that this isn’t some kind of game or fling for me.”
Then I turned my eyes to Jordan’s, who had clasped her hand over her mouth and had tears swimming in her eyes as she drank me in. “I need you to know that, too. I love you, and I want to be with you.”
Jordan’s small hands grabbed my face between them, her eyes glittering in the light of the fire, filling them with tiny sparks that made the blue orbs look like a starry sky at midnight. She was staring at me with an intensity that I had never seen before when she said the words that I needed to hear.
“I love you, too.”
“Holy crap on a cracker,” Nicole muttered, then raised her voice. “Did you really have to do that with me in the room?”