I shook my head. “It’s pouring outside.”
“So,” he stalled, shoving his hands in his pockets, “you wanna hang out here?”
I smiled apologetically. “I have a huge test tomorrow, first thing in the morning. I need to cram.”
Ryan shrugged again. “I can help you.”
“I have to do it by myself. You know how I am,” I said dismissively.
“Yeah, I just . . .” He sighed. “I can’t quit thinking about that kiss.”
“Oh.”
Ryan walked past me into my room. “I know what you said, but don’t you have any feelings for me at all? Can’t we stop pretending long enough to find out if I could make you happy? I could, you know, make you happy.”
Ryan’s mention of our arrangement caused me to glance up at the vent, but it didn’t matter. Jared saw right through me from the beginning.
“You do make me happy. I just don’t have anything left to . . .” I shook my head. “I can’t talk about this right now. I have to study,” I said, opening the door.
“Do you have plans for dinner?” he asked.
I hugged him. “No. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
It was the beginning of the end for us. Jared had agreed to stay away, and Ryan knew that our time was limited. He nodded and left my room, disappointed.
Studying was nothing less than impossible, knowing Jared was outside. I peered out the rain-streaked window again to see that Jared hadn’t moved. The urge to go to him became unmanageable, so I grabbed my keys and set out to take a coffee break off campus.
I drove just a few blocks to the nearest coffee shop and went in, ordering my usual. I took my time, lingering in the booth, watching different faces come and go. Fantasies of surprising Jared with a gift kept creeping into my thoughts, and I finally resorted to returning to my dorm.
As soon as I walked outside, I noticed Jared in my peripheral vision. His shirt was wet from standing in the rain, and I held my breath as I passed him. The circles under his eyes were dark, and his face appeared paler than his natural golden tone.
My feet refused to take another step. No matter what I had said, I still loved him. I couldn’t make him feel like a ghost on his birthday. I closed my eyes, knowing I would go against everything I had worked for in the last six weeks. I was at a crossroads, and I was about to deliberately take the wrong turn.
I turned on my heels and walked straight up to him. Jared watched me with wary eyes, obviously unsure of what to expect.
Although I had made strangers of us over the last weeks, it felt right be close to him again. I felt no awkwardness or tension, and I could see beyond his cautious expression that he felt the same.
I took a deep breath. “Happy birth—”
Before I could finish, Jared grabbed my shoulders and pulled me against him into a deep kiss. My lips melted against the familiar heat of his mouth, and as I breathed in his amazing scent, I felt a bit lightheaded. When Jared realized I wouldn’t pull away, he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly against him, shamelessly taking advantage of the moment. Minutes passed, and I could hear the giggling of children and teenage girls as they walked by. When his lips finally left mine, he hugged me tightly and buried his face in my neck, taking in a deep breath through his nose. He caressed his cheek against mine for a few moments more and then finally released me.
He scanned my face for some sort of reaction. I wasn’t sure what expression was on my face, but Jared looked cautiously pleased.
“Day,” I finished, breathlessly.
His eyes were a few shades lighter than I’d seen them in weeks. I waited for a moment and allowed my lips to form a tiny smile before returning to my car.
“Nina?” Jared called.
I turned around, and a tired smile touched his face. “That’s all I wanted today.”
My heart sank at his words, and I wished the world would leave us alone so I could stay with him. The memory of Harry Crenshaw pressing a gun to Bex’s temple flashed in my mind, and I stiffened.
“Good-bye, Jared.”
17. Absolution
Finals week arrived. The little sleep I’d gotten before became nonexistent with the amount of studying and cramming I had to do. I studied with the group at the Rock every night, only to return to my room to read and memorize in solitude.
Ryan continued to pretend, walking me to lunch, to classes, and back and forth from my room. He was the perfect boyfriend; he opened doors, brought late night brain food, and he even rubbed my shoulders while quizzing me on study guides. A part of me wondered if he was trying so hard because he knew the end of the week meant the end of pretending and he hoped I would change my mind.
Beth and Chad found an apartment, and some of her things were already packed in boxes. A sad air befell the room when we were both in it, surrounded by cardboard. The walls looked empty and clinical without her teddy bears and tiaras displayed on the walls and ribbons dripping from the shelves.
Thursday night occasional cracks of thunder rattled the windows. The rain beat against the window in a heavy gust, and Beth sighed at her carefully highlighted textbook. I slammed my book shut and put a CD in the stereo, twisting the volume knob as high as it would go.
“What are you doing?” Beth yelled over the music.
I jumped up and down, holding my hands out to her. “It’s our last night as roomies, roomie! We’re sending you out in style!”
Beth giggled and stood up, grabbing my hands and shaking her hair to the beat as we bounced together. After a few songs, a loud banging resounded from the door. I shimmied over to open it, laughing when I saw Kim’s smiling face.
“Sounds like a party!” she yelled, holding up two six packs of cheap beer. “I come bearing gifts!”
“Woo!” Beth squealed. Her hair flapped about as she danced in her bare feet.
Before I’d finished my first can, another knock on the door revealed a rather wet and confused Ryan, who cringed at the volume of the stereo.
“What are you doing?” Ryan yelled. A wide grin stretched across his face as he watched us bounce.
“It’s our impromptu going-away party for Beth!” I yelled back.
“Cool! I’ll make phone calls!” Ryan exclaimed, pulling out his cell phone.
Within twenty minutes, our room was shoulder to shoulder with our entire study group, plus a few girls from down the hall who had wandered in out of curiosity. Kim and Tucker were jumping on Beth’s bed, and the rest of us were dancing and laughing.
By midnight, everyone except Beth, Chad, and Ryan had cleared out to study. Beth grabbed her purse and hugged me.
“Thank you so much! I needed that. It’s been so sad around here!”
“You’re welcome. I’m going to miss you terribly,” I said, jutting out my bottom lip.
Beth squeezed me until it was hard to breathe. “I’m going to miss you too. But we’ll still see each other, right?”
“Of course we will.” I smiled.
I waved good-bye to her and Chad and then sat on my bed, exhausted. As usual, any normal, content feelings I had left with the moment.
Ryan turned to see the look on my face. “What is it, babe?”
I smiled. “No one’s here, Ryan. You don’t have to call me that.”
“I don’t do it for other people,” he said, an amused grin spanning his face.
“Ryan,” I began. Knocking at the door provided a perfect excuse to postpone the inevitable. “Beth must have forgotten her keys.” I opened the door and gasped.
She wouldn’t have come unless something was horribly wrong. The adrenaline exploded through my bloodstream as I braced myself for what she might say.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“What are you doing here, Claire? Is it Jared?
She looked at Ryan and then back at me, and for the first time, she didn’t have a murderous expression on her face. “Alone.”
“I’m not leaving,” Ryan said, standing in front of me.<
br />
She rolled her eyes. “If I wanted to hurt her, Ryan, you standing there with your hands in your pockets wouldn’t do much in the way of a deterrent,” she said, looking back to me. “It’s important, Nina.”
I could feel my heart thudding against my chest wall. “What? He’s okay, right?”
“He’s at home. He finally agreed to get some sleep.”
“Oh.” The numbness came like second nature, and automatically an emotional wall surrounded me.
Claire frowned at my generic answer. “Oh? I can’t stand to see him like this anymore, and you’re the only one who can fix it. He’s been a mess since his birthday. He’s been a mess for weeks, but he’s been really bad since Sunday.” She looked to the floor, clearly disturbed by whatever image was in her head. “I think it’s finally hit him that you’re not going to change your mind.”
I found my focus again, grateful to Claire for the reminder. “He’s right.”
Claire looked at Ryan and then at me in disgust. “You two aren’t fooling anyone. Jared knows exactly what’s going on. It was a stupid idea, Nina. You’re putting him through hell for nothing. I could understand if you didn’t feel the same, but I know you do.”
I shook my head, the consequences to his family coming to the forefront of my mind. “I can’t.”
Claire’s face twisted into a heartbreaking expression, and I was taken aback when I saw her eyes gloss over.
“I’ve never seen him like this, Nina, not even when Dad died. I was hoping he would snap out of it, that after a while he would get over it, but he hasn’t. He won’t sleep, he can’t eat, and he’s forced to watch you ignore him every day. It’s torture,” she said, stubbornly wiping a rogue tear from her cheek.
“Stop it. I don’t want to hear anymore,” I said, closing my eyes.
Claire blinked the tears away and glared at me. “Well, that’s too bad. He has to live it; the least you can do is listen to it,” she said, pulling my arm toward her. Ryan took his hand out of his pockets and moved toward Claire. She pressed one hand against his chest and effortlessly pushed him against the door, holding him there. Ryan leaned forward, but he was helpless against her angel’s strength.
“Don’t hurt her,” Ryan said, glowering at Claire.
Claire took her eyes from me and glanced at Ryan, taking her hand from his chest. “I’m not going to hurt her. Stay out of it, Ryan.”
Ryan stood in place against the door and looked at me. “Nina?”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “You have to go, Claire. Please, just go.”
“He’s broken, Nina,” she pleaded. “Don’t you see it? Don’t you care? The pain he’s going through is enough, but he has to feel your pain too. Can you imagine the pain you feel missing him, being without him, and wanting him doubled? He kept saying that you just needed space, that you would come around, but after Sunday, after you told him good-bye, it broke him.”
My resolve waivered, but I fought my weakness for Jared, knowing I was at another crossroads. I had to make the right decision.
She took a deep breath. “I know you think you’re atoning for Jack’s sins. But what you’re doing, Nina . . . It’s killing Jared. Nothing can be worse than watching him die a little more every day.”
I closed my eyes and the tears finally overflowed.
Claire looked down at her hands, her next words not coming easily. “It’s not your fault we lost our father, Nina.”
I pursed my lips and then sucked in a deep breath. “I couldn’t look him in the eye if it happened again.”
“Keeping my family safe isn’t your job. It’s Jared’s and it’s mine. And I’m very, very good at my job. You can’t keep making him suffer because you’re afraid to repeat Jack’s mistakes.” Her eyebrows pulled in. “It’s not a good enough reason to break his heart.”
Ryan watched both of us, confused by the exchange.
“Time will make it easier,” I whispered.
“Time will make it worse!” she snapped, disgusted at my suggestion. “You’re his Taleh, Nina, the other half of his soul. He’s never going to get over you. And no matter how much you hope that you will, you’ll never get over him. You’re going to wake up one day and realize what you’ve done, and you’re going to regret the time you wasted apart from him for the rest of your life.” A tear careened down her perfect cherubic cheek, and she left it there, too intent on convincing me to save her brother.
I felt my face crumple. I knew she was right.
Ryan’s hand lightly touched my back. I looked at him, and although his eyes were full of hurt, he smiled.
“Go,” he said.
I smiled at him and began to speak, but he simply shook his head, hugged me tightly, and walked out the door.
I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath.
“You’re coming with me?” she asked.
I nodded, and for the first time, I saw Claire’s face light up. She threw her arms around me, hugging me a little too tightly.
“Come on!” She pulled me by the hand down the hall, unable to contain her triumphant smile. I had to jog keep up with her.
I squinted, recoiling from the remnant rain of the departing thunderstorm. The Lotus chirped when she clicked the keyless entry, and I slid in beside her, wiping the water from my arms.
“What about Ryan?” I asked.
“Bex is home,” Claire smiled. She slammed the gearshift into place, and we peeled away from the curb, the engine growling as she soared toward Jared’s loft.
We didn’t speak; I fumbled with my ring and tried to imagine Jared’s reaction when I showed up unannounced.
Claire pulled beside the curb behind the Escalade. I took a deep breath and opened my door with shaking fingers.
Jared was already standing in front of the loft under the light of a street lamp, looking exhausted and confused. He tore his eyes away from mine for just a moment to look at Claire, who stood with her door open on the other side of the car.
“Is she okay?” he asked Claire.
Claire only offered a smug smile.
He looked back at me with concern. “Did Claire force you to come here?” he asked, warily.
I shook my head, afraid to speak. His wasn’t the reaction I expected.
“I don’t understand,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth between Claire and me. “What are you doing here? Did something happen?”
Claire smiled. “Don’t make her beg, Jared. Just take her back.” With that she ducked into her car and pulled away.
Jared’s face darted back to mine. “W-What?”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Jared stared at me, his light blue T-shirt transparent from the rain.
I realized that Claire had a point to what she’d said to her brother. “I will beg.” I nodded, taking a step toward him. “I don’t deserve forgiveness, I know, but I was hoping . . .” I sighed and shook my head. Nothing I could say would be enough.
“You came here to beg me back?” Jared asked, bewildered.
“Or humiliate myself by babbling incoherent nonsense in the rain.” I laughed nervously. Thunder rolled in the distance, and I pulled my arms around me, chilled by wet clothes.
Jared took a few steps toward me and stopped. He watched me for a moment, though I wasn’t sure what he was searching for.
“This was a bad idea. I should have called.” I fidgeted, feeling more embarrassed by the second.
“You came here to apologize?” Jared asked again, taking a few more steps.
The humiliation boiled the blood under my cheeks. “I made a mistake, a huge, horrible mistake, and I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”
He stared at me in disbelief, and I shifted nervously, worrying that I had hurt him beyond forgiveness.
I took another step. “You were right. I was afraid they would hurt your family, trying to get to me. But to save them, I hurt you. I don’t expect you to trust me again, but I am so, so sorry. I love you, Jared, and if I’ve lea
rned anything over the past weeks, it’s that no matter what happens I’ll love you the rest of my life.”
Jared watched me prattle on with an indiscernible expression on his face.
I bit my lip; the suspense of his answer was insufferable. “Please say something.”
Jared took a few more steps until he was only inches from me. The rain dripped off his chin and nose as he looked down at me. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he said, cupping my cheeks in his hands as if he were holding his most precious possession. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.”
He didn’t waste a second longer. He pressed his lips against mine, and I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. My feet left the ground, and the rain disappeared as Jared whisked me into the loft and up the stairs, his feet barely touching the steps.
In seconds, his mattress was beneath me. Caution was nonexistent; Jared’s mouth begged mine to open as his lips worked impatiently against mine. My lips parted as my knees did, and Jared’s hand grabbed my thigh and pressed upwards, taking my skirt as he went. He reached back to lift his shirt over his head, and I dug my fingers into the lean muscles of his back.
Jared rocked against me, sending adrenaline racing through my body. His lips found their way to my waist, and his kisses ran up the midline of my stomach as he pushed my tank top up and over my head. His breathing grew uneven as he hovered above me, watching me slowly pull the straps of my bra from my shoulders. I arched my back to unsnap the clasps behind me, and he tenderly kissed my lips as he pulled the straps from my arms and tossed the lacey fabric to the floor.
He clutched the hem of my skirt and panties, pulling them down until they were lost somewhere in the mangled sheets. I sighed as he pressed his bare chest against mine, kissing my neck while I reached down to pull his belt from the loops. Jared moaned as I ripped open the top button of his jeans and shoved them down over his hips. He used his feet to push them past his ankles, and I heard them drop to the floor at the end of the bed.
Jared paused to look into my eyes for a long moment, and his fingers glided down my face and neck.
The Providence Trilogy Bundle: Providence; Requiem; Eden Page 34