Finding Us (True Love) (Volume 2)

by Harper Bentley

  But standing there looking at her also melted my heart. God, she was beautiful. And even though it might sound weird, her being mad somehow made her even more so, her eyes shooting angry sparks at me, her jaw set proudly making her look like some warrior woman who didn’t take shit from anyone.

  I wanted to jump that fucking desk and wrap my arms around her and never let her go, but I knew I had to be smart here because she was already pissed and I didn’t want to make her even angrier.

  She took a deep breath through her nose as if trying to maintain a semblance of calm, before she finally hissed, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  I clenched my jaw at that because she was sexy as hell right then, and I was afraid I’d blurt that out, which I’m sure wouldn’t have gone over very well and would probably have had her coming at me ready to scratch my eyes out.

  “El,” I said quietly, the emotion finally catching up with me. My heart was beating so hard in my chest I thought it was going to explode. But, God, it’d been so long since I’d seen her that being in the same room with her made me feel like a dead man come back to life.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” She glared at me.

  Damn.

  “I wanted to see you.” My eyes bore into hers hoping she’d see everything I was feeling—my regret over what I’d done to her, how sorry I was for letting her leave, how much I wanted her to come back.

  She huffed out a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah? Well, you shouldn’t have wasted your time because I don’t want to see you.”

  I couldn’t keep my lips from twitching. She was just so radiant standing there, her anger creating an aura that seemed to glow around her.

  She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to the side. “Oh, you think I’m funny? Let’s see how fucking funny it is when I call the cops and tell them we have a man loitering on the premises, when clearly, there’s a No Loitering sign at the front!”

  How cute was that? But she was yelling now, and I didn’t want anyone to think I was harming her, so I took a step toward her and said, “El, please, calm down.”

  And that got her ire up.

  “Calm down? Calm down? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  She was getting even louder and I cringed when Cassie came to the door and asked if everything was okay.

  “Yes,” I answered at the same time El said, “No!”

  Cassie looked back and forth between us, obviously at a loss at what to do. Should she be loyal to her coworker, or should she take the side of the pro baseball player who’d just given her his autograph and was undoubtedly the innocent party in this scenario.

  Yeah, I threw that last part in to make myself feel better.

  “Cassie, you need to call the police and tell them we’re being robbed,” El snapped, glowering at me, a threatening gleam in her eyes.

  Both Cassie’s and my expressions instantly turned to shock. Holy shit. She was definitely one pissed off woman.

  Cassie looked back at me and I could tell she was checking to see if I had a weapon. I held my hands up to the side to show her I didn’t then looked back at El, narrowing my eyes. So this was the game she wanted to play. Okay. I was up for it. I mean, it’s not like I had anything to lose at this point. Well, except for her, completely.

  “You win,” I said to El.

  “Good.” She put her hands on her hips, looking so damned cute, like she’d actually just won something.

  “But I’m not giving up,” I countered, my eyes fixed on hers making sure she understood what I was saying.

  She scowled, and the cute little line between her brows appeared, as she looked back at me, all flustered and sexy as hell.

  “Cassie, it was nice meeting you,” I said nodding at her before turning and walking out of the office. The place was still busy, so I made my way past a couple people who scowled at me like I was a huge troublemaker who’d just been harassing their sweet and gorgeous barista, and they were ready to take action, which made me grin and look down as I shook my head, then I headed outside to my car. Before driving away, I chanced a look inside to see El shaking her finger at Cassie who was shrugging her shoulders with a little grin. Thatta girl.

  “Jag! Oh, my! I’m so glad you’re here!” my mom said as I walked inside the house.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said as I bent to hug her.

  She pulled away and yelled, “Royce! Jag’s home!” She then grabbed my hand and pulled me into the living room. “Have a seat! Are you thirsty? Hungry? I just put away the roast we had for dinner. Would you like me to fix you a plate?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good,” I said and followed her into the kitchen.

  She got busy pulling a dish out of the refrigerator to make me a plate.

  “So I went to see El,” I informed her.

  She raised her eyebrows as she put plastic wrap over my food to put it in the microwave. “How’d that go?”

  I grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and took a deep drink before answering. “Not great.”

  “Jag! You didn’t tell us you were coming, son,” my dad said as he entered the kitchen. He gave me a hug, kissing the side of my head as he usually did. “What brings you home?”

  “He went to talk to Ellen,” my mom apprised him.

  Now his eyebrows shot up. “Yeah?” He looked at me. “How’d that go?”

  I took another drink as my mom repeated what I’d told her.

  “Hm,” was all he said.

  “Just what does ‘Not great’ mean?” Mom asked.

  “It means that I went to Starbucks to see her but she ran back into the office when she saw me. I somewhat bribed her coworker with my autograph so I could go back there. Walking in, I was almost beaned in the head by a coffee cup she threw. Then she told me she was gonna call the cops if I didn’t leave. Pretty much sums it up.”

  Dad grabbed a beer out of the fridge then, coming around the bar to stand across from me. “She’s still got an arm, huh?” he said with a grin before taking a drink.

  I chuckled. “Yeah, she does. Good thing my reflexes are better or I’d be in the ER right now getting staples in my head.”

  “She’s been really upset,” Mom told me with a sigh, which took the smiles off Dad’s and my face. “I talked to Beth last week and she said that Ellen has just thrown herself into school, just going ninety to nothing to get finished. Said she’s just got her spring semester then she’ll graduate and start working at one of the clinics in the city.”

  I knew this wasn’t fair, but upon hearing that, I couldn’t help but get a little angry. I mean, I’d been trying to focus on pitching and winning the pennant, all the while sending her flowers, buying her jewelry and writing her letters, and she was just living her life as if nothing had happened, as if everything was A-ok.

  “Doesn’t sound like she’s been too upset,” I mumbled.

  “I don’t know, son. I ran into her and Beth at the grocery store a couple weeks ago and she didn’t look happy. It was like her sparkle was gone,” said Dad.

  Yeah. She probably wasn’t happy because the store had been out of cherry popsicles or something. And here I was suffering while she seemed to be going about her business.

  “How’re you going to fix things?” Mom asked.

  “I’m gonna get her back, goddamn it.”

  Dad clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s my boy.”

  I ate Mom’s roast while we all sat at the table talking about the season and how things had panned out. After I finished, Mom told me she’d make up my bed for me, but I told them I wasn’t sure if I’d be back. I was going to go by El’s but I was also going to call Ross and some guys from school and see if they wanted to get together first. If things went the way I wanted, I’d be staying the night with El then making arrangements for her to return to LA with me at the end of the week.

  I just hoped my plans followed through.

  Chapter 6

  “What about the time we got caught drinking your dad’s beer out in his garage?”
Tyler Callihan said, laughing.

  Ross shook his head. “My dad damned near beat the shit out of me for that. It was some he’d had imported from Scotland from the Brewdog brewery that they don’t make any more. It was pretty expensive shit.”

  “We were thirteen. And that was some good fucking beer. What’d you think he’d do?” Nic Barrett said cracking up.

  I’d called Ross and he’d called several of the guys who were still around and we were at Tyler’s place having a couple drinks. It was good to see them all again and relive all the stupid shit we’d done growing up.

  “How about when Ross thought he mooned Christin Wilson our sophomore year coming home from the football game?” I said.

  “Fuck. Forgot about that,” he replied with a grimace. “Who knew Mr. Vining, the fucking principal himself, drove the same make and model car that she did?”

  I died laughing remembering the incident. We’d just left the game and were driving down the road from the high school when Ross told me to pull up beside Christin’s car. He’d yanked his pants down and stuck his ass in the window when I got next to her. When he’d sat back down and looked over, his face had turned pale, so I had a little look-see, and there was Mr. Vining giving us a dirty look. Needless to say, my Camaro wasn’t hard for him to know who we were, so we got called into the office Monday morning and had gotten detention for a week. Good times.

  We then talked about what was going on in everyone’s life, and it was cool hearing what everyone was doing now. Damn, I missed these guys. I needed to get home more often to hang with them.

  A couple hours later we left Tyler’s house promising to get together in the next six months or so since we’d had such a good time. I’d picked Ross up from his apartment, so he rode back with me.

  “Think you and Rebecca can make yourselves scarce tonight?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Joe’s out of town for some job thing, so I’ve got the apartment to myself. We’ll just stay there.” He paused for a few seconds. “Thinking about asking her to move in with me. Well, not in that place. We’d get our own place.”

  “About time. Wondered if you’d ever get to that point.”

  “Oh, we’ve talked about it for the past year but just kept putting it off. I almost moved in with her when Ellen moved out, but she was always afraid that she’d be coming back.” He shot me a sheepish look.

  “Hm.” Always great having your girl’s best friend in your corner, I thought sarcastically.

  “Hey, that was a big step for you guys. Not that Bec thought you wouldn’t make it. She was just worried, you know?”

  “Yeah.” Whatever. “Why don’t you call her and see if she’ll meet you at your place? Give me your key to their place and I’ll let myself in and wait on El,” I told him.

  “Think that’s a good idea? Lot more dangerous stuff she can throw at their place. The set of knives on the counter in the kitchen comes to mind right away not to mention the stun gun Bec keeps in her room.”

  I chuckled. “I think it’ll be okay. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”

  “I don’t know. There are some pretty big knives in that set, man,” he said with a laugh. “But, yeah. I just wish you guys would get this shit fixed so I can stop hearing about what a fuckstick you are.” He chuckled.

  “Nice,” I muttered.

  I dropped him at his place and got his key to the girls’ apartment planning to go inside and wait on El to get off work so we could talk. I just hoped she’d be willing to do so. And while I waited for her, I made sure to hide the knife set.

  El came into her apartment looking exhausted and also as if she’d been crying. Maybe our being apart was wearing on her more than I’d thought. She toed off her shoes at the door, pulling the band out of her hair to let her ponytail down then stood there for a few seconds with her eyes closed and blew out a breath. When she opened them, she took another step inside before noticing me sitting in the recliner and let out a blood-curdling scream.

  I jumped up and went to her, slapping a hand over her mouth to silence her before the neighbors thought she was being attacked, but not before I saw she’d gotten into some defensive Karate pose. As I stood holding her, I couldn’t help the shakes of laughter that went through my body at that. Could she get any cuter?

  I could tell when she realized it was me because she put her hands up to my chest and shoved me off.

  “What the hell, Jag?”

  I reached my hands out to her, but she waved me away, turning to go into the kitchen. I followed her saying, “Sorry. I needed to talk to you.”

  She opened the fridge, bending down to get a bottle of water out, her ass looking spectacular in the little khakis she wore as part of her work uniform. Standing back up, she opened the bottle and took a drink, eyeing me the entire time.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she informed me when she dropped the bottle away from her lips.

  This nonchalant act she had going wasn’t fooling me anymore. I’d seen how she’d looked when she’d come in.

  “Oh, I think there’s a lot to talk about.”

  She shook her head. “Look. Not sure what you’re wanting out of me here, but there really isn’t anything left to say that hasn’t already been said. I’m tired and I smell like an enormous frappe. I need a shower and to go to bed.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  She let out a breath as if she were greatly annoyed. “You need to leave, Jag.”

  “Not gonna happen until we get things worked out, El.”

  She set the water on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. Then she looked at me and said deadpan, which totally made me tense up, “You could make me listen when we were together. But not anymore. We’re through.”

  Christ.

  I knew I’d hurt her, knew the commercials with Alessandra had really bothered her, but I couldn’t figure out why that meant we were completely finished. So I asked her.

  Her eyebrow rose as she replied, “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” She’d called me dense when we were in LA. Guess I really was dense because I wasn’t getting it at all.

  Her head went back as she stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before it came down and she looked at me like I was a complete idiot.

  “You don’t get it.”

  It was my turn to shake my head then. “I guess I don’t, El. I’m not seeing why this one little bump in the road has to lead to the end of you and me. Guess I must be a complete fucking dumbass because I’m totally not getting it.” My voice had risen a little through that making the last word come out loudly as I was getting pissed because this made no sense to me whatsoever.

  “I need a shower. If you’re still interested in finding out what I’m saying, make yourself at home. Oh, and put the knife block back on the counter,” she said with a roll of her eyes as she walked past me to go to her bedroom.

  Damn. This was totally blowing my mind. I seriously didn’t understand where she was coming from. I mean, I’d tried over the past several weeks to see what had made her so angry about everything, but it wasn’t getting through. I really had no clue.

  I went to the fridge, opening it and seeing a beer that I knew was Ross’s, pulled it out, popping the lid off and walked back into the living room to wait on her, grabbing the remote to turn the TV on to watch the Giants and Tigers playing in the World Series. Fuckers.

  “So, I guess you guys blew it, huh?” she asked as she breezed back into the living room almost an hour later.

  I looked over at her to see her nod at the television.

  “Yeah. We did.” I couldn’t help but gawk at her standing there in a sweatshirt that I knew she didn’t wear a bra under and her short shorts that showed miles of leg. Damn. How she could ever think I’d wanted Alessandra when I’d had her baffled me.

  But now her indifference was unsettling. I’d been thinking that while she’d been showering, and wondered if maybe clueless old me just refused to see that she’d actually moved o
n.

  “I see that you’ve made yourself at home,” she said as she walked back into the kitchen, coming out with her bottle of water.

  “Yeah, didn’t think you or Ross would mind.”

  “Nope,” she replied as she came back in and sat on the couch, folding a leg underneath her.

  I picked up the remote and turned off the TV, turning to look at her.

  “Wow. This must be some serious shit you want to talk about,” she said sarcastically with a chuckle before taking a drink.

  “You know, I don’t know what’s happened with you over the past several weeks. I know I appear to be the dumbest man on the face of the planet to you because I’m not understanding anything here, but what I do understand is that you’re acting like a total bitch.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me then raised a brow. “Nice. She let you talk to her that way? Because I know I never would.”

  She? Who was she?

  “Who?” I asked, puzzled.

  She huffed and rolled her eyes again then once more looked at me like I was a complete moron. “Your girlfriend.”

  “You’re my girlfriend,” I claimed, watching her face turn dark after I’d said it.

  “Uh, no, I’m not. Haven’t been for some time either.”

  I moved forward on the chair, putting my elbows on my knees and clasping my hands to keep from getting up and wringing her neck.

  “Yes, you are, El. Just because you left me doesn’t mean we’re over. I refuse to accept that!” I stood up. God. She just totally pissed me off.

  “Are you being for real right now?” she yelled matching the loudness of my voice.

  “Yes! I am! Goddamn it, El! This is so fucking ridiculous!”

  She stood up too, holding a finger up to me. “Stay right there!” she commanded then left the room. When she came back in, she threw several magazines at me, which hit me in the chest and fell to the floor, some stupid tabloid-type rags. “What do you call that?” she said practically screaming now.