I take a deep breath and pull my shoulders back before striding over to where Jake’s trying to extricate himself from his fans.
“Excuse me, folks,” I say and slide my hand into his. “I need to borrow the professor for a while. Look out for his book coming soon from Whiplash publishing. It’s going to be amazing.”
I pull Jake toward the dance floor, trying to ignore how hot his hand feels around mine.
“Thanks for the save.”
“You earned it. You got through that whole demonstration without cursing anyone out. I was impressed.”
“Good to know I can still impress you. Why are we heading to the dance floor?”
“Why do you think?”
When we get to the middle of the dance floor I turn and face him. He glances over to where the orchestra is playing, “The Way You Look Tonight.”
“Surely, you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.” It’s an old joke but one that always made us laugh. I have no idea what’s going to happen when we open up the floodgates to our rocky past, so I figure easing into it is the best tactic.
I take a step toward him. “Dance with me.”
His expression makes it seem like I just asked him to strip naked and sprint down Fifth Avenue.
“You know I’m not much of a dancer.”
“Me, neither. Let’s suck together.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Careful, Princess. You’re turning me on.”
“Roll with it.”
I tentatively put my hand on his shoulder. He glances at it then steps forward and slides his arm around my waist. “Okay, but know that if you succumb to some kind of twirling incident, I’m absolved of all responsibility.”
I put my hand in his, and he pulls me close. When the front of our bodies connect, I feel the warmth of him in every cell. The sensation is so overwhelming, I take a step back. Keeping a little air between us will help me concentrate.
When I look up at Jake, he’s clenching his jaw. “This is closer than we’ve been in a long time.”
“That’s the idea.”
Touching him is filling me with so many emotions, I can’t sort the good from the bad.
“Jake …” God this is difficult. Breaking something is easy. Putting it back together is infinitely harder. “I don’t …” I blow out a breath. Come on, courage. Come at me. “I don’t want to lose you.”
He frowns. “As an author?”
“Yes, but also …” Damn, every word catches in my throat. It’s like I’ve stopped myself from saying them so many times, they fear the open air. “I miss … what we used to have. I know you think we can’t work together, but … we used to be an amazing team. I have no idea if any part of what we had is worth saving, but if there is … I want to try.”
I feel so exposed by everything I just said, my instinct is to shut the whole thing down. But avoiding this conversation isn’t an option anymore. It’s time.
We move to the music in the most basic way, but none of the couples around us are doing much more. Jake’s shoulder is tense beneath my palm, and his other hand is squeezing mine in a vague, erratic pattern.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks.
“What do we have to lose?”
The concern in his expression implies he thinks we have farther to fall, but I don’t see how that’s possible.
“Okay.” He stares off into space for a few seconds, as if he’s rehearsed what he’d say in this situation hundreds of times and is trying to figure out which thread to pull first.
“Did you ever wonder why I call you princess?” he asks at last.
“Because you knew it annoyed me?”
He looks guilty, which tells me I’m partly right.
“It’s because you were obsessed with princesses when you were a kid. Don’t you remember all those times you play-acted that you were Cinderella, or Jasmine, or Snow White? One of the only fights we had was when you were pretending you were Sleeping Beauty. You were lying there, begging me to kiss you awake, and I refused. Man, you chewed me out over that.”
I remember everything about that day. “Well, you acted like I’d just asked you to ingest raw sewerage. No girl wants to feel like she grosses a boy out.”
“We were seven. Like most boys that age, I was allergic to kissing stuff. Plus, your sister was watching, and you can bet that she would have given us hell if I’d done it.”
“What’s your point?”
He slides his hand up to the middle of my back. “As you grew older, your favorite books were comics, and you wanted to be Wonder Woman. And yet, you clung to those princess fantasies for years, and on some level, I understood.”
“And what’s that?”
“It wasn’t about finding your true love. It was about someone coming to save you from your life. And I got it, because having someone save me from mine sounded pretty freaking cool to me, too.” He looks down. “Some nights when dad was drunk and raging, all I wanted was to run out that front door and never look back. Leave that whole shitty neighborhood and start over. But I never did, because that would have meant leaving my best friend behind.”
There’s an accusation buried in his words. “Is that what you think I did? Left you behind?”
“As soon as you started hanging out with Jeremy and his friends, you became a different person.”
“That was the point.” I stare at the buttons on his shirt. The hardest things to say are those truths you’ve always known but refused to admit. “High school was a chance for a fresh start, and for once, I didn’t want to be the poor girl everyone pitied. The one who had a dead mother and an absent father. The one who’d spent her entire life wearing her big sister’s hand-me-downs and cutting her own hair. I wanted to see what it felt like just being a regular kid for once. To brush my problems into the background.”
He furrows his brows. “And I was one of those problems?”
“Of course not. You were the only thing I wanted to keep. I wanted you to come with me, but no matter how many times I tried to include you … invited you to parties, asked you to hang out with us … you wouldn’t even try. As soon as I started dating Jeremy, you took the nuclear option and declared war on both of us.”
“Can you blame me? Dammit, Asha, you could have dated any of the boys from the neighborhood who were in love with you.”
“And that would have been okay with you?”
“Of course not, because they were all fucking animals, but at least they weren’t my goddamn step-brother. How the hell did you expect me to react? From the moment Jeremy and I met, that asshole tortured me every day for years. You knew that … you witnessed it. You were supposed to be on my side.”
“I was on your side! I defended you all the time.”
He looks across the room, away from me. “But then he started flirting with you, and it was like you forgot everything he did to me. You found someone to pin your princess fantasy onto, and I faded into the background. And then, to have to watch you mooning over him like he was your dream guy …” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t be around that. And I was pissed that you expected me to be. Did it never occur to you that Jeremy knew dating you would destroy our friendship, and that’s why he did it? That asshole had a million friends. I had one. Of course he had to take you away from me.”
A sharp pang of guilt twists inside me. Was I so wrapped up in my stupid adolescent fantasy, I failed to see what Jeremy was doing? If his ultimate goal was to hurt Jake, then of course I would be the most effective weapon. I thought that when he slept with Shelley on prom night, he was a selfish ass who wasn’t man enough to be faithful to me. But what if it wasn’t about me at all? What if his only goal was to hurt Jake?
“I … I didn’t realize.”
He gives me a contemptuous look. “Yeah, you did. Jeremy never hid who he was, but you were blind to that side of him. It was like you saw us through completely different lenses. When you looked at me all you s
aw were my mistakes, and with him, you saw the person you wanted him to be.”
I look down. When we’d started dancing, we were quite close, but now there’s a ton of space between us. Jake’s staring over my head, and judging by his expression, he still has some venting left to do.
“I thought I’d go to my grave being angry at you for that, but then, out of the blue, you messaged me about writing a book, and …” He takes a breath and looks down at me. “When I got that first message and saw your name, I almost threw my phone across the room.” I give him a questioning look. “I thought it was Jeremy screwing with me. He’s done it before. Created a whole Facebook profile pretending to be you. Sent me a ton of messages about how much you wanted to reconcile, just so he could see my reaction when he revealed it was bullshit.”
I shake my head in disbelief. I feel sick knowing that Jeremy’s cruelty didn’t end with high school. I hope that asshole gets what’s coming to him one day. And what’s more, I hope it’s Jake that gives it to him.
“That’s why you were so cautious.”
He nods. “I’d resigned myself to believing you were out of my life forever, but then …” He gets a pained look in his eyes. “I called, and you appeared on the screen, and … fuck, Asha. I thought I was having a heart attack. I wanted to feel happy to see you, but I wasn’t, because you weren’t reaching out to me because you missed me or wanted to make up for the past. You were contacting the professor. If you hadn’t stumbled onto him, you would have continued going about your life, not giving a shit if I lived or died.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? When you asked about pitching a book, had every intention of saying no, because part of me didn’t want to deal with you. But …” He sighs. “I don’t have a college education like you do, Ash. I have no skills, no job. All I have is an unrequited passion for a woman who ruined me and a head full of words. So, when you offered me that book deal … I realized that was the only Cinderella moment I was going to get, and I would have been stupid not to take it. That advance money will set me up for life.”
“But you got other offers. Better ones. If you didn’t want to deal with me, you could have gone with someone else.”
“Believe me, I tried to take the logical option, but … I couldn’t. Money can’t buy everything.” His hand tightens around mine. “That night at the bar, you asked me why I gave up seven-hundred grand to work with you, and the truth is …” He smiles like his reasoning was ridiculous. “I thought that if there was any chance in hell we might get past our bullshit and go back to being friends, it would be worth it.” He clenches his jaw, and I can see the effort it’s taking for him to keep his emotions in check. He takes a few deep breaths, and I squeeze his shoulder as he holds his fraying edges together.
“And here’s the truly pathetic part. Over the past few years, I’ve had a shitty time. I tried to reconcile with my mom, but she wanted nothing to do with me. Then, the whole thing with Ingrid happened, and Dad’s drinking finally killed him.” He looks at me, and my chest constricts when I see wetness in his eyes. “There were days when I really needed a friend, Asha. My best friend. And fuck you for not being there. And fuck me for still needing you so much after all this time.”
By the time he’s finished, my heart is aching and my throat is tight. I try to stop the tears pooling in my eyes, but I can’t. He’s the same, so I take his hand and lead him behind the stage. It’s dark and deserted back here, so if either of us loses it, at least we’re away from prying eyes.
Jake leans back against the wall, and swipes the wetness from his cheeks. Seeing him like this … knowing I’m responsible … everything I’ve ever felt for him rises up, filling my chest and throat. I can’t remember the last time I felt so emotionally volatile. He’s always made me feel too much, but now it’s at a whole new level.
“Say something,” he says quietly. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you regret nothing and hate my guts. Just … say something.”
In romance novels, there comes a point when people have to speak the truth of what’s in their heart instead of dancing around it. That’s the thrilling part. The reason it’s so satisfying is because it rarely happens in real life. People don’t usually crack open their chests and wait for the other person to decide whether they want to skewer your heart or claim it. But that’s what Jake just did. He had the courage to lay it all on the line, and now, I have to do the same.
I take in a tight breath. “You’re not wrong. I regret everything, and I definitely don’t hate your guts.” My voice wavers, but I’m determined to keep going. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Jake. I wish I was. There are days I would have given anything to have you in my corner again, and it’s ridiculous that it’s taken this long for us to admit we missed each other. I’ve missed you so much.” The pain in my chest is making it hard to talk. “None of it was your fault. It was all me. My choices ruined us.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not true. I did my fair share of ruining. I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me, and I never thought I succeeded until I read your journal tonight. Reading your words … that was … brutal. I know what it’s like to have to write your way through pain, because I do it all the time. And I hate that I was the cause of yours.”
I can’t look at his face. It’s hard enough to dredge up these truths without witnessing how much damage they’ve done. But he’s right about us both writing for the same reason. We were both mourning the loss of our soul mates, I just didn’t realize it at the time.
For our entire friendship, Jake treated me like a sister, and at first I treated him like a brother. But as we got older, deep down, I knew I felt more. I just didn’t have a name for it back then.
I mean, no one expects to meet their soul mate when they’re three, but I did. And then life taught me that the people who were important to me would leave, and those I loved with all my heart would die. It gave me the gift of Jake then whispered that loving him would end him. Or me. Or both of us. And the bitterest irony is that by trying to protect myself from that, I made it happen.
From watching Mom and Dad’s relationship, I learned that meeting your soul mate isn’t enough. Knowing that someone should be yours doesn’t make it happen, and Mom made it obvious that having them and losing them was worse than not having them at all. And so I never told Jake how I felt. Even though he loved me, I knew it wasn’t the same way I loved him, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him ruining me like Dad ruined Mom.
But how do you protect yourself from the person who was born with an all-access pass to your heart? How do you keep them at a safe distance so they don’t become your everything? In my case, you date his reviled step-brother, and then, when he feels so betrayed he destroys your friendship, you convince yourself it was his fault all along.
Trying to keep myself together, I do my best to look at him. I’ve never admitted these things to anyone, and I’m so deeply ashamed, I can barely breathe.
“I was the one who screwed up, Jake. I’m sorry for hurting you. For choosing Jeremy. For leaving you behind. For blaming you for everything.” I wipe my nose. “Fuck, I’m a terrible person. No wonder I was terrified of you leaving me. Why the hell would you want to stay?”
“Asha …” He strokes my back, and I’ve missed him comforting me so much, it takes all my energy to stop myself from crumbling. “You’re an idiot. I would never have left. You were my family.”
“And you were my whole world. And because I screwed everything up, I’ve spent a lot of years building another world without you in it. And it sucks.”
I can’t hold the tears in any longer. It hurts too much. And when he wraps his arms around me and squeezes me just like he used to, it makes me cry even harder.
This is the biggest truth I’ve kept buried for so long. My endless quest for love had nothing to do with romance, or sex, or some stupid checklist. The only thing I’ve been searching for in all the men I’ve dated is this feeling of absolute
rightness that I have with Jake. The bliss of being in his arms is both hypnotizing and terrifying, because even though one part of me never wants it to end, I know it will, and I haven’t learned to silence the inner voice that warns me to get out before it does.
I wrap my arms around his neck, and then his head is on my shoulder, his breath hot on my skin. “I’m sorry,” I say, pulling him as close as I can. I keep repeating it, just in case he doesn’t understand. Because him not forgiving me is not an option. My heart is pounding so fast, I feel like it’s going to explode. I feel like the little pockets of darkness I’ve been carrying around for most of my life have evaporated, and the buzz of grief and loss isn’t ringing in my ears anymore. Instead, it’s the electrical storm of having Jake’s body pressed against mine.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he whispers, his voice strained. He pulls back a little, just enough that his cheek is pressed to mine. “I’ve missed you for years.”
I don’t remember sliding my fingers into his hair, but I must have, because suddenly his mouth is a breath away from mine, and I can’t stop wondering how he would taste.
He stares back, a pained expression on his face.
This is new for us. We don’t do this. The one time our lips met on prom night, it was so brief I barely felt it. Now, I desperately want him to kiss me, but it’s like we’ve just walked from a room labeled ‘enemies’ into one named ‘friends’, and all the doors are locked and the windows are nailed shut. There’s no path to ‘lovers’. And even if there were, it would be stupid for us to go there.
“Ash … I ––”
His nose brushes mine, and I close my eyes and inhale. God, I want to kiss him, but I can’t. This isn’t real. He doesn’t want me. He’s just relieved our feud is over, and that’s manifesting into whatever his hands are now doing as they graze over my body.
“Asha …” He sounds like he’s in pain. When he pulls me against him, I can see why. There’s no way to misinterpret his body’s reaction. I can feel him, hard and long against my stomach, and my mind explodes. The intense attraction I’ve felt up until now has just become exponentially more problematic. I have to get out of here. Letting myself feel him like this is insane. The only thing taking this further will achieve is to make me want things he can’t give.
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