Page 10 of Where You Left Me

CHAPTER 3

Jones

The nickname slips out without thinking. And not like it’s been eight years since I last spoke it. My only hope is Mia’s too hammered to remember it tomorrow.

This was a huge fucking mistake. For more than one reason. What the hell was I thinking bringing Mia into my apartment? Never mind that she’s at risk of puking her guts out, she’s also inmyapartment.Myspace. It’s the very last place she should be.

Because having her here, with the lights dim, and the world closed off from us, is too much of a vulnerable place to be. The questions threaten to arise. The feelings might resurface and there’s no telling what I might do. It’s dangerous and I don’t trust myself to hold it all together. I’ve been doing it for so long already.

I set her down in my small bathroom and once she’s steady on her feet, she finally gazes up at me through long lashes. Shame glosses over her green eyes but I don’t find the warrant for it. She’s got no reason to be embarrassed. That shit was likely to go public at some point. If anything, I find myself filled with relief. Holding that secret in for all these years has been eatingaway at me. Killing my soul. Especially having to keep it from Cammie and Maverick.

“Jones,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

I brush my thumb across her cheek; our first true intimate touch since she’s been back in town, and the connection that keeps us drawn together returns like lightning to my heart. I open my mouth to speak, to say something that might let her off the hook. Even though, I’m not even sure what she’s apologizing for.

Is she sorry for disclosing our painful secret? Sorry for embarrassing me? Herself? Sorry for leaving me eight years ago without so much as a fucking phone call? Sorry about the baby girl we lost?

But my questions are interrupted when she lifts the toilet lid and hurls.

I gather her hair and fist it in my hand before she can make a mess of it. “That’s it, let it all out,” I mumble, and rub her back while she heaves a few more times, her shoulders trembling.

She finally drops to her knees and leans back against the glass wall of the shower, wiping her mouth with some toilet paper. “I told Rosie I’m a lightweight now. She didn’t listen,” Mia mutters.

I chuckle. “Of course, she didn’t fucking listen. It’s Rosie.”

She nods. “Right.”

“I know you’ve been gone awhile, but nothing’s changed. We’re all still the same people.” I drop her hair and go to the cupboard, pulling out a washcloth and running it underneath the cold faucet.

“Not all of you,” she says as I hand her the damp washcloth and our fingers barely graze. “Not you.”

A bolt of lightning shoots up my arm and straight to my dick, but I attempt to shrug it off. “Mostly. What the hell do you know, you’ve been gone for eight years.”

I don’t want to fight. Not here, not now. Not with her in the state she’s in. Hell, though maybe it’s not the worst idea, she may not remember our conversation in the morning.

“How long you gonna throw that in my face?” she asks.

Is she fucking serious?

“Every fucking chance I get,” I growl, answering honestly.

She dips her chin to her chest. “I guess I should’ve expected that.”

“Yeah, I guess you should’ve. Because what elsecouldyou have expected? That I’d roll over and thank my lucky stars that you’d come back? Pick up where we left off? Toss you into the bed of my truck and fuck you senseless?” I can’t help it. The words just keep flying out of my mouth. Even while she sits there, her eyes beginning to water and taking it like she deserves it.

In a way; she does.

Suddenly she shoots up onto her knees and ralphs into the toilet again.

The tension—sexual and angry—eases as I console her once again. This time rather than coaxing her with words or rubbing her back, I tether my fingers through her hair. It’s long and smooth and feels like heaven in my hands. I begin braiding it and she sits back down. I move behind her, and without exchanging words, Mia lets me braid her hair. She inhales and exhales small, measured breaths.

Wrapping her thick, soft hair around my hands becomes therapeutic. Each time I cross a strand over the others, my brain sifts through memories of the two of us. But only the good ones.

Mia was my person. I told her everything. She was the one I laughed with. She was my first. She was my everything.

How I’ve managed these past eight years without her is beyond me.

A soft moan escapes into the quiet bathroom and the sound sets fire to my skin.

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