Page 149 of Insincerely Yours
I slide his phone back over to him, and the second he reads the article I pulled up, his grip tightens around the device.
“Do you know when it started?” he growls.
“Depends. Did you ever delete any of the messages you sent me?”
Jase shakes his head, and I motion for him to give me back his cell.
I don’t need to consult my own phone to recall what the last thing he sent to me said.
Pulling up the text message thread, I scroll and scroll and scroll through the abundant one-sided conversation Jase has kept going these past four years until I finally reach it.
July 5th.
The words that were forever burned into my mind appear once again on screen, and the sight of them still slices through me.
He had ditched me in favor of Sienna and then couldn’t be bothered to stand up for me when she and Trent found me on his front porch. And all he could write was,“I am so fucking sorry. Please meet me at our spot. I’ll explain everything.”
Only, he didn’t.
He did far worse. Jase brought them both toourspot and then kissed that bitch right in front of me.
But the messages sent afterward have my stomach knotting for an entirely different reason.
I’m here. Can you please come?
Birdie?
Please let me explain.
I need to see you.
Seriously, I know I fucked up. Please just give me a chance.
I’ll sit in the cave all night if I have to.
Each message comes in one right after the other, until that last one. There’s a five-minute break before:
I don’t know how they found me, but Trent and Sienna are here, and they’re pissed.
I won’t let them see the cave, but whatever you do, please just DON’T COME HERE.
My vision blurs, and blinking doesn’t help. It just forces the moisture building in my eyes to fall off onto my lashes. “Why were Trent and Sienna pissed?”
I’m well aware there are far more pressing issues to address right now, but I can’t help it. My voice cracks, and asking what I really want to know may very well break me.
Jase gives another humorless smile. “Why do you think? Sienna is used to men falling and worshiping at her feet. I’ve never treated her that way, but she just assumed it was because I was playing hard to get. By the end of freshman year, she made her intentions clear what she wanted from me, and I was supposed to be flattered. We’d be going on our class trip to Italy, where Sienna promised to do everything to me any teenage guy would kill for. But she was a bitch then, and she’s an even bigger bitch now. I’d sooner shove my dick in a running garbage disposal than her.”
This gives me pause, because…
What?
Sienna spent most of our sophomore year in Jase’s lap. No way in hell am I going to believe nothing happened between them.
I don’t need to verbalize my doubt, because it’s evidently written all over my face.
“When I managed to get out of the trip, I figured all I’d have to do is stay on Sienna’s good side until she found herself a new boy toy, but she came back from Italy ready to pick up right where shethoughtwe left off. Then you showed up at my house,and Sienna knew something was up. All of the other guys who were participating in the Dogfight weren’t giving their so-called dates more than a single night of their time before ghosting them for the rest of the summer, so when Sienna realized you and I were still spending time together more than a month after the bet had started, she knew what was going on. And my old man didn’t help things either, because shortly after you left, he made an offhanded comment asking where my ‘dark-haired friend with the glasses’ was. And he was too busy shoving his head up Clark’s ass to remember that I had lied to everyone about the trip, so when Trent asked him how much longer my punishment would be, my dad told him I had never been grounded in the first place.”
Oh…
