Page 67 of Now or Never

“Why didn’t you tell me that guy is a Hartley?”

Chelsea rolled her eyes, kept moving. “You’re being an asshole again. Go away.”

She could hear him grumble under his breath beside her. “Can I start over? I wanted to talk to you about us.”

“Nous. Onlyme,” she said, marching on toward the side door that led to the kitchen. She wanted to talk to Jae before going to the end of the driveway for Ben.

“Can you just stop for a second?”

Chelsea rolled her eyes and stopped. She crossed her arms and gave him a bored look. “What could you possibly want?”

“I want us to get back together.”

She stared at him for a long while before she actually believed he’d said it. “What?” she said, just to make sure he actually meant what he’d said.

“You and me and Ben. I want us to be a family again.”

Chelsea shook her head. “We were never a family.”

“We were. For a little while.”

Chelsea nodded. “Yeah. For about three weeks. Then you bailed on us.”

“I can see that you’re still angry about that,” he said.

She huffed out a breath and turned, marching even faster this time. She couldn’t wait to get to the door so she could walk in and slam it in his face behind her.

“But maybe you should forgive and forget. Think about how happy Ben would be.”

Her eyes went wide. She couldn’t believe the words he was saying. “You’ve never thought of Ben a day in your life. All you care about is you.”

“That’s not true,” he said with more force than she expected. “I think about you and Ben all the time. I made a mistake.”

“Jasper, you’ve been here for weeks, and you haven’t eventriedto spend time with Ben.”

“I’m just too busy right now.”

This wasn’t working. He wasn’t understanding that the moment he’d walked away, she was done. And she would never, ever think of him as anything more than a selfish deserter who would always put his own interests before everyone else, including those he claimed to love. She had to clarify that she was not, nor would she ever be, interested in getting back together with him.

Before she could get the words right in her head, he started speaking.

“Please, Chelsea. Remember how much fun we used to have? Just us, watching movies on the couch, staying up all nighttalking, debating who’s better, Scorsese or Coppola?” He smiled the smile she once loved so much.

But she would never look at him the same way again.

She changed tactics. Obviously, being rude wasn’t working to get him to understand, and she needed him to forget about her and move on.

“Jasper, there was a time when I loved you. More than anything. But that’s gone now. You ruined me. I could never, will never, think of you as a partner again. It can’t get any more over. Dead. Gone. Goodbye. Capisce?” she said, holding her fingers out like a gangster in the movies they used to watch.

Jasper blinked down to his toes. “Are you saying no because you’re with Adam?”

She stared at him in shock. “Are you only wanting me because you think I’m with him?”

She turned and walked toward her house without waiting for a reply. She already knew the answer, anyway. Luckily, he stayed where he was. The second she was in, she turned and locked the door, then breathed a sigh of relief before running up to Jae’s room to tell her that Vincent Shadd loved their screenplay.

twenty

Adam started up his uncle’s boat on Lake Joseph and, after a final check that everyone was on board, backed out of the marina.

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