Page 82 of A Little Crush
Seriously? He wants to talk about the banquet?
I grit my teeth and answer, “You tell me. You were there, too.”
“I meant with Crowther,” he clarifies.
No shit, Sherlock.
My teeth dig into the inside of my cheek to keep from lashing out, but boy, is he making it difficult, so I settle on, “It was fine.”
“Glad he got you home safely.”
“Yup.” I cross my arms when the slobbery ball rolls near my feet, bringing me back to the present. Picking it up, I throw the ball again, ignoring the way I want to crawl out of my own skin if the awkward silence continues much longer.
“Are you guys…together now?” he asks.
Part of me wants to lie. To tell him that we are. We’redating, and he fucked my brains out, and I’ve never been happier. Then I remember how we’ve already played this game, and where did it get me? Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.
But before I have a chance to tell him the truth, he moves on, saying, “You, uh, you weren’t at the game.”
“I was busy,” I lie. When his head dips in acknowledgement, I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek, unsure what the hell I’m supposed to say right now. “Why are you here?’
He scrubs at his jaw, unable to look me in the eye. “I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
My eyes pop. “Wow. Thanks?—”
“Iris and I weren’t a good fit,” Jax announces.
Iris? He wants to talk about his ex right now?
“Figured as much,” I mutter. “What with the divorce and all.”
He lets out a soft chuckle and squeezes the back of his neck. “Yeah.”
Okay?
“Didn’t always feel that way, though,” he adds. “I thought I loved her.”
“Figured as much,” I repeat. “What with the marriage and baby and all.”
He smiles before letting it fall. “Yeah. The marriage and baby.” His attention falls to the grass beneath his Nikes as he shifts from one foot to the other. “I thought I had it all, Rore.”
A pang of jealousy hits my sternum, but I stay quiet. To be honest, I don’t know what he wants me to say in the first place. You loved someone? Good for you. If only it was that easy for everyone. To fall in love and be accepted and wanted and appreciated. And yeah, it didn’t work out, but at least you had something. Right?
“Which is why I now have a hard time trusting my gut,”he adds. “Because I thought I really did love her. And then, I caught her cheating on me with one of the parents of the players I was coaching when Pops was a couple months old.”
My eyes widen all over again. Only this time, I’m even more blindsided.
“Talk about a mindfuck, right? And before you ask, no, I didn’t get a paternity test. I don’t want one, either, and neither does the man my ex was hooking up with. Poppy’s mine.”
“She is,” I agree, praying he knows how much I mean it. How often I look into her pretty, round eyes and see her father staring back.
“Still a bit of a mindfuck, though,” he adds dryly, not even bothering to hide the familiar disgust in his tone. I don’t blame him. Experiencing a betrayal like that would be rough for anyone, and coming back from it? Feels like one in a million.
“I can imagine,” I murmur. “Having an experience like that would mess with anyone, I think.”
“You’re probably right. I just…I feel like you should know that I…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He doesn’t know what he’s doing?
