Page 61 of Safe With Me
“What’s going on with you and Hannah?” He looked at me over a sip of coffee. “Y’all looked serious last night.”
I ran a hand over my face. “I think I love her.”
Mouth pursed, Jase gave a sage nod. “I can see that. You’re fucking freaked out, aren’t you?”
“Yep.” I leaned back as Meg rattled our plates onto the table. I flashed her a thank-you smile, which she ignored like always before she bustled away. She hadn’t changed in the ten years or so Jase I had been coming in here. The woman was all business, all the time.
“Want to talk about it?” Jase reached for the pepper, shaking a liberal amount on his eggs.
“Shit, no.” I didn’t want to even think about it. Meg smacked a bottle of hot sauce on the table as she swanned by to get the newcomers at the booth behind us. I poured a stream over my grits and eggs. Setting the bottle aside, I exhaled. “I don’t want to feel this.”
“Sure you don’t.” Jase lifted a piece of bacon and gestured at me. “But you do. Probably have for a while. It’s all those Saturday nights you spent together.”
Elbows propped on either side of my plate, I rested my mouth in my hands. “What if I lose her?”
“What if you don’t?” Jase bit into the crispy bacon. The jukebox clicked over to a new song, and some jackass had queued up “It’s Crying Time Again” by Buck Owens. “Is there a difference in losing her and not really being with her? It’s still pain.”
“Shut the fuck up, Jase.” I just wanted to eat my breakfast and process that I’d letI love youinto my brain. I stabbed up a bite of my hapless eggs, stared at the fork, and set it down again. “She doesn’t want that from me.”
“Nope.”
Fuck, he was helpful.
“Look.” He shoveled overly peppered eggs into his mouth, chewed, then pointed his fork at me. “She had a fucked up childhood and you’re traumatized, bud. Makes sense you’d both struggle with commitment.”
“Is this you helping?” I managed to get that bite of eggs and grits down.
“You struggle to process your emotions. I get it.” Jase shrugged and tackled another strip of bacon. “Sometimes somebody has to say things like ‘you don’t want Elizabeth, and you’re half-gone on Hannah.’”
“I want to punch you.”
“You want to punch yourself. Like I said, you’re fucked up and don’t process emotions well.” Jase waved that half-strip of bacon in punctuation before he polished it off. “You’ve probably been falling for her for a while, and it scared you shitless. So you self-sabotaged with her.”
My gut knotted, pushing bile up into my chest. “Not helping, Jase.”
“Look, bud, this situation is all kinds of fucked up right now. She’s hurt. You’re running scared. Just figure out your feelings. You don’t have todoanything. Give her and yourself some time to settle in. It’ll smooth out and you’ll be okay. Both of you.”
“Glad you’re so confident.” I didn’t feel okay. No, I felt like I was being battered against a dock. An intense urge to cast off swamped me. Open water seemed safer even if I sank. And Iwas really tired of talking about my emotions and shit. “Tell me about her.”
Jase lit up, brighter than a John Deere tractor spotlight during night plowing. Hell, I don’t think he’d ever brightened up like that over Elizabeth, not really.
“She’s great. Funny as hell, a little bit of a tightass about structure, but I can deal with that. She likes me.” He shrugged, still wearing that goofy, besotted grin. “It’s easy with her.”
I quirked a brow. Elizabeth hadn’t been easy, at least not near the end. Although I’d justified her behavior in my mind – because I’d been a damn dumbass – she’d nagged and pushed and picked at him all the time, managing him.
And I’d thought I wanted that? I’d ruined everything for that?
I could be a dumb fucker.
Easy I got, though. Caring about Hannah was easy. The struggle, the mess? That was both of us trying to stay afloat and not sink. We just weren’t ready to be rafted up, maybe. And maybe Jase was right. I didn’t have todoanything yet.
Except figure out if thatI love youwas real . . . and if I could ever feel safe enough to let it be real.
Chapter Seventeen
Hannah
I needed something to do with my hands. Sitting and staring at Scott’s calendar wasn’t doing it. I’d processed the physical mail, added new RSVPs to their holiday party guest list, typed up a couple of letters for Scott, and called to check on his daddy’s prescriptions.
