Page 42 of Fighting For You
Elise sat quietly, clearly still absorbing the news.
“He never once expressed interest in me. And now, he’s acting like he was so in love with me he didn’t trust himself to know whether his best friend was cheating? Did I enter an alternate universe?” The heat in me stokedto a flame.
“I’ll admit, I’m hung up on the fact that he’s saying he loved you and yet he acts like you’re radioactive when you’re within ten feet of each other.” Elise dunked a chip in her guac. “Damn, I wish we had margaritas for this.”
I laughed for a second before continuing with her thought. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Obviously, I went to his cabin before I knew I was sick when I realized I’d been so brutally honest with him while he was struggling with grieving. And I don’t feel proud of that.”
Elise reached for me, setting a hand on my arm. “Aw, my friend, you are amazing for doing that. As rough a time as he’s having, and I don’t want to discount that because it sounds like the grief is significant, I do want to acknowledge that you have been incredibly civil to himmostof the time. After your assignment together, things boiled over, and I don’t know if you can be blamed for that.”
I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder whether I’m the cause of so much of this head-butting and meanness. Like, did I create this rift between us and he just… responded in kind?”
I hated the thought, but after his kindness to me all weekend, and then his parting shot… I couldn’t turn away from it. If he’d really felt that way, but I’d been so unwilling to hear him out in my own grief and disbelief over Kurt leaving… had I caused all of this?
“Mmm, no. I call BS on that. It’s not like he was just gruff and avoided you. Sometimes, he was actively a jerk, right?” Elise asked as Dove sat back down.
“Yes. But I… I’ve lashed out at him so much. I just don’t know.”
We were quiet, crunching on chips and likely all wishing our water would turn into wine. Dove broke the silencefirst.
“Let’s say it’s true… what does it change? Here you are now, and you’ve been nothing short of enemies for the last five-plus years until approximately ninety-six hours ago. So… what? It’s not like you were in love with him, too. It’s not like it changes anything, other than maybe giving us insight. Unless…” Her blue eyes skewered into me. “Unless you had feelings for him, too.”
I scoffed. “I was engaged to someone else. So no. I didn’t.”
But what I didn’t say was that I had liked him almost instantly. His giant hand had swallowed mine in a shake that first day and I’d been compelled to say his name out loud because it suited him so perfectly—I didn’t know how I knew that, I just did. And then he’d gotten this pleased look, almost like he’d enjoyed me saying it.
But along came Kurt, and somehow, inexplicably, he’d worn me all the way down. And he became the person on whom I pinned my hopes of finding an anchor and a solution to what I’d seen as the problem of my solitude and loneliness. And Jude never said a thing—never made a move, never even hinted.
Until now.
But that was in the past. Likely so far in the past he couldn’t even recall the feeling of loving me.
And all I could feel was anger that he’d allowed me to hate him for so long without telling me the truth. And maybe more so, anger that I’d let myself be so awful for so long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jude
Kenny cradled Bones. “You are the sweetest baby. I don’t know why you live with him when I keep telling you I’ll take you home and treat you right. I will love you and be the best cat dad and keep your fur untangled and?—”
“Leave my cat alone, Barbie.” The man was incessant with his declarations of devotion to my animal.
“It’s a little much,” Cookie agreed, though the smile on his stupid handsome face said he got a kick out of Kenny’s ridiculousness.
“Everyone has an awesome pet. Tristan has Junie. You have Bones. Stone has Bear. I want an awesome pet.” He sank down onto the worn leather couch and crossed his arms like a child.
“Three people is hardlyeveryone,” Cookie rightly pointed out. “I don’t, but only because I’ve beeninternational so often.”
“Thanks so much,Jean-Luc. I am not being literal. I’m just whining because I can tell Beast is beasting and we’re not about to get much out of him until he warms up to the sad reality that other humans exist and he’s going to have to embrace it.” One dirty blond eyebrow arched at me.
Cookie cleared his throat to cover a laugh, but I heard it.
“I told you to come up here.” But now they were here, I wasn’t so sure I agreed with the me of six hours ago who’d been in total panic mode after confessing my past and completely no longer relevant feelings to Jess.
Kenny rose and sauntered toward me with his pretty boy smile. Cookie followed suit, rounding the kitchen island and leaning against the counter. I was now as cornered as I could get by my two so-called friends.
“Tell your Kenny-bear what’s wrong, Beasty.”
Cookie laughed outright. “Good grief, man, you want him to murder you.”
