Page 66 of Fighting For You
“Yeah. So. I’ll definitely never hear the end of it.”
She seemed thoughtful, so I took another bite. We ate in quiet, only the steady stream of pop songs playing low over the speakers and the humming white noise coming from the kitchen and other diners our accompaniment.
Did she regret it? I wouldn’t have called it fretting, but the peace I’d felt with Jess in the quiet moments at the cabin was nowhere to be found. Granted, there were plenty of times the silence had been full of me freaking out about her being so sick, but it’d felt different than this. Now, I worried she might be spooked over people knowing about this new… direction? Dimension? This newsomethingbetween us that included brain-melting kisses and apparently jealousy thick enough to choke on.
A twinge of disheartening anticipation twisted in mygut. I didn’t want to have to talk her into this. I couldn’t do that to her or me.
Her attention snagged on something outside and I followed her gaze, fully expecting to see Kenny making a scene of some sort. Instead, it was a group of Blackthorne guys standing in the Saint Security parking lot talking with Bruce and Wilder, who must’ve shown up in the last few minutes.
Her shoulders deflated a little as she turned back to the table. “I don’t like that he’s here. And then I don’t like that I don’t like it.”
“You think it’d be normal if you liked seeing your ex?” I asked, incredulous to hear she cared. I wished she’d left him behind and never thought about him. Maybe then, we’d be different, too.
Her head tipped from one side to the other. “Kind of. I mean, not normal to not care at all, but I wish it didn’t still feel like a punch in the gut to see him.” Her eyes flickered up to meet mine and then quickly away.
My stomach clutched, dreading the answer before I could even form the question. “Do you still…” I couldn’t say the word, though. Not after what I’d said to her, even last night, and not after everything in me waking up again thanks to her.
She raised a brow. “Love him?”
Hopefully, my wince didn’t show on my face. “Yeah.”
She took a huge breath. “Thankfully, no.” She nudged a bite of her omelet with her fork. “I just hate that he left me. Yes, that he cheated, but thenheleft. I should’ve lefthim. I shouldn’t have stuck around until the truth came out. It’s not like it was good between us. It hadn’t been for a while, but we’d both been gone and?—”
The flush in her cheeks had traveled downher neck, as though she’d just realized who she was telling and what she was saying. She never would’ve told me any of this before—certainly not when she was with him, but even weeks ago. We didn’t talk like this.
Wewere different. Maybe each of us as individuals, but also our dynamic together. I could be nothing but grateful and greedy for more of this change, and I’d make sure she understood how much. I’d worked on speaking more freely, and I’d done so, and I wouldn’t go back to grunting when I could find words instead, because I wanted her to know me now.
“I’ll never forgive him for how he treated you.” Seeing her pain, even so many years later, made me want to crush something.
How about Kurt’s stupid face?
She smiled softly but shook her head. “Nah. Don’t let that eat away at you. And I shouldn’t let it me, either. Not anymore. I just wish… I don’t know. I guess I wish I could be impervious to him.”
“I get it. As much as you like to pretend you’re cold as ice, I think you’re actually deeply empathetic and feeling.”
As my words settled between us, her face shifted from a thoughtful one to something mildly shocked. “Wait, so I seem like I’m frigid?”
I glanced from side to side.No one to help you now, idiot!Where was Kenny with a poorly timed interruption when I needed him? “Uh, no?”
She burst out laughing, a luscious, free sound I was instantly addicted to. “You are a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying. I’ve never thought of you as frigid. I knew better than that.”
Our gazes held, and I wondered if she could read everything behind mine.I was in love with you, so it didn’t matteranyway.I didn’t want to fight for her to believe me right now, when we were talking about her, but she had no idea. Saying I’d thought of her as frigid would be like saying the surface of the sun was cold. She had done nothing but light me on fire from the day I’d met her. Even when I’d pushed that desire down, when I’d buried it deep, it’d still burned like the Earth’s core.
I wouldn’t deny the truth, but I didn’t want to focus there for now. Not just yet. She had so much farther to go before she could hear all that. So I pushed on. “Point is, I get wanting to just forget about him. Move on and not let him affect your life.”
She sat back in the booth, omelet nearly gone, toast in tatters, and coffee empty. “This has been such an odd first date.”
“You’re not wrong.” Though I hoped the oddness of it didn’t meanfirstwould beonly.
Catherine came to clear a few plates and soon, our first and very odd date was over.
We’d talked about grief and loss. We’d seen friends. I’d had a brief but wildly jealous interlude where I’d momentarily considered looking into better facial products. And we’d even gotten around to Kurt.
What we hadn’t discussed was what came next, and so before we stood, I rushed in.
“Are you free for dinner tonight?”
