Page 121 of When We Were Reckless
I stared at her. At her beautiful face. Her flawless olive skin and dark, glossy hair. At the lips I’d kissed a thousand times and the body I’d explored with my hands and tongue and lips.
It had been a year since I’d been with Alessia. When she came back to me in April, we’d only been together for a few weeks. And at that time, I couldn’t bring myself to touch her. So I hadn’t fucked her. Not once.
It just went to show how delusional she was to ever think I’d take her back after everything she’d done. But this was her mother’s funeral, so I reined in my temper, and I kept my voice even and measured, surprised that it wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected. “We’re not going down this road again. Not now. Not ever. I’ve moved on,” I added.
It was true. I had moved on, and I hadn’t fully realized that until I came face to face with the person I used to love.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She was crying for her mother, and for me too, maybe. But, unlike in the past, I made no move to comfort her.
“You’ve moved on?” she asked through her tears.
I thought about Quinn. And the freestyle team. But mostly, I thought about Quinn. My sunshine girl who had been there for me through my lowest of lows.
And I thought about what my mother had said last night. “I just get the feeling that you’re still hanging onto something, and until you let it go, you won’t truly be free to move on.”
My mother was a wise woman. My brothers—Gideon and Jude—and my cousin Brody had often called her a saint for putting up with my father all these years. I didn’t think she was a saint. My father loved her in his own way. He couldn’t live without her, and she felt the same. But my mom was used to dealing with a difficult man, so she always gave good advice. We didn’t always take it, but I was grateful that she never stopped giving it.
So maybe she had a point. Maybe I needed answers. Or closure. A way to get over whatever the hell was holding me back from putting my heart on the line again.
“Why did you do it?” I asked Alessia. “Why did you throw it all away?”
I’d never asked the question, and it seemed crazy now that I never had. When I’d first found out, I was so hurt and angry that I couldn’t even look at Alessia, much less speak to her. And in April, when she lied to me, I believed her. I’d believed that Nate Hutchins had forced her to have sex. By the time the truth came out, I wanted nothing to do with Alessia. So we’d never discussed any of this. But now, I was ready to hear it.
“I was lonely. You were never there, Jesse. All you ever cared about was your career and winning. You were either training or traveling to races.”
In the beginning, she traveled with me to all my races, but when her own career started taking off, she couldn’t pick up and go whenever she wanted. And I’d understood that. I’dencouragedher to follow her own dreams. “You knew from the start that’s how it would be.”
“I didn’t think it would be that bad. You wereneverthere. It was all about you and your schedule and your stupid races.”
“My stupid races.” I laughed harshly. Should have known she’d turn it back on me. “So you thought to yourself… I know, I’ll find a way to sabotage that career I hate so much. Because that’s what people do when they love someone. They try to fucking destroy them. They try to knock them down, and when they’re on their knees, they come back and kick them in the fucking balls.”
Her tears ran freely now. “I never meant to ruin your career.”
“Did you think I would just let that go? Did you really believe that I wouldn’t confront him?” My jaw clenched, and I tried to breathe. “You swore up and down that you were telling the truth, and I fucking believed you.”
She wiped her cheeks. “I made a mistake. It was only once. I was only with Nate once. And I knew you’d never forgive me….”
So she’d lied to me. Because it was the only way to get me back. From the very beginning, I told her that I drew a hard line on cheating. She told me that she felt the same. But obviously, our values hadn’t been as aligned as I’d thought.
As if it made a difference whether she’d been with Nate once or a hundred times. She still did it. And I didn’t believe for a minute that it had only happened once. “Doesn’t matter. You turned to him when you had me. You went behind my back, and you were texting with him formonths.”
Thanks to Nate, I’d read some of those texts. They were almost worse than the thought of her having sex with him. The flirting. The little shared jokes and innuendos.
That fucking asshole. I’d never liked the way Nate looked at Alessia, but she always told me that she couldn’t stand the guy. Guess the joke was on me.
“I got scared,” she whispered.
“You got scared. So you fucked my teammate.”
“You were always surrounded by girls… all your little groupies… and Nate… he used to tell me things that put doubts in my head and made me think you were with other girls when you were on the road and I—”
I snapped. “You never had any faith in me, did you? Ineverwould have cheated on you. I told you that a million times. I gave you my word, and that should have been good enough for you. But nothing I ever did was good enough for you, was it?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, on the defensive. “You weren’t perfect either, Jesse.”
Here we go. She was turning it back on me again. “Never claimed to be.”
“You always acted like you put me first, but youneverput me first.” She threw her hands in the air, warming up to her subject.
