Page 127 of The Mating Game
“You can go get the damn girl.”
I swallow thickly. “Are you suggesting I go after her?”
“I’m suggesting you take something for yourself for once in your life.”
“What if…” I inhale a shaky breath. “What if she doesn’t feel the same way?”
“Then you move on with your life,” she says bluntly. “You keep pushing forward, but with a new attitude. One that lets youenjoyyour life, not just suffer through it.” She gives my knee a gentle squeeze. “But something tells me you aren’t the only one.”
“How can you be so sure?”
She taps her nose. “Because I am rarely wrong”—she leans in, giving me a knowing grin—“and you aren’t the only one who’s been throwing hung-the-moon looks.”
I stare down at her hand on my knee, mulling over everything she’s said and wondering if there could possibly be any truth to it. Could Tess really feel all the things I’ve been feeling? Is there actually a chance that she might want something more than what we’ve shared? And more importantly, am I brave enough to ask her?
Jeannie gives my knee a soft pat. “Tess isn’t Chloe, Hunter. You know that, right? I know after someone breaks your heart, it feels like those cracks will never heal, but the funny thing about heartbreak is…the cracks leave plenty of space to let someone else in, and if you can let yourself do that, if you can take that leap…that person might just be the one who can seal those cracks right up and make you whole again.” She grins. “And from what I can tell…Tess knows her way around some spackle.”
I can’t help the watery laugh that escapes me despite the fear that racks me as I consider what she’s suggesting.
“Now go down there and do this interview—which you’re going to knock out of the park, by the way—and then you think about what I’ve said, you hear?”
I nod slowly. “Okay. Sure, Jeannie. I can do that.”
“Damn right you can,” she says. “So go down there and get this shit done.”
A chuckle escapes me, and I nod dutifully. “Yes, ma’am.”
She stands, giving me one last stern look before she exits the wayshe came. I sit there for a moment, stewing over everything she’s said, fear gripping me at the idea of putting myself out there, of taking that leap and risking plummeting to the ground all over again with no one to catch me.
Is it a risk I’m willing to take?
“Well, I thinkthat will just about do it,” Nate says, smiling at me as he jots down a final note. His cameraman snaps another pic of the newly finished great room, and Nate stows his recorder in his pocket as he offers me his hand. “I appreciate you letting us come out, Mr.Barrett.”
I shake my head, clasping his hand. “No, no, I should be thanking you,” I tell him. “This is…” I chuff out a laugh. “This is great of you.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, waving me off. “I owed Tess a favor.” He flashes me a grin. “She must really like the place if she’s cashing it in for you.”
My chest squeezes, my lungs seeming to forget how to draw in oxygen for a moment. “Yeah, Tess is…amazing.”
“Oh, the best,” Nate agrees. He chuckles. “She called me this morning and basically demanded that I be gentle with you.”
My breath catches. “She did?”
“Mm-hmm.” Nate nods absently. “Seemed to be killing her that she couldn’t be here.” He winks at me. “She must really likeyoutoo, I’d wager, considering she spent twenty minutes telling me all about you and what I should expect.”
“What…what did she say?”
Nate’s eyes gleam with mischief. “Oh, just that you’re kind of agrump, but it’s all an act. That you’re actually a big, soft marshmallow in lumberjack coating and would bend over backward for this place and everyone in it if you needed to.”
“She said that?”
“Mm-hmm.” He claps me on the shoulder. “It’s nice to see her so into someone. She’s always so wrapped up in her work…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m really happy for you guys. You treat her good, you hear?”
I open my mouth to tell him that he’s got it all wrong, that there’s nothingrealbetween Tess and me, but my lips close as quickly as I roll his words over in my head like unturned stones. I know for a fact that Tess’s meeting was this morning, that she should have a million things to worry about concerning her literal dream, and yet she still took the time to make a call for me; she was still thinking ofmedespite all her own shit going on.
I feel frozen, unable to move as an emotion overtakes me that seems too big for my body, one that threatens to fill me up and overflow so that it’s pouring out of me, taking over my entire being.
If you can let yourself do that, if you can take that leap…that person might just be the one who can seal those cracks right up and make you whole again.
