“I…” She sighs. “I don’t want to get rid of you.”
“Great.” I nudge her leg with my foot. “Care if I sit?”
“Go ahead.”
I duck my head as I step over her legs onto the small carpeted platform. The nook is smaller than I remember. Cramped. Jane’s striped socked feet touch the wall, and I have to bend my knees to fit. I swear it wasn’t always this tight a squeeze.
My gaze flicks to her stunning body. Thick curvy hips. Great caboose. And that cleavage. Time hasn’t dulled my attraction to her. I don’t know whether that should be surprising or not. “Want to tell me what happened down there?”
“You know my mom.” She tips her gaze to the ceiling with a huff. “She can’t leave things well enough alone.”
“It seems to me she’s only worried about you.”
“If you’re going to follow that up with do you want to talk about it...”
Ouch. It hurts that she doesn’t want to talk to me. Used to be a time we confided just about everything to each other. “Okay. I get it. We haven’t been close for years.”
“I wish we were,” she admits. “I wish we’d stayed close, but Oliver...”
“He didn’t like me,” I say matter-of-factly. It doesn’t bother me. That’s how it was. A mutual hatred for each other from the moment we met. He was a jackass from the start. I’m not saying he didn’t have reason to be wary of me; after all, I was in love with his girlfriend, but I wasn’t the only person he was jealous of Jane spending time with. I wasn’t the only one who noticed what a controlling prick he was. But Jane didn’t want to hear it.
I pick up one of the paperbacks on the windowsill to keep from letting old irritations settle in like arthritis. Turn it over and read the title. Carry Me Home. The cover is a classy couple in a romantic embrace, standing in front of a window. “J.J. Valentino? You read this loved up smut?”
“It’s not loved up smut.” She snatches the book out of my hand and cradles it to her chest. “It’s actually pretty deep. The author really knows how to write a great romance.”
“Uh-huh.” If I can write such a brilliant love story, how come I suck so badly at them in real life?
“They’re truly profound.”
“Call the doctor. We’ve got a gusher.” I roll my gaze to the ceiling. My books are little extensions of my soul. Sure they’re fun and light-hearted and sexy. Like me. But they’re also emotional and full of flawed and wounded characters that I resonate strongly with. That my readers resonate with.
“Shut up,” she says playfully. “She writes in such a compelling way.”
If she finds me so damn compelling, why’d she choose Oliver and the fluffing UK instead of me? As much as I would love to know the reason, I don’t ask her why she never saw me the way I hoped she would. At this point the answer is moot. And I don’t admit that I agree with her about my books. I don’t want to roll over and expose my sensitive undercarriage to anyone. But especially her. Not again. “It’s sappy porn, isn’t it?”
“No.” She smacks my thigh with her knee, but she can’t stifle the small smile that kisses her lips. “Don’t be gross.”
“Now that’s what I like to see. A pretty girl smiling.”
Her lips tremble but they don’t flatten again. “I forgot how much of a flirt you are.”
“That’s me. Set all the girls aquiver.” I thrust my chest out and give her my best lecherous grin. I need to know why she’s home. And whether I should be avoiding getting sucked back into our friendship, as easy as that would be. I’m not sure that I want to go back to what we were. If we even can. As much as everything feels the same it also feels like we’re two different people now. “So it’s over with Oliver?”
“It’s over.” She leans back against the wall, her head angled back. Her throat tenses and relaxes. “He left me. For someone else.” She doesn’t sound cut up about it. There’s no pain or heartbreak in her voice. Only a quiet weariness. “One of those internet weather girls that takes her clothes off.”
“Fuck, Squeak.” I’ve seen some of those weather girls. And they’re hot. But not hot enough that a guy should be able to look sideways with Jane around. But then I’m not surprised that Oliver didn’t appreciate what he had. He never deserved Jane.
“Right?” She exhales audibly. “Stormy Lacroix is her name. Genuine size zero. Owns two Corgis. And did an entire kiss and tell about my relationship with Oliver in Glamour before I knew he and I were over. Can you imagine?”
I grit my jaw so hard it pops in my ear. Is this why she’s uneasy in her skin these days? Because Oliver is a huge jerk. “Glamour? Isn’t that where you were working?”
She picks balls of fuzz from the blanket and rolls them between her fingers into one big ball. “Apparently one of the journalists is a friend of hers.”
“That sucks.”
“It did,” she says. “We’d bought a house together. We were talking about starting a family. I thought he still loved me, right up until it came out that they’d been dating”—she uses air quotes around the word dating—“for months. He didn’t even have the guts to tell me himself.”
“I’m so sorry, Jane.”
“You warned me about him. I just... I thought it was because you didn’t want me to move to London.”
“I didn’t want you to move to London,” I admit. I guess I’m still kind of wounded by it, because I have a whole lot to get off my chest six years later. “Do you know what I wanted to do while you were boarding that plane? What I would have done to keep you from leaving?”
“No.”
I humph under my breath. “I was ready to kidnap you from under his nose. Just pick your ass up and haul you out of the airport on my shoulder.”
“Sounds like you had a game plan,” she quips.
“Oh I did. I was going to shackle you to my bed and fuck you into the mattress over and over until you didn’t recall your own name or what day it is, let alone remember that dickhead. I wanted to seduce you with my hands and mouth and all nine magical inches of me until you were such a quaking mess that you couldn’t help but realize you’d been in love with me the entire time and stick around.”
“Oh.” Her gaze flares, those gray orbs turning into dinner plates for a long moment and my heartbeat stutters.
Oh shit, did I say that out loud? I laugh nervously. How easily I fall back into old habits like being honest and sharing too much information. Like all of it. Every single thought I had on the day she left. Is she going to believe me, or think that I’m joking, like I always do, because I’m too chicken shit to put myself out there without my humor as armor?
“Forget Stockholm Syndrome. You’d be Hudson’d.” I mimic a mic drop. “Boom.”
Slowly a huge grin breaks across her face as she smacks the back of her hand against my chest. “Funny. I can see your sarcasm hasn’t lost its edge.”
I leer back as I trap her hand and pull her straight into me, and she bursts into laughter as my fingertips dig into her sides to tickle her. Like old times. Yeah, I still dig this girl in front of me far more than I should. And she still thinks I’m just a huge joke.