“Okay, listen. Due to your incoherent statements, I have many questions. Let’s start with, what am I doing?”
“Charming me.”
“I am?”
“Um, yeah. A cheeseburger with extra mayo?” she complained as if he’d just kicked a puppy. “You remembered that I like extra mayo. That’s rich, Jameson. And so fucking unfair.”
He was astonished. “Remembering how you like your burger is unfair? No, wait. Don’t answer that yet. Let’s circle back to your initial question first.”
She lifted her chin in defiance, all but tapping her toe as she waited.
“You want to reminisce about why I left without you? Because you already know the answer to that one, Chloe, unless you’re lucky enough to suffer from amnesia. Me?” He knocked on the side of his head. “It’s still right here, unfortunately, fresh as if it happened yesterday.”
“I remember.” She practically spat the words.
“Okay, so why ask a question you already know the answer to? Or would you rather me address your other question? The one of mayonnaise and the additional quantity thereof?”
“Thereof?” she mocked. “Now you sound like Genevieve. If you use the word posthaste, I will knee you right in the balls, soldier.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“Sailor. And never compare me to her.”
This. This was the Chloe he’d fallen in fast, hard love with.
“Soldier, sailor, what’s the difference? Your balls will be bruised either way.”
“An entire branch of the military is the difference. And I’ll be needing my balls, thank you very much, so you won’t hear that word from me.”
They ate quietly after that.
And the smoke gradually cleared from her dirty bomb.
“In the last year,” she mused, after long moments of awkward silence, speaking more to herself than him. “I’ve had dinner with Wyatt many times. A few dozen, probably.”
He grunted. Christ, here we go with that fucking guy again.
“Tacos mostly,” she continued, unaware of the jealousy it inspired. “But sometimes we go for burgers.”
“Great.” His lackluster tone said the opposite. “Glad to hear it.”
She finally looked at him and smiled. Then shrugged. “He never remembers.”
“Never remembers what?” Rolling his hand impatiently, he added, “Because I’m dying to know all about your dates with Mister Wonderful.”
“He is wonderful. Entirely too perfect,” she said, with an odd sense of sadness. “But he doesn’t remember the extra mayo. And he’s not you.”
She ate the rest of her meal without a word. All while Jameson’s mind reeled. And screamed.
I didn’t want to leave.
I had to leave.
You forced me to leave.
Ten minutes later, their dinner wrappers balled up in the bag between them, the sun nearly set, he finally worked up the courage to say it out loud.
“I didn’t want to.”
When she raised a brow in confusion, he added, “Leave without you. I had to, Chloe. For pride’s sake and for my own sanity. Otherwise, I might’ve intentionally left you stranded at a roadside convenience store in the middle of Nebraska and continued to California alone.”
Her confusion only seemed to increase. “Why?”
“Why?” he repeated in shock, the swing shifting when he stood, unable to continue the conversation while sitting next to her.
Because that’s what you deserved.
She’d taken life—his body, his blood, his soul—and discarded it.
Hands on his hips, he looked down, fighting the need to pace like a caged animal. To break down and bawl like a fucking baby for the why of it.
“How could you do that, Chloe?”
His voice cracked, but he didn’t care. His gaze condemned her, but he didn’t care about that, either.
She averted her eyes. Swallowed several times. Tightened her mouth and dabbed at her quick tears. It was useless. They trickled down, and he felt their scalding heat on his own cheeks.
Or maybe he was weeping, too.
“I had no choice.”
“Yes, you did,” he said, a low, seething response to her weak excuse. “We had a plan.”
She laughed, the retort sarcastic and disbelieving.
“No, you had a plan. I was—” A dry sob wracked her chest, cutting her words off.
He waited, pacing a groove in the rotted porch floor, desperate for a legitimate reason. Something that made sense. That canceled out a decade of resentment and hatred.
“I was alone,” she finally said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Wrong answer.
“Alone by choice. You made a life-altering decision that I should’ve been a part of,” he said, banging a fist against his chest. “You knew how I felt. I didn’t want that.”
“You left! You left town, left the state, left the fucking country!” All but shouting, she glared at him with fire in her damp eyes. “You left me! You left us.”
“Us?” he repeated, shaking his head. “There was no us. You made sure of that. Your mommy helped you make sure of that.”
Biting her bottom lip, she looked away.
It was hard to argue with the truth.
“How many times do you need me to remind you, Jameson?” Her tone was void of any emotion except impatience. “You don’t get a say when you don’t stay.”
“Cute,” he shot back. “You’ve been dying to lay that little limerick on me all week, haven’t you?”
“More like all decade.”
“Good. I’m glad you’ve had to think about what you did for the last ten fucking years like I have.”
Scoffing, she stood, walking a few steps away from him to stand at the porch railing. “I think about it every minute.”
Her back was to him. As if she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
“And during all your thinking, besides stewing about what an asshole I supposedly am, what is it you expected me to do? Stay?”
He lifted his arms, waiting. Got no reply and added, “Watch you move on like it meant nothing? Like you had your fun slumming it, but now it was time to return to your cheerleading squad until graduation? Until you found a white-collar sucker to marry you and keep you in the same lifestyle daddy did?”
She whirled on him. “Don’t bring my dad into this. He took your side. He actually defended you.”
“And Genevieve? Was she suddenly Mother of the Year? Because I’m positive she aided and abetted. The woman who treated you like shit your whole life.”
At the mention of Genevieve, her anger returned with a vengeance.
“And you didn’t? Treat me like shit?”
“Not once, Chloe. Not for one fucking second.”
“How about that second when you walked away? Left me to figure it all out on my own while you ran off to play superhero.”
“After you—” No. He couldn’t. Couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
Instead, he stood there, hands clenched into fists, staring at her with unhealthy judgment.
Unjustified judgment, most would say because, after all, it was her body.