“I never wanted her. It’s no excuse, but she was consoling me about Winnie and it just kind of happened,” he says. “She loved you. She did.”
I’m surprised he’s ready to show his vulnerability. I huff. “I think she loved both of us.”
He looks at me and shrugs. Naomi wanted us to be morphed into the same person. She loved my stability and the fact I was headed to college. She also loved Jax’s wild streak and tendency to get into fights. To say I was surprised when I walked in on them would be a lie. Which is probably why I felt more betrayed by Jax than Naomi.
“But Rian is different, Phillips. She likes you, and for some fucked up reason, you keep pushing her away.” He looks at me, expecting an answer.
“Man, you know just like I do that Rian isn’t anything like Naomi.”
“Which is a good thing.” He leans back.
I nod. True enough. “You know her type. She’s meant for an accountant who works nine to five and is home every weekend. A guy who gives her the American dream of a house and two point five kids and a dog running around the yard. A guy who gets excited for pizza nights on Friday and movies on Saturdays.”
“Nah,” Jax says. “She doesn’t want some douche who only screws her missionary and can’t work his tongue on her.”
I huff out a laugh. “Her parents hate me.”
“Sounds like she hates her parents.” He locks his fingers together over his stomach. “Keep coming up with excuses. We both know you’re more the settling down type than you want to admit.”
Have I ever thought about marriage? Yeah. But did I ever think I could go through with it? I’m not sure.
“I haven’t seen any other girls hanging around you,” he adds.
“Are you trying to diss my game?”
He laughs. “No, I’m saying you’re not interested in anyone but her.”
He’s got a point. Somehow when Jax moved in, my fear of losing her overruled my fear of ruining our friendship. “If you hadn’t come back, I’m not sure I would’ve ever acted on my feelings.”
A smirk crosses his lips.
Son of a bitch.
“You did it on purpose?” I ask. “You purposely asked her out just to get me to act on my feelings?”
He holds up his hands. “Truth?”
“Yeah.”
“I liked her when I first moved in, but I saw how protective you were of her. You’ve always been transparent,” he says, his smirk grows wider. “I thought I’d just give you an extra push if you were toeing the line. I didn’t think you’d need a bulldozer.”
“So much could go wrong.”
“So much could go right,” he counters.
I nod. He’s right.
“You can sit here and be a pussy, all scared in your boots and worried about what-ifs, or you can go over there and own your feelings for her.” I stare at him, and he sighs. “What are you worried about?”
What am I not worried about?
“Our friendship. Hers and mine. Other than Naomi, I’ve never had anything serious. What if I don’t like it? What if I feel suffocated and screw it all up? It’s not just our friendship at stake. It’s all our friends. We’re in an interconnected cobweb and if Rian cuts one strand, it rocks the entire group.”
He nods. “You guys do have a little family here, don’t you?” He nods toward the door. “Even that spark plug out there.”
There’s longing in his tone. I first heard it in ninth grade when Winnie would make me come home for dinner at six. Then he had to do the same once he moved in with Winnie. Maybe that’s the one thing Jax hasn’t gotten since he left—a sense of home, family. Which is why he thinks it’s okay to throw yourself to the wild and deal with consequences later. I can’t do that with Rian.
“They’re all really important to me.”
This is usually when Jax would cut off any sentimentality. When his jokester side would prevail, and he’d make a snide remark so the person believes he doesn’t really care. But this time, he looks me square in the eye. Something he hasn’t done since he returned. “Let me ask you a question.”
“What?”
“Do you really think the two of you will survive being friends forever? Was it just that you didn’t want to lose out to me? You were going to sit through that wedding to the accountant? Be the godfather of her baby? Where does it end? How long do you torture yourself?”
The things he mentions flash in my mind. Me sitting in the pew, watching her give me one more look before saying I do to some other guy. Or me coming to her house to celebrate my godchild’s milestones. I’d no doubt be wondering what could have been if I hadn’t been a pussy. Could it have been me she was saying I do to? My hand she held as she went through labor?
“You’re a fucking asshole,” I say, standing from my desk.
He smiles.
I walk to the door but turn around. “I’m sorry. I should have allowed you at Winnie’s funeral.”
I was so angry about him and Naomi that I forbade him from attending her service. Looking back, I think I was just angry at the world and the fact that Winnie had died more than I was at Jax. But he was as good a target as any to direct my fury at.
He shakes his head. “Forget it.” He pauses as though he has something more to say, so I wait. “I shouldn’t have blamed you when Winnie left you that money for your future. I understand now why she did. Anything that came my way I would’ve just blown through. Probably would’ve done more harm than good.”
I nod. I figured that out a while ago. Jax was always wilder than I was. I think Winnie trusted that I would put the money to good use. Jax, not so much, as harsh as that is.
I open my arms. “Hug it out?”
“Fuck you. Go get your girl.” He nods toward the door.
I laugh all the way through Ink Envy until I’m outside our apartment door.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rian
Some people clean. Others cook. Others might exercise. I either do math or bake when I’m upset. Today it’s math. When my mind is scrambling with a million uncontrollable thoughts swarming like bees, the precision of math, the fact that there is only one correct answer, calms me.
So after Jax runs after Dylan, I take my stuff to my room and pull out the problem.
Okay, yeah, I would love to solve this problem just to prove to my parents that I’m not some stupid child. A psychologist would probably say that proving it to them is still seeking their approval. But I don’t really care. To me. it’s like a middle finger to them.
The apartment door opens and my math bubble pops. Suddenly, all my issues are front and center in my mind again. Either Jax or Dylan is home, and I’m not sure which one I’d rather talk to right now.
Footsteps pound across the hardwood, making my heart race as though I should be hiding under the bed. It feels as if everything stable in my life is about to crash down.
The pencil slips from my grasp with the rap of knuckles on my door, falling from the paper to my mattress and rolling to the floor. “Yeah?”
“Rian.” A thud sounds on the wood.