She reaches for me, but this time, it’s me who pulls away.
“No one expects anything out of me,” I say. “I’m the goof. I’m the playboy. I’m the one who no one depends on. I thought it was different between us, and I really fucking loved it.”
She uses the end of her shirt to try to dry her face, but it’s futile. The tears come faster than she can catch them.
It breaks my heart. It tears me up inside. Adrenaline pushes through my veins and keeps me going enough that I don’t pass out.
“I’m just trying to do what you want,” she says, her voice muffled through her shirt. “I realized what your plan was today that you were talking about when Danny showed up, and I thought it would be easier than if you tried to pussyfoot around it.”
“To pussyfoot around what? Danny was here to show us—”
I thought Anjelica said it was an apartment complex, so I came prepared to discuss that. You probably thought I was crazy asking to meet with you over an apartment rental.
And Jaxi is going to sign a lease tomorrow so she can move out.
She thinks I sent Danny over here to subtly convince her to leave.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I knew that about her the first day I met her. It’s something I had to work around every day. She’s always waiting for things to go bad and holds a piece of herself back just in case she needs to run.
And she’s running.
“I …” I open my mouth to tell her that Danny was coming over so that I could buy the entire complex, not an apartment. That I wanted her to see if she liked managing the apartments, not living in them.
But I don’t. I don’t tell her that.
If I did, it would fix things. At least for now. But the problem isn’t this misunderstanding.
The problem is that she has wounds and scars and fears that run so deep from years of abuse and neglect. She can’t turn it off. She can’t ignore the bells going off in her head because she didn’t put them there. It’s a survival mechanism when it’s all boiled down.
I could try to love her through it. I could try to be the man I think she wants and needs. But can I do it? I can’t even go to the office every day for a week and stay all eight hours.
My shoulders fall as the reality of the situation slams into me, breaking my heart.
Jaxi needs more—more than I can give her. Even if I try.
So, even if I clarify this and explain what happened, it won’t matter in the end. We’ll be right back here over something else, and I’ll be scrambling to be something that I’m ultimately just not.
My energy slips away, my will to fight gone. My ego and pride are wounded, and I know, without a doubt, that I’ll never match the past few weeks that I spent with her and Rosie.
“When do you sign your lease?” I ask.
“Tomorrow.”
I nod. “Stay here until then.”
“Boone, no.”
I take her in for the last time. The beauty of her eyes, the slight slope of her shoulder. The mole on the inside of her elbow that she presses her thumb against when she’s nervous. The way her lips plump when she’s crying and how she stands with her toes slightly pointed toward each other.
“I’ll stay with my brothers. It’s easier.”
I close my eyes and pray that when I open them, something is different. But she’s still standing in front of me with a stream of tears and a look on her face that tells me that nothing has changed.
“I love you, Jaxi. I always will.”
Her lips part, and my heart skips a beat.
But she doesn’t speak.
And neither do I.
There’s nothing left to say, nothing I can do.
I gave her everything I have.
I don’t know why I’m surprised that it wasn’t enough.
Twenty-Three
Boone
“Why doesn’t he get any decent channels?” I roll my eyes at Oliver’s shitty options before turning the television off.
I don’t want to watch TV anyway. I just want a distraction. I want one so badly—need one so badly—that I even texted Ford Landry to see if he was looking for a workout partner tonight.
If anyone can distract you … and punish you, it’s Ford. He’s a beast of a man.
My text to him went unanswered.
I start to get off the couch to search for alcohol when Oliver’s garage door opens. I wait until I hear my brother enter the kitchen.
“Hey,” I say, walking around the corner.
Oliver jumps a mile. “What the ever-loving fuck?” He blows out a breath. “Why are you here? In my house?” He looks me up and down. “And in my fucking clothes?”
He slams his briefcase down on the counter.
“Easy there, Ollie. You’ll break something.”
“If I do, it’s mine.” He jerks his tie off and tosses it on the counter too. “Answer me.”
“What about?”
He looks at me as if I should know.
I march past him and open the liquor cabinet.
“Help yourself,” he says, sarcasm dripping from the words.
“I plan on it.” I grab a bottle of whiskey and twist it open.
“If you drink from that, I’ll kill you.”
“Promise?” I look at him and raise my brows in a challenge.
He plants both hands on the counter and takes me in. I consider testing him. I think long and hard about opening the top of the bottle and gulping a few mouthfuls down but decide not to risk it. I don’t think Oliver could kill me fast enough. I’d probably end up in more pain than I am now.
If that’s possible.
The hole in my chest—the spot where my heart used to be—has deepened over the evening. As night set in and the sky got dark, so did my spirits.
How the hell did I get here? How did my life disintegrate in the blink of an eye? Is this what happens to adults? Is this why everyone who takes anything seriously ends up in misery?
“Enough bullshit,” Oliver says. “What’s going on?”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
“You have a house. I’ve been there.”
I think he’s trying to wound me.
I walk around the counter and sit on a barstool facing him. He must take pity on me—or the fact that he had a pink shirt in his closet and now I know, so he wants to play nice so I don’t tell anyone. Either way, he gets two glasses from a cabinet and slides me one.
“Rosie is at Mom’s,” I say. “Or she was. Holt and Blaire are too uptight, Coy and Bellamy are too … in love,” I say, choking the words out. “And then Wade.”
“What about Wade?”
“I’m not going there,” I scoff and pour us each two fingers of whiskey. “I’m trying to find the will to live tonight.”
Oliver takes one glass off the counter. He looks at me curiously.
“Take a drink,” he says, raising his glass to me, “and then tell me what the fuck is going on.”
We both take a hefty gulp of the amber liquor. It burns as it coats my throat.
Oliver hisses through his teeth, breathing out the heat of the drink.
“Now,” he says, setting his glass back on the counter, “fill me in.”