“You said you weren’t confident playing.”
Jase huffed. “Yeah, well, you wanted us to be a trio, and I knew how much it meant to Ben to be in the band, so . . .”
Matt stepped back and looked at Jase as if meeting a stranger for the first time. “This is a head fuck.”
“Yeah. It’s been a long fucking four days.”
“Cerys?”
“Cerys.”
Matt nodded as if understanding everything in that one word. “I’m guessing there are more songs?”
“Yeah. One more new, one partial, and two of yours I have suggestions on.”
Matt grinned. “Of course you do. Look, we’ll listen to your songs, and then we’ll do what we do best. We’ll go to a bar and hash it out over a pint. Tell Jimmy we’re taking a mental health day or something.”
Jase sighed in relief. Years of weight lifted off his shoulders, so much so he felt slightly delirious.
“Sounds good,” he replied as Matt opened the door.
“Call Iz. She doesn’t need my permission to talk to you. She’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions about who she wants to talk to. But make her cry and I’ll kick your arse.”
When the door closed, Jase blew out a breath. He was so fucking cold, his bones shook. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and dialled Izabel’s number.
“Hello,” she said when she answered. Her voice, while soft, didn’t give him the punch in the gut it once did.
“Bella, it’s Jase.” Bella, the nickname he’d given her the first time she’d ever come over to the house with Luke and Matt—because all she’d done was drone on about some vampire book she’d been reading with a heroine of the same name.
“Jase? Is something wrong with Matt?”
“No. He’s fine. He knows I’m calling. Look, I just wanted to apologise for being a shit. When you and I, when we . . . well, I mishandled that whole thing. And I’m sorry for being a dick to you and Matt, when you got together, and every time I’ve seen the two of you since. I struggled to accept you didn’t feel the same way about me that I did about you, but that was all about me and not you. I was an idiot.”
Wave.
Wave.
Wave.
Now, he realised he’d wanted something . . . not her specifically, but the feeling of being loved. He’d never been mad at her for loving Matt . . . it had never really been about the two of them . . . it had just fuelled the feelings deep inside that he was simply unlovable. That he was the piece of the puzzle that never fit anywhere. A lost piece. Just waiting to find the rest of the picture.
“Jase. Are you . . . like . . . you’re not dying or something? Because if you are—”
“Jesus Christ, Bella. I’m not fucking dying. Am I that much of a dick that you think it would take some terminal diagnosis to apologise?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. A pause that shook him. That’s exactly what she thought. And it was shaming to think that he could have made someone he once thought he was in love with feel that way.
“I’m sorry, Bella.”
“Apology accepted. And I’m sorry too, Jase. You didn’t deserve to be used that way. You just happened to be the guy offering what I needed. I should have realised the only person I needed it from was Matt. I’m sorry you ended up in the crosshairs of that.”
“Thank you.”
“You know, I honestly believe that we are always exactly where we are supposed to be, Jase. I don’t know what prompted this. But whatever it is, I’m grateful for it.”
Cerys.
The word whispered around him like the snow.
No, it’s me. It’s time.
And the words felt right.
Now he had to make things right with everyone else.
10
Cerys watched Jase as he stepped back into the building, shaking the snow that had gathered in his hair and on the shoulders of his grey sweatshirt. She thought back to the very first time she’d seen him, looking up at the snow with a wistfulness she could feel. Then he’d sneered and called her a child for wanting to make snow angels. Now, after having watched him make them with glee, she could see that moment for what it was. He’d not meant to hurt her; he’d simply been protecting himself.
He wasn’t hitting anything, throwing anything, or cursing. He’d reappeared instead of disappearing. And he wasn’t bleeding. All good signs that he’d stood in the waves of whatever just went down between him and the band and Matt.
She changed the motivation board while she’d stood nervously, waiting for him to come back in.
In the waves of change, we find our true direction.
Hopefully it reassured him.
“Hey,” he said softly as he approached her.
“Hey.” She smiled at him, his gaze on hers.
Jase looked up and down the corridor and discretely ran his finger along the back of her hand before stuffing his hand in his jeans pocket. He’d remembered her discomfort with mixing work and pleasure.
“I played ‘Am I Him?’ for the band.”
“You did?” Her heart skipped a beat. So that was what had set off the chain of events. “And?”
“Everyone is still alive. We might end today in a better place than we were yesterday. Although better might be premature. Maybe honest is the right word. Cards are on the table.”
“Did they like it?”
Jase shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. I think they were more hung up on what the lyrics meant for us, our family. But I think they did. We’re about to have a listen to the rest.”
She cursed her own rule about no touching, wishing more than anything that she could put her arms around him. “That’s amazing. Truly, Jase.”
“You know what’s truly amazing? You.”
“When did you become such a sweet talker? I was just thinking about how you accused me of being a child for liking snow angels and hot chocolate when we first met.”
Jase grinned. “I was a dick, and I think we both know I was wrong. I like playing around in snow with you.”
Her face flushed at the memory of him kissing her in the snowbank he tugged them both into. “I think I like playing around with you in general.”
“Holy shit, Cerys. Did you just flirt with me?”
“I flirt with you.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Perhaps that’s because your style of flirting is so sexually aggressive that you miss the subtlety of my style of flirting.”
Jase closed his eyes and sighed. “You can’t be talking about sexually aggressive flirting then expect me to keep my hands off you.”
Cerys grinned but took a small step back, just to be safe. “I’m happy for you, Jase. What happened this morning is amazing. How did it feel?”
“Honestly, terrifying. I didn’t watch them listen. Just stood there like a lemon looking at the floor until it was all over. I wished you were with me. Moral support and all that. Come with me this time. While I play the rest of the songs. You should be there.”
Cerys shook her head. “As much as that would be amazing to experience, this is time for you and your brother and the rest of the band to start anew. You don’t need an outsider while you work through this.”