“Nah. I told everyone I was feeling sick and needed to go lie down. Joy moved everyone into the living room and she’s showing them vibrators she likes.”
I looked over my shoulder toward the house. “Oh, man. I’m missing that?”
“Like you need it?” she said in an amused We-both-know-what-kind-of-earth-shattering-sex-Jacob-is-giving-you kind of way.
I bobbed my head at the comment that I would have had to pretend to understand just an hour ago. God.
“Is it true he didn’t get in the limo?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
I don’t know what it was. Maybe that she looked sort of vulnerable sitting there. Or maybe it was the genuinely concerned way she was looking at me. But I didn’t want to lie about it.
“We had a fight.”
She peered at me. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t press for more information. But I decided to give it to her anyway.
“I think I’m a little more in love with him than he is with me.”
Amy blinked. “I seriously doubt that.”
I scoffed.
“No, I mean it,” she said. “I have never seen him the way he is with you.” She shook her head. “He never wanted to live with me or spend time with me. He didn’t look at me like he looks at you.”
She was wrong, of course. Jacob didn’t feel any sort of way about me. I wasn’t really living with him. I wasn’t even really dating him. If anything, this just showed what a good job we’d done making everyone believe. But I did appreciate her saying it, trying to make me feel better.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “You know, I thought—at first—that maybe you were only with him for the kidney,” she said, sounding a little guilty. “But I was wrong. I can see that you really love him and how good you two are together.” She smiled a little. “It makes me really happy that he’s found that. He deserves that.”
I studied her face. She meant it. She really did want him to be happy.
This was the moment that I decided to like her.
She was a lot less evil than I had imagined. She wasn’t really evil at all. I could sort of see why all the Maddox boys were in love with her.
It sucks when you actually like the other woman.
It sucks more when it happens twice.
An hour later the party wrapped up and I drove to Jacob’s house.
When I walked in the front door, I set my purse down on the credenza and I heard the door to Jacob’s plant room open and him coming down the hallway.
Lieutenant Dan met me first, and Jacob came in after him and stopped and stood in the doorway with his hands slipped into the pockets of his pajama bottoms. He searched my face, giving me one of his quiet looks. The ones where the wheels were turning.
My air mattress was deflated on the floor between us. It had started to sag last night and now it was officially dead. I stared at this, while Jacob stared at me.
I could smell the flowers he’d sent me. He’d put them on the coffee table so I could see them when I woke up. Seeing them made me want to sob. This part was over now. I couldn’t believe how badly I’d ruined this. Nothing would ever be the same. I hadn’t just ruined the quality of the time I had left, I’d also ruined our friendship. Muddied it. Made it weird.
It wasn’t weird for him. He’d wanted this, to add benefits to the arrangement. He’d probably just been happy for the distraction.
It was me who couldn’t deal now.
“You can sleep in my room,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
But I shook my head. “No. I’m going home.” I raised my eyes to his.
He paused for a long moment. “Why?”
“I just can’t be here.”
He dragged a hand down his mouth and looked away from me. When he came back, he held me with his tired brown eyes. “Briana. Just…come to bed.”
My stomach flipped. I felt the power of his summons like a whisper into my soul. Come to me, Briana. Come…
I felt my heart reach for him.
It made my eyes dart to his mouth. It made my fast-twitch muscles ping with the urge to fling myself at him and let him carry me to his room and do whatever the hell he wanted to me. Roll on top of me and pull my underwear down and kiss me until my lips hurt again.
But I shook my head. “No.”
He peered at me. “Why?”
“Jacob, I need you to help me, okay? Don’t try to kiss me again. Don’t even touch me when we’re not in front of your family. Let’s just get through the wedding and be done with this. Okay?”
“That’s what you want?”
“I just said.”
“Sometimes people say things they don’t actually mean.”
I threw up my hands. “What do you want from me, Jacob?”
He paused. “Everything. I want everything. I want us to be real.”
I laughed almost manically. “What are you even talking about? You are in love with someone else!”
He stared at me. “What?”
I shook my head at him. “Look, I know that this thing with us would be convenient for you. And I appreciate that you find me attractive, I really do. But I’m not going to be your consolation prize because it didn’t work out with Amy.”
“You think I’m—”
“Jacob, don’t bother denying it. I heard you fighting with her the day of the luau. You came out with lipstick and perfume on your shirt and then you asked me out so you didn’t have to dwell on it. Then today you had a panic attack because she’s pregnant—”
“I had a panic attack because you’re texting Levi.”
I blinked at him.
“That day at the luau? I was fighting with Amy because she was worried you were using me for my kidney. That you didn’t actually want me. And so I asked you out because I didn’t want to believe her. I wanted it to be real between us, I wanted to make it real. And she was right. It wasn’t.”
He shook his head. “I don’t care about Amy, Briana. I don’t love her. I don’t think I ever did. I’m glad she’s pregnant, I like being an uncle. And you know what? If you’re only with me for the kidney, I don’t care about that either. Because I am so fucking in love with you, I’ll settle for anything. Even that.” His voice broke on the last word.
I just stared at him. For the first time ever, I was totally mute.
“Use me,” he said, his eyes resigned. “Use me for whatever you want. Just stay.”
The words froze me in place. I had to learn how to breathe again before I could speak. “You don’t love her?” I whispered.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
We stood there in a thick moment of silence. My heart pounded into the quiet.
“Jacob, I am so in love with you I can’t even stand it.”
I watched this information transform his entire face. “What?” he breathed.
“I’m in love with you too. I thought you wanted her. I thought—”
“Say it again.” He swallowed.
“I’m…I’m in love with you.”
I watched the words hit him like a physical thing, pushing the air from his lungs and filling his eyes with hope.