Josh regards me, his gaze unwavering. “That we’re not over.” He says it with the surety of a man who knows something I’m not even sure I know, which is not what I feel for him but how much I feel for him.
A dog barking sounds in the distance, a reminder that we’re sitting in his car in Paige’s driveway having the kind of conversation that has the power to realign relationships and alter hopes and dreams. Our relationship. My hopes and dreams.
“So it has nothing to do with me going out with Evan?”
“Of course, it has something to do—” He breaks off abruptly and then his voice goes quiet. “Why does that matter?”
“Because I’m wondering if this revelation you had about you and Chloe has more to do with me moving on with someone else than us not being over.” With some guys, that dog-in-the-manger instinct is strong. They move on no problem. The second you do, though, is when they start getting possessive.
I may only be twenty-two, but this isn’t my first rodeo with Johnny-Come-Too-Damn-Late and Josh is exhibiting the telltale signs.
“Erin,” he says, his voice softly chastising. “I want to be with you. Just you. Why is it surprising that I don’t want you to go out with other guys? And you know that’s not the only reason. As you’ve reminded me often enough, you are the one who broke things off.”
“Which you didn’t seem to have a problem with,” I shoot back. Why can’t he understand without me having to say that he could have tried a little harder to convince me to keep having sex with him. Which makes this whole thing his fault.
Surprise flares in his eyes and there’s a certain amount of outrage in his voice when he says, “What do you mean I didn’t have a problem with it? I apologized. I tried to talk you out of it. What else could I have done? You were pissed after you found out I was the one who told Mitch to get a paternity test. You accused me of trying to split them up.”
Ugh. Now what am I supposed to say? Everything he said is true. When I told him we were over, I’d laid into him about encouraging Mitch to get a paternity test. Giving Mitch reasons to doubt Paige. What he hadn’t known—and I would never have told him—is that I was falling for him by then. That I wanted more. A meeting of the minds, not just of the bodies. An emotional connection, not just a physical one.
No, I didn’t expect him to read my mind, but knowing me he should have known.
I take a breath. They say there’s a time and place for everything. Well, I can’t do this right now. Not with him.
I glance at the house where I can see Paige peering out the living room window. “They’re probably wondering what we’re still doing in the car.”
Josh cuts the engine. After a long pause, he makes his position on the subject explicitly clear. “We’re not done.”
My gaze jerks to his and it’s there in his eyes, clear as day: resilience and determination. I can only nod because his words echo the truth pounding furiously in my heart.
Josh
“Okay, enough of the bullshit. What’s up with you and Erin?” Mitch demands to know before taking a drink of his beer.
With everything that went on, we missed the pick-up basketball game at the gym, so we came straight to the sports bar nearby after I dropped off Erin and picked up Mitch. The place is crowded and noisy. A Lakers and Warriors playoff game is on six flat-screen TVs strategically positioned around the bar. I have an unobstructed view of one of the three mounted over the bar, but other than having checked the score when we first sat down, I haven’t been paying attention to the game.
During the ride over, we discussed the kidnapping and the trip to the police station. My best friend is having none of that now.
“Fuck if I know.” And that’s the God’s honest truth. Don’t ask me how I expected her to react when I told her I was breaking up with Chloe, but it wasn’t like that.
It isn’t only because I can’t stand the thought of her going out with anyone else, although that’s definitely part of it. Would it make me sound like an egotistical jerk if I admitted I thought she’d be happy? I mean, I know she still has feelings for me. This thing isn’t one-sided. It can’t be.
“Alright, let me put it another way. It sure as hell looks like you want there to be, which considering you have a girlfriend, is a big problem.”
“Yeah, well, not for much longer.”
In the midst of raising the beer to his mouth, Mitch pauses midway, his eyes widening. Slowly, he lowers the bottle to the table and angles his right ear in my direction. “Come again?”
I take a long swallow of my beer before answering. “You heard me. I’m breaking up with Chloe.”
“Because of Erin,” he says, self-satisfaction in his tone and a knowing smirk on his face.
My gaze narrows to a glare. “Fuck you.”
That only has Mitch throwing his head back and laughing. “When are you going to listen to me?” he chides, looking irritatingly smug. “Not even two hours ago, I told you you weren’t over her. And she definitely isn’t over you. Do you know that since the two of you stopped sleeping together, Paige couldn’t so much as bring up your name in conversation? And the shit only got worse when you started seeing Chloe. And it’s not because she hates you. You’re like a raw nerve with her.”
Sighing, he sends me a sympathetic look. “You can’t paper over your problems even with someone like Chloe. Look how quickly you ran to Erin the second you thought she was in trouble.”
On our ride over to pick up Erin, he tried to beat it into my head with a fucking sledgehammer. I told him about the conversation we had at her job and not even that had deterred him.
“Oh, like you weren’t worried too? You came with me.”
“Of course I was. I care about her as much as Paige does. But you, my friend, are in love with her.”
“No, I’m not.”
Attracted to her? Yes.
In lust with her? Hell yes.
Care about her? Of course, how could I not. She’s been a staple in my life for six years.
But in love with her? Give me some credit, I’m not that far gone. Can’t I simply say she’s important to me and leave it at that? Why do people always want to bring love into the equation?
“Jesus, Josh, when are you going to stop lying to yourself? You’ve been nuts about her for years, and the number of women you sleep with isn’t going to change that. Face it, she’s the one who got away, and you want her back.”
Oh, I admit I want her back, but I want it to be different this time. Screw the fuck buddy thing. I want more. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with her.
“You seem to keep forgetting she’s the one who ended it. What’d you expect me to do, curl up in a hole and die?” How many times do I have to tell him? He was there. He knows. He was the one I had the good sense to call to pick my drunk ass up from Murdoch’s after she brought down the guillotine on our arrangement. It was then that I told him about us. His only surprise was that Erin had agreed to it.
“How about you finally tell her how you feel about her? That would be a good start.”
Mr. Home and Hearth over here now loves giving advice to us guys who didn’t meet the love of our lives in high school.
In high school for chrissakes.
“Tell her what?” I snap. “She’s the one who set the rules in the first place.”
Mitch’s brows jump in surprise.
“The sex-only thing was the only one she would agree to.” It’s the first time I’ve ever said the words aloud, and I can’t even look my best friend in the eye when I say it, preferring to study the beer bottle in front of me. I’d let Mitch believe we’d come by the decision mutually.
Call it too much machismo or ego, but I hadn’t wanted to admit to him—or myself—that I was more into her than she was into me. When she said she didn’t do one-night stands and didn’t want a relationship, I grasped at the only thing I could think of and that was no-strings sex. It had been my Hail Mary pass and it had worked because the physical attracti
on—the chemistry between us—was that strong.
I’m convinced she still feels the same. There’s her reaction to Chloe, the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not looking, that she crashed my date, and just how we are together. I know she feels something. Except now Chloe’s in the way and I need her gone.
Shaking his head in that what am I going to do with you way I still get from my mom, Mitch looks at me. “Do you even know Erin?”
“A helluva lot better than you.”
Mitch rolls his eyes. “Just because you had sex with her doesn’t mean you know her, asshole. Erin dates. She has relationships. She doesn’t do what she did with you. Before you, I’m sure sex-only wasn’t even in her vocabulary.”
“Way to rub it in.” Generally, women are not ashamed to be seen with me in public. I’m the kind of guy they don’t mind taking home to meet the parents. The girl I dated briefly before Erin called me a “catch”. But figures the one girl I want to have something with outside of the bedroom wouldn’t even let me take her out on a date.
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not rubbing anything in. She made an exception for you. That should tell you something, you idiot.”
Cheers erupt in the bar. I give a distracted look at the TV and see the Lakers are now up six points. I’m going to lose the basketball pool this week. I put my money on the Warriors winning it all.
Scowling, I turn my attention back to Mitch. “It tells me she didn’t want to date or have a relationship with me. She was just using me for sex.”
Mitch throws his hands up, exasperated. “C’mon, Josh, we’re talking about Erin. Of all the guys out there, she’s not going to use you for sex.”
Because of him and Paige, and the tangled knots that bind us together.
“You guys have just always had a weird ass relationship. Do you realize, the entire time you’ve known her, you’ve never let yourself get serious about anyone?”
“I’ve dated.” Although it feels like an attack, I try not to sound defensive.
“You’ve gone out on dates but how many with the same woman?”
He issues the question like a challenge. I wave it off. Who cares how many women I’ve gone out with more than two or three times since Stephanie? “I’m not going to be in a relationship just to be in one. Things have to click on more than one front.”
“You thought things clicked with Chloe,” he points out.
Shit, he doesn’t even know the half of it. “Chloe’s great. She is. She just isn’t for me.” And breaking up with her is going to be a bitch.
Mitch nods, soberly regarding me. “So what then? Are you going to make another go of it with Erin?”
Yes. God yes. If she’ll have me.
Outwardly, I play it cool, shrugging nonchalantly. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” What I do know is that I can’t trust myself around her—not when we’re alone. And the last thing I want to be is a guy who cheats. If there’s one thing my dad taught me, it’s to make a clean break before you move on. I’m happy to say, I’ve lived by those rules and I intend to keep it that way.
“Does she know? Is that what you guys were talking about in the car?”
“Yeah, and she asked me if I was doing it because she went out with Evan, who, by the way, I think she has another date with tomorrow.” I try to say his name without clenching my jaw. It doesn’t work.
“Is she right?”
“No—Yes— I mean, sort of.”
Mitch smirks. “So which is it?”
I take a long draw from my beer. He does the same, silently watching me. Waiting.
“It was bound to happen. The thing with Evan just sped things up,” I confess.
“Jealousy’s a bitch, ain’t it? I still remember offering to stay with Bree when I thought Paige had to work.” Mitch snorts humorlessly. “She was going on a study date. First time I ever crashed a date in my life. The look on the guy’s face when I showed up with Bree was priceless.”
He hadn’t told me about that. But then, back in the early days of his return home, he probably hadn’t told me everything that had been going on between him and Paige, and for good reason.
“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think any relationship you have right now is going to be Erin-proof.”
I can’t help but laugh. “That’s one helluva way to put it.”
Mitch’s expression sobers. “She likes you. A lot. I can tell. But first you need to get this shit with Chloe behind you.”
No kidding. “Don’t tell Paige we talked about it.” Then, realizing that may be asking too much of him, given his status of permanently whipped, I quickly amend it. “And if you can’t do that, tell her not to say anything to Erin.” I don’t want anything to get back to Chloe before I talk to her myself.
Mitch looks vaguely insulted. “What, you don’t think I can keep a secret anymore? I’m getting married not consumed.”
I bark out a laugh. “You could have fooled me.”
Mitch’s situation is a different ball of wax. He wasn’t there for Paige during her pregnancy, or for his daughter’s birth, and I know that’s something that still weighs on him. Suffice it to say, there’s absolutely nothing he won’t do for his two favorite “girls” and he’ll be forever grateful that Paige decided to give him another chance. She’s also forgiven me.
Yeah, not one of my best moments.
“I’m not going to say anything,” he protests.
“We’ll see.” I’m not fully convinced. We’ve been friends since forever and I trust him with my life, but I’ve seen how he is with Paige, and I’m sure they tell each other everything.
“That’s too bad about Chloe, though. Paige really likes her.”
I sigh. “Yeah, she’s sweet and everything but—”
“She’s not Erin.”
“I was going to say now isn’t the right time.”
He nods. “Right, because of Erin.”
Why do so many things in my life come back to her? I knew the second I met her she was either going to end up being a giant pain in my ass or would leave an indelible mark in my life. She’s done both.
Chapter Fifteen
Erin
We’re not done.
That’s what he’d said.
Three days ago.
I haven’t heard from him since the night of the kidnapping. Which means I have no idea if he’s made good on his words. Did he break up with Chloe? I’m on tenterhooks waiting to find out, and annoyed that he has me on tenterhooks.
Why haven’t I heard from him yet? What’s taking him so long?
Evan hasn’t said anything about it. He is her brother. She would have told him, wouldn’t she? But then again, even if she did, why would he tell me? The conversation we had on Saturday was short and we only talked about the kidnapping. In the end, I asked him if I could take a raincheck on our date.
When I told him life was crazy, I wasn’t lying.
If you want to know what happens when you prevent a child kidnapping, the last few days of my life are a pretty good guideline.
First came my firsthand account of the incident on my newspaper’s front page—a special Saturday afternoon edition. Now you know how I spent my weekend. To say that my editor, and more importantly (career wise) the editor-in-chief was thrilled beyond words that their very own lifestyle reporter thwarted a kidnapping would be an understatement.
Second, my not-very-daring act of calling 9-1-1 and following the kidnapper at a safe distance garnered me a one-way ticket out of the lifestyle department. As of Monday morning, I became a general reporter. From violent crimes to political scandals, if it’s newsworthy, you might see my name on the byline.
And lastly, but certainly not least, the national media had quickly picked up the story and simultaneously converged. My fifteen minutes of fame has earned me appearances on three of the top evening news shows, two I did yesterday, and today—tonight to be precise—I spoke with Erin Burnett via satellite from their downt
own office in Atlanta. Literally within walking distance from where I work.
It’s after eight o’clock and getting dark by the time I leave, and quarter to nine when I arrive home.
I’m in the kitchen changed into my comfy leggings and my Be Your Own Hero t-shirt warming up yesterday’s leftover Chinese takeout when I get the call.
The call.
You’ll see what I mean.
The number looks vaguely familiar but it’s one that isn’t programmed into my phone and I have yet to add caller ID to my plan. Something I should probably consider now that I’m being called a “shero” by the media. Let’s face it, people are suckers for happy endings, especially those involving children.
“Hello?” Phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, I carry my microwaved fried rice and orange chicken to the table in the nook.
“Hi Erin, it’s Chloe.”
A myriad of thoughts stampede through my mind. Oh God, she found out about me and Josh.
Calm down, Erin. Breathe.
After setting my plate down, I cautiously lower myself onto the closest chair. I stare out of the bay window in front of me and into the backyard. The rippling waters of the pool dominate my view.
“Hi Chloe.” As if it hadn’t been awkward enough before, now it’s exponentially more so.
“I saw you on the news yesterday. You’re so brave. You saved that little girl’s life.”
“Well, uh, thanks.” How many times can I say, Anyone else would have done the same? The gushing praise makes me uncomfortable. All I can do is take it in stride and stress how instrumental the AMBER Alert system is in saving lives. In other words, Don’t praise me, praise the great system and the cops who actually saved her.
“Anyway, that’s not why I called. Paige said you live near the golf course near Attleberry. Is that true?”
Uh oh. A knot begins to form in my stomach. “Um, yes.”
“Great.” The relief in her voice ratchets up my sense of foreboding. “I’m actually in the neighborhood,” she remarks, sounding as casual as can be.
Played (Trapped Book 3) Page 12
