I heard her soft cry while I hurried down the stairs and into the darkness. Don’t look back, I commanded myself while I rushed down the sidewalk. I didn’t dare stop at my truck. If she climbed inside again, I knew I’d have her pressed up against the door, my lips leading the charge in destroying my last shred of resolution. Instead I kept walking, kept moving, as far away from Cassie as I could.
When I finally slowed down, I was at the docks. My boat bobbed in the water just up ahead. Deciding peace and quiet on the water was just what I needed to calm down, I started down the docks toward my boat. The silhouette of a man casting into the water slowed my feet. As I got closer, my slowed steps stuttered to a stop. It was Matt.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I groaned. Was the universe playing a cruel joke on me? Nowhere was safe tonight. Cassie commanded the Blue Ox, and it seemed Matt had taken up on the docks. My docks.
“Jake?” Matt asked, looking over from where he reeled in his line.
“I’ll go,” I grumbled, turning away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be down here. I’ll go. I just wanted to fish a little tonight. It’s been a while.”
Fishing these docks together was something he and I had done countless times since we were kids. Spinning on my heel, I started away. “Whatever. I’ll go. This is just the perfect end to my fucking day.”
He set down his rod and jogged to my side, stopping in front of me.
“I wouldn’t get in my way, if I were you.” I leveled him with a glare while he blocked me from leaving.
“Jake. I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. None. But I’m asking anyway. I miss you. I miss us. And I know I don’t deserve it. But can you? Can you forgive me?”
A laugh ripped out of me. Bending over, I pressed my hands into my thighs. At this point in my night, laughing was all I could do now. The unexpected reaction sent Matt back a step, and it surprised me as much as it did him. “More people wanting my forgiveness tonight.” My laugh deepened. “You know, the really shitty part about this, Matt? I’m neck-deep in shit right now, and the one person I know could pull me out of it is you. If you hadn’t screwed my fiancée, I’d be asking you to meet me on these docks and fish it out while you helped me dig myself out of the hole. Because that’s who you were to me. My best friend. My brother. The person I relied on most in this world. But here we are. I’m drowning, we’re on the docks, and I can’t even talk to you about it because, you know, you fucked my fiancée!” I laughed harder.
“Jake,” he said, pressing a hand on my shoulder. “Talk to me.” With a powerful shrug, I sent him back a step.
“Don’t touch me. You aren’t my friend anymore. You gave up that right when you betrayed me.”
“I get it. I do.” He lifted his hands but held his ground. “What I did...” He blew out a puff of air. “Unforgiveable. And I don’t expect you to forgive me. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still talk to me. If you’re in shit, I can help you out. No one on this planet knows you better than I do.”
“That’s the worst part. I know you could. I know you would know just what to say to help me find my way out. It’s not that Nikki cheated on me that hurt so bad. It’s that it was with you and because of it, I lost you as my best friend. You didn’t even have the balls to tell me. I had to find out from rumors around town. And you know better than anyone how much I value honesty. Hell, I may have even forgiven you, if you’d have just come to me.”
His eyes fell to the ground. “I know, Jake. I know. It was so messed up. I was drunk and–”
“I was drunk?” I laughed again. “That’s the big excuse? Sorry I got drunk and banged your fiancée?”
“... and I thought I was in love with her.”
Those words shoved the laughter back down my throat and I turned to face him. “What?”
He heaved a sigh. Sorrow-filled eyes rose to meet mine. “I thought I was in love with her since I first saw her the day she moved here freshman year. But she wanted you. And I was happy for you. I was. So, I sat on the sidelines and watched you with the girl I thought I loved. And I did nothing. Because you were my best friend. My brother. It was agony spending all that time, all those years, watching you two together. But I was happy for you.”
With a slack-jaw, I could only stare at him, blinking.
“When you got engaged, it broke my heart. Deep down I’d always expected you’d break up, then I’d get your blessing to ask her out. That one of these days it would be my turn. Every time you broke up, I waited for the right moment to ask your permission, but then she always came running back to you and it was too late.”
“I... I had no idea.”
“I know. I didn’t want you to. I thought she made you happy. But that one night, I was so drunk, and she kissed me. It was wrong, and I knew it. But it felt like I was under some kind of spell. After all those years of wondering what it felt like to be you, to feel her kiss, it was finally happening. And I let it. I was drunk, sure. But I knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t stop myself. The next thing you know it snowballed from there, and I was still powerless to stop it.”
We stood locked in a silent stare. Before I met Cassie, I wouldn’t have understood what it meant to be powerless to deny a woman, but now I understood all too well.
“You were in love with her?” I stammered.
With a shrug, he nodded. “Thought I was in love with her. Turns out she’s a pretty shitty person and I spent a lot of years dreaming about a girl who didn’t exist.” He snorted. “But just because I had spent all those years coveting her, it doesn’t make what I did right. Or okay. Or forgivable. But I just wanted you to know why. Not that you’d understand. You’d never have done that to me. No matter how much you wanted the girl.”
He was right about that. But there was one thing I understood more than he knew. The power a woman could wield over your good sense.
“You should have told me how you felt about her, Matt.”
“How do you tell your best friend you’re crazy about his girl?”
“Well, screwing her was definitely not the best way.” I arched a brow.
Sucking the air through his teeth, he gave me a sheepish grin. “Yes. I can see that now. Hindsight and all.”
My soft snort snuck out, and the corner of my lip almost pulled into a smile. I missed his sense of humor.
“So. Now you know. And if it makes you feel any better, after years of thinking she was the girl I wanted, of fighting my attraction to her, it turns out we wanted nothing to do with each other. I’d been wrong all along. So, all I got out of my massive fuck up was a shattered life without a friend in the world.”
I scowled. “I know how that feels.”
“Not good.”
“Nope. Not good. Though, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find some enjoyment in the fact you got your heart crushed, too.”
“It is well-deserved.”
“Very well-deserved.”
The water lapped at the dock and I heard a fish breech the water. We both looked toward the sound. “Fish are biting tonight,” Matt said.
“Yeah?” I asked, now itching to catch one.
“Grab your pole. We could try to snag a few?”
The weighted question hung between us. With the bulk of my problems settling on my shoulders, all I wanted right now was to have Matt help me sort through this mess. He’d been my sounding board even as children. My partner in crime. And tonight, more than ever, I missed the way he could always help steer me out of the dark.
“Okay,” I answered.
His eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
“Don’t get too excited. I just want to snag that fish.” I pursed my lips.
But even with my hesitant stare, I saw the smile start on his face. “Got it. Just grab your pole. They’re biting on white.”
With a sharp nod, I turned back to my boat and grabbed my rod and tackle box. Matt cast into the water while I got set up, using the white lure like he’d suggested. A
fish grabbed his lure and the whirring of the reel got us both excited while I watched him fight the fish. The line snapped.
“Damn it!” He laughed.
“My turn.” I grinned and cast where I’d last seen the ripples.
“You’re on.” He cast beside me, and we exchanged a familiar smile while we reeled simultaneously. It was the same look we’d shared as boys, then teenagers, and eventually grown men when we’d race each other to catch fish off this dock.
The fish grabbed my lure, and I set the hook.
“Lucky cast!” Matt jibed while I fought him in. “Bet you lose him, too!”
“Watch and learn, Matt. Watch and learn.” I battled the fish for a minute before the tension on my line disappeared without warning. “Shit.”
Matt’s laugh echoed across the water. “Watch and learn? Learn what? How to lose a fish?”
“Shut up.” I laughed.
We tied on new lures, and with a challenging look, we both cast back into the water.
“So, you gonna tell me what’s got you in shit up to your neck?”
“It’s a long story,” I grumbled, flashes of moments with Cassie invading my mind.
“I’ve got time.” He glanced over his shoulder while we reeled in the last of our lines. Once again, we cast them back out into the water.
“It’s a girl.”
“I figured that much. What happened?”
“Well, let’s just say I might understand more than you’d know about women stripping us of our good sense.”
“Oh, yeah? That good, huh? So, what happened?”
“She lied.”
“Little lie or big lie?”
We cast again.
“Big lie.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Before I knew it, I unloaded my problems back onto Matt’s shoulders just like I had since we were kids. We stood on the dock, casting and reeling for hours as I told him the whole story. He listened while I told him about the girl I’d found stuck in a porch step under attack from a pine snake. The girl who’d fallen out of my truck. The one who I’d kissed in the lake. Made love to on my boat. The girl I’d given my heart to only to have her crush it to dust. When I got done, finishing up with seeing her tonight, I heard the rush of air come out of his lips.
“Whoa,” he breathed.
“Yeah. Whoa.”
“That’s a whole lotta messed up.”
“Yep.”
“So now what?”
“Now I have no idea. I move?”
Matt laughed. “You know you’ll never leave here.”
Shrugging, I cast again. “True.”
“Do you love her?”
“What?” I snapped, turning to look at him.
“Do you love her?” he asked again, casting his line.
“I just met her.”
He scoffed. “So. You don’t have to know someone for years to be in love with them. Sometimes it just takes one look.”
I remembered how I’d felt the first time I saw her. It felt like the world had tipped upside down.
“So? Do you love her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” I answered.
“So that’s a yes.”
“It’s a maybe,” I argued.
Matt responded with a laugh. “Look at me.”
I turned, and we locked eyes. “What?”
“Do. You. Love. Her?”
Holding his eyes, I started to look away.
“Ah! Look me in the eye and answer me. Do you love her?”
I stood in silence for a moment while mirth danced in his eyes. When I saw her face flashing through my mind again, I sighed. Matt knew me too well. There was no use in trying to lie when I answered the question I hadn’t known the answer to just a minute ago. “Yes.” The weight of the admission nearly took me to my knees.
“Well? Then what else is there?”
“She lied to me, Matt.”
“Oh, come on, Jake. No one is perfect. God knows I’m not, and you’ve forgiven me.”
“Who said I’ve forgiven you?” I arched a brow.
He only smiled and cast again. “Well, you’re going to have to forgive one of us. If you don’t, both the Ox and the Cornerstone are off limits to you.” Waggling his brows, he grinned wider. “And there you’ll be... loveless. And whiskey-less.”
“Shit.” I laughed. “I suppose I do need to forgive one of you.”
“Or both?” He turned toward me. “Maybe you need to forgive us both.”
Forgiveness didn’t come easy for me. Every time I’d tried in the past, I’d been burned. Nikki was the perfect example. Yet when I stared into those familiar eyes, I wanted nothing more than to forgive him. To have my friend back. My happiness back. Well, at least part of it. The other half of my happiness was still slinging drinks at the Blue Ox.
“I’ll think about it,” I answered, but the look that passed between us was one that needed no other words. After decades of friendship, he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Smiling, he turned back to the water and continued reeling in his line.
A fish bit my line and I snagged it, careful this time not to reel too fast.
“Oh, come on! That one was mine!” Matt teased while I brought it in. This time I was careful not to go too fast, and soon the silvery scales glistened in the dim light when it surfaced by the dock.
“I got it!” Matt said, lying on his stomach and reaching into the water. With a swoop of his hand, he caught it by the gills and lifted it up. We stood grinning at the size of the monster trout he held up.
“Teamwork makes the dream work!” He grinned and pushed it toward me.
“Shit! That thing put up a fight!” I panted as I caught my breath.
“The best things come at the end of the biggest battles.”
His veiled words settled over me while he peered at me from behind the big fish. This time I felt like it was me squirming on the end of the line. I’d waged a battle against my feelings for Cassie. I’d run, she had pulled, I’d swam toward her, and she’d kept the tension just right. Even though I’d thought I’d broken free, when I’d seen her tonight, I’d felt the tension tighten again. She still had me on the end of the line. And now I didn’t think I wanted to toss the hook. This time, I wanted to give up my battle and let her reel me in.
“Are you keeping it?” he asked.
“No. Toss it back. I’ve got to go see about a girl.”
With a growing smile, he nodded. Leaning over the edge, he put the fish back in the water and rocked it until it burst free. He stood and pressed a hand on my shoulder.
“Go get your happy ending, man. You deserve it.”
Staring into the eyes of my oldest friend, a slow nod tipped my head. I felt all my anger and all my hurt dissolving beneath his apologetic gaze. I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. We embraced for only a moment before I patted his shoulder and stepped back.
“Thanks, Matt. I needed this.”
“Anytime, friend,” he said. “If I can still call myself that?”
Shaking my head, I smiled. “You’ll always be my friend. My brother. But if you so much as look at this girl sideways, I swear to God I’ll finish what I started at the Ox.”
He raised his hands against my glare. “Hell. No! Never again! I’d sooner pluck out my own eyes before I covet your girl again. I’m still chewing slow after our last encounter.” Rubbing his jaw, he gave me that playful smile I’d missed so much.
Smiling, I gave him a nod. He was worth forgiving. Worth a second chance. The bonds of brotherhood between us were woven too tight.
“Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Bars closing. You’d better go get your girl.”
With a nod, I walked off. There was one other person I needed to forgive tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cassie
“Seriously, Jo. Go home. I’ll close up. It’s the least I can do after leaving you short-handed this week.” I pushed the ra
g down the bar.
“You sure?” she asked. The exhaustion shone through her eyes from almost a week trying to keep the Blue Ox afloat in high-season without me.
“Positive. I owe you a lot for giving me a second chance.”
“Let’s be honest. I was just short-staffed.” She laughed, giving me a little well-deserved side-eye.
“Well I’m still grateful for the chance to come back. You don’t understand how much this job, and this place, mean to me.”
“So, you’re really not going to take any money from your grandpa? You could be traveling in jets and limos, and you’re going to keep driving that rust-bucket around?”
“It’s my rust-bucket, and I kind of love of it.” I grinned, pulling glasses out of the dishwasher.
“You’re a strange bird, Cassie. But I dig it. Good for you to stand up on your own. You know how I feel about rich people, so I’m glad you’re no longer one of them.”
Laughing, I sucked the air through my teeth. “I mean, I do have a hefty trust fund headed my way someday, but maybe I can change your mind about rich people.”
“We’ll see. If you can survive on your own for a while, maybe, just maybe, I won’t hate you when you inherit your millions.” She winked.
“Yeah. It’s about time. I mean, I’m sad I lost the chance to run the company, but this will be a good place for me to start climbing up the ladder myself. Just like my grandpa did.”
“You really think you could have run a billion-dollar company?” She arched a brow. “The girl who couldn’t figure out what went in a gin and tonic?”
Bursting into laughter, I shook my head. “I actually have an MBA from Columbia if you can believe it. Waitressing, bartending, fishing? No clue. Running a company? That I’ve got down pat. Or, I would have, if I’d been given a chance.”
“I’m sorry you missed out on it.”
“Me, too. But I can’t blame Grandpa for giving up on me. I was a disaster.”
“Hey,” she said, showing a glimpse of her softer side. “You went through a lot. I get that now. At least he’s forgiven you. That’s a start.”
The Other Half (Door Peninsula Passions Book 1) Page 22
