by Jolie, Meg
“What happened in here?” Jesse wondered.
Carly stomped to the closest cupboard and peered inside. It was empty.
“Unbelievable!” she cried as she moved down to the next one. “He took everything! Even my favorite cereal!” With that, she turned around and stormed to the bedroom. “He even took the sheets off the bed!” she cried. Granted, she couldn’t remember which one of them they belonged to, but still!
Another quick scan of the room left her fuming. He’d left his dresser drawers hanging open. The closet door was also open. She could see that while pulling out his things, he’d carelessly knocked several of her things off the hangers. They rested in a heap on the closet floor. She started plucking them up again before she remembered that Jesse was with her. When she turned around, he was gone.
Before she could worry about it, she heard the unmistakable sound of cupboard doors and drawers being closed. She let out a little sigh as she quickly assessed her clothing. Surprisingly, the wrinkles had been kept to a minimum so she hung everything back up again. Then she closed the dresser drawers, pulled out the spare set of sheets and quickly made her bed.
When she finished, she slumped down on the edge of it. Dragging her hands through her hair, she let out a little whimper. Would there be no end to the way Nolan could mess with her life? How could he be so damn cheap that he’d taken the groceries out of the cupboard and the sheets right off of the bed?! As if his sole purpose was to strip her of absolutely everything.
“Hey.”
She’d placed her hands over her face and hadn’t heard Jesse enter her bedroom. He took a seat on the bed next to her.
“Hey,” she said back.
“You okay?”
To her horror, she started to cry. Being back in this room brought back the feeling of humiliation in a storm of emotion. Seeing the empty cupboards and the bare closet only added to her feelings of frustration. Nolan had left her in such a mess. She still didn’t have the deposit money to return to her parents and she had rent to pay. Now she had groceries to buy. So she certainly wasn’t crying because she missed him, or anything that foolish. She was simply mad.
Fuming.
One thing she hated about herself was that when she was furious and frustrated, she tended to cry.
Jesse immediately pulled her into a hug. She hated that she was literally crying all over his shoulder but she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. He didn’t seem to mind. He patted her back and ran his hands through her hair. All the while, he was murmuring softly in her ear.
As suddenly as her tears started, she managed to stop them. She pulled away and swiped at her face.
“Sorry about that,” she muttered. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s just that everything is such a mess. And I’m not talking about what he did to the house.”
Jesse was eyeing her sympathetically. “Is it hard? Coming back here where you lived with him?”
She let out a surprised laugh. “No. That’s not what I meant at all.”
“What did you mean then?” he pressed. When she fidgeted and looked away, he pushed a little harder. “Come on, Carly. Either you trust me or you don’t. If you trust me, you should be able to talk to me.”
“I do trust you.” She was surprised that she meant it. She had been saying it, but this time, she realized she truly meant it.
“Then talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you.”
She had an internal debate. While in Lanford, she’d been able to ignore her problems. The biggest being how she was going to be able to keep this house for the next five months. She was also feeling a niggling little pang of guilt because she hadn’t told her parents about the predicament she’d gotten herself into. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell her mom that the mess she’d gotten herself into was even bigger than she’d first admitted. She just couldn’t do it. But could she tell Jesse?
She decided that she could. He’d asked very little about her break-up with Nolan. Carly was sure that he was waiting for her to tell him the details when she was ready. While she wasn’t ready to tell him all of it, she decided she could start with this. So she told Jesse about how she had fibbed to her parents about who she was living with. She admitted to him that she was now in a financial bind. Not only was her savings mostly depleted, this was a horrible time of year to try to search for a job. And worst of all, in her mind, her classes were going to be tough this semester. She didn’t want her grades to slip, which she was afraid they would do if she couldn’t devote all of her time to her studies.
Jesse looked relieved by her confession. As if he was expecting it to be something much worse. Somehow, that made her feel better. Finally he said, “I can give you the money Carly. Just tell me how much you need.”
She shook her head. That was not why she’d told him and she didn’t want him to think it was. “That’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would feel wrong! I can’t take your money. That would make me feel like…like a kept woman or something.” She was trying to keep the tone light, not wanting to insult him, but still wanting to get her point across.
Jesse laughed at her. “A what?”
“A kept woman? Like a mistress. Or something. A woman you keep for your pleasure. You know, like in the olden days? When the rich man keeps a woman on the side, paying all of her expenses?”
He looped his arms around her. “Oh, I plan on keeping you for my pleasure. And it doesn’t matter if I help you with your rent or not.”
She squirmed in his arms. “Still. I’m not taking your money.”
“So let me loan it to you. You can pay me back whenever. Or never. Whatever works for you.”
“Pay you back?” Carly asked. “You mean when I get an actual job?”
Jesse shrugged. “Yeah, whenever you can. It’s not a big deal, Carly. I have a good job. I’ve got a pretty decent savings account. I do work at a bank you know,” he teased. “So I do pretty well with money.”
She looked at him hesitantly.
“Come on, Cricket. It’s just a loan. And I don’t mean to be an ass but really, you’re just about out of options.”
“Can I pay you interest?”
“No.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“But,” she said, “you don’t even know how much I need.”
He pulled his checkbook out. “How much?” She told him and he didn’t even flinch. “I told you Carly, I’d do anything for you. Whether it’s a ride. Help moving. A loan. Someone to talk to. Whatever.”
She nodded slowly. When she said, “Thank you,” it was barely audible.
He sighed as he ripped out the check and placed it on her nightstand. “Why do you have that look on our face? Like you’re surprised that I really want to help you?”
She shrugged and tears prickled behind her eyes again. This time, for an entirely different reason.
“These past three weeks,” Jesse began, “they’ve maybe been three of the best weeks of my life. I want you to know that. My mistake in the past was never letting you know how I felt. Now, I want you to be completely clear. I love you, Carly. I want you in my life.”
She couldn’t find the words she needed to answer him right then. She swiped at her eyes as she tried to swallow down the lump that was clogging her throat.
“Do you know what the worst thing about this is?” he quietly asked. “I don’t know what I am to you. After all of these years, I still don’t know. Most of the time in the past, I felt like I was nothing more than a conquest that you’d set out to destroy. Like I was a bad habit you just couldn’t break. Or an obsession you just couldn’t free yourself from. I don’t want to be your obsession. I want to be your passion. I don’t ever want you to be free of me.”
“When did you turn into such a romantic?” Carly demanded.
“The moment you let me think just maybe you’d accept me this way. You know, I don’t exactly like being a ja
ckass,” he said with a small smirk. “I love you, Carly. I want you to stop holding things back from me. I want to be with you. Not just now but a year from now. Ten years from now. A hundred years from now.”
“I want to be with you too,” she said.
They weren’t exactly the words he wanted to hear. But they were close enough. He’d settle with them for now.
15
“He was going to write a letter.”
“What?” Jesse asked. His was voice groggy. They had spent the day together, of course. Carly had cashed his check, paid her rent, paid her tuition with her parents’ money and purchased her textbooks. After that, Jesse had insisted on taking her to the grocery store. He restocked the cupboards that Nolan had emptied.
Then he’d made her dinner. She was quickly finding out that pasta was his specialty. While he was working on the main course, she attempted another dessert. She was beginning to realize that while cooking might not be her thing, maybe baking wasn’t so bad. Other than the disastrous cookies she’d made with the help of Carter, her baking usually turned out pretty well.
They’d eaten manicotti with a chocolate torte for dessert. With dinner, they’d finished off a bottle of wine.
Now they were curled up on her couch, watching some bad made-for-TV-movie since Nolan had taken all of their DVDs. Carly was just relieved he’d left her TV behind.
“Nolan,” she said. It had taken her all day to gather up enough courage to make this confession to Jesse. Maybe to others, it wouldn’t seem like a big deal. To her? It was a very big deal. It was humiliating and mortifying and not something she wanted to talk about. Yet, Jesse had been so open with her lately. She wanted to give something back to him. “He wasn’t even going to tell me to my face. He was going to end the engagement in a letter. Not even a letter. It was more like a stupid little note. And…”
He leaned back from her, watching her face as he waited her out.
“He initiated sex. Like nothing was wrong. Then I left for class but I forgot my phone so I had to come back. I found him packed, ready to go. He was going to leave me with nothing but a note. He wasn’t going to even say goodbye.”
“He really is a bastard, isn’t he?” Jesse said softly.
“Well,” Carly said, “I think so. Anyway, I just wanted you to know. I didn’t even tell Quinn that. I mean, I told Jemma, because she’s been through crap like that, too. But I just couldn’t make myself tell Quinn.”
Jesse was quiet for a moment before saying, “Why not?”
“Because it’s humiliating,” Carly whispered.
“It shouldn’t be. Not for you anyway. All that does is show what kind of person he is.”
“And me because I was stupid enough to fall for him. Oh, and there’s more,” she said, pushing the words out through her constricted throat. “The ring? It was a fake. I mean, he probably got it at some discount warehouse because it wasn’t worth a thing.”
Jesse groaned. “Ah, Carly, I’m so sorry. You deserve so much better than that.”
“That’s it. Those are the things I’ve been holding back. The note and the truth about the ring,” she said. “I wanted to tell you because you’ve been so honest with me. From the start of this, you’ve just been so honest and open.”
“Actually…” he began. His voice was quiet and hesitant.
Carly tensed beside him. Fear suddenly snaked through her. She finally bared a small piece of her heart to Jesse. Now was he going to throw it back at her? Tell her he hadn’t been open and honest at all?
What if this whole thing had been a game to him? What if this was the ultimate payback? She felt the blood drain from her face as she moved to jump from the couch.
Jesse latched onto her wrist, anchoring her in place.
“Hear me out?” His tone was pleading. His expression was pained. Carly knew, without being told, that whatever he had to say was going to be hard on him.
“What?” she asked. Her tone was crisp.
He didn’t take his eyes off of her when he said, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. You’re not going to like it. I don’t like it. You wanted to know why I stayed with Betsy so long? The answer I gave you before is only part of it.”
A sick feeling coursed through her. She hated talking about Betsy. The thought of Jesse with her, his long-term ex, made her feel things she hated to feel.
He raked his hand through his hair. “I maybe should’ve told you this weeks ago. I just wanted to make sure our relationship was really going somewhere first. But there never seemed to be a good time. I mean, I still don’t feel like it’s a good time. Then again, for something like this, there never is. So, I’m sorry. I’m telling you that ahead of time.”
Carly swallowed down the growing lump of dread. “Whatever it is, just tell me. Just say it. Get it over with.”
“I got her pregnant.”
His words were like an emotional dagger, striking her straight in the heart. She heard her breath catch and the dagger twisted when she saw the tormented look on Jesse’s face.
“What happened?” she asked quietly. Where’s the baby, she wanted to know. Jesse’s baby…?
“I don’t know how to do this. I mean, where to start. So I guess I’ll just start at the beginning. Kind of,” he said, looking unsure. “We’d been dating six, maybe seven months. You were with Nolan by that point and I was trying real damn hard to let you go.
“Anyhow, I ended up getting her pregnant. She—”
“Are you sure?” Carly interrupted. “I mean, if you…if that happened, I would’ve thought she’d want everyone to know.” Carly couldn’t imagine that Betsy would keep that a secret. In fact, from what little she knew of her, she wouldn’t have doubted if she’d gotten pregnant on purpose. Or maybe she’d only pretended to be pregnant. Carly was sure there was no baby. Lanford was too small to let something like that slip by people.
“Yeah, well, I’m getting to that.” He licked his lips nervously as he tried to gauge her reaction so far. “At first, I didn’t believe her. I think because I didn’t want to believe her. So she took a test in front of me. It was positive.”
Carly gave a little nod. That answered that question, then. Betsy hadn’t been pretending.
“She, uh…she wanted to get married. Right away, before the baby came. I just couldn’t commit to that. I was really struggling. I mean, I was more than willing to do my part to help with the baby.” He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath before opening them again. “It was right after Jake died. So my perspective on life had taken a huge hit. I won’t lie and say I was excited about the baby. At the same time, I think I took it better than I would’ve before Jake’s death. It wasn’t the baby I had a problem with,” he clarified. “It was Betsy. I knew I wasn’t ready to marry her.”
Carly’s body had exploded with a million pinpricks of anxiety. She couldn’t even define how horrible the thought of Jesse and Betsy creating a baby together made her feel. She wanted to ask him to hurry the story along. Yet, she could see this was something he was struggling with. She leaned back against the cushions, patiently waiting him out.
“I don’t want to get into details. I’ll just say that I tried to convince her that we didn’t need to rush into marriage. And that I would do my part with the baby either way. She wasn’t having it. She started threatening me. She said if we didn’t get married that she was going to have an abortion.”
So that’s what happened to the baby, Carly thought. She felt her heart ache because judging by the expression on Jesse’s face, that’s not what he’d wanted at all.
“I’m guessing that’s why she never told anyone. She didn’t want people to think badly of her if they knew she was pregnant and was constantly threatening me with an abortion. So we kept it to ourselves. I kept trying to talk her out of it. She kept telling me her mind was made up. If I didn’t marry her, there would be no baby. So I was seriously considering it because with each passing day, I felt myself getting mo
re attached to that little life,” Jesse said quietly. “Part of the reason I didn’t tell anyone was because Jake had just died. I didn’t feel right running around telling people we were having a baby. It felt wrong, you know?
“I missed Jake so damn much that first month,” Jesse admitted. “I know it’s selfish of me, but that’s when I could’ve used him the most. He and Quinn had just gone through the same thing. Well, except for one huge, obvious difference. They loved the hell out of each other so when it came to the baby, there was no choice at all.”
Carly worked hard at keeping her mouth shut. She knew Carter had been a surprise, truly unplanned. But she did not doubt one bit that there was a very good chance Betsy had gotten pregnant on purpose. Maybe she’d even gotten the idea in her head because of Quinn and Jake. A few years ago, she would’ve jumped at the chance to point that out. Now, she realized what’s done is done.
She pushed aside the nagging bit of spitefulness she felt. There were more important things to contend with. Jesse’s feelings being first and foremost. She knew Jake and Jesse had been best friends since their Little League days. She had spoken with him briefly at Jake’s funeral and she knew first hand that he’d been completely wrecked. To find out, only weeks later, that he was going to be faced with one of the biggest surprises in his life, only to know his best friend wouldn’t be there? It had to have been horrible. Jesse would’ve relied on Jake to help him through it. To make sense of it. She knew Jake would’ve listened and done his best to give him level-headed advice.
Jesse hadn’t been able to get that. He had still been grieving over his best friend’s sudden death on top of it. She realized it had to have been a horrible time for him.
“I didn’t have anyone to talk to,” Jesse said, confirming the conclusion she’d come to. “Shane, he’s going to be a perpetual bachelor. Bart, he’s got a big mouth. Luke was in no condition to talk to anyone right then.”
