Since He Really Feels (He Feels)

by Lisa Suzanne

  I suddenly felt like a fool. For so many different reasons.

  I’d risked my relationship with Nick to make sure that Travis was okay, and as I looked at the man in front of me, I knew without a doubt that he was okay. He looked really, really good. He was thriving in San Diego. Without me.

  “I know you did. And I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but maybe you shouldn’t have. You’ve got your thing going on in Arizona, and I’ve got mine here in California.”

  I gazed at him, surprised that the man in front of me was doing as well as he was. “You’re really okay?” I asked.

  “Sort of. I have… um, plans for the night. I have to leave in less than an hour.”

  Oh.

  So I drove six hours to see him, and he had plans.

  I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I stared down at the floor. “Oh, okay. I don’t want to keep you.” I paused, and then I looked up at him. “Here,” I said, holding the necklace out.

  He shook his head as his eyes met mine. “I gave that to you. It’s yours.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. In fact, I was a little worried that if I spoke, I’d start crying.

  “Do you have somewhere to stay?” he asked.

  I didn’t. I hadn’t thought that far ahead; we’d always had such an open relationship that I just figured I’d stay with him. I shook my head.

  “We’ve got a guest room,” he said.

  “No, I don’t want to impose,” I said halfheartedly.

  “Yes, you do. You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t expect me to offer.”

  “You know me well.”

  He smiled, but I could tell it wasn’t sincere. “BFFs for life, right?”

  I smiled back, but mine was sincere. “I hope so, Trav.”

  “Read your email.” He gestured over to the couch. “Make yourself at home. I’m sorry I can’t stay to talk. I have to go change.”

  He walked down the hall and I took a seat on his couch. I took out my phone, and the first thing I did was text Nick. I’d been texting him periodically throughout the day, but I hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d left the house earlier that morning.

  I’m safe in San Diego. I’m sorry, Nick. I love you.

  Then I pulled open my email and located the one from Travis. It had just been sent a few minutes earlier.

  Julianne,

  Thank you for the heartfelt apology. I don’t doubt your sincerity. What you did killed a part of me, but you should know that I’m doing okay. I’m not angry anymore. Your friendship has meant everything to me for the better part of twenty years, and while I might need some more time to get over what you did, I know that I can’t cut you out of my life completely.

  You should also know that this change of heart has come at the suggestion of someone I met. It’s a long story, but she made me see that I couldn’t move on with her until I fixed things with you. That’s what prompted my call the other day, and your news shocked me. I didn’t react well, and I apologize for going into hiding for a couple of days. Someday I hope I can be happy for you. It’s a strange realization that you and I aren’t going to end up together, but I’ve figured out that there’s actually someone else I’m meant to end up with.

  I wish you the best, and I’ll be in touch when I’m ready.

  Travis

  As I finished reading the email, I realized exactly how right Nick had been. Travis just needed time, and I ignored Nick and followed my instinct, which clearly had been wrong.

  He’d met someone.

  Someone who he’d bonded with enough to tell the story of us.

  Travis didn’t need me in his life anymore.

  I felt my heart splinter in two. On the one hand, my heart was so full with Nick there. But on the other hand, my heart was breaking because the one person I’d spent so much of my life depending on no longer depended on me.

  I was a fool, and I knew it. But the hardest part of it all was going to be admitting that I’d messed everything up. I wasn’t sure if Nick was even talking to me or where I stood with him.

  “Jules!” I heard Travis’s voice, and it pulled me out of my jumbled thoughts.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need your help with something.”

  I made my way down the hall toward his voice, and I found Travis in his closet. It was reminiscent of that morning when I’d watched Nick looking through his clothes. I just watched him for a moment with curiosity.

  “What can I do?” I finally asked.

  Our eyes met, and I found that something had changed in his. He was looking at me like I was his little sister. I saw none of the heat and passion and lust that I’d grown accustomed to seeing there but hadn’t recognized for what it was. “I need a suit,” he said. “Nice shirt and tie combo. Shoes, the whole deal.”

  “I’m on it,” I said, looking through his clothes. It’s funny how easy it was to slip back into the role of best friend. I couldn’t think of a time in our shared history when I hadn’t picked out his clothes for him for all of his major life events. Even if I hadn’t been there to physically help him, I’d talked him through more than one outfit over the phone. “Can I ask what this is for?”

  “Did you read your email?”

  I felt my face heating. “Yes.” I didn’t look up from his clothes because I didn’t want him to know how embarrassed I was that I’d made this journey to San Diego when I clearly shouldn’t have.

  “It’s the girl that I referenced in my email. I sort of… fucked things up royally, and I’ve been spending my entire day trying to make it right. I’m ending the day with a pretty bold move.”

  “What’s the bold move?” I asked, pulling a white button down shirt off of the hanger and handing it to him. I flipped through his ties, pausing for a moment on a red one that reminded me of the one Nick had chosen that morning.

  God, I was an idiot.

  “I’m sending a limo to her place to pick her up and bring her to me. I’ll be waiting at a classy wine bar.”

  I glanced up at him, and I was surprised to find that he looked anxious. “Sounds nice, Trav.”

  “I was hoping for better than ‘nice,’” he said wryly.

  It felt strange listening to his bold move for another woman after all we’d been through recently. He told me that he loved me just a few weeks earlier, and now he was going after some other girl while all I felt was confused. “Sounds romantic. I don’t know what you want me to say. This is weird.”

  “What’s weird?” he asked, and then he pulled his t-shirt over his head to change into the white button down shirt I’d handed him. I stole a glance at his body, and I was briefly transported to the night he’d made love to me, the night when I’d been heartbroken over Nick and couldn’t focus on the amazing man in front of me. I felt a stab of regret in my gut for the way I’d treated him. He really was just an all around good guy. And his toned and athletic body wasn’t hard to look at.

  I felt a little breathless as I answered his question. “Giving you advice about another woman.”

  “It never was weird before.”

  “Before?” I asked, handing him a blue tie.

  He took the tie and gazed at it for a second, and then he spoke without looking up. “Before I told you how I felt.” He placed the tie on his dresser as I froze at his words.

  “Can we get back there?” I asked hopefully. I needed Travis in my life any way I could get him.

  “I’d like to reiterate my email,” he said.

  “The part about you getting in touch with me when you are ready?” I asked.

  “No, Jules,” he said. “The part about me moving on. The part about me having found the woman I’m meant to be with. And I need to go salvage that. I’m sorry I can’t stay and talk to you about us, but if you’re the friend that I need, you’ll understand.”

  I nodded. It hurt, but it was a pain I deserved. “I understand, Trav. Go get her.”

  He pulled me into a quick hug, and then I headed back to the co
uch to let him get ready for his big night.

  On his way out the door, he pointed out the guest room to me, and then he left. I flipped through the television channels for a short time. I couldn’t focus on television, though. My life was falling apart around me, and I wanted to just zone out for the night, but my mind wouldn’t let me do that – especially not in the place where I could smell Travis everywhere I went.

  I wandered around the apartment and into the kitchen, glancing around at the familiar items that I knew belonged to Travis. I pulled a cup out of the cabinet and fixed myself a glass of ice water, and then I went down to my car and grabbed my overnight bag. I went back into Trav’s apartment and found the room that would be mine for the night. I wanted things to work out for Travis. I owed him that much after the hell I’d put him through, and I didn’t know how long he’d be out. So once I got my bag, I decided to just settle into the guest room for the night.

  Exhaustion hit me pretty quickly, so I washed up for bed and then crawled under the covers, wishing that I knew what the hell I was doing in San Diego and hoping that I’d be able to salvage what I’d done to my relationship with my fiancé.

  I checked my texts and was disappointed to find that Nick was still ignoring me. I sent him one more text, hoping for the best.

  I love you. You were right; I shouldn’t have come. I’ll be back tomorrow night and I am praying that you will forgive me for being so stupid.

  I waited a few minutes, hopeful for a reply. I’d admitted my stupidity, so now the ball was in his court. He could choose to forgive me and we could move forward, or…

  I couldn’t let myself think of the “or.” I stood to lose far too much with that “or,” and I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  I woke up from a fitful sleep a little over an hour later. I glanced at my phone, disappointed to see that there still wasn’t a reply from Nick, and then I heard the noise again that had woken me. I sat up in bed, trying to identify the noise, and then it clicked in my head. I couldn’t make out the exact sounds, but the thumping noise and the intermittent moaning spoke volumes.

  Someone was most definitely having sex in the apartment, and from the sound of it, it was coming from the room where I’d helped Travis pick out his outfit earlier that evening.

  Travis had clearly fixed his issues with this new woman, and while I wanted to feel happy for him, sadness and jealousy engulfed me as I listened to him have sex through the wall.

  I didn’t want to feel sad. I didn’t want to feel jealous of a girl I still hadn’t met. I wanted to just be happy with Nick. I wanted everything to be the way it was before Nick had broken it off with me and I’d made the biggest mistake of my life by using my best friend for comfort. Everything had been so easy back then; Nick and I were blissfully happy even though we’d had to keep our relationship a secret, and Travis was still my friend who was nothing more than my friend. I was ignorant to his real feelings for me, and that old saying about ignorance being bliss fully applied.

  And now I had all of these conflicting feelings cluttering my mind when I knew what my answer should be. I had to listen to Travis getting lucky through a wall when the dark, disturbing thought that it should have been me entered my mind.

  I sat in the darkness of the guest room feeling waves of guilt pour through me.

  In that moment, a part of me felt like I was cheating on Nick. It was so, so wrong to even allow the thought into my mind when I was engaged to marry another man that maybe I should have given Travis a chance.

  But there it was.

  I lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling as if some answer would be written there when I didn’t even know what my question was.

  The next morning, I ran into Dan in the kitchen while I poured myself a cup of coffee. I hadn’t slept at all after I’d heard Travis and his new girl, and I was exhausted and emotional. I heard the two of them leave about an hour after I had first woken up, but just because they were gone didn’t mean I was able to sleep.

  I tried calling Nick again sometime after I heard them leave, but he didn’t answer.

  I needed to talk to him. I needed to hear his voice, because I knew that his voice would be enough to confirm that he was the right choice. But not hearing from him, being by myself while I listened to Travis with another woman, it was all too much for me to handle. I spent most of the night crying, knowing I deserved every bit of misery that I felt.

  If I wasn’t me and if I was an outsider looking in, I would have easily been able to say that I belonged with Nick. We were perfect together, and I knew that I was creating the drama we were facing, but I didn’t know how to make my sudden feelings for Travis just go away – even though he was able to make his supposed lifelong feelings of love for me just disappear with the snap of his fingers.

  I’d been scared that karma was going to come bite me in the ass after the way I’d treated Travis, and here it was. I thought karma would take Nick away from me, though. I never thought that karma would force me to be the one to fuck everything up so badly.

  “Julianne,” Dan said in surprise when he saw me pouring a cup of coffee. He headed toward me and gave me an awkward hug.

  “Hey, Danny,” I smiled.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, pulling a cup down from the cabinet. I knew he really wanted to ask what the hell I was doing standing in his kitchen.

  “Trav wasn’t answering my calls, so I decided just to come visit.”

  Dan nodded like it made perfect sense, but hearing it out of my mouth confirmed what a stupid idea it had been in the first place. He focused on pouring cream into his cup and then coffee on top of his cream.

  “I’m going to head out later this afternoon,” I said. “I was hoping to get the chance to talk to Travis when he gets home from work.”

  “He usually gets off around five,” Dan said, raising his cup to his lips and taking a sip.

  “Thanks. Do you mind if I hang around here?” I asked.

  “Of course not. Make yourself at home. In fact…” he trailed off and opened a drawer. After fumbling through the drawer for a minute, he handed me a key. “If you need to go anywhere, now you can get back in.” He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was, too. I was surrounded by sexy men, but I definitely had my hands full at the moment.

  “Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it.”

  He headed off to take a shower and get ready for work, and I sat at the kitchen table and pulled my phone out again. Still no new texts and no new calls. I checked my email, hoping that maybe Nick had wanted to say more to me than he could in a text; but, of course, nothing.

  I texted him again. Please don’t shut me out. I can’t stand not hearing from you.

  I waited for him to reply, but nothing came through.

  Dan left for work and I wandered around the apartment alone for awhile. I found myself standing in the doorway to Travis’s bedroom. The sheets were a tangled mess, and while I didn’t know what his new woman looked like, I couldn’t help but picture him and her doing whatever it was they were doing the night before. I took a deep, shuddering breath, and all that did was bring Travis’s scent closer to me. I closed my eyes and tried to picture Nick’s face, but all I could see was Travis. I knew I needed to get out of his space, but I couldn’t. Something drew me there. It was creepy and strange, but I couldn’t help myself.

  I walked into the room, my legs moving on their own.

  CHAPTER 2

  NICK MATTHEWS

  I can’t think of a single time in my life when I’d been more pissed at a woman. Julianne’s little San Diego stunt was ludicrous. I could come up with not one conceivable reason why it would be acceptable for her to go, yet she did.

  I stayed at work late, getting all of her texts but replying to none, and as I sat in traffic on my way to work the morning after she left, another one came through, this one asking me not to shut her out.

  She was the one shutting me out.

  I listened to t
he fucking Matchbox Twenty CD she’d left in my car. It was the band’s first CD, and I liked it, but every song reminded me of her in some way. I knew I should just turn it off, but I was drawn to the familiar songs. It was the fifth track, “Girl Like That,” that I kept replaying over and over, the lyrics in the refrain settling in my brain: “You got to think with a girl like that any love at all is better than nothing.”

  I couldn’t get that simple line out of my head, because it totally applied to what was happening in my life. I didn’t have Julianne’s full heart; I’d known that since Travis had approached me to let me know that he’d had the pleasure of fucking my fiancée while we’d been apart. But it was my own stupidity that led to that night between the two of them, so I had to deal with the consequences of my actions. Any love from Julianne was better than nothing, but a man could only take so much before he snapped.

  And I was just about at my breaking point.

  I was perhaps more stressed than I’d ever been in my life. Moving jobs meant a promotion and a lot more money, but it also came with a lot more responsibility. As Peter Parker’s grandfather said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Yeah, I just quoted Spiderman. Actually, that quote originated far before Spiderman, but I digress.

  My new job meant a position of authority at BKG, which I loved. I thrived on being a leader, but the new position also meant longer hours and a shit ton more work. Apparently that was already affecting my relationship with the woman I planned to marry. I knew I’d been busy, but I hadn’t realized how alone Julianne felt. But, then again, I wasn’t a fucking mind-reader, and I expected my fiancée to communicate with me, not to run off to San Diego to mend a relationship with a man who had essentially run away from his problems. Blaming her decision to go on my work habits was a low blow considering she hadn’t even bothered telling me in the first place that she resented how much I’d been working.

  The bigger problem was that I was just starting this new position. It was going to get worse before it was going to get better, but I wasn’t going to communicate that with her over a text message. I missed her the second I walked out the door that morning, but she needed to know what sort of jeopardy she was placing our relationship in before she left. Apparently she hadn’t cared, though, because she went anyway.