Jacked - The Complete Series Box Set (A Lumberjack Neighbor Romance)

by Claire Adams

  “Oh my God,” she said quietly.

  “Do you like it?” I asked her. She looked at me, and she had tears in her eyes.

  “You did this?” she asked. I nodded.

  “I wanted to say thank you. It’s not enough. It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done for me, but it’s something. I wanted to take care of you for once.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

  “Say you’re hungry so we can eat,” I said. She laughed and let me lead her to the table. I pulled her chair out for her and sat across the table. The waiter came in quickly to take our orders. I ended up ordering for Abby, getting us the same thing because she had tried to get herself the cheapest thing on the menu. Wasn’t happening tonight.

  “When did you plan all this?” Abby asked.

  “When you had left this the morning. They were closed, but they let me talk to the manager.”

  “Why did you book the whole space?”

  “Because I wanted to,” I said nonchalantly.

  “One table would have been more than sufficient,” she teased.

  “Next time we’ll go to the McDonald’s drive through, how about that?” I asked. She smiled and looked down at her place setting.

  “I’m sorry. I love it. I’ve just never done anything this grand before.”

  “I’m kicking myself for not doing this with you earlier,” I said.

  “You do this sort of thing often?” she asked.

  “Only with people I care about.”

  “Must be nice to live like this sometimes,” she said lightly.

  “It’s not everything.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “No?”

  “You know how they say money can’t buy you happiness?” I asked. She nodded. “It’s not quite true. It can give you stability, luxuries, and pay for experiences that could give you a lot of joy. It can even get you a wife and buy you friends, but if it does, then they’ll be gone as soon as the money is.

  “It can be really isolating and turn you into a different person. My father almost doubled his net worth when I was a kid, but the last time he was truly happy was when my mother was still alive.”

  “Can I ask when she died?”

  “A long time ago. I was just a kid. He stopped getting stuff when she died. He’d get stuff for me, but never really for himself. It was like he only cared about owning and having things when she had been there to share them with him,” I said. My phone, which I had placed on the table, lit up, ringing. I ignored the call.

  “It must have been hard growing up without her.”

  “Yeah. It didn’t matter that my dad paid for me to go to private schools and expensive vacations; I was still the kid without a mom.” My phone rang again. I ignored it.

  “Are you and he close?” she asked. My phone rang again. I turned the sound off and put it in my pocket.

  “We are. He’s great,” I said, distractedly.

  "You should take the call," she said.

  "No, not during dinner."

  "If they're calling you like that, it must be important."

  "No. It's not a big deal. I'm turning it off."

  "Really," she said. "Take it. I can wait." I sighed, getting up.

  "I'll be right back," I told her. I walked outside and looked at my phone. Oh, Kirsten, you always had the worst timing, I thought, calling her back. She picked up before the first ring.

  "Nate?"

  "Kirsten, this better be because someone died," I snapped.

  "Nate, why weren't you picking up?"

  "Because I'm busy. Because I don't want to talk to you. What do you want? Hurry up, I have somewhere to be."

  "Somewhere to be? I know you're not working, Nate; where do you have to be? The beach? The bar? Do they have nice shooting galleries in Hawai’i?"

  "The next time you want to call me, don't."

  "I don't know if it’s smart to discourage the only woman who'll still talk to you."

  "Who told you you’re the only one?" I challenged. She was silent for a beat.

  "What?" she demanded.

  "Whatever you called me to say, hurry up and say it. My date's waiting."

  "Your what?" she scoffed. "You're on a date? Right now?"

  "Tick tock, Kirsten."

  "Wow. I knew I had to get away from you when you started drinking, but I really dodged a bullet."

  "What do you mean?" I asked frowning.

  "I mean, you're coming back to Los Angeles. Is the girl a tourist?" she asked. I was quiet. "Oh, of course she isn't because you would only go for someone you know you have no chance of running into again once you leave."

  "This is none of your business, Kirsten."

  "It isn't. I guess I just wish I was surprised to hear it. You, using a girl during your vacation knowing that you get to come back here and forget about her in a couple months. That's classic, Nate."

  "Are you done?" I asked through gritted teeth.

  "So sorry for interrupting you during your date," she said sarcastically. "It wouldn't be that bad if she was in on it, too, but something tells me that she isn't." I hung up, not wanting to hear anything else from her.

  Fucking Kirsten. What had I ever seen in her? We weren't even friends. She had been my longest relationship, and I knew that the reason it fell apart was because of me. She was a bitch, but she probably knew me better than a lot of people did.

  But she wasn't here, and she didn't know Abby. There was no way she knew anything about this. What was happening between the two of us?

  What even was it?

  We were hanging out. She was helping me detox. We were spending nights together, and we'd had sex. I didn't know what kind of label I was allowed to put on that. Nothing, I guess, but did Abby think it was nothing, too?

  I liked her. She was great. Happier and sweeter than most people I'd met in my entire life, but she lived here. I was leaving in a couple months, and she was going to stay here. I wasn't using her. I wasn't making her think that this was something it wasn't — something that could last a long time — because it wasn't. She knew that. She had to know that.

  I slid my phone back into my pocket and walked back inside. Abby smiled at me from the table. Oh God. She didn't know that.

  "Everything all right?" she asked.

  "Yeah. It was just someone from LA. I've been silent lately; they wanted to make sure I was okay," I said vaguely. It felt horrible lying to Abby, but I had to do it. I wasn't going to tell her that my ex-wife thought I was using her, or that, even worse, I thought I was using her, too.

  I couldn't wait to get out of there. Abby didn't want anything for dessert, so we were able to leave quickly. She tried to talk to me during the ride back, but stopped when she noticed I wasn't really in a chatty mood. I was mad. If Kirsten hadn't called me, I wouldn't be thinking about this shit. I wouldn't be on a date with a beautiful girl trying to think of ways to let her down easy.

  Why'd Abby tell me to take the call? Why did I fucking take the call? I could have turned the phone off. I could have just told her that we were on a date, and I wasn't going to let someone interrupt us. It was done now. I couldn't pretend it hadn't happened. I couldn't just unhear what had been said. It wouldn't stop being true even if I chose to ignore it.

  When we got back to the hotel, we went to my suite just like we had night after night before that. She walked right into the bedroom because that was where we had been sleeping together and took her heels off.

  "That was amazing, Nate; thank you so much," I heard her say, following her into the bedroom. I nodded.

  "I'm glad you had a good time."

  "Is everything okay? How are you feeling?" It was routine at that point. She'd check in with me multiple times a day or when she felt I was off to make sure my symptoms weren't too bad.

  "I'm fine. Just tired."

  "Oh, well, that's too bad," she said walking over to me. She put a hand on my chest and another on my shoulder, running it down my arm. "I was hoping we co
uld stay up a little while." She leaned in and kissed me.

  "We shouldn't," I said. She looked up at me.

  "Are you feeling sick?"

  "No, Abby. I mean we need to stop. I think it would be better if you went back to work."

  "My shift is over today. I don't have to leave until... Oh," she said, realizing what I meant.

  "Yeah."

  She frowned a little and took a few steps back. "Did I do something?"

  "I've kept you here long enough," I said, not really answering her question. "I know my way around the island, and I'm clean. You can leave." I saw something flicker in her eyes when I said that and wanted to take it back.

  "If that's the way you feel," she said quietly. She bent down and put her heels back on. "Can I ask why?"

  "We have no reason to spend all this time together anymore."

  "All this time together? You asked my boss whether you could have me as your personal guide. You asked me to stay here with you, and now it's too much?"

  "It's enough. I haven't used in days. That's what you wanted to do, right? Make sure I stopped?"

  "It's easiest to relapse while you're still detoxing," she protested.

  "And since I know that, I know it won't happen to me."

  "Are you serious? Why are you doing this?"

  "Doing what? You were helping me get off my drugs, and now I'm off. I don't need you anymore."

  I saw how hard that one hit her. She was speechless before she walked past me and grabbed her bag, heading for the door. Good, if she's upset, she won't come looking for me again, I thought. I hated it, but leading her on was worse. This way, she would leave and hate me enough not to come back.

  "I'll tell Joseph tomorrow that you've had a change of heart," she said, opening the door.

  "Don't bother. I will." She looked over her shoulder at me.

  "I wish you'd tell me what I did so I could apologize," she said.

  "If I did, would you shut up and leave already?" I snapped. She glared at me and stormed out of the room, closing the door loudly behind her. "Fuck," I said going back into the bedroom. I got to the bed and fell onto it backward. "Fuck!"

  It was the right thing. It was wrong leading her on. Just breaking it off was the right thing to do. I had done the right thing. It was hard now, but it would get better. It fucking had to. Kirsten had called me a bad person for leading Abby on. Why didn’t I feel better now that she was gone?

  Chapter Twenty

  Abby

  If I just kept my eyes closed, I could go back to sleep. I didn't know what time it was, but it was morning, and it was early. I knew that for sure because my body was wide awake, and I had been trying to get back to sleep for the past half hour. I had tried sleeping on both my sides and my stomach, keeping my eyes closed, but it hadn't worked yet.

  I wasn't tired, I knew that, but how did other people do it? Just stay in bed even though it was time to get up? I didn't want to get up. I was trying to mope.

  The last time I had seen Nate was Friday, and I had spent all of Saturday doing my best not to run into him by accident. I'd made the mistake of finally getting him to come out of his hotel room, and now I got to pay for it because I didn't want to see him.

  Come on, Abby; there's no way he's in bed right now rehearsing what he's going to do on the off chance that he sees you today, I tried to convince myself. Of course, he wasn't. He wasn't the one who had been left hanging. He wasn't the one who had begun to think that this had been deeper than it had really been.

  I had done it to myself. I had nobody to try to peg the blame on but myself. I'd told myself things that he had never said or promised me. I had let myself believe promises he had never made.

  This was why I didn't do this. It was risky, and it was stupid. There was no way to win. There was no way to save yourself from feeling like this. It would always happen: whether it was small or big, you always got hurt.

  I rolled onto my stomach. Face down. At least I wasn't crying anymore.

  I heard a knock at the door. Squeezing my eyes shut tighter, I ignored it. It came again, louder that time. I knew who it was, and part of me was dreading seeing her. I dragged myself out of bed and went to let Makani in.

  "Hey," she said, carefully stepping inside.

  "We haven't had a date in so long. I at least expected breakfast," I joked half-heartedly. She gave me a smile and didn't push it. I walked directly back to my bed and burrowed under the blanket. I heard her walking around for a bit before her footsteps approached.

  "Scoot over," she said, climbing onto the bed. I uncovered my head, seeing her sitting on it with two steaming cups of coffee. "I know it's bad if I'm out of bed before you are," she said. I took the coffee and sat up against the headboard, scooting down so she could sit next to me.

  "You sleep in all the time, I don't know why it’s a bad thing when I do it," I said, sipping the coffee.

  "Because you haven't missed a sunrise in your life. Can you tell me what happened?" she asked. I took a couple long sips of my coffee.

  "You were right," I said, looking down into the creamy liquid instead of at her.

  "Right about what?"

  "I let myself get carried away. I shouldn't have expected anything of him."

  "Did he say something? What happened?"

  "He took me out to dinner," I started. She nodded, remembering. Yet another day I had bailed on her to go pretend with Nate. "We spent the entire day together. He bought me a dress and had booked this amazing place for us to have dinner that night."

  "He took you on a date," she said.

  "He said it was to show his gratitude for me taking him around the island, and I should have believed him," I sighed.

  "We're there, and it's gorgeous, but he gets this phone call. Someone keeps calling him, and he keeps turning it off because he doesn't want to take it. I told him he could because it might be important if the person was trying that hard to get in contact with him.

  “He leaves, and when he comes back, and it's like someone poured cold water over him. He was so distant and distracted the whole dinner. We got back to his suite, and he says he thinks it would be better if I went back to work."

  "He asked you to leave?"

  "He didn't ask me anything. He told me he wanted me to leave. He basically said he didn't want me there anymore. It would have been one thing if he just didn't think I should sleep in his suite, but he wanted me gone. I thought..."

  I paused because it was the first time I was admitting it to myself out loud. "I thought that maybe there was something there. You don't need a tour guide to sleep in your suite with you. We used to sleep in the same bed. We even-" I stopped and shook my head because I felt I was going to start choking up.

  "You feel like he broke up with you," she said.

  "Everything was so good, Makani. It was great and then out of the blue after he takes this mystery phone call, he tells me to fuck off."

  "I'm sorry he did that to you, Abby," she said. "You shouldn't beat yourself up if he doesn't even have the decency to tell you why he did it."

  "You wanted to know why I don't date? This. This is why," I said.

  "In a couple months, he's going to leave, and you never have to see him again."

  "Yeah, but I still love his band. That's going to be a problem."

  "How about we do something tonight?"

  "I don't feel like going out. You go."

  "Let's stay here, watch some movies, and have a girls’ night," she suggested. I drank some more of my coffee. It wasn't hot anymore.

  "Do we have to watch rom-coms?"

  "Of course. It isn't a girls’ night if we don't," she said, grinning.

  "Can I pick?" I asked. She agreed and pulled me out of bed to eat some of my leftovers for breakfast before going to work.

  The day wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. It was just hours of thinking every tall man with dark hair was Nate, and then panicking, and then calming down when I found out it was not him. That and wond
ering what he was doing, where, and with whom. Wondering whether he was shooting again, trying to tell myself it was none of my business since he had told me he didn't want my help anymore, and then circling right back to worrying again.

  Was he giving you this much thought, Abby? I asked myself. I couldn't just turn it off. I still cared about him, even if he didn't care about me.

  I was tired by the time we were clocking out, something that rarely happened. Makani sent me home before she left to shop for our provisions. I spent the time she was gone browsing for good movies to see. I had always thought 50 First Dates was funny before I came to Hawai’i; that wouldn't do it. I needed something really sappy. The Notebook or better; that was the only thing that would give me a good enough cry to get over him.

  Makani brought the snacks. Saturated fats were the only thing that could fix this, or at least give me a food coma bad enough to forget. We used my laptop since I didn’t have a television. We discussed the pros and cons of each movie I had selected before we chose The Proposal to watch first.

  I liked a good rom-com. Everything always worked out, and in the end, love conquered all. The romantic in me wanted to believe it, but I had doubted ever being able to find something like that for myself in my life. Not where I was now, at least. I’d pull myself out of this; I just needed about a straight month of nights in with Makani, and maybe I’d feel okay again.

  "I can't believe she fell for him," Makani said watching Sandra Bullock lose every shred of common sense she had over Ryan Reynolds.

  "I know," I said, eating another spoonful of ice cream right out of the carton.

  "She could do so much better," Makani said. "He was her assistant."

  "Should have paid attention to the terms of her visa," I tutted.

  "Could you imagine? Marrying a guy for citizenship?" Makani said dramatically.

  "Like Canada's a barren wasteland or something," I laughed.

  That felt good. Maybe it was a little hostile to attack the girls on screen for falling in love, but it made me feel better about what I had made the mistake of doing. I hadn’t fallen in love, it hadn’t gotten that serious, but given more time and more nights with Nate being that open and sweet, who knows what might have happened.