Loving a Sinner

by D. B. Webb

  “I may have asked Kayla when I was talking to her earlier.”

  Apparently, he wanted me to ignore the fact that he had contacted my best friend, but had left me hanging on silence for three days. It was a fact that I didn’t want to as easily ignore.

  “You had time to call Kayla and didn’t even have enough time to text me?” I deadpanned. I wasn’t angry like I had before, but I was still annoyed. He didn’t get to pursue me, text me daily, and then ignore me for three days.

  “She called me, Patterson… Wait, are you jealous?”

  I wished in that moment we were face to face so I could punch his smug little self. But then on second thought, I realized that being face to face with Jackson Bennett had never benefited me when I was mad at him. He always found a way to end our arguments in kissing.

  Not that I would have entirely minded his lips pressed against mine again. A little fact that I was keeping to myself.

  “Not jealous,” I told him pointedly, “A little annoyed, if anything.”

  He laughed on his end, and I wanted to wrap myself in the warmth it gave off. He sounded like summer. I loved summer, and the past ten years had been void of summer and filled with a perpetual cycle of winter, fall, and spring. All seasons were okay, and I didn’t mind them, but I had missed the heat and thrill that summer brought.

  “Laugh it up, Bennett.”

  “Let me make it up to you. Come to my place for Thanksgiving, Ryan. So, red or white? I need to know which wine to get us.”

  The stubborn side of me wanted to tell him he could shove his dinner plans up his ass, but the larger part of me, the part that ached for Jackson, won. It always won.

  “Fine. And white please.” I tried to sound like he was putting me out, but in reality, I was already deciding what I would wear to our dinner.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, babe. My driver will pick you up at five.”

  And with that, he hung up before I could protest or argue that I wasn’t his babe anymore. But I would have been lying if I said hearing the term of endearment didn’t send my heart racing. With each pump my heart gave, I felt the excitement of tomorrow course through me.

  Groaning at the fact that my intention in calling Jackson had been to set him straight, but had ultimately ended in my heart puddling at my feet for him, didn’t escape me.

  But if we were going to work this time, if he was serious about getting to know me and stay in my life, we had already wasted so much time away from one another. I didn’t have time for games. If he wanted me in his life, I would be in his life.

  I just hoped that he wouldn’t break me like he did ten years ago. Because while he had left a significant crack in my heart when he walked away then, I knew he would destroy what was left of me if he left me now.

  I had spent the past three days drinking and moping around after my father’s phone call. That one call sent everything spiraling out of control, throwing me off the path of righteousness I had tried so hard to stay on. He was powerful, and he had too many connections to ignore his threats. If he wanted to tell Ryan about Jeffrey, he would make sure it happened. And it wouldn’t be nice or gentle when he broke the news.

  That left me with one other option: coming clean. Part of me wanted to believe she wouldn’t care. We hadn’t been together when I had found out about Jeffrey, but would that really matter? It was still the fact that he did exist out in the world. One fucked up choice made years ago by two selfish and stupid people, and here I was now, trying to clean up the mess.

  The part of me, the one that won out every time I reached to call Ryan and tell her everything, told me that she wouldn’t understand. The news would wreck her. Once she found out about him, I would be dropped. And I wouldn’t be able to blame her.

  So, instead of being a grown up like I was supposed to fucking be, I decided to drink. I sat in my empty penthouse and drowned the ghosts and demons of my past. When Kayla had called me and yelled at me, she pulled me from my pathetic stupor and reminded me that I was being an asshole. She didn’t get why I was drinking, just that it had to do with Benjamin being a prick and Ryan always being slightly out of reach. Kayla pushed back and told me to grow the hell up and fight for what I wanted for once.

  I would like to think that she had called on my behalf, but I knew she had called for Ryan’s sake.

  Either way, it had sobered me up, and I began planning a Thanksgiving dinner for Ryan and me. I was surprised to find that Ryan would be staying in the city for the holiday instead of traveling home. But Kayla had quietly explained that Ryan had reasons for staying in New York. Reasons she didn’t have the right to tell me, and I needed to ask Ryan about.

  I knew that since I had left Rocksend there were new things about Ryan that I didn’t know, and part of me was dreading hearing about the painful parts of life I had missed out on. I should have been there for her. I should have been the one she called, the one she had to hold when life got hard. But I was here, fucking around like I didn’t have a care in the world. It was going to kill me to hear about the life, the ten goddamn years, that I had missed out on. I just prayed that we could spend the rest of our lives making up for it.

  I may have said I wanted to be friends, and hell that was true. We hadn’t just been together intimately on a physical level. We had shared parts of ourselves with each other that nobody else saw. She was attached to my soul, and there was no denying in that short month she was closer to me than anyone had ever been before. She had been my best friend. So while I wanted her friendship back, I also wanted her heart. I wanted her kisses. Her body. Fuck, I wanted her future.

  So, I was going to listen to Kayla, and I was going to fight for something I had no right even having. I was going to fight for my happiness and hopefully her happiness would fall in line. If not, I would back off. I would give her my friendship if that’s all she could offer, because all I knew was that I needed her. She was it for me. And if she wouldn’t have me, I would continue what I had been doing before I found her again, filling life with work. Only this time, I would ensure that from now on she would be taken care of—even if she didn’t know I was doing it.

  And if someday she found a man and loved him more than I suspected she loved me, I would bow out. I would give her what she needed and wanted because she damn well deserved it.

  But for now. I was going to fight. Fight for me. Fight for her. Fight for us.

  It was the day of Thanksgiving that I came to the realization that I was putting Ryan and I in a very serious position. My dad, if he even deserved that title, would find out that she had spent her holiday with me, and he would retaliate. I needed to warn her without giving her the full truth… yet. I knew that if this thing was going to be long haul I would have to tell her eventually. I couldn’t keep something of that magnitude a secret from her. I just needed time to show her I was serious about her. That I wasn’t going to run again. Then I would tell her. At least that’s what I tried telling myself.

  Ryan arrived at my home dressed in a burgundy sweater and dark jeans. Her hair was twisted up and tendrils of her blonde hair curled around her neck. She looked gorgeous, and I couldn’t help but lose my words when I tried to come up with something to say.

  Her eyes danced with a light that I had missed and craved on the lonely nights in the past ten years. She knew the effect she had on me. I had forced her to see her beauty all those years ago, and I was glad the message had stuck.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” she smiled, raising a pie she had brought with her.

  “Ryan…” I drew in a painful breath. It hurt to be so close to her and not be able to go to her the way I wanted. “You look beautiful.”

  A blush crossed her face and she rolled her eyes playfully. “Thanks.”

  I found my way to where she stood, even if I looked like a stumbling fool, and placed a kiss on her cheek. I couldn’t help it. I was like a moth to the flame. Like a sinner to the cross. I craved her in a way that was beyond explanation.

  �
�You didn’t have to bring anything,” I told her gently before taking the pie from her hands. She just pursed her lips and shrugged it off.

  We made our way to the kitchen, where dinner was waiting for us. I wanted to say that I had been the one to create the feast we were about to eat, but I hadn’t had the time to learn how to cook between the drinking and sleeping around. Something I had decided I wanted to remedy as soon as life went back to normal. Well, back to normal with Ryan by my side.

  Because if seeing her today had told me anything, it was that we were doing this. We were going to make this work. There was no choice in the matter now. I saw the way she stared at me. She liked to think she had a good poker face, but I read her like a well-versed book I had in my library. The kind that had dog-eared pages and highlights throughout the tattered and well-loved pages. I knew her and had memorized her ten years ago in a way that she wouldn’t ever be able to hide from me—even if she tried. I saw the truth hidden in her ocean eyes.

  She still loved me.

  And that meant I still had a chance.

  The dinner was one of the best things I had ever eaten, and Jackson had just taken me to the most raved about restaurant in New York, so that was saying something. From the moment I stepped into his home, I could tell that he was my old Jackson. The one I had fallen for. The one I still loved.

  I couldn’t believe that ten years later, I was sitting across the table from Jackson Bennett. How were we here again? Maybe the fact that neither of us had settled down and married spoke louder than the deafening silence we lived through all the years apart. Maybe it was fate telling us that we had done our time, finished our purgatory, and we were finally on our way to where we were supposed to be all along. I could only hope that this time it would work.

  It had to work.

  “Why aren’t you home for Thanksgiving?” he finally asked me under a heated gaze. He had been making his annoyingly wonderful sex eyes at me all night. I felt the warmth from his stare spreading across my chest and further down, where I hadn’t been touched by a man in ages.

  I tried to shake my dirty thoughts, and gave him a sad smile. “I don’t really make it home much.”

  It was true, and I hoped he would let the subject drop. But apparently our small talk and the dancing around the big topics was over because he pushed further.

  “Why?”

  “I stopped visiting after…” I let my words drift off. He knew exactly what I was referring to. He couldn’t have been in the dark about what had happened to my mom. But he lifted an eyebrow in question. Maybe Kayla really had held her end of the bargain and kept the details of my life from him.

  I remembered back to the night that changed my life. And it wasn’t when my boyfriend of five years ditched me at my birthday party or even when the love of my life walked away without a single look back. The rejection and loss of Devlin and Jackson couldn’t compare to the horrible night I got a phone call that changed everything.

  Losing boyfriends and lovers felt trivial compared to losing a parent. And that’s exactly what had happened.

  Mom had been on their way home from the store when a drunk driver hit her head on. Mom was killed on site, while the drunk driver walked away without a scratch. Well, at least that’s what everyone assumed since the driver who had caused the accident disappeared.

  When I had gotten the call about a drunk driving accident involving my mother, I had immediately thought she was the cause of the accident. And for a brief moment, I truly hated her. Deeply and profoundly. But it hadn’t been her. In fact, her blood test results showed not a single drop of alcohol had been in her system. The irony that my drunk of a mother had been killed by another drunk was not lost on me.

  I had thought the wound of losing my mother had closed years ago, but as I explained the situation to Jackson, I felt it tearing open. Cutting me open for Jackson to see the darkness that had settled into my soul after that night.

  And I knew that he could see the ugly truth, because he had always been able to see through me, into me.

  “Baby…” he choked. I looked up to see his eyes were brimmed with unshed tears. I knew he was trying to keep it together for me. He was always so good at pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t. He stood from where he sat and came around the table, bending beside me.

  He cupped my face, “Baby,” he said again, voice stronger and tears gone, “I am so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I promised, the lie almost believable.

  He shook his head, telling me it wasn’t okay, but he understood. He wouldn’t let the knife dig any deeper into me. He wouldn’t let me bleed out. There was something about the love in his eyes that made me think that maybe I could be saved.

  That he could save me—from the past that stole our happiness, from the bleak future that we would have without each other.

  Maybe we could save each other.

  “I wish I would have been there for you,” he whispered. I saw the pain that he felt when the words left, and I knew without a doubt he meant them.

  “Me too.”

  It was the truth.

  And it was about damn time we told each other the truth.

  My eyes fell to his lips. They were slightly parted, and I wondered for a moment what he would do if I kissed him.

  He must have sensed what I was thinking because he sat up straighter, dropped his hands to his side, and cleared his throat.

  “So, you never go back to Cali?” he asked me.

  I shrugged and sighed, “No reason to go back. Kayla moved here, and I have nobody back home. I miss it from time to time…”

  “That sucks.”

  I appreciated that he didn’t try to bullshit me. He said it how it was.

  I returned his comment with a sad smile. Jackson was still squatting between my legs, his eyes level with mine. All I had to do was lean forward a couple inches and our mouths would be touching.

  Would he want that? Would he let me kiss him if I tried?

  I wouldn’t find the answer to my questions because he stood up abruptly and made his way back to his seat across from me. Maybe I was crazy and had misread the signals he had been sending me.

  “So, you still talk to Kayla?” he asked me, changing the subject in a direction I hadn’t been expecting.

  “Yeah, she’s my best friend… why wouldn’t I talk to her?” I paused. “Do you still talk to Devlin?” I bit out. I’m sure it sounded like I was being petty, but I didn’t care. I knew the answer. Echane Holdings was their baby, and the two of them had landed on Forbes’ Top 100 List before they hit the age of thirty. While I had struggled through college, balancing my time between classes and working my ass off, Jackson had been sipping champagne with billionaire’s in their offices that overlooked the city.

  Sometimes it still hurt to think about the fact that he had chosen his work and Devlin over me. But I had to remind myself, if I had been in his position, I probably would have done the same thing.

  “Obviously I talk to Devlin. But we aren’t best friends. Haven’t been for a while now.”

  I couldn’t tell if there was some sadness behind the indifferent tone he spoke with. I hated that I had been the primary cause for their friendship’s turmoil.

  Maybe Jackson had lost more than I originally thought. He had silk ties, a buffet of women at his disposal, glamorous parties, and a multi-billion dollar company. But did that really mean he was happy? Suddenly his world seemed a lot more lonely.

  I may have struggled through college, working odd end jobs to make due, but I had a best friend who loved me dearly. I didn’t have nice things, but I was far from lonely and sad.

  “Does that make it hard to work together?” I asked, my voice softer.

  Jackson licked his bottom lip before answering, “We don’t let that get in the way of our business. We’re still friends, don’t get me wrong. But we aren’t close like we used to be. Beside, we have different lives. He has Madison and his kids. I have…”

&n
bsp; I held my breath, waiting for him to finish his sentence, but he didn’t. His eyes burned into me, and I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. My breath was shallow. How funny it was to find myself unable to breathe around the one person who was like air for my lungs.

  “It’s getting late,” I finally forced out. I pushed my chair back with a terrible scraping noise. I cringed at the sound, but didn’t stop my retreat. Though his penthouse was three times the size of my apartment, it felt too small. This was too much too soon.

  I hadn’t been around Jackson for ten years. I couldn’t jump back into life with him. He had left me broken when he had promised to help me live. I couldn’t possibly be falling again for a man who had done that to me. I had always thought the weird pull between us was crazy. But now I was sure of it. Ten years of silence between us seemed like ten seconds when we were together. But when I was alone in my bed, I could feel every day we had been apart. I could remember each and every time I wanted to pick up my phone and call him. I felt every single agonizing anniversary of him leaving me on that cold sidewalk.

  Jackson quietly followed behind me as I found my coat that he had draped across one of his chairs and headed to the door.

  “Can I take you home?” he asked me once we were standing in the hall outside of his home.

  “I drove,” I lied.

  His lips quirked up ever so slightly and I watched as he poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

  “We both know you didn’t drive… I sent my driver, remember?”

  He stepped closer toward me. The heat of his body wrapped around me like a warm blanket, and this time I didn’t feel like I was suffocating. I wanted to stay like this as long as we could. I inched closer to him, our chests touching, our breathing heavy and unified by a single cause—our need for each other.

  There was no denying the cord that had connected us when we first met was still binding us together now. We could pretend that life would go on without one another, but it was a lie. Life without Jackson was like religion without salvation—going through the motions without purpose or an ending.