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  He just crouched there, watching me. No expression.

  I hiccuped.

  “I’m not leaving because of you. I'm leaving for you.”

  “If you want to do something for me, then just stay.”

  A long, sad pause hung between us.

  “Sorry. I'm so stupid,” I gulped air into my lungs. “Now I'm making it worse. I’m just embarrassing us both.”

  He lifted his hat up and put it back on his head. “Emily.”

  A soft knock sounded on the door. Jackson and I looked at each other. The rolling door slid open. Irene, Matt’s mom, stood in front of us. She took in my huddled form, and tearful face with Jackson crouched beside me and his duffle bag.

  “Oh sorry,” she said, “Is this a bad time?”

  Jackson stood up and walked over to her. I wiped my face and watched as she presented a cheek for him to kiss.

  I scrambled to my feet, and she gave me a look that was hard to read. “I'm so sorry to drop in on you like this. I heard that Jackson was in town.”

  I shook my head. “Of course. I didn’t think. I should have invited you myself.”

  She looked down at the bag and then up at Jackson. “So are you coming or going?”

  Jackson looked at me. His expression was hard to make out.

  I wiped my face. “Why don’t I make some coffee? Did you drive here?”

  “No, I took the train and yes, I would love some coffee.”

  I started moving to the kitchen. Jackson had set up the new coffee maker, and now it was my turn to stand and stare at it. I had asked for a coffee maker with gadgets.

  He appeared behind me. “I can make the coffee.”

  I sat down at the island while Irene and I looked at each other. I had hoped that Matt’s mom and I would become close friends, but she wasn’t the warmest woman I had ever met in my life. I vowed to give her another try.

  Irene looked at Jackson, “How long are you stateside?”

  “Three months.”

  “Matt told me that you were here.”

  “I should have called.”

  Silence hung in the air.

  His voice was low, “How’s the house?”

  “Oh, things are good. I might need to have the shingles replaced this year. My neighbor gave me the name of two contractors.”

  Chapter 18

  Irene studied me. “How are you?”

  I lied. “I'm good.”

  “How’s the wedding planning coming along?”

  Another lie. “Good.”

  Silence descended upon us. She looked around. “Is Matt sleeping?”

  “He’s at work.” I was getting quite good at lying. Lying to myself. Lying to others.

  She shook her head. “I have no idea where Matt got his work ethic from. He’s the hardest working person I know.”

  “Lately, he’s been working around the clock.”

  Jackson stood on the side, leaning against the counter, his long legs crossed, his arms folded.

  Irene looked back between Jackson and I. “So, I obviously walked in on something here. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Jackson cleared his throat. “Same old shit.”

  “Did you and Matt fight?”

  “Yep.”

  “Jackson. I know for a fact that Matt wanted you to come and stay with him because he wanted to repair your relationship. Why are you making this so difficult for him? You always do this.”

  Jackson didn’t answer. Shock skidded across my skin. Jackson wasn’t the difficult one in this situation. He was probably the only sane one.

  She folded her arms. “Matt is trying here. Why can’t you make an effort to get along?”

  He stared back at her.

  She cleared her throat. “I woke up this morning to a very incoherent drunk message from Matt. Half of which I couldn’t understand. Jackson, you seemed to have upset him.”

  More silence while Jackson and I processed that statement.

  “It’s not your situation to fix,” Jackson finally said.

  “Ever since Harry’s funeral…” her voice trailed off. “I'm asking you to fix this.”

  He glanced at me. “I think cooler heads might prevail.”

  She made a little noise. “So you're just going to take off again? That’s so typical. We’re trying here with you. We’ve always tried with you.”

  I was shocked at how biased this woman’s view was of this situation. She was holding Jackson entirely responsible for this mess. I couldn’t reconcile that Jackson had grown up with this woman. They seemed like two strangers.

  “Matt wasn’t exactly an angel in this situation,” I interjected.

  Cold eyes that reminded me of Matt turned on me. “And how’s that?”

  I swallowed again. “Well, Matt’s been pretty distant lately.”

  “He works so hard.”

  “Yes. But he hasn’t been around to try and fix stuff either.”

  She sniffed and looked around the loft. She turned back to Jackson. “I'm asking you to stay. For Matt. This is obviously important to him.”

  I held my breath. His face was devoid of expression, but he nodded. My heart bleated with joy. I didn’t care that he was being coerced.

  It was like a switch went off inside of her. Now that she had her way, everything was sunny in her life again. It reminded me of Matt. He would have his little temper tantrums about stuff, but as soon as I agreed to give in, I was back in his good books. At the time, I always felt such relief that things were back to normal, I had never stopped to realize how manipulative it was.

  Irene chatted gaily about her choir that she attended every Thursday night and asked Jackson advice about shingles. I sipped my coffee while their conversation drifted around me. I stopped listening, so I could think.

  Something nasty was going on with Matt. When had he stopped talking to me? I couldn’t even remember the last time he had returned one of my texts. We used to text daily. Now it seemed like we hadn’t talked in weeks. It had happened so slowly, I had barely noticed, but now it didn’t even feel like he was living here, much less in a relationship with me.

  Was it supposed to be like this? When we first started dating, he had been fun and sweet. We had cooked together and gone on date nights. Matt never did have a lot of time, but he had always made time for me. When had he stopped doing that? And why did he call his mom in a drunken stupor last night? It didn’t make sense.

  My head pounded and I felt light-headed. I glanced up. Jackson listened to Irene, but his eyes watched me. He moved to the fridge and took a ginger ale out of the refrigerator. He cracked that open and set it in front of me. Then he peeled a banana and placed it on a plate and shoved that in front of me. I picked up the banana and washed it down with the ginger ale. My stomach heaved dangerously at first, but in a few minutes it settled, and I became less lightheaded.

  A few weeks ago, everything in my life had been fine. Not fabulous but pretty okay. Matt had been busy, but at least we were texting on a regular basis. Jackson showed up. Matt accused Jackson of infringing on his life which didn’t even make sense, considering Jackson hadn’t even existed in our lives up until Matt allegedly begged Jackson to come and stay here. Matt pleaded for my help in keeping Jackson here so he could spend more time with Jackson, but instead, every time there was a situation that he could hang out with Jackson, he invented some excuse to do otherwise.

  Jackson and I found a space where I didn’t ogle him too severely, and he refrained from flirting with my heart. We laughed together and had a comfortable friendship. Perhaps his scent was more intoxicating than any other person I had ever smelled in my life, but that was beside the point. We kept all of that under control.

  Then he kissed me. I blew hot as I remembered his kiss. The way his mouth had moved over mine. The taste of him. The feeling of his big hand on the back of my neck. I had never been kissed before in such a manner. I would probably be remembering that kiss in my dotage.

  But it had
been a colossal mistake of epic proportions. My face burned as I recalled my over-the-top response in my attempt to keep him here. It didn’t get any more mortifying. Nor did it make sense. What could make sense about my frantic desperation to keep him here? I had left the guy utterly speechless. He had no words while he watched me completely lose my shit. Basically, I had begged him to stay.

  Irene decided that she’d had enough. “I think I’d like to go back to my hotel now. Jackson, would you mind driving me?”

  “Sure.”

  I stood up. “Would you like to come by for dinner tonight? I'm pretty sure Matt won’t be working.”

  She gave me two air kisses. “That would be lovely, dear.”

  Chapter 19

  I wandered around the loft, at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Jackson had cleaned everything to a state of perfection, so I didn't even have to clean. I didn’t feel like painting or watching TV. My book didn’t hold my interest. I couldn’t bring myself to even think about last night.

  My phone rang, and I lunged for it. It was Julie. I sighed.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Emily.”

  “Hey.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Hungover. You?”

  “Like I want to hang my head over the toilet for the next three days.”

  I gave a short laugh. “Been there, done that.”

  A brief pause.

  “That was quite the party you had last night.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “So what are you and your two boys up to today?”

  I looked around the empty loft. “They’re both out.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  I stilled as a coldness ran through my body. “Yes. Why?”

  Her laugh sounded false. “Oh, no reason.”

  “Why would you ask that?” My spider senses tingled.

  “Just that Matt was pretty wasted last night.”

  I sat up straight. “You were there? Did you go out with them?”

  “Yeah, there were a few of us, and someone had suggested going down to that blues bar on 5th. Matt was all over that.”

  “Who all went?” I asked, working hard to keep my voice casual.

  She laughed. “I don’t know. A guy named Dave and Adam, I think.”

  “Aiden?”

  “Yeah. And his girlfriend.”

  “Wife.”

  “Whatever. And there was another dude, but I never caught his name.”

  “How long were you at the pub?”

  “I think we left around 2? We shut the place down.”

  I wanted to, but I couldn’t ask her what happened after that. I didn’t want to admit that Matt had gone missing for the remainder of the night. “I missed all that.”

  “I tried to get Jackson to come out with us.”

  “Why didn’t he?"

  Her voice accused slightly. “He said you were too drunk to be left alone.”

  “Oh.” Matt obviously had no issue leaving me behind, but Jackson had been concerned about my welfare. Jackson seemed to highlight exactly how Matt failed me as a fiancée. “He could have gone.”

  “I offered to stay with him,” Julie sounded pissed, “But of course he said he would be busy cleaning up and monitoring you.”

  “Oh.” I had no idea what to say about that.

  “Only you could manage to get in the way of the hottest sex of my life from a coma state.”

  “It’s not like I asked him to stay.”

  “Doesn’t matter. For some stupid reason, the man feels responsible. Why couldn’t you stay sober enough to clean up after your party?”

  Defensive. “I didn’t mean to get so drunk.”

  “Next time, think about your actions.”

  My mind worked in overdrive as I tried to determine what had happened to Matt.

  “Whatever.” I didn’t want to talk about Jackson.

  “What’s going on between you and Jackson?” her question was direct. I guess we were going to have a conversation about Jackson.

  “Why?”

  “He carried your drunk ass upstairs.”

  “I don’t remember that,” I lied. “Are you sure it wasn’t Matt?”

  A harsh laugh vibrated in my ear. “No. It was Jackson. He just picked you up and carried you off to your bedroom right in front of Matt. He seems super protective of you.”

  “What did Matt do?”

  “Nothing. It was odd. He glanced up and shrugged. I was the one standing at the bottom of the stairs, my mouth hanging open.”

  I swallowed the fear that was in my throat. “He’s the army guy. I think they’re all just trained to be like that. It’s nothing personal.”

  “He’s in the navy,” she corrected. “You never mix up army and navy. You'll royally offend if you do.”

  “Okay,” I said. I wanted to avoid a lecture on her knowledge of military men. Her interest in men in uniform bordered on an obsession.

  “So is Jackson going to be around later?”

  “Matt’s mom is in town. Everyone is going to be here for dinner.”

  “Oh good. You can make it up to me by inviting me over.”

  Dinner promised to be an intense family affair, adding Julie to the mix would be like adding fuel to the fire.

  “Irene just wants a quiet family night,” I lied.

  “You owe me,” she shot back. “You have to help me.”

  “From the looks of it, you were doing just fine on your own last night,” I said. “If Jackson wants you, he'll come after you.”

  “You're right. We were doing well last night.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t understand anything. A Navy SEAL is the most elite soldier in the world. To make it to that level, he’s the best of the best.”

  I picked up a magazine and set it down. “You would know.”

  “Not to mention how hot he is. He gives me shivers. He looks like he would be a machine in bed.”

  I gasped, and my face burned red hot. “Julie.”

  “What! The guy looks like he could fuck a girl six ways from Sunday. He’s so strong and big, and he could pretty much do anything he wanted as many times as he wanted.”

  “Oh gosh,” I breathed, shutting my eyes on the images she was conjuring up of him. I did not want to imagine his magnificent naked body doing crazy sex things. Because it would be crazy. And intense.

  “That man is my Mt. Everest,” she declared.

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means, he's the ultimate goal. He’s the man I have been waiting for my entire life.”

  “Well when you set your mind to something, you usually get what you want.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “If you could do me a favor and not get your hanky on with him over here? You have your place. Please take all your sex noises elsewhere.”

  I was joking. But not really.

  She laughed. “Okay, I don’t want all my screams of ecstasy to shock your virgin ears.”

  “Thank-you,” I said, suddenly exhausted with this conversation.

  “So if you're not going to invite me over for dinner, do you mind giving me his number?”

  “Why don’t I give him yours tonight,” I compromised. I wasn’t going to inflict more pain on him by subjecting him to Julie’s excessive determination.

  “Right now. Send it to him right now.”

  “Julie, have you ever heard about playing hard to get?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Give it to him. I'll take it from there.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I promise as soon as I hang up I'll text him your number.”

  “Thanks, gorgeous. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

  I walked over to the whiteboard in the kitchen where Jackson had written his cell out in black marker. I shook my head. I would pass on her digits, and he could do what he wanted with that information.

  Me: Jackson, it’s Emily

  Jackson: Hey


  Me: Julie asked me for your number. I didn’t give it to her, but she asked me to provide you with hers. 718-425-3423

  Jackson: Not interested

  I stared at my phone for a long time. And reread those two words again and again.

  Me: She made me promise to text it to you, so there you go. Sorry to interrupt

  Jackson: You’re not interrupting

  Me: You and Irene’s time together

  Jackson: I dropped Irene off at her hotel. I'm picking her up later

  I stared at the phone. I wasn’t expecting a conversation with him over text. Curiosity drove me to keep talking to him.

  Me: Why don’t you think you're interested in Julie?

  Jackson: I don’t think she’s a good friend to you

  What? What did that even mean?

  Me: Care to elaborate?

  Jackson: No

  Me: You must have some reason for saying that

  Jackson: I saw enough of who she is to know that I don’t want to go on a date with her

  Me: I don’t know if she is looking for a date…per se

  Jackson: I saw enough to know I don’t want to fuck her either

  Me: Blushing now. Bye!

  Jackson: You walked right into that one

  Me: I did :-(

  Jackson: Haha

  Me: What are you doing now?

  Jackson: Currently sitting in my truck at a park

  Me: Oh

  Jackson: Are you okay?

  I stared at my phone. Sighing, I decided just to be honest.

  Me: I feel embarrassed about yesterday. And for crying and everything

  Jackson: You have nothing to be embarrassed about

  Me: You’re too nice to me

  Jackson: I told you. I'm not a nice guy

  Me: Funny, you're one of the nicest people I know

  I sat there staring at my phone, while moments ticked by.

  Jackson: Why did you want me to stay so bad?

  I started and stopped at least a dozen responses. Finally, I decided just to be honest.

  Me: You make me feel good about myself. Why did you want to leave so bad?

  Jackson: You don’t want to ask me that

  I sat holding the phone to my lips.

  Me: I'm sorry you're being forced to stay here

  Jackson: No one can force me to do anything