I let her go, knowing this isn’t the end.
I knew I hurt Izzy when I didn’t return her calls or texts, but I didn’t realize the extent of it. I want to blame it on being eighteen and an idiot, but maybe my dad was right all those years ago. Maybe I was selfish. Egocentric.
A goddamn fool.
Not returning her calls tore out a piece of my soul, but I’d always assumed it was because Izzy was my lifeline. In my infinite asshole-ness, I’d never considered that I might’ve been hers.
She was right to turn down my apology. She deserves so much more than an impromptuI’m sorry. Unfortunately for her, I’m not going to let this be the end.
Chapter six
Izzy
“OhmyGod,canwe please, please, please talk about Jaxon apologizing to you last night?” Becca asks as soon as I shuffle into our kitchen the morning after the most awkward conversation of my life. Not that I feel bad about yelling at him. He deserved it.
Though I maybe should’ve let him actually get a full sentence out between my ranting.
No! He deserved it.
“Have you been sitting there waiting for me all morning?” I ask as I slowly make my way to the coffee maker.
“No. After you drank a whole case of hard cider by yourself last night, I knew you wouldn’t be up too early, but you also have that charity golf thing today at the country club. I mad-dashed out here when I heard noises start coming from your room,” Becca says with a large smile.
I peer at her, my left eye refusing to open more than a slit. Golf might be interesting. “You’re at like a nine-energy level, and I need you to be at a three,” I tell my best friend.
“Is this better?” Becca asks calmly. “Will you talk to me about Jaxon if I’m at this energy level?” Her voice is comically soft and low.
“No. We will never be talking about him or his stupid apology,” I say, taking a long pull from my coffee.
“Okay, grumpy pants,” Becca says. “It just seemed like, by the way you were both drinking heavily at your respective tables while pretending the other didn’t exist, you might have some feelings to work through.”
“It was just shocking to look over the back of the booth and see him there.”
Becca stares at me as I chew on the corner of my thumb.
“One, gross. Don’t take this out on your cuticle. Two, how did you not know he was there? He was literally sitting there when we walked in.”
“Our group was egregiously big and loud if you don’t recall. Why we had to have a pre-bachelorette planning party to plan the bachelorette party is beyond me. They have an event planner for it!” I can feel myself starting to get worked up about the whole situation again. I hate being blindsided by anything, and a Jaxon Steele confrontation when I didn’t even know he was in town is about the biggest shock imaginable.
“And then Kelsey!” I rant. “Ooo, Kelsey. Not only did she know—she knew!—Jaxon was in town, but she didn’t tell me. And then she and Carter let him sleep it off at their house. She is going to get a real piece of my mind.”
“I’m sure they’re required to keep it confidential. Carter—”
I cut her off. “Don’t even get me started on Carter. That man was therewithhim. He could’ve stopped it all from happening.He knew I was at that other table. He knew Jaxon was sitting mere inches from me. He could’ve done something.”
“Like what?” Becca asks, popping a blueberry into her mouth as she makes herself a bowl of yogurt.
“Like warned me to leave before I made a spectacle of myself yelling at an international music star on the roof of the only restaurant on Main Street,” I say forcefully. “It’s just my luck that someone like Janice heard me, and it’s currently being spread far and wide by the good people of Wild Bluffs.”
Becca shrugs. “I doubt it even makes it to the men’s coffee group gossip.”
“You know they know more gossip than the women in town do, Becca,” I say as I drop onto a stool, my head in my hands, my latest outburst having sucked all the energy from my body. “Youknow that. And now this is going to bring my failures as a teen back into the light. How devastated I was by a boy leaving—they always say it that way, like he was some crush of mine, not my best friend—so I didn’t get into any great colleges like Kelsey or earn some fancy scholarship like Bryn.”
Becca slides onto the stool next to mine. “You always do this.”
“Do what?” I ask, sneaking past her hand to grab a blueberry out of her bowl.
“Make it sound like you’re some kind of failure. You’re smart. You’re funny. You have a kickass business with the best person in town.”
