“You hated it here,” I said flatly.
“Maybe, but you didn’t. I just didn’t think you’d bring someone here to fuck.”
“I didn’t. We’re not doing anything except trying to get over you.”
“Uh-huh.” Frost formed on the edges of her words. “And Iknowhow you get over people.”
My teeth snapped shut. She had me there. It wasn’t at all beneath me to jump into bed with someone on the heels of a breakup.
Maybe that was why I’d pulled back so hard from Jesse—because I knew me. Because I knew I sometimes used casual sex and anonymous hookups to take the sting out of breakups. He deserved better than that.
No wonder I’d spooked and backed off.
Though… I was lying to myself if I said all I wanted from him was rebound sex.
“I know you,” she said again. “You’re screwing him to get over me. But we had something, you know? I messed it all up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fix it.”
“I can’t trust you,” I told her. “And I don’t want to go back. Not after?—”
“It was just a stupid mistake!” She wiped her eyes again with a shaking hand. “I never should have cheated on you. I know that. But it didn’t mean anything.” She flailed a hand toward the cabin. “Hedidn’t mean anything to me. Youdo.”
So many emotions tried to surge to the surface. I wanted to ask how she could lead someone on like that. Or how she could be with someone for the better part of a year if it didn’t mean anything.
What came out, though, was, “It turns out he means something to me.”
She blinked. So did I.
My heart fell. A lump rose in my throat. The words kept repeating in my head, and my knees actually went a little weak.
Selena opened her mouth to speak, and I realized I was suddenly too raw and off-balance to listen to another word. So, I just opened the door and walked back inside. She screamed something at my back, but I ignored it. I couldn’t hear it, really;my own words were echoing too loudly inside my skull. When I closed the door behind me, my knees were shaking.
“It turns out he means something to me.”
That hit me in places I didn’t know I had. It hit me in places my wedding vows should have while I’d been writing them. It had come out without thought, and it was an earthshaking, foundation-rattling truth that I hadn’t even let myself believe until I heard myself say it to her.
“Eric?” Jesse’s tentative voice broke through the noise. I lifted my head to find him watching me, concern written all over his face. “You okay?”
I almost laughed. I was so goddamned far from okay. But holding his gaze, I couldn’t breathe.
“It turns out he means something to me.”
Fuck. He did, didn’t he? Obviously more than he or I had ever meant to her, but also more than he was supposed to mean to me.
What the hell are we doing?
I cleared my throat and gestured toward the kitchen.
“I think I need a beer.”
CHAPTER 20
JESSE
It was barely nine in the morning, but I didn’t say a word as Eric pulled a cold beer from the fridge. He offered me one, too. I considered it, then shook my head, and not just because it was too early to drink. My stomach was too tied up in knots to risk offending it.
He leaned against the counter, took a deep pull, then closed his eyes and pressed the bottle against his forehead. “Fucking hell.”
I pressed my hip against the kitchen counter and tried to read him. “What did she say?”
