“Douglass, don’t you dare walk away from me again. We’re going to talk whether you want to or not.”
“I need to get back to Natalie.”
Part of me wants to hurl at him that she’s not well. That him being here will add more stress that she doesn’t need. But that would be a lie because it wouldn’t be Natalie I would be referring to. It would be me. He’s causingmestress. Just him being here is making me remember things I don’t want to remember. Good and bad. Mostly bad.
Jordan cracks his neck from side to side, releasing the tension in his shoulders. Then he exhales loudly and shakes his head.
“Please fucking talk to me. Help me understand what happened between us.”
Nope. Not happening. I’m not giving him another chance to slice me open with his barbed words.
And then hot anger burns through me. He knows damn well what happened between us.
“Understand what, exactly? It’s crystal clear from my end. I think you said everything you needed to say to me five years ago. If you’re feeling guilty about it now, too flipping bad.”
Mason would be proud of me. He always used to tell me I had a bad-ass bitch waiting to emerge, and when she did, it was going to be spectacular. Whoever this snarky version of me is, she’s been popping up a lot the past couple of days. However, Mason was wrong about it being spectacular because all I feel is nauseous and sweaty.
My eyes widen with shock when Jordan’s hand lashes out and grips the back of my neck, pulling me toward him as he leans in, his breath fanning across my face. It’s too intimate. Too personal. Too scandalous. Tooeverything. What is going on? He shouldn’t be touching me like this. I’m his ex’s little sister. And according to the past twenty-two-year-old version of him, I was disgusting. His exact words.
“You’re going to tell me what I did that night that has you hating me so damn much.”
I jerk back in his hold, but don’t get far.
“Stop saying that. You know what you did,” I coldly reply, years of anger and hurt infusing my words with the pain I’ve endured because of him.
Jordan sighs and touches our foreheads together. A sweet gesture I wish I could be in a better mindset to enjoy, and one my younger self would be swooning all over. However, I’m not her anymore.
His chin drops, the rasp of his stubble abrading my cheek. “Douglass, I was black-out drunk that night. I don’t remember a goddamn thing. I only know what Mike told me last night.”
The sincerity and pleading in his tone of voice is what makes me give pause.
He was drunk? Mike told him? What exactly did Mike tell him? He promised me he wouldn’t say a word.
My eyes snap to Jordan’s as I bore holes into his soul.
Oh my god. He’s telling the truth.
What.
The.
Hell?
Jordan doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember the best and worst night of my life. What we did or what he said. For him, that night is meaningless. A blank slate. For me, it’s a red-hot poker that eviscerates me over and over again. Pleasure and pain. Jordan Hammond gave me the greatest pleasure of my life, and then killed me a thousand times over with the worst pain imaginable.
And all these years, I’ve been the only one of us to live with the memories of it.
And the consequences.
The laughter that erupts out of me has an edge to it. It’s harsh and uneven and a tiny bit hysterical. It’s loud and obnoxious and my tummy starts to hurt from the force of it.
As suddenly as it began, it stops. Jordan swipes along the apples of my cheeks at the wetness there, but I can’t let him touch me right now. Not when I feel raw and exposed.
I wasted half a decade of my life running and hiding from nothing.
Because he doesn’t remember.
I really am the stupidest person on the planet.
