Cheryl glared at her. “One of his employees, Jax. Not him. Marcus is forever in and out of the store. It made me realize I haven’t seen him in days. Maybe a week. Something happened. You blew it, didn’t you? You messed up and now he’s gone.”
Jax ignore the instant guilt. “Hey, it’s not on me. He’s the one who ended things. I’m the wronged party.”
Cheryl shook her head. “No one believes that. Of course it’s you. What happened?”
“Nothing. No, I mean that. I was minding my own business when he asked if I could see myself falling in love with him. That’s not a fair question.”
“You said no.” Cheryl’s tone was flat.
“It’s not a fair question!” Jax repeated. “He’s not supposed to ask that. It’s only been a couple of months. We hadn’t even had sex.” She hung her head. “I laughed.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jax drew in a breath. “When he asked if I could see myself falling for him, I laughed and said ‘God, no’ or something like that. But he shouldn’t have asked.”
“It wasn’t about if you were in love, it was about whether or not you saw the relationship going somewhere. Which you don’t. He’s had a thing for you for a while now and you dumped all over him. No wonder he ended things.”
“This isn’t my fault.”
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “The man put himself out there over and over. He showed up, took care of you, made it clear that he was all in and you laughed at him.”
Jax flinched. “Notathim,” she murmured, feeling worse by the minute. Because the truth was, she missed Marcus—more than she would have thought. She liked hanging out with him, having him drop by. She liked how he was with Ramon and her kids. He was a good guy.
“He caught me at a bad moment,” she grumbled.
“When would have been a good one?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if he’d warned me or something. I wasn’t ready. I’m not ready.”
“For what?” Cheryl asked. “Dating? It’s been well over a year since you and Harris split up. How much healing do you need?”
“I don’t need to heal. I need to...” She had no idea what was wrong.
Cheryl’s expression softened. “Jax, have you considered the fact that maybe you don’t want to be in a relationship? You seem really happy on your own. For some people, that’s just how they’re wired. I’ve never been married. When I was younger, I kept waiting to fall in love but at some point in my thirtiesI realized I didn’t want to be in a relationship. Once I figured out I was perfectly content to be single, I stopped waiting for a man and got on with my life. Maybe that’s you.”
Jax stared at her friend. Was she right? Was the real problem that Jax didn’t care about being paired up? Was she a more “go it alone” kind of person?
But even as she thought the question, she felt herself rejecting the idea. In another decade her kids would be going to college and starting lives without her. She didn’t want to spend the next thirty or forty years by herself. She wanted someone to share things with. Someone to love her that she could love back.
So why wasn’t she actively looking for a man? She was long over her marriage—in fact there hadn’t been that much to get over. She and Harris had never been partners. She’d been perfectly comfortable with him gone for weeks at a time.
But she wanted more, she thought unexpectedly. She wanted connection and love and passion and...
Except she had to be in control. Always. She was in charge of everything. From deciding whether or not there would be a second sibling to taking care of Ryleigh to raising Ramon. She was the one who managed and took care of others and never showed weakness. But being in love, being a partner, meant being vulnerable, which absolutely wasn’t her style.
“You just thought of something,” Cheryl said.
“I’m afraid to trust anyone,” Jax said, her voice more question than statement. “I never let Harris make any decisions because I didn’t think he would make the right one.”
“You mean the one you wanted.”
“Maybe. Probably. I never learned how to be a partner because I didn’t see the point. I could do it all myself. Why mess with someone else? Only that sounds really lonely. Before, I had Ryleigh and then my kids. But they’re going to grow up and my sister might move to San Diego and then it’ll just be me and Ramon and while I love him, I want more.”
“You mean someone like Marcus? The perfect man you laughed at?”
Jax winced. “Did you have to put it that way?”
“You can’t fix the problem until you’re willing to see it for what it is. You’re a strong woman, Jax. That’s admirable until that strength works against you. Remember before when you were upset about Ryleigh moving. You said your life was a four-legged stool, but you’d lost Harris and you were about to lose Ryleigh so you wouldn’t have a stool at all.”
