“Too little, too late. And quick question, if Jenny hadn’t posted about seeing you, would you have told Ada you met up?”
His hesitation is all the answer I need, and it makes me want to cry. Not for him. For Ada. For what could have been.
“You’re a complete moron, Jake. She’s never gonna forgive you for this.”
His face crumples. “I haven’t seen Jenny in years, she told me she wanted to talk about the reunion. I didn’t wanna be a dick. I just didn’t think…”
I know exactly what he can’t bring himself to say.
He just didn’t think he’d have to compromise between being honest with Ada and making Jenny angry with a straight-up refusal. He always had to be mates with everyone. Likedby everyone. He knows Ada hates Jenny, but he couldn’t handle saying no to a coffee. He wanted to juggle, keep one party happy and the other in the dark, and he was wrong.
“You should have thought,” I snarl. “Because if you did, none of this would have happened. You should have just told Jenny to email you and fronted up to Ada about whatever happened between the two of you whenever that gross party photo was taken. You know Ada despises her with the power of an atom bomb?—”
“Yeah,” he says miserably. “That punch-up they had at school?—”
“That was at the end, not the beginning. Jenny had it out for Ada the second she showed up in Pukekohe.”
He gives me a tortured look.
“So, you knew that too.” Disappointment rolls over me like a tide. “Then you should have known you were screwed from the start. Adawould have looked past a lot of things about you. Shedid. But not this. Nother.”
“Cece, please, just tell me how to fix it?”
“You can’t.”
“I need to.”
“You’re not listening. I told you not to come here tonight, Jake. Nothing you or I can do is gonna fix this.”
His eyes slide away from me towards the dancefloor, and I follow his gaze.
Ada’s down from the pole, and the two guys are now grinding up against either side of her body. She’s laughing, but her eyes are empty.
Jake’s expression becomes murderous.
“Don’t,” I say, grabbing his arm. “She’s not yours to rescue anymore.”
But he’s already shaking me off and moving toward her. I follow, determined not to intervene unless things go totally nuclear. I tried to warn him, but maybe Jake needs to see what it means to cross a woman like Ada.
The uni guys are smarter than Thrasher. Ada’s would-be lovers take one look at Jake and vanish. Ada doesn’t move a muscle. She smiles seductively up at Jake like the stripper she was just impersonating. As terrified as I am about what’s about to happen, I can’t help but admire her nerve.
This afternoon, she was a quivering wreck, a second ago, she was a husk, and now you wouldn’t know anything was wrong at all. She looks vibrantly alive. Invincible. She’s not, but she looks it, and I know that’s what matters most to her at this moment. Masking so well Jake has no idea how broken her heart is. My own aches in sympathy.
“Well, well, well,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “If it isn’t Mr. Jenny Wallis…”
“The hell do you?—”
“Shut up.” Ada’s anger is audible even overthe music. “We’re done. Get the fuck out.”
Jake’s face crumples “Baby…”
“Nope. This is the last time you come in here to start shit like you actually care about me.”
He takes a half step backward. “Idocare?—”
“You don’t, or you wouldn’t have the balls to look me in the eyes after what you did. I don’t wanna hear it. Just fuck off.”
Jake throws his hands in the air. “I met up with Jenny for a coffee. You posted pictures of me in bed. My manager’s having a fit, and the whole team thinks I’m a joke. Can’t we just call it even?”
