I waited until I heard the door close before I turned back to Preston. “I have to go.” I didn’t wait for his response before I turned to walk away.
His hand grabbed mine and twirled me around to face him once more. “Jess. Don’t do this.”
I searched his face—for what, I wasn’t sure. But when he didn’t say anything else, I pulled away.
I tugged the door to the restaurant open and slipped inside. Moments before the door slammed shut, I heard Preston say, “You deserve better, Jess. You deserve everything.”
And that was the problem.
Because wanting everything had already cost me too much.
Chapter Thirteen
Preston
I’d hardly slept all night. I could give myself a list of a dozen reasons why that was, but the truth was that every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was the look on Jess’s face. How defeated she looked when she’d tried to insist she was just beingpractical.
If I could erase that word from my damn vocabulary, I would.
She deserved so much more thanpractical.Or some kind ofarrangement.
The fact that she was going to go through with marrying that asshole made me want to tear down the walls.
And that’s exactly why I was going to get as far away from her and her horrible decisions as I possibly could.
“What do you think, Summit?” I pulled a pack made specifically for dogs from the shelf. “Are you up to carrying your own gear yet?”
The puppy looked up at me with his big, brown eyes, eager to please as always. It had only been a few months sinceSummit had come into my life, but we fit together so perfectly that I already couldn’t imagine things without him.
If only relationships with humans were as easy.
Maybe this was what I was destined for now. Life with a dog. At least he wasn’t going to abandon me to ruin his life by marrying some asshole.
I dropped the doggy pack next to the rest of the supplies I’d been gathering for my trip and tried again to shove thoughts of Jess out of my mind.
Because the truth was, she didn’t owe me anything. It’s not like we were…well, anything. We were barely friends again. We certainly weren’t anything more than that.
Keep telling yourself that, asshole.
A low growl slipped from my throat, surprising the puppy, who growled in return and hopped backward.
The action made me chuckle despite myself and the feelings I’d been trying and failing to ignore. Because the truth was, Ididhave feelings for Jess. I had since we were kids. And spending time with her recently and getting to know her as an adult had only poured gasoline on the fire that had never fully gone out.
“You’re either doing inventory or ransacking the place.”
Brody’s voice jarred me from my thoughts. I spun around with a dehydrated meal in my hands.
“And since you never willingly do inventory, I’m going to go with option B.”
My brother’s easy smile pissed me off. I grunted and tossed the packaged meal onto the pile. “I’m going away for a few days,” I told him. “I needed a few supplies.”
“A few, huh?” He sifted through the stack of things I’d been almost randomly tossing into the pile. “Because it looks like you have enough here for a few weeks.”
I ignored him and shoved the items into my pack. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, right?”
Brody laughed, and it pissed me off even more. “Does this mean you aren’t going to the wedding?”
“What wedding?”
