I gave her a guilty smile. “I don’t know what else to say. He’s packing up his life and moving here. I’m… it’s crazy, Ames. I spent all that time missing him and now…” I shook my head, smiling. “It still feels like a dream half the time.”
She wrapped both arms around my waist, ignoring the golden retriever who was nudging her with the ball again.
“I’m so happy for you, Pres. I want to get to know him more.”
“You will. We’re going to have a barbecue once he’s here. Jake will be helping him bring some of his stuff down, I think, so he’ll be there too.”
She seemed nearly as surprised as I was at that fact. Having people over just wasn’t me. Or at least, it hadn’t been until Beckett came back into my life, but sharing my home…ourhome with those we cared about felt like the right thing to do now.
Amelia asked who Jake was and I reminded her, he was the cop who interviewed her that day at the park.
“They’re friends?”
“Yeah, they’re close. They were in the army together.”
Amelia studied me. “Ex?” she asked gently.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Beckett emphasized they never had an actual relationship and that they’d really only used each other to push aside the darkness that threatened them both during their days in the army, so technically, Jake wasn’t ever Beckett’s boyfriend. But I hated to think of him as a “fuck buddy”, too. I didn’t know what to think of their past together, but I’d seen their brotherly affections now. I knew I needed to accept Jake as part of our life if I was going to be with Beckett, just like Beckett would need to accept my unstable, kinda weird best friend Amelia.
“Not really,” I finally said, “but they do have history. Jake’s a big flirt. For both teams, I think.” I wasn’t entirely sure about that, but I’d seen him flirt with both men and women at the hospital.
Amelia’s eyes lit up and I immediately drenched that fire.
“No, Ames, donotgo after him! He’s… just no.” I didn’t want to point out that Jake wasn’t the only one who I didn’t think was stable enough for a relationship just yet, but I think she knew that because her face fell slightly.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said weakly, “but Brad’s little brother is gay. You remember Isaac? He works at Five Leagues Under now. Maybe-“
I cut her off. “From what Beck has told me, Jake is kind of a manwhore and he doesn’t do relationships, so don’t get any ideas. Besides, he doesn’t even live here.”
She laughed and finally tossed the ball for Lady, who bolted after it. I could tell Quinn was in pain so I suggested we take a seat on one of the benches to let him rest. My faithful boy laid at my feet, those amber eyes full of so much love for both of us, despite how much he hurt.
“So, when’s Beckett supposed to be here?”
I shrugged. “He has until the end of the month on his lease, for both his office and apartment.”
“So another two weeks maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“What’s he going to do? Not a lot of opportunities for a P.I. here.”
I picked at a fleck of dried paint on my jeans. “I don’t know. I think he plans to open a business here for now, driving up to Charleston as needed, or anywhere nearby.”
She heard the hesitancy in my voice and furrowed her brows.
I sighed, not wanting to divulge my doubts about his career right now. “We’ll figure it out. I just want him to be happy.”
Amelia leaned in, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “He has you, Preston. He’s going to be happy.”
Lady dropped the ball in my lap, somehow managing not to step on Quinn in the process. I tossed it for her, then settled back on the bench.
Amelia pulled her arms into her sleeves, shivering slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, after a long silence stretched between us.
I looked at her, confused. “Sorry about what?”
Her eyes fell to her lap, but I saw them shimmer with tears in the sunlight. “For scaring you. And for not reaching out when things were… too hard.”
I wanted to pull her into my arms, but sensed she needed some space to get through what she was trying to say. I wanted to say it was okay, but the truth was, we failed each other. “I am too. For not being there.”
