“The best. Real pillars of the community. Always volunteering and helping people out.” He gives me a woeful smile.
I blow out a long breath. “So, we’re both only children. That’s some pressure. Everything’s riding on you.” I make a face at him. “They’ll be fine with it once they understand, James. I can move out for the weekend, staywith a friend, and they can have my bedroom.” Maybe I can stay with Aunt CeCe or go back to the hostel.
James’s face transforms into a scowl. “No way are you moving out: even for one night. I’ll sleep on the couch and my mom and dad can have my room.”
“What? No! You’ve got to put them in my room. I’m the interloper here. I can sleep in the living room.”
“Interloper,” he huffs under his breath. “Not happening, Sadie.” And I’m not sure what face I’m making because he says, “I’m serious. My dad would kill me if I let a woman sleep on the couch.”
“That’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“He’s a traditional guy. It’s how he was raised.” He leans back and tips his head back on the cushions. “God, I’m dreading telling them. They always said Jane was the daughter they never had.”
Oof. I know rationally that James views me as a friend, and not anything more, but this comment still makes something curdle inside me. No woman could take on that sort of history. Living here has been the first time I’ve been in a place where I felt I could relax, and sometimes I wish I could throw off my unfortunate crush on James.
“She always chatted away to my mom when they were together.”
“So they’re coming to see her, too.”
“Shit! Yes.” He starts pacing around the living room again. “We’ll have to meet up with her.” He comes to an abrupt halt. “I swore to myself I wasn’t going to do that again.”
Curiosity burns through me. “When did you decide not to see Jane again?”
He flaps his hand at me, then sinks back down on the couch, dragging his hands down his face as he turns to look at me.
“That day you rescued me when I got drunk … She was sooblivious. All that talk about us being best friends … How is bringing your new boyfriend to meet the guy whose marriage proposal you’ve turned down something you do to abest friend? She’s still messaging me about moving back into our old apartment, even though I’ve made it perfectly clear that’s not what I want. It’s like what I want counts for nothing. She wanted to FaceTime with me the other night because she was lonely.”
James asked Jane tomarryhim? My heart contracts like someone drove a saber through it. I’ve been hoping for something I have no business hoping for … all this cycling and chats over dinner and coffee together … helping me move … I’m an idiot. He’s being a friend. Jane was the love of his life. How could anyone ever compete with that?
The girl’s code builds a small, quiet room, and she steps inside it.
“What about this other guy she’s seeing? Doesn’t she FaceTime with him?”
“Kevin. Apparently, he plays soccer in the evening.”
I snort. “Welcome to the real world,” I say, and James’s eyebrows rise. “Oh crap, did I say that out loud?” I add.
He starts to laugh. “Yes, actually, you did.” His eyes rove over my face. “Have I told you I really like your sense of humor?”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. Okay then. I barrel on. “I don’t know why she left you, James. Successful, good-looking …” My face gets hotter. What am I saying here? I clear my throat. “It’s her loss, not yours.”
He gazes down at his hands, then turns his head to study me, eyes roaming all over my hot face. He’s staring at me like he did in the bathroom yesterday. I can’t meet his eyes. I just said he was good-looking! “Thank you,” he says quietly.
“It’s going to be pretty awkward if they want to see her.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Like why-did-you-ditch-our-son-and-go-screw-someone-else awkward?” he deadpans.
I snort, and another grin curls over his mouth as he runs his long fingers through his hair. “I’m going to have to tell them we split up before they come here, so they have some time to digest the idea. But that also sounds like the least appealing phone call ever.”
I think about how I felt before I told my mom about Jake and what he did, and what’s happened since. “Yeah, difficult conversations with parents are the worst.”
“Tell me about it,” he says.
Chapter 22
James
My parents listen to my minimalist explanation of Jane and my split and go straight into denial. My mom tells me that, if she had a dollar for every time she and my dad hit a rough patch, she’d be a wealthy woman, and my dad grunts in the background and says something that sounds like “I’d never leave her, even if she does drive me up the wall.” My mom tells me that Jane and I have been together so long that it must all be fixable, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that Jane has already found someone else. When I come off the phone, I want to punch a hole in the wall.
