Sidelined (26 page)

“Prove it,” she whispers. “I’ve seen the first two. Prove the last one.”

Her words slice through me like a thousand daggers, except this time, the daggers are encased with hope instead of crippled with agony. Each one pierces me with a determination that floods my veins and sets alight every male instinct in my body.

“You want me to prove how I could love you?”

“Yes.” Her voice is a whisper again. Low, breathy, but still shaky. “I know everything about him, but not you.”

My nostrils flare as those male instincts explode. “Then go back to him,” I say firmly. “You wanna know everything I’m not, go back to him, baby. Go back to him and work through your demons with him. Work through the pain and the anguish he put you through. Think about how he screwed you up. And while you do that, remember that, every time we’ve fought, we’ve sorted that shit one way or another. Think about the fact that the only screwing I’ll do to you is when you’re in my bed. Then, baby—only then—you bring your ass back to my fucking house and tell me he can love you better.”

With those words, I release her and step into my shower cubicle.

She doesn’t join me.

She wasn’t even in my house by the time I got out. Calling Leah verified that she’d received a shouty, nonsensical message from Macey and she’d rallied Ryann and headed over there to calm her down and would call me later.

Later is twenty hours later, and Leah won’t tell me a thing although she’s right in front of me.

I know what I told her. I know I told her to go out with her ex-bastard for a few days. I wanted her to forget what I felt like, smelled like, tasted like, sounded like. It’s so fucking obvious that she’s been torn between us ever since he appeared at her door. Hell, she was fucking torn before he turned up. She was so fucking stuck on what he had done to her that she could barely see a few inches past her nose.

I changed that. I pulled her into a crazy affair that could be worth more than she’s ever let on. Maybe more than she’s ever wanted to.

But that’s the thing about reactions. Reactions are a tell—and the person on the other end can almost certainly tell when you’re lying. It’s almost like when Macey called that motherfucker in front of me and told him that she was “so sorry, but something came up” and she couldn’t possibly make their date. Just like she was “so excited” for their “chance to talk freely” without me around. Tomorrow. Now today.

All the while, I’m stuck here, at Corey’s place, pretending I don’t give a shit.

Leah knows though. She’s staring at me like a vulture after food. “Why don’t you just tell her?”

“Tell her what?”

“That you want her.”

“I already did.” I turn to her. “You think I fuckin’ like that she’s out with that asshole right now? You think I fuckin’ like the fact that he could be kissing her, touchin’ her, doin’ more? You think for a goddamn fucking second that it isn’t rubbing me the wrong way?”

“No,” Leah says softly, briefly dropping her eyes before raising them to mine. “I can see it, Jack.”

“Why did you let her go?” Reid asks. “Why did you
tell
her to? I’m tellin’ you, man. I ever find a girl who twists me inside out the way Macey does to you, I’m never telling her to go away.”

I rub my hand over my forehead. “It isn’t that simple.”

“She has some serious shit to work through.” Corey drops onto the sofa. “I thought Leah was allergic to relationships until I met Macey and realized Leah was just pretending.”

Leah jabs her elbow into his side and clicks her tongue.

“She has a reason, though,” Reid reasons. “What he did was real fucked up.”

“Yeah, and you all are forgetting that I know how that shit feels,” I grind out.

“Well…” Leah hesitates. “You do, but you don’t.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

She sighs and sits up. “You know what it feels like to be cheated on by someone you loved and trusted. But what you don’t know is how it feels to get told that a baby was created from that affair and believe it for a year, only to have that pulled out from under you in the same breath as finding out they still love you. So Macey isn’t only dealing with being cheated on. It’s way more than a trust thing. It’s her coming to terms with the fact that, if her cousin had been honest with Mitch in the first place and told him that he might not be the dad, Macey might not even know they’d slept together since he’d admitted he wasn’t going to tell her. Which is almost more of a betrayal in itself.

“On top of that, it’s clear to see that your relationship isn’t as cut-and-dry as you both planned for it to be, so she’s dealing with feelings she doesn’t want or understand where you’re concerned. Then, on top of
that
, she has you both fighting over her like she’s the last spade in the sandbox, when all she really wants to do is forgo real life for a week and hole up in her apartment in her pajamas with tequila and ice cream and chips to sort out the mess inside her head.”

Well, fuck. I never thought of it that way. I never fucking stopped to.

“Whoa,” Reid mutters. “That’s a lot of feeling for one person.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Only because men are insensitive bastards.”

“Hey!” Corey grabs her against him. “I’m very feeling.”

“Sure you are, honey.” She pats his knee. “She just needs some time, something she’s not sure she can have since Romeo over here decided to tell her to see Mitch again.”

“Shit.” I drop my head into my hands and violently rub my fingers through my hair. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

She gets up and pats my shoulder. “You’re male,” she answers, explaining herself perfectly.

I exhale loudly and lean back. “Fucking hell.”

“Don’t worry, bro. I fucked up more times than I can count and she’s still around.” Corey grins.

Reid snorts. “But there’s fucking up, then there’s fucking up. And Jack just
fucked up.
”

“Yeah, no shit. But I didn’t know I fucked up. At least, every time Corey fucked up, he knew. I’ve gotta have it spelled out to me because I’m a goddamn idiot.”

“No, you’re not.” Leah puts three coffees on the table in front of us then looks at me. “You made a mistake, Jack, but that’s because you just didn’t think through what you said before you said it. You just acted on impulse because you’re male and that’s what you do. Seriously, if I didn’t think through anything, like how to operate a washer, Corey would be happy to ghost through life with his mom still doing his laundry three times a week.”

My lips twitch. “Doesn’t that just translate to ‘a fucking idiot’? On both counts.”

Corey sticks his finger up at me as he drinks his coffee, and Reid laughs.

“Well, kind of.” Leah smiles.

Reid looks at me. “Look, man. Just call her up, apologize, and tell her she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to. Tell her to take her time. And send some fucking flowers around there.”

“Just like that?” I snort. “Yeah, because Macey will accept that. And if I send her flowers, she’ll keep one just to shove the stem up my ass next time she sees me.”

“Well, just call her, then. It works, I’m telling you. I had to keep Claire happy so many fucking times, even after Leo was born.”

Leah screws her face up. “Doesn’t she get out soon?”

“Just before Thanksgiving,” Reid answers, his voice heavy. “Leo already knows, and my sister has him most afternoons after school to take his mind off it. But the kid is too damn smart for his own good. He knows she’ll come bug us because he hasn’t been to see her for nine months.”

“You made the right choice,” I tell him. “Leo doesn’t need to be visiting his mom in prison.”

“Hey, he made the decision not to go. He asked me if I would stop taking him, so I did.” He shrugs. “He’s old enough to say whether or not he wants to see her, and that counts for when she’s out, too. She ain’t gonna like it much.”

“Women, man, I swear.” I shake my head.

Leah throws a throw pillow at me. “See that?” She turns to Corey. “That’s how you hit your target, butterfingers.”

Corey stands, hauling Leah up with him, then throws her over his shoulder. She shrieks, batting at his back, and he turns to me.

“If you don’t mind showin’ yourselves out, I gotta get her upstairs and remind her how well I hit targets.”

I laugh, and as Reid and I get up and Corey takes the stairs, Leah yells, “Your target is six, asshole!”

“Then we’re gonna be here for a long-ass time!”

T
he one thing keeping my ass on this barstool is the almost painful thought that, if Jack wanted me as badly as he says, there’s no way he’d let me go anywhere near Mitch, much less tell me to.

And right after sex, too.

What a fucking bitch.

Telling me to spend time with Mitch the way he did, after the words he’d said, is fucked up on so many goddamn levels I can’t even begin to comprehend what the hell he was thinking when he said it. Maybe he thought that he was doing me a favor, but the likely scenario is that he thinks he’s so superior to my ex that five minutes in Mitch’s presence will have me running back to Long Beach and falling at his feet, begging him to love me.

For that, he can kiss my ass.

Yes, Mitch cheated on me and planned not to tell me, but he never fucked with my head the way Jack is, however involuntarily he’s doing it. When we were together, Mitch was nothing less than one hundred percent attentive and caring.

Until…you know.

Sure, Mitch was kind of immature a lot of the time. He played dumb-ass pranks on me almost every week and it really pissed me off, but that was just him. Maybe the thought of having a baby has matured him.

Why am I even considering this?

Oh, that’s right: everyone thinks this is a dumb idea. And it is. It so is. But there’s also nothing I can do about it. Admittedly, I never really gave Mitch a chance to properly explain himself because I kind of yelled at him.

Jesus. Is that how I’m justifying this in my head?

Yes. Yes, it is, and I am totally okay with that.

“Mace?” A heavy hand gently rests on my shoulder, and I spin around on the stool.

“Hi.” I look straight up into Mitch’s light-brown eyes.

“Hi.” His lips tug to the side, and he perches on the stool next to me. “You want a drink?”

“Oh, I’m—” I glance at my empty glass. “Apparently in need of a glass of wine.” I smile tightly.