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“You should go.”
“I know I should. I just don’t know if I’m feeling up to it. Did you want something to drink?"
“I’ll have a soda.” Cara smiled, shrugged her coat off, and placed it on a stool beside her.
I quickly poured her a glass and placed it down in front of her. She took a sip of her drink and smiled at me. “You see, Jackson lately?”
“Seriously?” I questioned, turning my back toward her, continuing to place the glasses from the dishwasher to the bar.
“What?”
“Did you come here to see me, or talk about him?” I sounded annoyed. I knew I did, but this was exactly the stress I’d been talking about when I told him I wasn’t ready to get involved again. I also knew that had Cara and Ryan not been gone away for the last couple of weeks, she’d of been all over me about him.
“I came here to see you. I just figured you guys looked chummy the morning of the brunch… and perhaps… I don’t know… a spark lit.”
I had zero right to bite her head off the way I had. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I will take that as a yes, then.”
I turned and rolled my eyes at her. “Seriously, just ask me what you want to know.”
“Are you guys back together? Amanda was sure she saw you two at the movies the other night,” she questioned, leaning forward on the bar. Exactly the Cara I knew. She wasted no time in asking me what she wanted to know.
“We have spent time together, yes.”
“Is it serious?”
I closed my eyes and tried to figure out what to say. Was it serious? I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say we were back together, but after what had happened the other night, I wasn’t sure. We hadn’t spoken since. I fished through my mind, trying to determine what I was okay telling her. I didn’t want her to know about the night of the wedding or the morning of the brunch.
“Bailey?”
“I don’t know,” I said in a low voice. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“Cara?” I knew she knew something, and I would not allow her to come in here and ask me all these questions without giving me the courtesy of telling me what she knew.
“He stopped in at the house last night. He helped Ryan work on the car.”
“That’s nice, but I don’t understand what him dropping by your house has to do with how serious we are?” I said, turning to finish putting glasses up on the shelves.
“Bailey, I went out to drop off a couple of beers, and I heard them talking. They were under the car and did not know I was even there. They were talking about you. He told Ryan that he loves you, and he said that you guys were together the other night, and that you ran off. He’s concerned about you.”
I was so glad that I wasn’t facing her at that given moment. I could feel my eyes burning at her words, and I closed them tight to stop the tears from falling. I knew he loved me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. I knew he loved me, and always would. He never stopped loving me, even on the day I walked out on him, and I knew deep down inside that I loved him, too.
“I know,” I answered weakly and swallowed hard, trying to clear the large lump that sat in my throat. There was no use keeping it a secret any longer. “I love him too,” I said, turning and looking over at my friend, tears filling my eyes. It was the first time I’d admitted I still had feelings for him to another person in a long time.
“Oh, Bailey, what happened?”
I took a deep breath, not sure if I was ready to talk about it. Yet I knew I needed to, no matter how much it hurt. I wiped my eyes. “It was the same thing that happened when I left the first time. He still won’t talk to me, Cara.”
“He won’t talk to you?”
“About Connor.”
“So, Ryan barely talks to me about work things. That’s what he uses the others for. Don’t be so hard on him. There are just things that we don’t need to know.”
“Hard on him. Please, I was nothing more than patient. Do you know he still has those nightmares?”
