“Hey.” I brush my thumb across her cheek, catching one as it slides down toward her mouth. “I’m okay. I know it might not seemlike it after that, but I am. And if she hadn’t done what she did, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“I’m sorry, Wes. I’m just so sorry.” Joss buries her face in my chest, sniffles rocking her whole body. I know she doesn’t like for me to see her cry—for anyone to see her cry—so this is oddly the most comforting thing she could do. Like she’s giving me a small piece of herself. I wrap my arms tighter around her, a silent thank-you.
“What do you have to be sorry for, sweetheart? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I brought her up. I was jealous and mad that you hadn’t told me about her, even though I had no right to be.”
Iknowthere shouldn’t be a swooping feeling in my stomach at hearing her admit she’s jealous.
“Joss, you have no reason to be. She couldn’t hold a candle to you if she tried. And I wasn’t exactly keeping it from you. Like I said, I just don’t talk about her, period.”
She sits back, eyes clearer, and I can only hope I haven’t said too much. I never know when I’ll end up on the wrong side of the flirtatious friendship and outright attraction line these days.
“Can I ask you a question?” She hesitates, biting her lip. “You don’t have to answer. I don’t want to make it worse.”
My body tenses, and she must see the nerves cross my face. Her delicate hand reaches up to brush across my cheek and then her thumb presses between my furrowed brows.
“What caused the panic just now? Was it just Brenna or… something more?” She drops her hand, her fingers fiddling in her lap, pulling nervously at the hem of her sweater.
I cover them with mine, lacing our fingers together. “I think she was the trigger. I wasn’t expecting her name to come up, so that was a shock, but under other circumstances, it might have been different.”
“Other circumstances?”
Now it’s her brow that furrows, confusion marring her beautiful features. Here goes nothing.
“Things have been a bit tense between us tonight. After… earlier.” Heat rises in my body as it remembers the way she felt pressed against me. “I could feel you pulling away from me in the car. There was a distance between us that hasn’t been there since we became friends. I’ve been playing off what happened, but the worry that my stupidity earlier was going to take you from me had me on edge. And then to hear her name on your lips, to know that she was part of what created that chasm between us, that I could loseyoubecause ofher… Yeah. It rattled me.”
My heart rate ratchets up again, that same panic rising like it did earlier. I can’t lose Joss.
“You panicked because of me?” Her voice is quiet. Her eyes are locked where our hands are twined in her lap.
I reach my free hand to lift her chin, forcing us eye to eye. Grey to blue.
“No, Joss. I panicked because I don’t want to lose you.” The lines are becoming blurrier the more I talk, the tighter I hold her in my arms.
I don’t know what I want anymore. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m not a fighter pilot. I’m not in the Navy. How can I be something more for someone when I don’t even know myself? That’s why I’m here, right? I can’t be what Joss needs. I’m notenough for her. She deserves so much more than the broken shell of a man that I’ve become.
I’m sure I’ve said too much, sure she can see all my thoughts written on my face. That she’ll run from the wreck that I am. She surprises me with a smile. Asmile. It’s such a small gesture, but everything in me loosens. I’m hanging on tenterhooks for what she’ll say, if she’ll let me in on whatever has put that look on her face. I never know with this girl.
“I’ll never be able to understand how she could leave you.” Her smile morphs into something mischievous and playful.
That’s definitely not what I was expecting.
“Especially now that I’ve seen you naked.” She draws out the last word and wiggles her eyebrows. She’s teasing, and I am so grateful for her in this moment.
My head falls back as I laugh.
If you’d asked me when I walked out here, mid–panic attack, if I’d be laughing just a short while later, I would have said you were crazy. Joss is laughing now too, and the sound does something to my heart. It’s like a balm to all the shattered and bruised places I’ve been trying to mend for the last year.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Wes
“Remind me what exactly it is we’re doing again?” I call out to Joss through her closed bedroom door.
“Jaz has a date,” she calls back, and I sigh. I know this part. The part I’m fuzzy on is where Joss and I come in.
“Yes, that I get. What arewedoing?”
