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“Can we stop?”
“We’ve got one hour left.” He turns to check me out. “Call mercy if you want.”
I’m not calling mercy. No way. He’ll use that against me forever…or at least as long as we’re together. Which I hope is forever.
I’m not even going to kid myself––if I had to choose between him and the life. I’ll choose him. I’d choose him every single time.
“Babe…do you want to play again?”
He stops finally. Had I known that was the password I would’ve used it hours ago.
He turns and looks at me, shrugs. “A year ago I would’ve answered no. But…”
“But now you do.”
He nods once. My suspicion was correct.
“What are you going to do about it?”
Gaze cast down. “I don’t know…I don’t know.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Anything.”
“A few months ago I watched the game, the Stanley Cup against the Penguins.” His face gets tight. It’s his defensive face. I know it well by now. “Did you get a concussion from that hit you took in the third period?”
The look on his face has my fine tuned reporter’s antenna sounding the alarm that I’m over the target. “You were punched in the face. I saw the tape, Jake. Did they check you for a concussion?”
Jake blinks, expression neutral. It’s a dead giveaway.
“You did.”
He starts walking down the mountain again.
“Jake? Jake!” I run after him. Grabbing his wrist, I stop him and he lets me. “Talk to me. You said we would always talk this out. So talk to me. You had a concussion that night…why did you drive?”
His shoulders fall. Turning, he faces me. “I had a concussion that night. Which is why I didn’t party in the locker room with everyone else.”
“Then why did you drive?”
It takes him forever to answer. “I didn’t…I wasn’t driving that night. Mike was.”
I don’t think he could’ve said anything more shocking. I want to ask a million questions and nothing is coming out of my mouth.
“Mike was driving?” He looks off and nods. “Mike was driving and crashed…why?”
“The police fucked it up and I didn’t correct them. My blood came back clean and Mike’s was above the legal limit. It…it just made everything easier.”
I bend over, hands on my knees, and take a deep breath, on the verge of hyperventilating. Jake rubs my back.
“We had just won the Cup. It was easier for the team…for Karen to get Mike’s life insurance payout. If he had died with drugs and alcohol in his system and he was driving, the policy was void.”
“But it wasn’t easier for you.”
“Mike had a lot of debt.”
“So you got screwed.” He makes a face. “You’re lucky to be alive. Mike could’ve killed you both…” I am so mad for him right now I want to resurrect that bastard so I can strangle him.
“Babe…”
“Mike was good to me. He was my best friend. I couldn’t let him down.”
“Jake…” Reaching up, I take his face in my hands. “He let you down. All he had to do was ask, and the airport would’ve gotten you a driver.”
“It is what it is.”
He pulls my hands away from his face and starts walking again. Neither one of us says a word the rest of the hike.
Chapter 19
“Darling!”
There’s only one person that calls me that and that same person also has a slight British accent.
Ben is sitting on the porch of the Austen when Jake and I return from our hike. He stands, beaming at me, looking handsome in a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and designer jeans.
I would have preferred him to look haggard and pale but no, he’s looking as fit as ever with a deep tan and slightly longer hair.
“I’ve been waiting all day.”
In contrast, Jake and I walk up looking sunburnt and as worn-out as a dollar bill in a strip club. Ben’s line of sight moves over to Jake. Lifting his aviator sunglasses, he gives Jake the once-over and declares him a non-issue. This man’s arrogance knows no boundaries.
“What are you doing here?” My tone communicates exactly how I feel about the subject.
Jake walks past me, checks Ben out, and says, “First-best,” to me. Which makes me feel like crap. He needs me right now, more than ever, and instead I have to deal with Ben.
Love truly is blind because now that they’re standing next to each other, I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s no comparison. Ben is a faded image in contrast to Jake’s bright, shiny colors.
“Jake, wait…”
“Come get me when you’re done,” he tells me without a backward glance. I watch him walk into the Hemingway looking more than a little bruised.
“What do you want Ben?”
He looks over his shoulder at the door behind which the love of my life disappeared. “Boyfriend trouble?”
“No trouble at all. So, to what do I owe this visit?”
