“Yeah,” he finally says. “It would’ve mattered.”
His words slice through me. I feel his confession everywhere. In the ache behind my ribs. In the heat that rises in my throat. In the sudden and unwelcome feeling ofrelief.
“You sure about that?” I ask, voice tight.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I was a fucking mess back then, but…yeah. I had…feelings. I didn’t understand them at the time. Thought it was just growing pains.”
I search his eyes for hesitation, for doubt. I find neither.
“So it wasn’t just me,” I say.
Jake’s mouth twists into something like a smile. “No. I never imagined you felt love for me—that kind of love. But once in a while I caught a vibe.”
“Did you?”
He nods. “You wore that cocky smirk like armor. No one could see past it unless they already knew what to look for.” He pauses. “I did.”
I swallow. My throat feels thick. “I kept thinking it wasn’t real. That I was just lonely or confused.”
“You weren’t.” His voice drops low. “And neither was I.”
“But Marnie…”
He nods. “I loved her. Part of me still does. It’s a long fucking story. Plus…you know. The pregnancy.”
The silence stretches between us again, but this time it’s different. Not cold. Not empty. It’s alive with things unsaid, with years of buried ache. None of it makes sense. Maybe it never did.
As much as I loved—stilllove—Jake, I love Sienna too. Maybe even more.
“I’m with Sienna now,” I say again. “I love her.”
“I have a woman back in Miami,” Jake says. “Felicity. I mean, we’re not serious or anything, but she has this kid. Tammy. I adore her.”
A kid. The kid Jake never got to have with Marnie.
I don’t ask why Jake left. If he knows what happened to Marnie. I’ve already done that, and he’ll talk when he’s ready.
“Why did you come with River?” I ask. “I mean, you left for a reason?—”
“Partly because he told me about Misty,” he interrupts. “But the rest? I’ll tell you all together.”
“Yeah, I get that. I’m not asking. At least not now.” I sigh. “It’s just… Seeing you. It’s got me fucked up.”
Idolove Sienna, but there’s this gnawing part of me that never stopped wondering about Jake. The what-ifs.
Jake steps closer, just enough that one more breath would close the space between us.
“I thought I’d buried this,” I say. “When you died, I tried so damned hard to bury it.”
“I did too,” he says. “But it never stayed buried.”
I clench my jaw. “I’m not the same kid.”
“Neither am I.”
We’re too close now. My pulse races, my head spinning with guilt and longing and every rule I ever broke.
But then Jake looks at me.
