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At least he could do something about that last one.
Needing to make at least one thing about his life feel less empty, Jesse clicked away from his house hunt and searched for the city’s SPCA. He scrolled through both the available cats and the dogs and instantly knew this was something he wanted to do.
And he didn’t want a puppy or a kitten either, cute as those were.
He wanted the pets no one else wanted. The ones who wouldn’t get adopted. The ones who’d been discarded or left behind by a thoughtless fucking family.
The ones who didn’t fit in anywhere and had no place to call home.
The ones, well, sorta like him.
Which meant he needed to find a fucking house. One close to a dog park, thank you very much.
So he sucked it up and went back to his house hunt. And ignored the hell out of those his-and-hers closets and dual sinks he was never going to need.
Chapter
16
Tara sat in the middle of a big group of friends all having dinner and sharing their lives, and yet she’d never felt more alone in her life. Which had nothing to do with any of them, of course, and everything to do with the fact that she’d let fear dictate her life and as a result had pushed away something she’d realized too late that she wanted.
Jesse.
She missed him so much her chest actually hurt.
Maybe that was crazy given that she’d seen him almost every day for the past two weeks. But there was a wall between them now, one she’d built with her fear and her doubts. So she saw him, but she had no idea how he was doing. She worked with him, but they didn’t joke around. She heard him, but he didn’t say anything beyond the necessary work logistics and basic pleasantries. She got near him, but never got to touch him.
It was as if they’d never shared anything personal at all. As if they were just co-workers like any others. No, scratch that, there was now far more distance between her and Jesse than there was between her and any of her other teammates.
Which had brought her to a stunning conclusion.
There was no going backward for them. No being just friends.
And here was another revelation. She didn’t really want to just be his friend, anyway.
The morning Boone had told them about the bridge inspection job, Tara had felt like the whole world sucked in on her. She spent her weekend doing her five things over and over again until she drove herself freaking nuts.
But then…she’d finished her first day on the job. She’d done it—beaten her fear. Beat it despite the fact that she and Jud had switched positions while his foot finished healing, meaning she’d been in the water with Jesse as one of the working divers. In the end, she’d realized that anticipating doing the work had been much scarier than actually doing it. And learning that made her feel like she was on top of the world.
Her first instinct had been to go to Jesse and celebrate with him.
But she couldn’t.
And not sharing it with him made her realize there was a hole in her life—a Jesse-shaped hole. Being willing to fight her fears didn’t get rid of all their challenges, but she was ready to try, to at least explore if they could be together. More than that, realizing that her first instinct was to go to Jesse made her realize that they also couldn’t go back to being just friends—because she didn’t feel just friendly about him.
What exactly she felt, she wasn’t sure. But there were feelings there. Oh hell yes, there were. Yet she’d chased away the man those emotions were blooming toward without even realizing she was feeling them.
Because her fear had blocked everything else out like a storm cloud over the freaking sun.
The cumulative effect of all of these too-late revelations was that she felt utterly alone, even though she was sitting across the same table from Jesse. Maybe even because he was here. His presence should’ve made her happy—and it was good to see him, always—but what Jesse being here most did was hold up in front of Tara the amazing possibility she’d thrown away.
And, oh, God, on top of it all, he’d thought that he wasn’t worth her fighting her fears for. When, without him, she might never have realized that she was stronger than her fears ever were.
Or, at least, she could be. If only she was as brave as he believed her to be.
So tell him you were wrong.
Tara peered across the table at him. He was laughing at some story Sean and Jud were telling, his demeanor open, easy, engaged. God, he was sexy and interesting and so freaking gorgeous.
