Page 79 of The Other Half

“I’ll do anything to prove it to you. Just give me a chance, Jake.”

With my eyes boring through the pavement, I heaved a breath. Could I? Could I trust her one more time? But then I remembered the pain. The agony. The shame I’d felt in falling for her lies before. Her lies I’d endured while still reeling from the aftermath of betrayal from my best friend and Nikki. No. I couldn’t take another round of devastation and get deceived again. Shaking my head, I shrugged away her hand. “I can’t.”

I heard her soft cry while I hurried down the stairs and into the darkness. Don’t look back, I commanded myself while I rushed down the sidewalk. I didn’t dare stop at my truck. If she climbed inside again, I knew I’d have her pressed up against the door, my lips leading the charge in destroying my last shred of resolution. Instead I kept walking, kept moving, as far away from Cassie as I could.

When I finally slowed down, I was at the docks. My boat bobbed in the water just up ahead. Deciding peace and quiet on the water was just what I needed to calm down, I started down the docks toward my boat. The silhouette of a man casting into the water slowed my feet. As I got closer, my slowed steps stuttered to a stop. It was Matt.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I groaned. Was the universe playing a cruel joke on me? Nowhere was safe tonight. Cassie commanded the Blue Ox, and it seemed Matt had taken up on the docks. My docks.

“Jake?” Matt asked, looking over from where he reeled in his line.

“I’ll go,” I grumbled, turning away.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be down here. I’ll go. I just wanted to fish a little tonight. It’s been a while.”

Fishing these docks together was something he and I had done countless times since we were kids. Spinning on my heel, I started away. “Whatever. I’ll go. This is just the perfect end to my fucking day.”

He set down his rod and jogged to my side, stopping in front of me.

“I wouldn’t get in my way, if I were you.” I leveled him with a glare while he blocked me from leaving.

“Jake. I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. None. But I’m asking anyway. I miss you. I miss us. And I know I don’t deserve it. But can you? Can you forgive me?”

A laugh ripped out of me. Bending over, I pressed my hands into my thighs. At this point in my night, laughing was all I could do now. The unexpected reaction sent Matt back a step, and it surprised me as much as it did him. “More people wanting my forgiveness tonight.” My laugh deepened. “You know, the really shitty part about this, Matt? I’m neck-deep in shit right now, and the one person I know could pull me out of it is you. If you hadn’t screwed my fiancée, I’d be asking you to meet me on these docks and fish it out while you helped me dig myself out of the hole. Because that’s who you were to me. My best friend. My brother. The person I relied on most in this world. But here we are. I’m drowning, we’re on the docks, and I can’t even talk to you about it because, you know, you fucked my fiancée!” I laughed harder.

“Jake,” he said, pressing a hand on my shoulder. “Talk to me.” With a powerful shrug, I sent him back a step.

“Don’t touch me. You aren’t my friend anymore. You gave up that right when you betrayed me.”

“I get it. I do.” He lifted his hands but held his ground. “What I did...” He blew out a puff of air. “Unforgiveable. And I don’t expect you to forgive me. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still talk to me. If you’re in shit, I can help you out. No one on this planet knows you better than I do.”

“That’s the worst part. I know you could. I know you would know just what to say to help me find my way out. It’s not that Nikki cheated on me that hurt so bad. It’s that it was with you and because of it, I lost you as my best friend. You didn’t even have the balls to tell me. I had to find out from rumors around town. And you know better than anyone how much I value honesty. Hell, I may have even forgiven you, if you’d have just come to me.”

His eyes fell to the ground. “I know, Jake. I know. It was so messed up. I was drunk and–”

“I was drunk?” I laughed again. “That’s the big excuse? Sorry I got drunk and banged your fiancée?”

“... and I thought I was in love with her.”

Those words shoved the laughter back down my throat and I turned to face him. “What?”

He heaved a sigh. Sorrow-filled eyes rose to meet mine. “I thought I was in love with her since I first saw her the day she moved here freshman year. But she wanted you. And I was happy for you. I was. So, I sat on the sidelines and watched you with the girl I thought I loved. And I did nothing. Because you were my best friend. My brother. It was agony spending all that time, all those years, watching you two together. But I was happy for you.”

With a slack-jaw, I could only stare at him, blinking.

“When you got engaged, it broke my heart. Deep down I’d always expected you’d break up, then I’d get your blessing to ask her out. That one of these days it would be my turn. Every time you broke up, I waited for the right moment to ask your permission, but then she always came running back to you and it was too late.”

“I... I had no idea.”

“I know. I didn’t want you to. I thought she made you happy. But that one night, I was so drunk, and she kissed me. It was wrong, and I knew it. But it felt like I was under some kind of spell. After all those years of wondering what it felt like to be you, to feel her kiss, it was finally happening. And I let it. I was drunk, sure. But I knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t stop myself. The next thing you know it snowballed from there, and I was still powerless to stop it.”

We stood locked in a silent stare. Before I met Cassie, I wouldn’t have understood what it meant to be powerless to deny a woman, but now I understood all too well.

“You were in love with her?” I stammered.

With a shrug, he nodded. “Thought I was in love with her. Turns out she’s a pretty shitty person and I spent a lot of years dreaming about a girl who didn’t exist.” He snorted. “But just because I had spent all those years coveting her, it doesn’t make what I did right. Or okay. Or forgivable. But I just wanted you to know why. Not that you’d understand. You’d never have done that to me. No matter how much you wanted the girl.”

He was right about that. But there was one thing I understood more than he knew. The power a woman could wield over your good sense.