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“Obviously not, since I’m sitting here with you two idiots.”
“For fuck’s sake, Frank, stop interrupting. Go on,” Ryan said
, glaring between me and my oldest brother.
“She told me not to come. Said she couldn’t leave, but she told me not to come get her.” I winced a little, as reliving the sound of her voice and her words forced the pain to slice through me.
Ryan cleared his throat. “Little brother, of course she said that. What was she supposed to do, pack up her shit and move home with you? She’s still in school.”
“Yeah,” Frank added. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that she was miserable up there. I was thinking that she’d want to see me and that I could save her. I wanted to be the one to save her. To make her happy again instead of sad. I wasn’t thinking she’d tell me no.”
“She can’t possibly tell you yes.” Frank rolled his eyes, as if I was the world’s biggest idiot for thinking otherwise.
“Well, she didn’t have to say that she didn’t want me to come up there at all. She told me to stay home. She begged me to stay here.” Scowling at them, I willed them to see my side of things, but they didn’t budge.
“You’re being unrealistic. You can’t be her knight in shining armor when she doesn’t need rescuing,” Ryan said with a smug smile.
“You think this is funny?” I leaned into his space, looking for a fight. Anything that would let me get my aggression out.
“A little,” he said, baiting me.
“Keep it in your pants,” Frank growled. “Have you called her since your epic fail last night?”
“No.”
“No?” he bellowed into the empty bar.
“Did I stutter?” I was getting real sick and tired of them picking apart my every move. Maybe confiding in my brothers wasn’t the best idea.
“Oh my God, Nick. How did you get so stupid? Is this because we were gone by the time you started to grow up? You can’t be related to me and be this bad at love.” Ryan groaned as if my ineptness at romance was somehow a reflection on him.
“What? She told me not to come. She told me to stay here. I didn’t think that warranted a phone call the next day just so she could say it to me again. I can’t take it from her. I can’t hear her tell me she doesn’t want to see me.”
“She still thought you’d come,” Ryan said, shaking his head. But he was wrong. There was no way in hell Jess thought I’d show up.
“Not possible,” I argued.
Ryan sighed, then spoke slowly as if I were the stupidest guy in the world. “She’s a chick. They want the fairy tale. She might have told you not to come, but you planted one hell of a fucked-up seed in her head, and then you left it there to rot.”
“You only think that because you don’t know her,” I said, waving him off. “She told me to stay here, and I listened. I listen to the things she says she wants from me. That’s what you do when you love someone.”
It wasn’t entirely true. Jess had wanted to stay together and I told her no, but that had been different. She wasn’t thinking clearly when she asked me that. I knew it would be disastrous, us trying to date long-distance, and I couldn’t do that to her. Jess thought she wanted us to stay together, but I knew the best thing for her future was to be apart.
Ryan shook his head sadly, as if he was some expert on the subject, even though he hadn’t had a serious girlfriend in the last five years. “No, you idiot. You read between the lines when you love someone. You learn when to listen to them and when to call them on their bullshit. And you learn the difference between when to fight and when to walk away.”
“Says the serial dater,” I shot back.
“I’m a serial dater because I know right away that the woman isn’t right for me, and I don’t string them along. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t learned to read women. Hell, I’m probably better at reading women than the two of you combined.” He waved a finger between Frank and me.
Frank let out an annoyed huff. “I think you should call her. You owe her an apology. And as much as I hate to admit it, knucklehead over here is probably right. Even though she told you not to come, she was probably still hoping you would.”
Ryan whipped out his cell phone and pressed a button. “Shit, Frank. Can you say that again? Nice and slow for the camera.”
Frank shoved away from the bar stool and flipped off the camera as he headed into the back office.
“Great. You made him leave,” I said, and Ryan turned the camera on me.
