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Aria cocks her head, curiosity filling her eyes. “Answer me this: why do you want to make it better with her?”
“That’s a loaded question,” I state.
She nods. “It is.”
It’d be easy to shoot off my mouth but I’m not ready to admit things to Aria I can’t even admit to myself. “I’m not thrilled about the fact that I’ve hurt her,” is what I can admit.
“But is that all it is?” Aria presses. “Is it only that you’ve hurt her, or is it bothering you so much because you like her? Because those will get two very different answers.” Her eyes narrow thoughtfully, while she continues, “If it’s the former, I’d say do nothing and move on with your life. I think Mallory thought you were someone different, and then reality hit her when you guys got back and it threw her off. But she’s strong. She’ll be fine.”
I arch an eyebrow. “And if it’s the latter?”
Aria leans forward, leveling me with a hard look. “Total transparency?”
“Always.” I nod.
“You are a dick, Jackson.”
I snort. “Thank you for that, Aria.”
She gives a slight shrug, holding my gaze intently. “I’m not going to sugarcoat anything for you. This game between you and Liam is awful. Both of you have hurt not only me, making things awkward because I’m in love with Liam and I care about you—”
“I want you to be happy,” I interject.
Her brows rise. “Do you?”
“You know that I do, I’ve already said that.” I pause then swallow my pride. For her. “If Liam makes you happy, then I am happy for you.” For myself, I add, “Do I want to go for beers with him? No.”
She stares at me. Hard. “He told me what you did with Sophia, you know.”
“I suspected he would.”
“Do you want to tell me your side of that story?”
I hesitate, reading between the lines. “Did Mallory not tell you what I told her about my and Liam’s past?”
Aria shakes her head. “That’s not Mallory. She’s a vault. What goes in never comes out.”
That loyalty shocks me to my core. To not tell her best friend something, even though I had hurt her. Fuck, I am a dick. “No,” I eventually say to Aria. “I don’t want to explain my side. It was a very long time ago.”
At whatever crosses my face, everything about Aria softens. She reaches out and presses her hand against my arm resting on the table. “I want you to know that this thing is between you and Liam. Not between you and me. Knowing what I know changes nothing.”
I stay silent, not feeling like I need to say anything on the matter. I will never apologize for what I did to Liam. Ever. Because as far as I’m concerned, I did nothing wrong. I saved him from losing half of his money when that bitch divorced his ass to move on to her next conquest.
In my silence, Aria gently adds, “Regardless that neither of you want to fix this, what I’m saying is that you both have dragged us through this bad blood between you. I didn’t deserve it. Most of all, Mallory didn’t deserve it. She was a total innocent party here.”
“I’m well aware.”
Aria leans back in her chair, inhaling deeply before addressing me again. “So, then, this is where things get confusing. Because you’ve always been this guy that she sees in a certain way. Maybe that’s because of what Liam tells her, or the way she perceives you.”
I arch an eyebrow again. “And your point is?”
“My point is that when you two went away, she saw you as someone else. I think she really likes that someone else. But then you guys came back and bam, the old you smacked her in the face.”
“Which means?”
“Which means,” Aria explains after another long inhale, “that she’d expect the old Jackson to call her, apologize over email and text, because that’s what the old you would do. It’s cold, not personal. But she did happen to tell me the way you were with her at the cabin.”
I frown.
