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Shame curled through me as Jett praised me through the end of the episode. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
The endearment made my stomach roil violently. “Don’t,” I croaked. I shook my head and tugged free of Jett’s hold. Between everything he’d seen upon Marcus’s arrival and the way I’d treated him before that, the last thing I wanted to hear from the man was an apology.
I was both glad and disappointed when Jett released me.
“They took your spark plugs,” Jett said before I could try to explain why I’d pulled away from him. His anger was clear as he continued with, “They’re in the butter dish in Dallas and Nolan’s house. I doubt they’re still waiting up for you, and with Loki at Maddox and Isaac’s place, you probably have a decent chance of getting in and out of the kitchen without too much trouble.”
It took my muddled mind several long seconds to process his words. How had I not even considered the spark plugs? Dallas and Maddox had done the same thing to Isaac’s car when he’d tried to leave the day after he and Newt had arrived in Pelican Bay.
I could hear Jett’s wheelchair rolling over the gravel and since I couldn’t make out his form anymore, I figured he was heading back to Isaac and Maddox’s house. It was one more loss that I just couldn’t take.
“It wasn’t real. The stuff with Marcus… none of it was real,” I called. I didn’t know what possessed me to tell him that when I should’ve been keeping my mouth shut. I was glad when Jett stopped his wheelchair, but I dreaded what his response would be.
“I don’t think that’s quite true,” Jett answered, his voice calm, not accusatory. He sounded a little sad too.
Yeah, I didn’t do sad. The last thing I wanted was his fucking pity.
“Fuck you, Jett,” I snapped before stalking toward the house to get my damn spark plugs. With surprising speed, Jett was in front of me, blocking my path and snatching my wrist. His grip was firm, but I still could have escaped him if I’d tried.
“You want to keep lying to me, that’s fine. But don’t lie to yourself. There’s no fucking point.” His voice softened a bit before adding, “Your reaction when he said your name… that was real. You didn’t have time to put up your defenses, so you instinctively slipped into a role where you knew you’d be safe.”
My body began to shake because I knew he was right. Although I’d managed to get control of myself as Marcus and I had made the walk to my apartment, that wasn’t the case when my former lover had first called out my name. Despite the intense, emotional moment that had been happening between me and Jett as I’d knelt before his wheelchair and laid my head in his lap, as soon as I’d heard Marcus’s voice, it had been like a switch inside of me being flipped. The episode had been yet more proof that despite having spent more than a year apart from the man, I wasn’t as “cured” of Marcus Gray as I pretended to be.
As I’d hoped I’d be.
I knew that now.
And it scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
“Okay, you’re right. But the end… what you saw before he left, that wasn’t real.”
It hadn’t been real because Jett had managed to pull me from my dazed state when he’d touched me and indirectly asked whether or not I needed help. That moment had saved me, but it hadn’t come without consequences.
An eerie silence hung between us as I waited for him to respond. The need to prove to Jett that I wasn’t completely fucked up in the head warred with the humiliation of knowing what he’d seen today. Not to mention the shit ton of guilt I felt for having allowed Marcus to touch me so intimately in front of Jett.
When Jett didn’t immediately respond, I thought he was trying to come up with some kind way of telling me that I was, in fact, more than a little fucked up in the head, but then I felt his thumb stroking over my wrist in the gentlest of caresses.
“I know,” Jett finally returned.
On the one hand, I was relieved to learn he believed me, but what if Marcus had seen what Jett had? What if my ex hadn’t bought my act? What if my softly spoken lies about how much I’d missed him, how long I’d been waiting for him to come find me, hadn’t brought me the reprieve that I’d thought they had? He could very well be waiting for me on any of the roads leading out of town.
And the consequences of lying to him would be so much worse than having his fingers wrapped around my throat and that empty look in his eyes that said he was someplace else… someplace my pleas might not be able to reach him.
