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I fully expected Zack to ask about Eric. But what he said nearly sentmetumbling to my death.
“Because you’ve been obsessing over her forever?” he surmised. “Or because you idiots got married?”
After I righted myself, I crawled a few feet off the dusty trail and sat heavily on an unforgiving boulder. “I…what? How? When did you…? What?” I shook my head in confusion.
Zack chuckled evilly as he joined me. “Which part?”
“Any of it.”
“The marriage part is easy. The day of Alex’s wedding I saw the certificate and ring in your desk drawer when I was looking for something to fix my damned cuff with. You were in your bathroom I think.”
I sort of remembered that day. “And you just…didn’t say anything?”
“You guys didn’t tell anyone for a reason. I assumed it was shame and revulsion on Jillian’s part, but either way, I respected that.”
I shook my head. “Sure. Why not? What about the other part?”
“I think I’ve always known you liked her. You talked about her that night you met her. And constantly afterwards. When she and Eric started dating, you stopped for a while. But suddenly you talked about your brother like he was the devil incarnate. You guys were always pretty close, so I knew something had caused your new attitude. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.”
He was selling himself short. Zack was a goofball, yes, and also outgoing, athletic, adventurous, and generally charming. Or so I was told. But he also had a serious side. He had been caring for Gia on his own for five years without complaint. After his parents had died unexpectedly, he had taken care of everything, including selling the house, settling their affairs, and getting Gia anything and everything she needed. Zack was secretly pretty damned smart, competent and wickedly cunning when he wanted to be.
In hindsight I wasn’t all that surprised that he had picked up on my feelings. I was, however, surprised that he hadn’t taunted me with them at every opportunity. Or that he hadn’t brought it up after seeing Jillian and I together in Vegas.
Regardless, him knowing everything was a relief I hadn’t anticipated and gave me someone to talk to.
“You seem to have a better handle on our relationship than I do…so, what’s happening?” I asked, only half-joking.
Instead of giving me a patented smart-ass reply, Zack leaned in. “Look, don’t get mad. But…I may have talked to Fiona the other day when I dropped Gia off. Just for a minute. She’s loyal as hell to Jillian, but it was implied that she thinks you betrayed her with how you handled Eric’s affair. I don’t know what Eric told her, but Fiona was under the impression that it was bad. Really bad. Jillian was pissed. Ready to kill you.”
“You and Fiona are gossiping now?” My brows raised high. “What the hell have I missed?”
“It’s not like we got married,” he shot back, grinning.
“Asshat. Anyway, I mean I know Eric told her that I knew about Emily before she did…but she didn’t even let me explain how I found out, or why I waited. I mean, I get being upset, but I don’t think it was that bad that she should just cut me off. Am I being insensitive, or is it an overreaction on her part?”
“I don’t pretend to understand female brains. I do think you need to figure out what your brother told her, though. That might clear a lot of this up,” he replied, standing and reaching for his water bottle as he did.
“I’ve been trying. She won’t talk to me. She told me it was over, and she seemed extremely serious. I’ve been expecting annulment papers every day since.”
“I wish I could tell you something helpful. I can’t. I have even less experience at this type of thing than you, hard as that is to believe. What I do have experience in is making hard decisions. Doing things you aren’t sure you can do. And if taking care of Gia has taught me anything, it’s that you do whatever it takes when you love that person.” Zack nonchalantly put his water bottle in his bag and took off.
Fighting the immature urge to make a joke about being in a tampon commercial, I shut my mouth and followed him.
I trudged along, absorbing his words. I wasn’t ready to give up on Jillian. Or our relationship. Everything might have gone sideways, but I didn’t regret marrying her for a single second. And I was surer than ever that I did love her.
As selfish as it was, I was willing to deal with the tension with my family. I was willing to put up with the weird looks we might get from our mutual friends. I was even willing to take the jokes about our cliché wedding. What I wasn’t willing to do was let her go without a fight.
Not after everything we had already overcome.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes. But…what the hell do I do?”
CHAPTER15
Jillian
“Enough stalling. Just do it.” I paced the minuscule length of my living room, talking to myself like the crazy person I’d recently become. Or possibly I was actually talking to the stack of papers on my coffee table. It was hard to say.
Those damning papers had been sitting in that exact spot for nearly two weeks, half filled out, and calling for my attention every single time I entered the room. Within hours of Eric showing up at my place that day I had printed them out, ready to undo the greatest mistake of my life. And eventually I’d even filled them out. My part, at least.
