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Mason: Did you know he was coming?
Now I realize why Mom called me earlier. I didn’t answer because I’ve had to limit her to two phone calls a day because ever since I got engaged, she’s felt the need to call me every hour on the hour with ideas for the wedding.
Me: Not a clue.
Mason: I guess your good news travels fast.
Me: Fuck off.
Mason was four years older than me and yet we were still pretty close growing up and I’d probably call him my best friend now. We rarely argued even when we were younger and he’s always been one person I knew I could always depend on. He was never judgmental and only offered his opinions when they were solicited. He was overprotective without being overbearing and was easily the one person I’d call if I ever needed help burying a body.
I might just have to call in that favor tonight.
When Jacob ended things and left for Mexico, I tried my best to keep it in, but after two weeks, one night I broke down and called Mason hysterically after too much tequila and confessed everything.
His response? “I knew it.” He then proceeded to let me cry for the next four and a half hours.Okay, weeks.
Fine, months. Whatever.
My phone begins to ring in my hand and I know it’s him without even looking. “I’m not going,” I say as I answer the phone. I lean against the island in Parker’s pristine all white kitchen wondering if I should fix myself a drink to calm my nerves.
“So, you’re just going to avoid him… forever?”
“No, but it’s going to be on my terms how I decide to see him and it’s not going to be alone and without Parker.” My fiancé was currently out of town on business in New York and wouldn’t be back for almost a week. Normally, I would go with him but I was in my first year of law school and it just so happened to be my midterms this week and jet setting across the country with my fiancé wasn’t exactly an excuse to get me out of my exams plus I had a paper due Monday.
“Why? Do you not trust yourself?” Mason asks and part of me thinks he’s being a smartass, but the rational part of me knows that he’s genuinely curious if the feelings are still there. If there was still a spike in my heart rate at the thought of seeing him tonight. If I wasn’t already going through my closet to find the sexiest dress I had that didn’t appear that I was trying too hard, but actually that I didn’t give a fuck.The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.I begin chanting to myself.
Clearly the answer is no to all of these questions.
“It’s not that, I just… it’s going to be awkward.” I hadn’t seen or talked to him since I left his house the day he broke up with me. He’d left for Mexico the next day and this was the first time he’d been home in three years. I’d texted him a few times and called him even more during the first month post breakup when I’d had too much to drink but he never answered.
“That’s fair. Do you really think he’s here because he heard about you and Parker?” It’s hard to say. I got engaged a month ago and the engagement party invitations went out earlier this week. But there is no way that my parents would have waited until he got the invitation to tell him. I would be surprised if they hadn’t called him the night I got engaged. My dad and JP told each other literally everything. Their bromance is actually kind of cute even after all these years.
“Part of me thinks yes, but do you really think Mom and Dad didn’t tell him before now? If that were the case, wouldn’t he have come home a month ago?” I know he’s not on social media anymore, I remember the exact day he deleted everything about two months after we’d broken up. I spiraled even further after that. I liked having a little bit of a connection to him and he severed that without so much as a reason or warning. One day he had a Facebook and Instagram and the next both were gone. I’d been stalking him almost hourly at that point, so I guess he’d done me a favor but it had hurt like hell to just be completely cut off from him. The only things I learned was through my parents here and there when they’d mention that they had talked to him and it took everything out of me not to go crazy with questioning whenever his name came up.
“Maybe it’s best if you just rip the Band-Aid off. What can really happen with Mom and Dad around and whoever the fuck else they invited over. Probably half the neighborhood. You’ll be safe from any awkward interactions or conversations,” he says and I make my way out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedroom I share with my fiancé. Parker was eight years older than me and there were definitely times that I felt our age gap. Like the fact that he owns his own house, invests in the stock market and knows the difference between an IRA and a 401k. (I think he has both.) He was in a much different phase in his life but I never felt like he treated me like I was that much younger. There could be an air of condescension in age gap relationships sometimes without even trying to and I never felt that with Parker.
Unlike with Jacob who told me that I’d understand why we couldn’t be together when I got older.
As if love was something I didn’t understand at nineteen.
I push those thoughts out of my head as I stare into my closet wondering what I should wear tonight knowing that I was going to see Jacob Price tonight for the first time since I was sobbing into his arms begging him not to break us.Break me. The humiliation washes over me for the millionth time.
“Fine. But you better not leave my side, Mase, I mean it.” I’m not sure if Jacob knows that Mason knows about our affair, but I do know that Mason could become a little less polite about Jacob’s presence and his intentions especially after a few drinks.
“I got you. Mom says be there around eight.”
I’m just getting out of the shower when my doorbell begins ringing nonstop like someone is pressing it over and over again. “What the fuck?” I yell, wondering who in God’s name is showing up to my house unannounced and ringing my doorbell like it’s an emergency. I look down at my phone and roll my eyes when I see I have three missed calls from Chloe. I move swiftly down the stairs, keeping the towel wrapped around me tightly before I open the door. “Seriously?”
“Jesus, can’t you hear?” Chloe steps in with a bottle of champagne in one hand and her leather jacket and clutch tucked under her other arm.
Her shoulder-length blonde hair had that sexy tousled look like she’d just rolled out of bed and as usual she had on a full face of makeup complete with lashes and bright red lipstick. She was wearing a two-piece cropped black short-sleeved top and a black skirt that fell to just below her knees with her favorite open toe Givenchy heels that wrap around the ankle. Which leads me to believe that her and Mason are probably trying to go into the city later.Count me in. The less I’m around Jacob the better.
“I was in the shower and you didn’t tell me you were coming over.” I narrow my eyes and close the door behind her as she makes her way into the kitchen. “Pour me a glass, I’m going to go put on a bra and some underwear,” I say as I run up the stairs. I pull on a pair of white panties and a matching strapless lace bra before pulling my hair out of the towel. I plan to let it air dry a little before diffusing it to give my hair some natural beach waves so I part my hair and let it fall around my shoulders.
My hair is longer than the last time he saw me. I wonder if he’ll notice.The wayward thought sneaks into my head and I shake it, trying my best to rid it from my brain.
No.I let out a breath.Whitney, no. Get this out of your head. You’re with Parker. You’re happy. He’s kind and sweet and takes care of you. He fixed what Jacob broke. You cannot do this.
