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“As penance,” Jenna said. “But also because he didn’t have any other good targets.”
I plucked at my new linen pants. “I think…I think we have a trust problem.”
Jenna snorted. “You definitely have a trust problem, and without it you can’t build anything lasting.”
I met her gaze. “That’s why you think it’s a good idea for me to stay at the ranch.”
Jenna was more intuitive than I’d given her credit for. I’d have to keep that in mind moving forward.
I slid my feet into the slingbacks she’d set out in front of me and took a deep breath. I looked more relaxed than in my typical silk dresses and skirts. My hair was braided in a loose style that let tendrils frame my face. I felt younger, lighter.
I turned toward Jenna. “You’re right. Nash and I shouldn’t simply jump back into something without building a foundation first.” I fiddled with the end of my braid and nodded. “I know I want long-term with Nash, but he can be so impulsive, like when he proposed last night.”
“He did what now?” Jenna breathed. “Oh my… It was horrible, wasn’t it? I know it was. Cam’s proposal was the worst. What is it with these creative men and shit timing?”
I shrugged. “Well, Nash’s was driven by fear, and he mentioned his dad’s affairs, which didn’t really set the mood…”
“For smart men, they’re morons,” Jenna mumbled. She put her hand on her tummy. “You hear that, baby? Men are dummies.”
“What if you have a boy?” I asked.
“I am.”
“Oh, congratulations.”
She waved her hand. “Cam has macho sperm, and I’m going to have multiple daily heart attacks with a boy…unless he’s like Ike. “That’s Kate’s little boy.”
I perked up. “Kate has a son?”
“Yeah, through Rye. That’s her man. You know about him, right?”
At my head shake, she launched into a long story about Cam’s baby sister, Kate, and her man, Rye Lawson, while I applied my makeup in Nash’s bathroom.
She finished her cup of tea, smacking her lips. “What was that tea? I need to get some.”
“It’s a decaf chai. My mother loved it. Said it helped soothe her.” I smiled.
“Did your mother suffer from anxiety and hyperactivity?” Jenna asked.
“No,” I said. “She’d drink it and ask me to join her, saying she needed it. But it was for me.” I hesitated. “Nash brought it up once, a long time ago, and I said I didn’t have anxiety. But…it’s worse. So much worse since that night.”
Jenna set the mug on the counter. Her gaze was solemn as she met mine in the mirror. “Shame changes you—how you think, how your brain reacts, what it catalogs. I get it. Going out there—I get why you’re doing it. But Nash doesn’t, not really, and he won’t because he can’t. I think you’re being brave but also smart—ripping the Band-Aid off quickly.”
I started to nibble at my lip but stopped when I remembered my fresh lip gloss. I forced a calm I didn’t feel. “Does the anxiety lessen? Does it get easier to face the world?”
“Some, at least some of the time for me. But that’s because Cam loves me, even my crazy reactions and comments. I don’t know why or how, but he does. And I know it in my bones. And because of that, I can…be.”
The last was said with reverence. Her face smoothed, relaxing into soft lines of pleasure.
I wanted that—the feeling that put that look on Jenna’s face. That’s what I wanted with Nash and what I feared we’d never be able to recreate because we’d lost faith in each other long ago.
That lack of trust, and my fear we’d never regain it, was the reason I knew we needed space. Because space, distance, were the only options I had to protect myself, even as I was drawn to Nash, needed him.
Loving someone like Nash was an impossible tension. He owned my heart and always would, in part because of the vulnerability he let so few see. But that same vulnerability made him more susceptible to slights and hurts and internalizing his pain—as he had these past years with drugs and alcohol. If we couldn’t learn to soothe each other, love each other through the rough patches that were sure to come, we were doomed to fail.
Jenna, I realized, could see all of this. She did understand what had happened to me that night. I turned and hugged her, tight.
She returned it.
