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We’re finally going to talk about this lost moment, are we? I wondered if we ever would, and here it is.
‘Yeah,’ I answer honestly. ‘But my friends were right. Drunk dudes shouldn’t be kissing sober girls.’
‘Not even if that sober girl hoped the drunk dude would?’
I lift my head, catching the cold cloth as it drops from my forehead. ‘You wanted me to?’
‘I don’t cry in front of people, especially guys. I was serious when I said I’d rather run into a dark, scary forest. But that night, when you walked up on me, even though my back was to you, I knew it was you because I like your cologne.’ She chuckles to herself. ‘There’s just something about you. I felt like I could trust you, and I don’t get that feeling around many men. I work in a bar; typically, I see the worst of mankind. But you always made me smile, and that night you read my mind with how you said little and just… held me. That was what I needed, and while it was happening, I thought I felt something between us, so I concocted a plan to get you alone and possibly ask you out. But then you left, so I chased you out and gave you the green light. But the moment passed without you kissing me at a moment where I was setting you up to do exactly that. I assumed you’d placed me in the friend zone for some reason, and I didn’t want to push my luck because I liked being friends with you.’
‘I like being friends with you too, but that doesn’t mean I’ve “friend zoned” you. The best relationships start with friendship.’
She nods as though she now gets that. ‘Then my life blew up, and I felt like a zombie doing what I thought was right. What I thought would distract me from losing so many people I loved in so little time. Every day Conner is gone, I question whether he may have been one of those thoughtless decisions I made because I needed the attention. The day he proposed, I hesitated with my answer for so long, the poor guy was sweating bullets. I’m always worried about other people’s feelings, so I felt like I couldn’t say no in front of my whole family and totally destroy the guy’s ego. Plus, like the obvious moron I must be, I sincerely thought he was serious.’
I don’t really know what to say here. We’ve both just admitted there are feelings between us, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s engaged to someone else. And I’m not a guy encouraging any woman to cheat on her boyfriend. I do have some morals. But I have to say something. Something to make her feel better that she’s possibly made the wrong choice, and fixing it won’t be easy, but will be worth it.
‘When I was twenty-four/twenty-five, I too was in love with the wrong person and fought for her even when it was a burning hot mess.’
‘Caitlin?’
‘Yeah. Letting go was fucking hard because I was so sure she was the one even though everyone around me was telling me she wasn’t. I spent a year trying to get her back, and it was only when she introduced me to her “friend” Derek that I finally realized she truly was moving on without me and my friends were right. Love shouldn’t hurt.’
Jade’s face probably reflects my own. Sadness. You don’t want your friends ever to have broken hearts as much as you don’t want them to be right about something you were sure they were wrong about.
‘That’s when you decided to risk your life and hike the haunted trail with Dax?’
‘No, that happened when my mother finally forced me out of bed about a month after we broke up. I thought it would be good for my mental health. Boy, was I wrong.’
I can’t believe I told her the story I made Dax promise to take to the grave. This woman knows more about me than my sister does, and I want to tell her everything she doesn’t, good, bad, humiliating, all of it. I want to make up for not kissing her that night, by kissing the hell out of her right now, but I may have missed my chance when Conner swooped in and suddenly I’ve never regretted anything more.
19
JADE
‘Hellloooo?’ Laney’s voice rings through the apartment as she knocks while opening the door, letting herself in. Totally unlike me, who was afraid to just walk in, she’s met this guy once and is completely at home in his apartment. She stops near the kitchen island, looking at us both with an eyebrow raised. ‘Did you two just see a ghost or what?’
Maybe the ghost of possible relationship opportunities that have passed. I can’t believe we both felt the same and missed the perfect moment. Then fate jumped in and turned my world upside down, so I never really thought about it again until we started hanging out recently.
‘No,’ I say, glancing at River. ‘Just realized we have much more in common than we thought.’ I flash him a smile, getting one in return. Excellent answer.
‘Perfect, you’re new BFFs, whatevs,’ Laney says, completely unimpressed, dropping a bag full to the top of things she’s spent the last hour scouring the city for. She pushes the coffee table out of the way and sits on the floor in front of us, her nearly bursting bag in front of her. Before she digs in, she rubs her hands together excitedly. ‘Ready to burn some bitches?’
River and I exchange glances. Perhaps bringing Laney into our world was a bad idea, though she is excellent at ruining moments, and right now, I don’t trust myself around River alone after that conversation.
‘What else would a man who just ate a poisonous burger want to do at three in the morning, with a set of good and evil sisters, than burn some bitches in my apartment? Believe it or not, worse things have happened here.’
I’m not sure what we’re in for here, but Laney swears she’s found a way to get the response your heart wants painlessly and quickly. She was telling me all about it on the phone the other day, while I responded with ‘wow, that’s cool’ over and over because when she’s on a rant, I’m not about to disagree with her and considering a boy just did her wrong, I didn’t want to test her. I didn’t realize she wanted to actually do this.
We’re sisters, so I trust her with my life, but not always her plans. She’s been known to have some wild ideas. Like the time she set up a speed date event for herself by asking each of her Tinder matches to meet her five minutes apart so she could quickly weed out the losers. None of them knew that practically every other man in the joint was also there for her. If a man did this to a woman, he’d have gone home with no one. But once these guys figured out what was happening, they didn’t disappoint. She ended up dating three of them for months.
‘Are you sure this is safe?’ I ask, opening the door to River’s balcony for ventilation when I realize she’s seriously grabbed the small metal trash can she usually keeps in her bathroom, and has a lighter. I don’t think River would be pleased if we burned down his building.
‘My friend Becca did this the last time a guy burned her, and she’s now engaged to Mr Perfect. He was literally the next man she met. I’m willing to take the risk. Are you two?’
Riv and I both look a little worried. Mr Perfect was literally the next man she met? Huh.
‘She gave me detailed instructions that we will follow, so what could possibly go wrong? I’ve got everything we need.’ This is where she starts pulling things from her bag of tricks. ‘Spices, fire, and a fire extinguisher. Plus, the boxes of memorabilia of all the boys that have done us wrong.’ The trinkets of relationships past you keep to reminisce about later. Instead, we’re going curse or maybe do magic, but that’s how things go with Laney.
‘Where’s his box?’ she asks, glancing around the dimly lit room.
