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The muscles in my shoulders tensed as silence stretched.
“Never mind,” she said finally. “I already know the answer.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
natalie
“I don’t understand how you could be sitting here so calmly,” Zoe said, sliding me an Iron City Mango beer. After Sicily, I’d planned to dry out for a bit. But that would have to wait.
“What else am I supposed to do?”
I sat on a barstool at KC’s Taphouse waiting for Charlee, who was coming after work. Zoe was behind the bar with Nate, and for my part, I was just trying to keep it together for the night.
“I don’t know. Go down to the office. See if he’s there?”
After going round and round yesterday morning, I finally left Jax’s before lunch, peeling myself away from his place like a gambler might walk away from a casino. Not easily. Looking back with longing. Thinking of a hundred and one reasons to go back but holding on to that one shred of sanity that keeps you going forward, away from temptation.
He’d begged me to stay. But there was nothing more to discuss. And a few more minutes might have seen me launching myself into his arms, tossing all my convictions to the wind for a little D.
Actually, a big D. And honestly, more than that. But the thought of Jax inside me really was a driving force. It was all I could think about on that porch, and so finally, I hightailed it out of there.
Had he texted me throughout the day and night?
Yes.
Did I ignore said texts?
Also yes.
It was honestly the hardest thing I’d ever done, but if he so much as sent one suggestive message, I’d very likely have jumped back into my car and his arms.
“I can’t,” I admitted.
This morning, nothing. I assumed he’d gotten sick of my non-responses and headed to his meeting with Dave.
“Technically, you could. But I guess he’d probably be gone by now anyway?”
His meeting was at one thirty. It was already four o’clock, and when Zoe texted to say she’d come down to the bar to help out Nate after an early day, I literally shut my laptop, stopped pretending to work, and rushed down here.
“Probably. If he went through with the sale, it would take a few hours.”
“Do you really think he’d do that?”
“Honestly,” I said. “I have no idea. But I can’t imagine he didn’t.”
“Listen.” Nate came up from behind Zoe. “I know it’s none of my business, but Zoe told me what’s going on.”
“It’s not a big secret,” I said, relieving him of any guilt of knowing my situation.
“But for what it’s worth, I like the guy. You don’t become a Ranger without having a healthy dose of grit and discipline. And from what Gian tells me, Jax is one of the good ones. Plus, I saw you two at the wedding.”
“What’s your point?” Zoe asked, cutting to the chase.
“The point is, I think you should work it out. Life’s too short for bullshit.”
“Nat’s love of the environment isn’t bullshit,” Zoe defended me. “It’s something she believes strongly in and is willing to give up her own personal happiness for. You know something about that, do you not?”
Nate moved closer to Zoe. “I do,” he said, putting his hand in the back pocket of her jeans as a show of support even though they were at odds at the moment. “And I’d never call your career bullshit,” he said to me. “But there has to be a way to work it out. Both get what you want. That’s all I’m saying.”
