Jessie’s lips flatten, and he glances away, a muscle jumping along his clenched jaw. After a moment, he turns back, and his gaze jumps from Asa to me, then returns to Asa.
“How long has this been going on? Or do I want to know?” he asks, the corner of his lip curling in a sneer. “Have I been apologizing for a mistake I made two years ago, when all along you two were fucking around behind my back?”
“No.” And standing so close to him, the slight flinch that jerks his body reverberates through me. “I would never betray you like that.”
“You’d never betray me?” Jessie’s sharp crack of laughter echoes in the early morning air. “What do you call this?” He waves a hand toward me.
“This?” I speak up for the first time since Asa opened his front door, a spark of anger melting the numbness that had encased me. “I’m not a this or a situation, Jessie. And whatever is between me and Asa doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“You don’t think so?” His sneer turned uglier. “I don’t know if this is some revenge fantasy of yours, India, but you’re not naïve and I’m not stupid. So please don’t pull that ‘believe me, not your lying eyes’ bullshit. Is this your way of getting back at me? Getting with my best friend? Trying to come between us? Well played, sweetheart.”
This asshole. Shock punches me in the chest, momentarily robbing me of breath and speech. Is that really what he thinks of me? Believes I’m capable of? Hurt swirls with fury, merging into a murky, whirling mass.
“You have your fucking nerve,” I whisper. “You broke us. You did that all on your own. I was a good partner, a faithful partner. So whoever I move on to or with is my choice and my business—and sorry to break this to you, Jessie, but you don’t have a say in it. More importantly, there isn’t a stamp anywhere on my body that says, ‘Property of Jessie Reynolds.’ You don’t have a claim or a right to me. Only I have that.” I drag in a shaky deep breath, and his lips part as if to reply, but I’m not finished. I slap up a hand, palm out. “Now, maybe it’s in your character to do something as underhanded, as spiteful to use another person in some petty plot that’s two years in the making, but let me disabuse you of that notion—that’s not me. Mainly because you ceased being that important to my life two years ago. You don’t add to it, you don’t take away from it.”
His eyes narrow even more, and his nostrils flare. With jerky movements, he turns his body away from me and faces Asa.
“You crossed a line—you know you did. It’s why you didn’t say anything to me before now. You have a choice to make. Her or me.” Jessie throws down the ultimatum, and under the hard, crystallized fury, I catch the confidence. As if he’s already certain of Asa’s decision.
And the kernel of dread that took root in my chest just before we left his house, sprouts roots, curling in and out of my rib cage.
Because I’m sure of his decision, too. I always have been. Shame on me for letting myself believe for a second that the outcome could be different.
Even before Asa looks at me, I brace myself for what’s coming. But I’m kidding myself. It would be like Noah’s neighbors preparing themselves for a flood. My world is about to be rocked, and all I can do is stand here, climb to higher ground, and try to survive as long as possible.
“India, we’ll talk later today,” he says, that low, silk-over-gravel voice firm. No, not firm. Final.
I shake my head, a fissure zigzagging through me, leaving cracks and crevices in its wake. But damn if I’ll break in front of these two men. I’ve given both of them pieces of me—Jessie, in the past, and Asa as recently as minutes ago. And both of them tossed me away as if I were disposable, expendable. And I guess I am to them. Bros before hoes, and all that.
I huff out a serrated laugh that abrades my throat, and Asa’s gaze narrows on me.
“India,” he says.
“No.” I shuffle back a step, away from him. From Jessie. From this dynamic that I became tangled up in like a sticky spider’s web. And I have no one to blame but myself. I entered it with my eyes wide open, foolishly believing I could control the traitorous organ pumping away in my chest. One day I would learn. Maybe the pain racing through me like wildfire would be enough to brand this lesson into my soul and head once and for all. “Don’t worry, Asa. I got it. We won’t need to have that talk. I understand perfectly, and further conversation isn’t needed or wanted. I don’t want… any of it.”
He claims one of the steps I surrendered, his grey eyes nearly black in the early morning darkness. If possible, his frown is fiercer, and the bold lines of his face stand out under his skin in stark relief.
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m telling you, I’ll see you later today.”
“And I’m telling you don’t bother.” I hike my chin up, going for strong, trying to gather the last scraps of my pride around me, but they’re so tattered, it’s a damn near futile effort. “I’m out,” I say, slapping my hands together and holding the palms out. “I vowed to never again let anyone make me question my worth. As much as I—” the love you lodges in my throat, and I refuse to free it, “—care for you, I owe myself more than that. I deserve more than that. And if you can’t see it, than you don’t deserve me.”
I don’t spare Jessie a glance or any more words because, like I told him, this isn’t about him. He isn’t the one causing my heart to squeeze so tight, I fear my knees hitting the pavement before I can make it to my car.
No, that honor belongs to his best friend.
The man who offered me false hope that maybe, just maybe, there could be an us.
That I could be Asa’s girl.