“No,” Jake said softly jerking me out of that spiral. “I don’t. I think you’re too busy blaming how you feel on everyone else. You let your dad get in your head, and you know, I get it. Joe’s a good guy. He cares. But he doesn’t know us—you do or you should.”
“But he knows…he knows a lot of things, and he’s worried.”
“Okay, so he gets in your head. Paints an ugly picture. You pull back, you cut her off. How does that help her?”
“I wasn’t trying to cut her off.” Fuck. I blew out a breath and paced away from him and then turned. Were we really having this conversation in a parking lot? Fine. “I’m crazy about her. I have been forever. I asked her first, because I didn’t want you guys to have an in. Not that it stopped you, but I thought the grand gesture would do it, and even that didn’t work.”
“I know.”
That was it. Two simple words. I confessed to being the asshole, and Jake just shrugged it off. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”
“I know that, too.”
“Don’t be so damn understanding.”
“I’m not.” Jake shrugged. “She’s still my girl. I don’t have to understand shit. But I get the impulse. I also had to get over it.”
I frowned. “You would take off with her in a heartbeat if she said yes to only you.”
“Not a doubt.” How did he stay so calm? “But I’m never going to tell her she has to choose. I’m okay with sharing. Sounds weird. Might change down the road. Kind of doubt it.”
Disbelief filtered through me. “So, Frankie meets some new guy and she wants to date him too, and that’s going to be okay with you?”
“Fuck no,” Jake answered, his eyes narrowing. “I told you I was okay with us. No one else.”
“How do you get there?”
Some of the irritation in his expression faded. “Because I want to be here.”
“Just like that?” Because I wanted to be there, but I wasn’t. I had been, briefly and then…
“No, not just like that. You don’t think I wasn’t envious that you asked her to Homecoming? Or that you put that look on her face?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Did you even see her face when you did the ask?”
There’d been wonder in her eyes. Wonder and tears. That smile. Yeah, I’d seen her face.
“Did you think I wasn’t envious when I figured out she’d been with Archie?”
Thathad pissed me off.
Between that and the fact that they hadn’t let up on their stupid ass plan for the French guy…
“You ever ask yourself about why us seeing her bothers you when Frenchy didn’t?”
“She didn’t care about Frenchy.” It wasn’t even a question. Jake pointed his forefinger at me, thumb up like he mimed a gun.
“Exactly. But she does care about us. Before dating was on the table, that didn’t bother you.” He paused a beat, then studied me. “Or did it?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “I don’t think it bothered me. But we all tried to make sure we had our time with her. Tuesdays were my day.” If I got nothing else with her, we got to hang out on Tuesdays together, and I used to tell myself it was enough. Even if I had to share her time with the others.
“I told you already, you need to figure this out.”
He had.
“And you need to be in a better fucking mood tonight, because if you bring her down, you and me are going to end up in another fight.”
I snorted and then kicked at a rock on the blacktop. “I don’t want to be jealous, Jake. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to make her smile.”
“Then focus on making her feel good and don’t worry about whether she’s paying attention to you right now.” For a moment, his expression softened. “Bubba, she cares, okay? She’s still hurting over the idea that you suddenly pushed her away.”