Chapter Three
Nate
“Don’t tell Janie that I told you this,” Anabel whispered into the phone. “She will kill me if she knows that I told you.”
“Then why are you telling me?” I said. “If you know she wouldn’t want me to know?” I could feel my annoyance coming through quickly as Anabel rambled on and I tried to rein it in.
“Because she’s being stupid and I’m worried she might act rashly with this guy and she doesn’t even know him. I mean, who meets a guy after speaking for less than one day?” Anabel sounded shocked. I wanted to make a comment to her that she didn’t act so righteous when she was hooking up with random men. I knew for a fact that she’d had several one-night stands with men that she’d met at bars in the last two months, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t need to annoy her. And I didn’t want Janie to act like her. Though I couldn’t tell Anabel that; we already didn’t have the best relationship and were only really friends because of Janie. She still hated me for what had gone down in college between Janie and I and while I admired her commitment to their friendship, it was really starting to irritate me that she had no real faith in my love and friendship for Janie.
“Janie wouldn’t do anything stupid,” I said, but my mind began to wonder. Janie had done many stupid things in her life. I frowned as I realized that she was meeting Dylan already. I was surprised to hear that she’d agreed to meet Dylan on the first day that he’d messaged her. That wasn’t in her nature at all; she was rash, but not stupid. And I was a little surprised that she hadn’t text or called me to tell me about it. Maybe because she knew I’d tell her she was being a fool for meeting him so quickly. I sighed as I thought of her being on a first date so quickly. What was she thinking? No wonder she had problems with every guy she dated. She was a bit of a fool and thought with her heart instead of her head. I also was wondering what Dylan was thinking. Why had he invited her on a date so quickly? That was not what I’d told him to do. I was already starting to regret having asked him to do me this favor.
“Are you going to say something to her?” Anabel asked quickly, interrupting my thoughts. “Don’t you think she’s being a bit unsafe going to meet a guy she doesn’t know? Or are you too busy with your new girlfriend, Kylie?”
“I don’t know if I’m going to say anything to her,” I snapped. “Also, how am I going to say something if I’m not supposed to know anything?” I could feel myself growing angry. “And I don’t have a new girlfriend. Kylie is just a friend.”
“Uh huh,” Anabel said, in her most irritating voice. “Well, maybe just call and ask Janie how her dating life is going or something. I’m sure you can think of something.”
“Yeah, I’ll see. Anything else?” I said abruptly, wanting the call to be done, so I could think.
“No.” She sounded stiff. “I just thought you’d want to know, seeing as you’re one of her best friends as well and you know what she’s been through in the past.” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t want to see her getting hurt again.”
“It’s not my fault she keeps picking the wrong guys to date.” My voice was cold and I didn’t rise to the bait of her comment. “But I do think she should start dating again. I’ll give her a call.”
“Okay then. Bye.” Anabel hung up before I could say anything else. I looked down at my phone and sighed as I stared at my last text messages to Dylan and Janie. I was going to have to talk to Dylan to make sure that he didn’t do anything stupid. Maybe I’d made a mistake in encouraging him to take Janie on a date and flirt with her. I hadn’t anticipated that he would move so quickly. I frowned as I thought about them on a date. What if he was attracted to her? She was a beautiful girl after all. An image of Janie’s face popped into my mind and I thought about her big brown eyes that always looked so innocent. I thought about her wide-mouthed smile and the way it faltered when she was unsure about something. I thought about the way she played with her hair when she wanted to ask something, but she was nervous. Something in my stomach stirred. Maybe I’d made a mistake. Maybe I wasn’t really ready for Janie to start dating again. I jumped up and decided to head for a quick run. I didn’t need this mess right now. I had enough going on. Why couldn’t Janie just use her brain every once in a while? Why did she always have to jump into things so quickly?
It had been seven years since our incident and I was loathe to go back to that place. I hadn’t realized that she would react so badly to our time together when everything had gone down. I had not wanted a relationship, but she had wanted more. She’d reacted poorly to that realization. Though, to be fair, I knew that I had deserved her dropping me. I had behaved horribly. I still felt awful about how that had all gone down. Janie and I were in a good place now. We were in a better place than I ever would have anticipated. She was my best friend and I knew that I had to tread carefully when it came to her love life. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to have what she wanted. But I sure as hell didn’t want it to be with Dylan. There was no way in hell that he was good enough for her. No way in hell. I clenched my fists and jumped up. I needed to go for a run to relax my mind before I decided what to do. I knew from past experience that blowing up on Janie was not the way to go. I had to treat her like a little kid and approach carefully or she would just get mad and ignore me and I didn’t want to have to deal with that right now.