CHAPTER 25
Ethan flipped off the television. “Jess, we need to talk.”
There was no answer.
“Jess! We need to talk!” Ethan called out a little louder.
“I heard you the first time,” she yelled from the kitchen.
“Then why didn’t you answer me?” he said beneath his breath.
“I did, Oscar,” she responded sassily.
Oscar was her newest “clever” nickname for him. She found it very amusing as did the many visitors that stopped by. Him…not so much.
“I said ‘K’ you just didn’t hear me.” She stuck her head around the corner from the kitchen and held out a loaf of bread. “I’m gonna make spaghetti for dinner if that’s good with you?”
No.
Ethan was not going to let another day pass without saying what needed to be said. He’d put it off too long. There was naughty nurse night two nights ago, and hell, he was human. Then last night, Kade and Ali had stopped by and ended up staying until after eleven. No more excuses, no more distractions. If someone showed up, he wasn’t answering the door and neither was she. And if Jess had another seduction planned, he was going to cut it off before it started.
And he wasn’t about to let her cook a meal just so he could tell her to leave.
“We need to talk,” he repeated.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I thought we established I heard you the first time. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but a lot of people have been trying this new thing where they talk and eat at the same time. I know it sounds crazy, but I was thinking we might just want to try it.”
The corners of his lips tilted up, despite everything that he knew was coming. He couldn’t help himself around Jess. No matter how bad of a mood he was in, or how much pain, even when she was being a smartass, or especially when she was being a smartass, he was amused by it.
“I don’t want to eat. We need to talk.”
At the gravity of his tone she stepped out into the back room. “What’s wrong? Did your test results come back? Is this a five?”
“A what?” His brow wrinkled.
“A five. On a scale of one to five, how bad is this? One being that you have a hangnail and five being that you have a week to live.”
“It’s not health-related. It’s about us.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders visibly dropped with relief and he hadn’t even realized that they’d scrunched up to her ears. She let out an exhale and shook her head in slight irritation. “Can’t we have the ‘us’ talk over dinner?” She waved the bread in her hand.
“No.”
Her head dropped back. “Fine.” She returned to the kitchen and when she reappeared, she was no longer toting a loaf of bread.
She was fighting a yawn as she plopped down on the chair across from him. She blinked several times as if she were trying to wake herself up and it was the first time he noticed that there were bags beneath her eyes.
“You’re tired.”
“Yep.” She didn’t try and deny it.
“You’ve been doing too much.”
“Yep.” Again, she just agreed. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Because believe me, my dad has got it covered. I need to rest more. Sleep more. Eat more. Drink more, no wait that was mine.”
“Your dad’s right.”
Her head tilted slightly. “Are you going to get to the part where we talk about us because that pasta is calling my name?”
“We need to break up.”
She started to stand. “I know, but like I said, that’s going to put me in a very bad light and I need to keep my reputati—”
“I’m serious.” He barked.
She froze halfway up and her eyes widened before she sank back down onto the chair. “Okay.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but you don’t have to. I don’t want you to.”
“Great, well now that we’ve got that settled.”
“Stop. Jess, listen to me.”
This time she stood all the way up. “I am. You said that you appreciate me doing things that I don’t have to and you don’t want me to do. This is not new information. If anything it’s more like a broken record.” She pivoted toward the kitchen either intentionally avoiding the conversation or just dismissing it all together.
“I want you to leave.” That got her attention so he went in for the kill. He took a deep breath, knowing that he needed to get this over with. The faster the better, like ripping off a bandage. It was either hurt her a little now or leave her devastated later. “Now.”
She slowly turned around.
* * *
“Where is this coming from?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and tried to remain calm. Her plan had been to ignore his subtle and not-so-subtle attempts at calling things off between them in order to give her time to show him just how amazing they could be together, but it looked like her time was up.
“It’s not coming from anywhere. The plan was always to break up after the talent show. That was weeks ago.”
“Yeah, well,” she waved her hand up and down at him, “circumstances changed.”
“I know. But it’s time to get things back on track.”
“Back on track,” she repeated as her eyes narrowed.
“There’s no reason to keep this up. It’s time we both got back to living our lives.”
“Are you serious?” her tone was deadly calm.
“Yes.”
“You’re seriously breaking up with me?” Now her voice was borderline menacing.
“We were never together.”
“Really?” She unfolded her arms and her hands fisted at her sides. “What about Chicago? We weren’t together in Chicago?”
“Jess.”
“I swear to God, if you say my name one more time, I’m going to scream.”
“Chicago was great. But that’s not real life.”
No. She was not going to let him get away with this. There had been something between them and she wasn’t about to let him deny it.
“And what about Fourth of July? Or the other night when I came over as a nurse? That’s not real life?”
“That was sex. It was great, but like I said, I’m not looking for a relationship. I only asked you because I thought that you wouldn’t get attached. If that happened, I’m sorry, but I was clear from the beginning what this was and what it wasn’t.”
She knew he was lying, or at least she hoped he was. Either way, she wanted to find out. “You know, I was talking to Ali about that, that you only asked me because I didn’t like you, and you know what she did?”
Jess waited for him to respond, even though it was a rhetorical question. Finally, his head jerked slightly to the side and she chose to interpret it as a no head shake.
“She laughed her ass off, that’s what she did. She thought it was hilarious that I would believe that story. She said that you asked me because you’ve always had feelings for me and this was your way in.”
She saw a flash of recognition, like he’d been caught, but then it was gone and his face was back to being a mask that she was unable to read.
Deciding it was now or never, she laid it all out on the table. “At first, I thought she was high or something, but she had some pretty compelling evidence. You running by my house, showing up at events just because you knew I was going to be there, coming up with this plan because you knew I wouldn’t go out with you if you just asked me.
“So, is she right? Did you ask me as a way in or was it really because you were tired of being set up?”
She pronounced really in such a way as to be sure to let him know it sounded ludicrous.
Ethan’s jaw ticked and she could see he was choosing his words carefully. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Great! If it doesn’t matter then man the fuck up and just answer the question.” She was trying to push his buttons. She didn’t want him controlled, if he was controlled he wouldn’t reveal the truth. “You had the balls to ask me to pretend to be your girlfriend and then sleep with me, have the balls to tell me the truth as to why. Was Ali right? Were you asking me because you knew I wouldn’t go out with you any other way?”
He knew that she was trying to get under his skin, and it was working. “Yes.”
“And what about the ballet, and the movie night, and the art festival, did you go to those things just to see me?”
“Yes.”
“And running by my house? Were you doing that on purpose to drive me crazy?”
“No.”
She crossed her arms again and stared at him. Out of everything she’d just pointed out that was the one that she’d been absolutely sure of.
“Not at first.” He sighed. “I started running by there after your surgery. I don’t know why just seeing your house made me feel better, but it did. Then it became my routine.”
“Your routine?”
“Yes.”
“And your ‘routine’ just happens to coincide with the time I leave for work in the morning? And your ‘routine’ happened to be taking your shirt off right when you passed my house?”
“No, those were intentional.”
Vindication infused through her. She knew she’d been right. “To drive me crazy.”
“I figured it’s only fair since you’ve driven me crazy for so long I don’t even remember what being sane feels like,” he admitted, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes. We drive each other crazy. That means things won’t get boring between us.”
“There is no us.” His nostrils flared.
It was clear that he was fighting what was between them and she thought she had a pretty good idea why. “Bullshit.”
“Jess—”
“I told you, don’t Jess me! Why did you tell me about your dad and being found in the alley?”
“What?”
“Why? Why did you tell me that? Was it just so you could sleep with me?”
“No.” His anger was palpable from just the mere suggestion.
Her plan was working.
“So, you cared about me then, but after you slept with me you got over it?”
“Fuck no.” The intensity that she hadn’t seen in his eyes since before the incident was back and Jess mentally patted herself on the back.
“So, then….you never cared about me at all?”
The vein in his neck popped out and his eyes narrowed in awareness. She saw the moment he figured out what she’d been doing, playing him to get him to admit that he cared about her. Since the jig was up, she figured she’d do the admitting for him.
“You love me, Ethan. And I love you. It might’ve taken me a little bit longer to figure that out than you, but at least once I knew it I wasn’t too chicken shit to fight for it.”
“I don’t love you.”
“Yes, you do,” she stated calmly. “But for some reason you’re too scared to admit it. Maybe even to yourself, but I doubt that. So what is it? What are you scared of?”
“I’m not scared, it just wouldn’t work.”
“How do you know that? You didn’t even give it—give us—a chance.”
“I just know.”
“How?!”
“Because I’m not quitting my job.”
Jess tried to fit Ethan’s statement into the context of their conversation but she wasn’t able to. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t be with you and be on the job.”
“Why not? Plenty of people seem to do it just fine.”
“Because I’m not going to let you be Lori, or me.”
“What?” He wasn’t making sense.
“I’m not going to let you be the person that has someone waiting outside of your school or showing up at your door to tell you that I’m gone. I won’t do that to you.”
“Oh my God!” She shouted. “And people say I’m a drama queen.”
He looked at her like he agreed that she was kind of a drama queen, and she wanted to punch the smug expression off of his face.
But instead, she decided to point out what an idiot he was being. “Who is asking you to quit your job? And do you think you’ve got the market cornered on being scared?! Do you think that I want you to be like my parents? Do you think I haven’t thought a million times about what would happen if I get sick again?
“Do you remember the first time I met you? I wasn’t scared for me. I was scared for my parents. What was going to happen to them if I was gone? Do you think I want to put you through that? Do you think I want to have to tell you if my organs start rejecti—”
“Don’t,” he cut her off.
“Don’t what? Tell the truth? That’s the truth. I might get sick again. And you might end up like your dad or Carter.”
“Jess.”
She thought about screaming since he’d said her name again but decided to take a different route. “But you know what? None of that matters, because I love you. So, I’m going to ask you if you love me one more time, and if you say no then—”
She stopped when she realized she was giving basically the same speech Skylar had given Will in Good Will Hunting. When she watched the movie she thought it was such a romantic and heartbreaking moment, but now that she was living it, she realized it wasn’t.
“No, you know what?” she grabbed her purse, “I love you, Ethan. And I’m willing to fight for you and for us. But I’m not going to beg you to tell me that you love me too. You’re a grown-ass man. If you love me, do something about it. If not, leave me the hell alone.”
And with that, she turned and walked out of his house…maybe for the last time. And her heart truly broke…for the first time.