“What do you mean you don’t want to talk about it?” Jake asks, sending the beer he was drinking crashing into the garbage.
I jump at the sound, still on edge from my encounter with Ryan. I stare dully at the bottle of beer in front of me, nervously twisting it in my hands. “He freaked me out,” I say, truthfully. “I just can’t talk about it right now.” I hope that we can leave things at that, at least for tonight. But I know better than that.
“I don’t accept that,” Jake replies, turning me around to face him. His eyes are intense and filled with a mix of anger, concern, and what looks like fear. “You were out there for a good half an hour talking to one of the Angels, one of the men who enjoys nothing more than making our lives a living hell, and you don’t want to tell me what he said?” Jake asks, his voice incredulous.
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, Jake,” I assure him. “I’m just trying to process everything.”
“What happened to ‘no secrets?’ What happened to no secrets between us?” he asks, reminding me of the vow that we’d made.
“It’s not a secret,” I tell him insistently. “It’s just more of his bullshit, trying to scare us. You know what he’s like.” I hope the lie I’m telling isn’t as obvious as I’m afraid it is.
“You’re telling me that he came all the way over here just to frighten you?” Jake says slowly, making it clear that he doesn’t believe a word of it. “Did that piece of shit hurt you?” he asks, despite the fact that he witnessed the entire exchange. “Does he know that the Feds have been hanging out at the diner? Is that why he came here?” Jake asks, jumping to logical conclusions.
“No, no, he’s paranoid as all hell, but he doesn’t know that I’ve spoken to them,” I assure him. I hold a hand to my head, feeling the headache spreading from temple to temple. I wonder if it’s possible for your head to actually explode from having too many conflicting thoughts. I doubt it, but that’s exactly how my head feels right now—as if it might smash into a million tiny pieces.
I know that I should tell Jake. That the secrets I’m keeping from him are mounting up. But I need some time to think about what Ryan has said to me without the influence of Jake’s opinions. I already know what he would say. He would say that it’s ridiculous, that Ryan’s a pathetic little man, and that he should be embarrassed that the only way he can get a girl is to threaten her. He’ll say that he would never let me do something like that, even if it meant saving him. He’d tell me that he would walk into the Angels compound himself rather than know I’d given myself to Ryan.
I don’t need to tell him about the conversation to know exactly what his reaction will be. Could you really do it? The little voice in my head asks me. Could you really rationalize being unfaithful to Jake, giving yourself to someone you both hate, to keep him free? What kind of love is that? Her voice makes me feel ashamed at myself for even thinking about Ryan’s offer. If you could even call it that.
“Aimee, are you just tuning me out now?” Jake’s voice reaches me through the folds of my mind.
“No, no, of course not,” I say, moving closer to him and laying my head on his chest. I wonder if it’s my imagination, or if he really does wait longer than usual to encircle me in his arms. “I’m just a little shaken is all.” I relax in his embrace, enjoying his strong frame holding my smaller one. He makes me feel safe. As if we can make the rest of the world just fall away.
“I know, I know,” Jake says eventually, holding me tighter to him. “But you have to understand how much it tears me up to know that you and Ryan share something that you won’t tell me about,” he says, leaning back and looking down at me, studying my face.
“It’s not like that. There’s nothing between Ryan and me,” I assure him. “There is no Ryan and me. You know what I think of him, and that opinion hasn’t changed after today.” That part is the truth. I’ve always thought he was a little worm, and his Indecent Proposal style offer hasn’t affected that opinion.
“So tell me,” Jake urges me, but I don’t respond. “Is it about me?” he presses, a shadow crossing his face. “Did he come to tell you they’re backing out of the deal?” He is jumping, of course, to the worst possible conclusion. Well, not really the worst, I remind myself. The worst is what Ryan actually told me.
“No, he didn’t. The deal stands,” I assure him. Jake’s shoulders slump as he visibly relaxes. “Please Jake, just trust me. I really need you to trust me right now, to trust that I know what I’m doing,” I insist. I don’t add that I’m not even entirely sure what it is I’m doing.
Jake pulls me close to him again, laying his chin on top of my head. I feel his chest move as he sighs deeply and I know from that noise that he’s not going to push me to answer his questions. “I trust you,” he admits, albeit grudgingly. “But I still don’t understand why you won’t tell me what’s going on. I don’t like being in the dark. We’re a team. I’m on your side, Aimee,” he reminds me, and the earnestness in his voice just kills me.
“I know Jake, I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” he replies, his temper rising again. “When you keep me in the dark, you take away my power. You take away my power to protect you, to help you, to keep you safe, which is the single most important thing to me,” he says, his eyes burning with sincerity. “Remember when I told you what I was most scared of was losing you?”
I nod slowly. “I remember.”
“Well I got it wrong,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not just the idea of losing you that frightens me the most. It’s the thought of anything happening to you because of me. That’s the worst thing. That’s what tears me up inside more than any other possibility out there,” he explains, his eyes pleading with me.
“I know, Jake,” I tell him soothingly. I trace the line of his jawbone and lose myself, if only for a brief moment, in the scratchy feel of his stubble against my fingertip. “I feel the same,” I assure him. “I would do anything in my power to keep you safe. You know that,” I tell him. I don’t tell him the lengths that I would be prepared to go to. Partly because I’m not even sure myself.
“If that piece of crap Ryan did anything to hurt you… If he threatened you…” Jake says warningly, “I want to know about it, and I will end him. Promise me that you would tell me if that’s what he did.”
The single-mindedness in his expression tells me that what he’s saying isn’t just macho-posturing or a way of feeling like things are back under his control. He means what he’s saying, and right there is another reason that I can’t tell him what Ryan and I spoke about. If Jake had any idea of what Ryan had said, he wouldn’t even pause for breath or to think. He would get in his car, drive over to the Angel precinct, and do everything he could to make Ryan wish he’d never been born. Rational Jake would know that won’t help his case with the Angels. It won’t stop them from coming for him when the month is up and it won’t even protect me. But I know that as soon as I tell him what Ryan has offered me in exchange for him getting a free pass, Rational Jake will go out of the window. I know this because that is exactly how I would feel in his position.
“We’ll talk about it soon,” I promise, wondering to myself when that time will come. “Just hold me for now,” I ask him, my voice small. I feel like I don’t need anything more right now than to feel his arms around me.
“That I can do,” Jake replies softly, holding me tight against him.
We stand like that, together but at the same time separate, both thinking our own thoughts. We’re as close as it’s possible to be and yet I don’t feel like we’ve ever been further apart.