CHAPTER 8
Zane
When I looked up, my eyes searched for Alicia, but she was no longer sitting at the table with Allie and Jordan.
Frowning, I looked around, but she was nowhere in sight. Against my better judgement, I took a step forward. Allie watched me with narrowed eyes as I approached her.
“Hi, Allie,” I said. “Jordan.”
“Zane,” Jordan nodded. He openly glared at me and slid his arm protectively around Allie.
“What do you want?” Allie demanded. “Why the hell are you here?”
“I heard about your uncle and I wanted to—”
“To what?” she snapped. “Pay your respects?”
“Something like that.” I shrugged. Feeling my face flushing, I looked away for a split second. There was nothing that could turn me into a shell of my former self faster than being face-to-face with Alicia’s fiercely protective older sister.
“Thank you,” Jordan said, his jaw tight. “We appreciate you coming.”
I nodded. “Where’s Alicia?”
Allie laughed derisively and shook her head like she couldn’t believe I would dare speak Alicia’s name in her presence.
“She ran out when she saw you,” Jordan explained.
“Oh.”
“Are you surprised?” Allie demanded.
“A little,” I answered honestly. “I don’t know what I expected to happen when we saw each other again, but I didn’t think she would run away from me.”
“And why not?” Allie asked.
“Well, things didn’t end that badly,” I said quietly, speaking more to myself than to her.
“Maybe not for you,” Allie hissed. “But for Alicia, it was—”
“Al,” Jordan said warningly, shaking his head.
“What?” I pressed. “For Alicia, it was what?”
“Nothing,” Jordan said with a tone of finality in his voice. “For Alicia, it was nothing. She just doesn’t want to see you. Can you respect that?”
“Of course, I can. Will you just…” I paused, not knowing what I wanted to say. A hundred different ideas ran through my mind as I stared blankly at Jordan. He waited patiently, his eyes never leaving mine. I could tell he wanted me to leave, but he was too polite to say so.
With a sigh I started again. “Will you just tell Alicia I’m sorry? For her loss, I mean.”
“We will,” Jordan said and glanced toward the door, his intention perfectly clear.
“Thanks,” I said lamely. I turned to walk away, but Allie’s voice stopped me.
“Zane,” she said, “I know it may not have seemed like anything to you, but what you and Alicia had meant everything to her. You broke her heart.”
I felt weak as Allie’s words washed over me.
What did she mean by that? Didn’t she know that it meant just as much to me?
Didn’t Alicia know that?
Wordlessly, I left the pub and hurried across the parking lot to my car. I climbed in and took a steadying deep breath.
Dammit. That was not how I pictured my reunion with Alicia.
If I was being honest, I had imagined we would pick things up exactly where we left off five years ago. When we broke up, it wasn’t because I wanted to leave her, but because I had to. The Savage Soldiers had relocated me, and I had no choice but to follow orders if I wanted to be taken seriously, not to mention prove my dedication and loyalty. Alicia of all people should have understood that. The night I’d told her had been a hard one, but I thought she knew what she meant to me.
Allie’s words made everything suddenly seem less clear though.
In my mind, Alicia and I parted equally broken-hearted. We’d both been wrecked and miserable, but we were both setting out to fulfill our dreams. I always thought once those dreams came true, we would…
I shook my head and opened my eyes. There was no use fantasizing about a future that was never going to happen. If what Allie said was true, then I couldn’t blame Alicia for running out of the pub.
As I sat in my car, everything began to click into place. All the letters I’d written to Alicia and she never once wrote back. In the beginning, when I still tried to call, she never picked up the phone. Back then, I’d thought she was just taking some time to herself. I had thought she just needed a little space to heal and figure everything out, and I had wanted to give her that, so after a while, I stopped calling.
I kept writing though, for years. I wrote her letters and sent them to the only address I had for her—her parents’ house. But eventually, I gave that up too. Still, I never let myself believe things were over.
I’d thought that surely Alicia would have wanted to see me if and when our paths crossed again. After everything we’d had, there was no way she should have been able to deny our connection. I’d always held out hope that we’d find our way back to each other.
Now that we had, I realized none of that was fucking true.
I wondered if I was just holding onto the thought of Alicia to escape the reality of my life. Was our connection truly as strong as I believed it to be, or was I romanticizing something that had long been over?