May the Best Man Win (15 page)

Emily's breath left her in a slow leak, her skin itching and muscles tensing at the mention of Eddie staking any kind of claim on her at all. This time, Jase let her go and she walked to the far side of the room where the windows overlooking the lakefront gave her an excuse not to have to look back at Jase.

To just breathe while she reminded herself that Eddie wasn't a part of her life anymore. That she was her own woman. Strong. Independent.

Another slow exhalation and she was able to think past Eddie's outrageous claim to what Jase had been telling her. To the answer to a question that had plagued her for ten years.

It hadn't been her imagination. It hadn't been her sixteen-year-old heart seeing what she wanted to see. There had been something there between them from the start.

For whatever that mattered.

“I told myself you were the girl I couldn't have. But the truth was, you were the girl I pushed away. I made the choice, no one else. You weren't Eddie's girl until I all but threw you at him. And even then it took months and months of me finding excuses to keep you close and telling myself it was to support Eddie in his quest to win you, but the truth was, I wanted you around. I liked how I felt when I was with you. Until the day you finally decided to give Eddie a shot—and suddenly it didn't feel so good anymore.

“So I put a little more distance between us. Tried not to keep track of what was happening between you and the guy who'd told me he'd share his mom with me because mine was gone. I tried to wall off the part of me that still cared about you more than I should have. And when Eddie started talking about things getting rough with you guys, it was easier for me to see you as the villain. It was easier for me to believe him than to believe in you. Because he was supposed to be my best friend, and you were the girl I wasn't supposed to let come between us.”

She shook her head, finally able to make sense of at least a piece of that time when her world had started to fall apart.

The part of her still wounded by that time in her life wanted to rail at Jase. Point out how every one of his actions had hurt her. How
wrong
he'd been.

But why? The reason he was sitting in front of her, talking like this, was because he already knew.

“So you believed him when he told you I was messing around with other guys, and I was playing mind games to screw with his head. I get it.” It wasn't cool and it wasn't fair and it was a million years ago, and Jase was telling her he'd made a mistake. “But what about when I went to you for help? When I told you I thought there was something serious going on with him. That he was talking crazy and he needed help. What about then? You didn't have to like me anymore, Jase. You didn't have to care about me at all to help him. To just listen.”

That was the part that had killed her. The part that had left her feeling so helpless, so alone, so
trapped
—no one would listen. Not her parents. Not his. Not Jase.

She returned to the couch and sat, leaving a few inches of space between them. Because in that moment, all she could feel was the weight of that burden she'd carried alone, like it was still there on her shoulders, making her work for every breath she took. Like somehow Jase's words were enough to take her back to that helpless time when Eddie's mood swings and desperation and threatening violence were as fresh as they had been that last day in his car. As suffocating.

“That was a mistake I'll never forgive myself for. But Eddie was starting to spin out of control, and all I could see was you at the center of it. You, the girl I'd been so sure was different. It pissed me off to believe I'd been wrong. It made me nuts that he wouldn't let you go, and it made me hate myself to know, deep down, there was more than one reason I wanted him to.”

Emily's breath caught at that last admission. One she could see it pained Jase to make.

“I should have been there for you, Em, because you deserved it, and even if you hadn't…you're right, at the very least because it would have meant being there for him. But I was seventeen, and stupidly I
thought
I was being there for him. I thought I was supporting him by taking his side. By not listening when you wanted help because you coming to me instead of working things out with Eddie looked like the kind of manipulative bullshit I'd seen before and didn't want any part of again. Not with Eddie. Not with you. I couldn't handle it. It's no excuse, Em, and I'm so fucking sorry you didn't have anyone on your side.”

Her eyes closed, her throat tightening with decade-old emotion. But as the seconds ticked by, the heaviness began to lift. The guilt and frustration and resentment—all those things she tried so hard not to let herself feel, but were always just below the surface—were suddenly gone. Because he was right.

She felt free. Tears pushed at her eyes, and she realized how hard she'd been working not to let those old resentments get in the way.

When she looked back at him, it was through watery eyes. “We were all kids, Jase. None of us knew what we were doing.” Drawing a shaky breath, she offered a small shrug. “I made mistakes.”

She could have ended things with Eddie at the first warning sign, the first day he looked at her with those eyes that weren't quite right—but she hadn't recognized that look for the coming train wreck it was. She'd thought “mature” relationships were about trying to work things out, and that maybe Eddie was as new to the relationship thing as she was so it was worth giving him a chance to get his footing. And then she'd thought if she could just bide her time until college started, no one had to get hurt.

She'd been wrong.

“Whatever mistakes you made, you were entitled to.” Jase let out a heavy breath and looked down at his hands. “I should have said something to you about it before now, but it took a while before I could see the truth. And I don't know, maybe it was easier to stay on the opposite side of the fence than own up to my responsibilities—which just makes it worse. You had every right to hate me for the way I treated you, Em. I wish I'd been able to see you as a friend, instead of seeing you as all the things you weren't. But I'm telling you now.” He met her eyes and held up his palms. “Emily, I'm sorry.”

Beyond the windows, the deep, bruised sky was giving way to a vibrant orange-gold glow. The beginning of a new day. “Me too.”

He let out a short laugh and rubbed at the scruff on his jaw. “For what? You don't have anything to be sorry for.”

“I'm sorry for the million different choices I could have made along the way, and the lives that were never quite the same because I didn't. I'm sorry for Eddie—”

Jase's brows crashed forward and he opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a staying hand. “Not because I think what happened with him was my fault, but because I remember his smile, the mischief in his eyes. I remember that contagious laugh no one could resist—and it breaks my heart that good things didn't come to the goofy boy that laugh belonged to.”

God, how long had it been since she'd thought about Eddie as anything but the nightmare he'd become in her life? It hurt in a way she wasn't used to, hadn't been prepared to defend against.

Jase swallowed, his eyes going distant. “Yeah.”

The regret in that single word…

They'd been best friends. As close as brothers. Until the accident.

“I'm sorry for you, too, Jase.” And for herself, and for what might have been.

They were both quiet. The silence of the apartment around them something neither was ready to break. But what more was there to say?

Good talk…

Phew, now that that's out of the way…

Glad to finally clear the air…

“Jase, I know I didn't want to talk about what happened,” she began tentatively. “But what you said means everything to me. I needed to hear it, more than I realized. I needed to let it go.” Hard to believe she hadn't seen that until just then.

“Do you think you can? Put it behind you?”

Swallowing past a lump of emotion, she managed the words she truly meant.

“I do.”

Elbows resting on his spread knees, Jase let his head fall forward and shoved his fingers through his hair. His eyes slanted to her, the relief in them matching his next words. “That's good, Em. That's really good.”

Nodding, she stood, pulling the comforter securely around her. “I really do have to go, Jase. I need to get over to the office for a couple of hours, and there are a few errands I offered to help out with for the wedding.”

He stood, and the sheet wrapped at his waist slipped slightly lower. He rubbed a hand over the hard planks of his abdomen. “Can I give you a ride over tonight?”

She walked backward toward the bedroom to change, an amorphous sort of anxiety churning her stomach. “What? Oh, that's nice. Thank you. But I'm riding with the girls.”

Closing the bedroom door behind her, she tossed the comforter back on the bed and pulled on her bra and then dress in record time.

She'd meant what she said about putting the past aside, but it was like there'd been this seemingly insurmountable boulder between them, and after so long, it had quietly become a part of their foundation. Without it, everything suddenly seemed less stable. Uncertain.

A little dangerous.

From the other side of the door, close enough Jase had to be standing right there, he called, “But not with Mitchel, right?”

She opened the door to see the corner of Jase's mouth kicked up in that way that made her a little weak. Managing a laugh, she shook her head. “No, not with Mitchel.”

“Okay then.” Bigger grin. Of the
sorry, not sorry
variety. “See you tonight, Em.”

* * *

Jase swung his strawberry-blond dance partner around the dance floor in the center of the reception banquet hall. The little beauty was six years old, done up in a miniature version of the bride's gown for her flower girl duties, cute as a button, and determined as hell. And so light that he could barely feel her tiny feet perched on the tops of his shoes.

The wedding, in Jase's estimation, was what all weddings should aspire to: short and sweet. Delphine was a knockout, and Marcos had that smacked look on his face Jase liked to see on all his grooms. The guy even choked up during the vows. Add to that the little ring bearer with the big, brown eyes and full mop of dark curls who'd cut his trip down the aisle short at about the two-thirds mark before going to hide behind his dad in the pew.

Good stuff.

The one fly in the ointment—Emily.

She was off.

“So Elsa is my
favorite
,” came the vehement assertion from his dance partner. One she made bouncing on her toes for emphasis. “She's the best of the princesses, and I have them all.”

“I have them all too,” he assured her, straight-faced. Because if there was one thing Jase had learned over the years of dancing with flower girls, it was that the hierarchy of princesses was no laughing matter. “Elsa is the best.”

Satisfied, she went on to elaborate all the ways in which Elsa qualified as best. Jase scanned the crowd, his eyes landing on the strawberry blond he hadn't been able to score more than five minutes of conversation with since they'd arrived at the church.

Dressed in a shimmering, ice-blue gown that matched his tie, she was standing by the gifts table, her eyes lost in some middle space.

It had been a mistake to dredge up their past before the wedding, but something had clicked last night, and when he'd woken up this morning, hell, he hadn't been able to let another minute pass without giving Emily the apology she should have had years ago.

He needed to talk to her.

A tug on his hand brought his eyes back to his flower-girl dance passenger.

“
You aren't dancing.
”

A new song was already playing, that Shania Twain wedding favorite “Forever and For Always,” which always made him cringe a little on the inside, because…well, look at the blindside she'd had.

Before he had to try to let the six-year-old down easy, her dad stepped up and offered to cut in. Saved.

One of the other bridesmaids was already heading in his direction, but again that sense of urgency gripped him, and he cut through the crowd, offering a few nods and smiles along the way, until… Shit.

Where was she?

Twenty feet off, leaning in for a powwow with the photographer, a list in hand.

Right. Because Emily was the super attendant, verifying that the photographer knew which guests to make sure he got pictures of throughout the night.

Two songs later, Brody was holding up the wall across from the bar with Jase, pointing out some girl who'd caught his eye. Jase gave a subtle nod toward the brunette with the sequins.

“No, man, she's got the honey-blond hair and”—Brody swallowed and adjusted his jacket like it was suddenly too tight—“and that dress that ties behind her neck.”

Jase started scanning the area, but got distracted when he saw Emily making the rounds of the tables.

Collecting the full disposable cameras and dropping new ones.

Smiling and talking with everyone.

“That guy she's sitting with is her date, but look at 'em. She's chattering away and he's on his phone, totally detached. I don't think they're
together
together.”

“I don't know. Maybe.” He didn't know because he was still watching Emily. But then he'd had enough watching. “Good luck, Brod.”

Catching up to Emily back at the gifts table, Jase shoved his hands into his pockets and turned so he was facing her and the crowd. So maybe it didn't look like he was watching her as closely as he was. “Having fun?”

She emptied her bag of disposable cameras into the oversize glass bowl.

A nod and smile. One that almost looked like the real thing.