“Lex,” Jack whispered when he answered the door.
His brow furrowed when he saw her face swollen and red from tears that she hadn’t been able to hold back. And when she looked up into his handsome face—his hair, dark and shaggy, his eyes, her favorite color of blue, that jawline so well-defined—she started crying all over again.
He sighed and pulled her into his arms. She grabbed the T-shirt he was wearing between her fingers and buried her face in his shoulder. His hand came down on her back, holding her securely against him as he toed the door closed.
“Shh,” he said softly.
He ran his hand through her hair over and over again, stroking it soothingly, until she settled against him. The tears were still flowing, but the hysterics subsided, and she felt like she was able to breathe again.
“You know,” she said against his T-shirt, “that I don’t hate you, right?”
He chuckled softly and kissed the crown of her head lightly. The gesture seemed so perfectly in tune with what she needed in the moment that it didn’t even make her freak-out.
“I know you don’t.”
“I kind of hate myself though.”
“If you don’t hate me, you can’t hate yourself,” Jack said, holding her at arm’s length with a smirk.
Lexi grinned and shook her head. “You don’t know the kind of person I am.”
“Oh, believe me…I do.”
“I was a total bitch.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “And no one deserved it.”
Lexi sighed and looked away. “I walked out on Ramsey.”
Jack sputtered and then coughed to try to cover it up, but he did a terrible job at it. For someone usually so collected, he was anything but in that moment. She didn’t know how to read him then, and all she wanted was to curl into a ball on the floor and feel bad for herself. She deserved that at least.
“You guys broke up?”
“Well…no,” she said, twirling the ring on her finger. “I mean…I don’t think so.”
Jack put his hand on the small of her back and guided her to the couch. “I think you should sit down and start from the beginning. Do you want something to drink? I think I only have Jack Daniels and water, but—”
“I’m fine. I think drinking is a bad idea. I’m too much of a lightweight,” she said, plopping onto the couch and pressing her head back into the cushion.
Jack took a seat next to her, mirroring her pose before speaking. “I never thought y’all would break up.”
“Me either.”
The very thought made her throat constrict and her head dizzy. She couldn’t break up with Ramsey. She loved him. He was her fiancé. They were going to get married. But did she want that? Wasn’t that what Chyna had been getting at from the beginning? Lexi needed to determine what she wanted, not what someone else said she should want. And she couldn’t stick with this just because she had told herself she would no matter what.
“What caused this? There had to be something, right? Most people don’t just wake up from an engagement…even when they should,” he all but whispered the last part. Surely, he was reflecting on the idiocy of his own marriage.
Lexi shook her head and pressed her palms over her eyes. She didn’t want to cry anymore.
Tears were the words she had left unspoken.
They spoke volumes about her pain, her grief, her despair for a relationship that she had put all of herself into. They broke a seal on the emotions she so tightly contained to the point where she could literally feel the pain in her chest, in her lungs, in her very being. And yet, she hated the vulnerability of it all. Knowing that once invested in her tears, she couldn’t take them back. They consumed her.
As another tear rolled down her cheek, she realized then how much she really needed them though. They were her heart’s way of speaking of that pain.
So, she let herself feel.
Tucking her feet up onto the couch, she hugged her knees to her chest and wept openly. Jack wrapped an arm around her shoulders, but he didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. His comfort was all that she needed.
After a few minutes, she found her voice again. “Do you remember that night on the beach last summer?”
“How could I ever forget?”
His hand trailed circles into her muscles, and she bit back the sigh that threatened to escape as he physically massaged the tension out of her back.
“I took Ramsey back that night because he told me he wanted to prove to me that everything I was freaking out about with Parker was nothing. And it wasn’t.”
Jack’s hand stilled as her words sank in. “Did he…do something with Parker?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“No. I mean, I don’t think so…but I came home, and she had found paperwork that said she had been discharged from an abortion clinic without anything happening. She proved what she had been saying all along…that she’d had a miscarriage.”
“That’s kind of huge for them, isn’t it?” Jack asked softly.
“Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I probably wouldn’t have cared as much if it hadn’t all been handled behind my back and if he hadn’t freaked out about the whole thing. I mean, if he’s still so hung up on this thing with Parker,” she said, turning to face Jack, “then how can he even want to marry me?”
“I know why he wants to marry you. And I know why, despite the red flags, he can’t see anything but you,” Jack said.
“Why? Because I sure don’t see it. I mean, I’m not crazy. How he is acting about Parker is a huge red flag, right?”
She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and stared into his blue eyes.
“You’re not crazy. He’s the guy who realized your worth and put you first. He gave you what you deserved. And he’s a complete fucking idiot to do anything to jeopardize that.”
Lexi stared down at the floor as his words sank in. She had given Ramsey everything, and he had risked their relationship with whatever was going on with Parker. Something that had happened between them years ago, which should have been put to rest years ago, was cropping up and suffocating everything she had invested in.
“He should have learned from my mistakes,” Jack said.
And then, she saw it in those crystal-clear blue eyes she had missed more than she cared to admit.
He wanted her. And it was a terrible idea to even let him see that she might want him, too. But it was Jack. She licked her lips and felt her pulse racing. She was too exhausted from work, too run-down, too emotionally distraught over the collapse of her life. She needed to back out of this situation and deal with it another night.
Jack’s hand slid down her cheek and down the curve of her neck, and then he pulled her head forward toward him. She breathed in sharply as he met her halfway, their faces no more than an inch apart. She could close her eyes and practically feel his lips on hers. This was a bad idea, but her brain and her heart weren’t listening to her. She wanted to forget everything. Jack had always been the easiest escape.
But no…
She couldn’t.
Her ring sat heavily on her finger.
Jack tilted his head forward, and instead of kissing her as she had expected, he rested his forehead against hers and dropped his hands to her shoulders.
“Losing you was the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t think another person deserves to feel that loss at my expense.”
And he pulled back, and she was left there, gasping.
Jack had…stopped. She didn’t know how to respond. Was she supposed to be relieved?
Because she wasn’t. She had expected him to kiss her. Her relationship was in shambles, and the thought of returning to her house left her feeling nauseated.
And now…through her haze, she heard the words that Jack had just said to her.
Losing you was the biggest mistake of my life.
Oh God!
After all this time…
Lexi pulled away sharply and stared forward at the far wall. She wasn’t sure if she was breathing properly. Her heart felt ready to burst. It was too much, all at one time.