Funny how fast the mood could change between two people with one phone call.
“Jett,” Goldie called after me, but I ignored her and found my way to my office, where I quickly poured myself two fingers of bourbon. The warm liquid coated my throat, easing some of the tension that was building up inside of me.
“Jett,” Goldie said again, as she walked through my office and slammed my door shut. “What the hell? Why are you running away from me?” she sniffled.
“I wasn’t running,” I corrected her, as I took a seat in my office chair and turned it to look out the window.
I turned my chair away from her so she would get the hint that I didn’t want to talk to her, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to matter. She was a stubborn girl, and if she wanted to talk to me, I could only imagine she would result to climbing over my chair, if need be, to get me to open my mouth.
Yes, I was resorting to my old ways of shutting her out; I knew exactly what I was doing, but right now, it was because if I told her how I felt, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back.
The top of my chair was gripped by a small hand and I was forcefully turned away from my window; I was greeted by a very red-eyed and very mad Goldie, who had her arms crossed over her chest and was looking down at me, ready to unleash.
“You have two fucking seconds to tell me why you are acting like a dick right now or I am taking off. You can’t keep resorting to shutting me out. I am not fucking kidding, Jett. I will not stand for this.”
Running my hands over my face to give me a second to think, I took a deep breath and said, “I would love to have this little heart-to-heart with you, but I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say.”
“What? Do you think you can only tell me things I like to hear? That’s not reality, Jett; probably fifty percent of the crap that comes out of your mouth is something I won’t like…”
“Fifty percent?” I asked with a questioning look. “That number seems absurdly high.”
“Don’t, don’t distract me from what’s going on here. Tell me why the hell you’re acting cold towards me.”
“You really want to know?” I asked, as I got out of my chair and started pacing my office.
“Yeah, I really want to know,” Goldie said in a mocking voice, trying to impersonate me. The woman knew how to press my buttons, and she was doing a damn fine job of it right now.
“Fine, I can’t stand the fact that you’re crying over Rex’s death. The thought of you being sad over him makes me physically nauseous. Seeing you weep over a man who did nothing but try to separate me from you is like a fucking knife to my stomach. Right now, I don’t even want you near me.”
“You can’t be serious,” Goldie responded, shocked.
“I don’t fuck around, Goldie,” I said, getting in her face. “You should know that by now.”
She stood her ground as I hovered over her, trying to startle her out of my office before I said something more damaging.
“You want me to leave?”
“Yes, I want you to leave,” I said without blinking an eye.
She crossed her arms over her chest again and said, “Well, too fucking bad; I’m not going anywhere.”
Frustrated, I blew out a long breath and went over to my bourbon to fill up my glass.
“Resorting to your bourbon again…you’re becoming a real lush, aren’t you? Can’t face reality, you have to hide behind a glass of amber liquid. I guess it’s your upbringing, push everything behind a fake wall so you don’t have to deal with it, then drink yourself into oblivion. Maybe you’re more like your father…”
I slammed the glass of bourbon into the wall as I turned toward her and said, “Don’t you ever fucking compare me to that monster, do you hear me?”
My rash actions startled her, as she kept her mouth shut and nodded her head. I could see that she started to visibly shake from the anger pouring off of me.
“Leave, you need to leave,” I commanded, pleading in my mind for her to listen to me, for once.
With a quick nod, she started for the door, but when her hand reached the knob, she stopped in her tracks and glanced in my direction. A lone tear streaked down her face as her eyes connected with mine. Right then and there, my fucking heart was ripped out of my chest and thrown on the floor. No matter how much I was mad at her for feeling for Rex, I still couldn’t take the hurt look in her eyes.
Pressing my hand to my forehead and trying to massage the aggravation that was trying to consume me, I said, “I can’t stand the fact that you have feelings for him.”
“I don’t have feelings for him,” she said, as more tears fell down her face.
“If you don’t have feelings, then why the hell are you crying? Why does it seem like you lost the love of your fucking life?”
A crease formed between her eyes as she processed what I was saying. She let go of the doorknob she was holding onto and walked toward me, never taking her eyes off of mine.
“You really think this is the way I would react if I lost the love of my life? You’re sadly mistaken because, first of all, Rex was nothing to me…”
“Then why are you fucking crying?” I shouted, entirely frustrated with the situation.
“Because it was a shock to me,” she shouted back. “I would have cried if you told me your milk man died. For fuck’s sake Jett, I have a heart. I don’t walk around all dark and moody like you and Kace; things affect me. I can’t help it. I cry during that stupid Budweiser commercial with the dog; it’s who I am. Why does it bother you so much?”
“Because…because…”
“Because why?!” Goldie spat at me.
“Because he stole Natasha from me, which turned me black, but when I found out he took you,” I shook my head and said, “When I thought he took you, my soul died. I thought I was hurting when Natasha left me, but I didn’t know what pain was until you left me, Goldie. I had no fucking clue what misery was until the day you took off. You can’t imagine the flashbacks I went through, the gut-wrenching agony I had to deal with by you taking off, trying to save the day.”
“I was trying to make things better for us.”
“By you ‘making things better’,” I quoted her, “You made them exceedingly worse.”
“Because I asked you to trust me? Because I wanted you to try to have faith in me?”
“Because you abandoned me,” I choked out.
Feeling vulnerable, I turned around so Goldie didn’t see the open wound in my chest that was starting to pour out. I didn’t do fucking feelings, this was why, because I wasn’t able to control them.
The room fell silent as I waited for her to say something, but instead of her coming back at me with a smart remark, I heard her feet pad across the floor until she stood directly behind me. Her arms wrapped around my waist and her head pressed against my back as she hugged me tightly.
“I’m sorry, Jett. I didn’t even think about how my leaving might affect you; I didn’t know it would hurt you so much.”
“Goldie, you were there. You saw the pleading look on my face when you said you were going to leave; you heard me beg for you to stay. How can you say it wouldn’t have affected me?”
She turned me around so I was forced to face her. Her hand went up to my face, where she caressed my jaw and said, “How was I supposed to know how you really felt, Jett? You never told me; you barely showed me. For all I knew, you moved on without me here, hired a new Jett Girl, which you did.”
“Because I thought you’d moved on. You were with Rex, Goldie. Rex, the one person who made it his mission to destroy me every chance he got. He was one of the main reasons, besides my dad, why we couldn’t be together.”
“And how did I find that out? Oh yeah, from Diego, not from you, the person who was supposed to be my boyfriend.”
Completely frustrated, Goldie let go of me and pulled away. I could see the tension radiating off of her. Did I really want to dig deep into our issues? Not really, but they were out now. They had to be resolved once and for all.