Page 29 of Soft Rebound (Mad City Moments #2)

“I was confused,” he says. “We’ve been together so long, I thought I was missing out on stuff...”

“Like Bethany,” I say.

His eyes widen, but then he nods. “Yes. Like Bethany.”

“So how was she?” I ask. Looking at him, I wait for a pulse of jealousy. Or maybe anger. I do feel something, but it’s vague and very faint.

“What do you mean?”

“Was being with her worth breaking off our engagement?” I ask. “She’s pretty cute. Thin, too. Just the way you like ‘em.”

He frowns. “You’re what I like.”

“No, it’s not. It’s never been. But that’s okay. I’m over it now.”

He seems positively insulted. “That’s not true! Liz—”

I wave him off. “Please, no more pretense. There’s no point.” I take a deep breath. “So tell me what happened? Did she dump you? What went wrong?”

“It just didn’t work out,” he says, unable to look me in the eye. Instead, he scratches against a small hole in the grain of the wooden table.

“Did you sleep with her while we were together?”

His eyebrows shoot up all the way into his hairline. For some reason he’s shocked that I would figure it out.

I chuckle. “It’s okay. I am pretty sure you have. You might as well admit it.”

“Lizzie, I never meant to hurt you.” He reaches for my hand again. I should probably just let him hold it as he will just keep grabbing it if I don’t. “Bethany and I just happened. Then it kept happening, and I didn’t think it was fair to stay with you when I’ve started having feelings for her...”

I wait for the hurt to ignite into anger, but for now it only simmers. Small and weak. Deceptively so.

“I doesn’t matter anymore, Jake. I’m over it. All of it.”

“I made a huge mistake, Lizzie. I threw away everything we had and for nothing. Please give me an opportunity to make it up to you.”

I pull that hand back again. I guess I need to be leaning back and keeping my hands in my lap if I don’t want him to keep grabbing them.

I take a breath and look at him, really look, after not laying eyes on him for many months. This is the man who I once thought hung the moon. He’s attractive, but I don’t think I’d swipe right on him today. He doesn’t actually do it for me, not physically, not anymore.

His nose and cheeks are still a bit red from the cold, and his hair is a mess. He’s wearing a cable-knit sweater I don’t recognize.

“I like your sweater.” I nod toward his chest. “Present form Bethany?”

“No. I just bought it for myself.”

“You wouldn’t buy that for yourself.”

“You don’t know that. People change.”

At that moment, Joe, whom I somehow didn’t hear approach, slides right next to me in the booth. “What did I miss?” he says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to pull me into a sideways hug, then places a kiss on my temple.

I grin and relax against the side of his massive chest, beaming up at him. “Hi, there.”

“Hi, baby.” He returns the grin, and yes, those fantastic teeth are on full display and I can’t help it, one of my hands flies up and strokes his beard.

“Who the hell is this?” Jake sounds shocked and furious from across the table.

“Who the hell are you?” Joe replies with barely contained irritation.

“Everyone, behave,” I say. I point across the table. “This is Jake, my ex-fiancé. He’s visiting from St. Cloud. I still have no idea how he found me because I know Bobby is the only one who knows where I live now, and I know he would never tell...”

“Your mom told me,” Jake blurts out. “She actually got it off Bobby’s GPS history.”

I am taken aback, but then I laugh, more than a little impressed. “Wow, good for Mom. Keeping up with technology.”

“So why is Jake here?” Joe asks, technically addressing me, but looking at Jake.

“He wants to get back together,” I say.

Joe’s face is impassive when he says, “That might be a problem, given that you’re with me now.” Then he offers his hand to my ex. “I’m Joe. Thank you for being stupid enough to let Liz go. I assure you, I will never make the same mistake.”

“Who do you think you are?” Jake’s getting red and angry and looks a bit like he will leap across the table as his eyes dart between Joe and me. “Lizzie, who is this guy?”

“He’s just told you, his name is Joe and we’re dating,” I say as I interlace my fingers with Joe’s and raise our forearms so Jake can see me holding Joe’s hand.

“I have a nice life here, Jake. I like my job”—okay, that’s a lie since I technically just became unemployed—“and I have great new friends. And Joe. I have Joe. So I’m not going back. To you, or St. Cloud.”

Jake is positively furious now, his face red, the vein in his forehead popping. “How could you? After all the time we spent together—”

“Are you fucking serious?” No longer a simmer, my anger is now a roaring fire, ready to obliterate everything. “You were literally cheating on me with the girl you then left me for, and you expected me to, what? Cry over you forever? Wait for you? What? What did you expect?”

“I can’t believe you replaced me with...” Jake’s face is a snarl, and he motions with disgust toward Joe. “With this.”

Joe leaps off his seat, reaches across the table, and grabs Jake by his fancy new sweater. “What exactly are you implying, Jake? She replaced you with what?”

Jake’s face turns pale. He looks like he’s going to pee himself. “Nothing.”

Joe lifts him off the seat by the sweater. “You mean she’s replaced you with someone who is not a sniveling pretty-boy cheating piece of shit, stupid enough to dump an actual fucking goddess, only to pout eight months later because she’s moved on and won’t give him the time of day anymore?”

Jake starts wiggling and pushing against Joe’s arm, and Joe lets him go and sits back down next to me.

“Fat bastard,” Jake mutters.

“What was that?” Joe asks and leans menacingly over the table and toward Jake. “You really want me to ruin that pretty sweater of yours, don’t you? I hear getting blood out of wool is a real bitch.”

Jake fumes as he moves to straighten himself. “Your parents miss you,” he says. “You had a nice life in St. Cloud. Your parents, your brothers. Your job. You could’ve had all that again, but you had to go and fuck the first Wisconsin Sasquatch you found.”

“That’s it,” Joe jumps up, and Jake does the same. “This Wisconsin Sasquatch is sending you back to Minnesota without any teeth.”

“That’s enough!” I get up and insert myself between them, one palm against each of their heaving chests. “You’re both ridiculous. I like this place and don’t want to be thrown out.”

A few beats pass and no punches are thrown.

“All right. This is what will happen,” I say. “Joe, can you go to the bar and get you and me a round of drinks? I need a couple of minutes alone here with Jake, and then he will be leaving.”

Joe looks me in the eye and clearly decides that I’ve got this. He nods and leaves.

I motion to Jake to sit back down.

“You’ve trained him well, I see,” Jake says with a sneer.

“Cut it out,” I say. “I won’t hear a word against him. He’s amazing and I care about him a great deal. It’s not his fault I have no intention of ever getting back with you. It’s yours.

“And it’s not just the cheating, although that was really shitty.

It’s that I’ve had a lot of time to think about our relationship and who I was in it and how you treated me, and it wasn’t good, Jake.

It was never good. You’ve always taken me for granted.

Shit, you’re even taking me for granting now, coming here after eight months expecting I will welcome you with open arms after you cheated on me and dumped me!

Who does that? Not someone who really loves me or who really respects me. ”

“Lizzie, baby, that’s not true,” he reaches for my hand for the tenth time.

“Will you cut it out? Stop grabbing my hand and stop calling me Lizzie! I don’t want to be with you!

You did me a huge favor when you dumped me, Jake.

Honestly, I should thank you. I would’ve been miserable if I’d married you, with all your little putdowns, all the little ways you never let me forget that you’re the prize, that I’m too fat, too lower class, too unworthy of you in every way, that I should be grateful you’d graced me with your affection. ..”

Jake’s eyes and mouth are wide open. He seems to be in shock.

“I don’t know how much of what you did was conscious, and frankly it doesn’t matter anymore. My point is that there is nothing you can do to make me go back to the life I had before. Nothing. The Liz you knew is gone. She’s never coming back. To St. Cloud or to you.”

Jake’s fists push down against the seat, his torso straining against the backrest. There are a number of emotions flying over his face. Disbelief. Anger. Traces of sadness. Indignation. Hurt. More anger.

“Look, Jake,” I say in a softer voice. “This thing between us is over. I don’t have any hard feelings. Let’s not make it ugly.”

“I really do love you, Lizzie,” he says finally.

“Thank you for that. Maybe you do, in your own way. But it wasn’t a good kind of love, Jake. The kind that lifts and nurtures. But maybe you can do better with someone else. Maybe even Bethany.”

“Did you love me?” he asks.

I take a moment before I respond. “I thought I did. I probably did in some way. It wasn’t a great way, either, Jake. I was always performing for you. That’s no way to live. And no way to be with someone you love.”

He puts his elbows on the table and runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

“And this guy?” Jake nods toward Joe, who’s still at the bar and glancing toward our table, two full glasses standing before him. He’s clearly biding his time, giving Jake and me the opportunity to wrap up. “Do you perform for him?”

I shake my head and smile. “No. I’ve never had to. He likes me just how I am.”

“Fuck,” Jake mutters. “ Fuck !” He slams both open palms against the table.

“Dude, chill,” says someone from a nearby booth.

“Seriously, chill,” I say, placing a hand over one of his fists.

“I honestly did love you, Lizzie,” he says. “I do love you.”

“Thanks for saying that, really. But take that and love someone else better. Maybe Bethany.”

“She broke up with me,” he says. “Says I’m still hung up on you.”

I chuckle. “Oh, how the tables have turned. Do you care for her?”

He looks up at me and nods.

“And she cares for you?”

A nod again.

I sigh. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but please go back to the girl you cheated on me with and for whom you left me, and try really hard with her. Just her. Do it for real. Be better.”

“She’s not you, though,” Jake says.

“That’s very nice to hear,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“ Fuck! ” Jake slams an open palm against the table again, grabs his jacket, and storms out of the bar.

Joe comes back with our drinks and sits next to me. “I guess he left us to pay for his beer,” he says.

I wrap my arms around his waist and relax against his side. I feel like I’m able to take in a full breath for the first time in months.

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