Page 16 of Somewhere Only We Know (Healing in Cincy #4)
JAX
PRESENT DAY
T he swoosh of an outgoing email fills my quiet office as I send off the three videos to my manager to look over and send off to the company I did some promotional work for. I’ve purposefully kept myself busy and avoided my phone for fear of what could be waiting for me if I unlock it.
It’s been a week since running into Nate while out walking Sully. To say it’s taken me the entirety of seven days to pick myself up off the floor would be an understatement.
I’d be lying to myself if I said seeing him in all his sweaty glory didn’t do something to me.
And that fuck ass gold chain he was wearing, made me want yank on it and pull his lips to mine.
Trent never sparked that kind of reaction in my body like Nate did.
Like I wanted to lose myself in him until we were forced to come up for air.
He also wasn’t built like Nate and I think that was another reason why I dated him.
He was the polar opposite of Nate and at the time when I needed to move on with my life, I found I needed him.
Trent was the artsy, sleep until noon, and smoke a pack of cigarettes a week type of guy and I needed that type of guy more than I needed someone like Nate .
Nate was, and from what I can tell, still is put together and confident and healthy.
But even while dating Trent, and after pushing him to the recesses of my mind—I still missed Nate like I was missing a limb.
I missed what he added to my life. Forcing myself to move on from him took more strength than I gave myself credit for.
Even more, forcing myself to finally stop thinking about him after three years felt like I was able to wake up one morning without the constant reminder of the ache he left behind.
And I have moved on. Or at least I thought I did until I saw him in his uniform.
I look out of my office window with the view of downtown just behind the row of homes on the back.
Part of me wonders if Nate and the team are playing at home or if they’re away.
But then I chastise myself because I shouldn’t care.
I don’t care. And I’ll continue to tell myself that until it sticks.
I see my phone light up with a call from Kamryn. A tiny part of me wants to ignore her like she did to me all of those years ago. But that would be immature and I’m not grieving the loss of anyone like she was.
I swipe to answer and put it on speaker phone. “Hey.”
“Hi, J,” she says, and I can tell she was preparing for the worst.
“You don’t need to call to check up on me,” I tell her.
Kamryn breathes out a heavy sigh. “Yes I do.”
I click my mouse on my screen and watch the transparent squares appear and then disappear when I lift my finger. I do that over and over. I think Kamryn is trying to make up for lost time, which in my opinion is a lost cause. “Well, I’m okay. So…job well done.”
She snorts. “You can’t get rid of us that easily. ”
“ Us ?”
“Yep. We have goodies for a girls night. So come open your door.” She tells me and hangs up.
I stare at my darkened screen, wondering if it’s actually my brain playing tricks on me until a persistent ringing of my doorbell and Sully’s barking moves me into gear. I shush Sully as I shuffle to the door and whip it open.
There on my front steps are my sister, Emily, Sarah, and Sophie with Vera Bradley weekender bags stuffed to the brim and arms weighed down by food, alcohol, and pillows.
Standing to the side, I nod them in and shut the door as they make their way to the kitchen. Sully trots in front of me with her tail wagging and tongue lolling out of her mouth as she goes to join the girls. As soon as I walk in, a drink is pushed in my hands and music is playing from my TV.
“Spill the beans,” someone, I’m assuming Emily, says.
I take a sip and move to the kitchen island, playing with the stem of my glass obviously stalling. “Nate and I knew each other in college. He was my great, big, first love that people talk about.”
“What!?” Sophie screeches.
“My client Nate?” Sarah asks.
“Yeah.”
A glass is set on the counter and a long exhale is let go.
“Okay, rewind. I’m so confused. How?”
“We met at eighteen and I gave him no choice but to become my best friend.”
“I always thought assface was your first boyfriend,” Sarah says thoughtfully.
I snort and take a healthy sip of the margarita that’s less mix and more tequila. “Nope. Somehow in the three years we were friends, Nate confessed his crush and then after I pulled my head out of my butt, we were no longer just friends.”
“Well what happened between then and now?” Emily asks.
“Yeah. You were so…” Sophie starts but stops to rethink her words because our friendship is still new.
“Cold?” I finish the sentence for her.
She cringes and then nods. “Yeah.”
“Imagine you’re twenty-one and planning to spend the rest of your life with someone, graduate college together, and go anywhere with them. But then they send you a seven-worded text just to drop off the face of the earth.”
When I think back to that time, with how young I was and what we planned, I can see how foolish I was.
How foolish we were. But when you’re young you can’t possibly think of anything derailing your plans.
And when your plans don’t flourish the way you hoped, you think it’s the end of the world.
You throw a fit until you finally get your way.
But Nate, not coming back, made me feel abandoned in a way I had never felt before.
I couldn’t throw a fit and just get him back because I had no idea where he was.
“J, you know why though,” Kamryn says softly.
“Yeah, I do. And if he explained that in his text, then I would have…we could have made it work,” my voice cracks on those last handful of words.
I think that’s why I’m more mad at Nate than anything. He never gave us the option to try. He never gave a reason for ending us.
“Men,” Kamryn states and they all agree.
“Men that you all have wrapped around your perfectly manicured fingers,” I point out the obvious but not in a jealous way. I’m happy for my friends and sister. Okay, maybe I’m also a little jealous .
“You could have one wrapped around your finger,” Kam notes and plays with the tab of her can.
I glare at my sister for even suggesting that. In those years after Nate evaporated from my life, there was a small part of me that foolishly hoped he would reach out. And everyday he didn’t that hope dwindled.
“So what are you going to do?” The question comes from Emily who’s been naturally quiet.
“I don’t know. Nothing?” My voice raises on the last word. Because I really don’t know what I’m going to do where it comes to Nate. “I think he texted me the other day, but I’ve been too scared to look at my phone.”
“Jaclyn!”
“What?”
“You haven’t responded?!”
“Unbelievable!”
Comes from the four of them and I shrink in on myself.
“Where’s your phone?” Sarah demands and pushes back from the kitchen island.
I point upstairs. “In my office.”
“Hold on, how do you not know it’s him?” Emily asks as Sarah huffs before charging up the stairs and I motion for us to head to the living room. The red heads stomping upstairs almost makes me laugh. I take a seat on the oversized chaise lounge and Sully joins before I’m even settled.
“Wait! Before we get into your dilemma, you know that Chance and I are having a joint bachelor and bachelorette party in Vegas and we decided that you all are invited.” Sophie beams and dances in her seat.
“I’m not in a dilemma,” I cry out.
Sarah feet bound back down the stairs and gets closer when I hear her huff. “Honey, you are so in a dilemma. ”
I look up to see her tapping on my phone and am close to scolding her when she turns her fiery gaze on me.
“Jax, he texted you last week. And I do know that this is his number because I have it memorized,” Sarah says, upset for me that I left that detail out.
Would she throttle me if she knew I also have his number memorized?
It’s like ingrained in me and yes, I’m aware of how long it’s been since he texted me.
It was perfectly timed after the park. Texting Nate casually is one thing.
But texting Nate after he obliterated my heart when I was twenty-two, well that’s another thing.
In my mind, I know the differences are glaring, but my heart refuses to let go of that pain.
“I deleted his number because it was too tempting for me to text someone who cut me out.” I answer Emily.
I’ve looked at his message countless times until the screen blurred and when I went to respond to his simple, hey , I froze up.
Can you be traumatized from texting someone?
Because if that’s the case, then that’s what I am.
But if I want to move forward and not associate texting Nate with doom, then I have to—at least for my sake, find a way to move past this.