Page 26 of Somewhere Only We Know (Healing in Cincy #4)

JAX

PRESENT DAY

M y alarm goes off too early and I smack my hand over my phone with a groan.

When I peel my eyes open, I see it’s still dark out as evidenced by the sun not peaking through the edges of my blackout curtains.

I stretch my cramped body and run into a solid lump at the foot of my bed.

Sully yawning is how I’ve felt for the last few weeks.

Things were going well with Nate. I was slowly letting him back in and trying to move past the past. Until he wanted to dive into why he gave up on us and things were no longer going well.

I get angry all over again as I remember him making the decision for me.

For us. How dare he? I knew we would have to get ugly before we came out united and shiny.

I knew that we would have to talk about the way he ended us.

But I was so unprepared for the reaction he would bring out of me that I’ve been working non-stop for the last few weeks just to avoid thinking about him.

I punch my mattress as my alarm goes off for the second time. Turning it off, I fling the covers off me and head to the bathroom to get ready for my flight .

Am I dreading a long weekend in Vegas? No.

Am I dreading a long weekend in Vegas with my ex? Yes.

But this weekend is for Sophie and Chance. That’s what I repeat to myself after I finish packing the last of my clothes and toiletries and I roll my suitcase down the stairs as I wait for Kamryn to pick me up.

Kammy: Here.

Me: Coming.

I hook Sully onto her leash and grab her food bag with a few toys before heading out to the car. The street is quiet, save for the car idling on the street. Mason gets out and grabs my suitcase while I let Sully into the backseat and slide in after her.

“Couldn’t drive on your own, could you?” I joke with a yawn.

“Please,” Kam starts as Mason gets back in the car. “He wouldn’t let me anyways.”

“You spoiled princess.”

She throws a smirk over her shoulder as Mason drives us towards the airport.

I’ve always loved the city at night and especially in the early morning.

It’s still in a way life never is. Of course, I’m rarely awake during those times so to see the city with sleepy eyes is a new experience.

I quickly take out my phone and record a bit of the drive so that I can revisit this moment when life gets too busy.

And when the familiar signs of the airport make itself known, I begin preparing myself for what’s to come.

The rules of this trip are simple: get the earliest flight for more debauchery.

Not my idea, but I can’t deny that the happy couple has a point.

It’s so easy to get lost and caught up in the hype of Vegas.

You drink too much, spend too much money, or God forbid you come home with a horrible tattoo.

I for one, won’t be participating in anything that follows me around.

We have the first flight of the day and I see a few other cars are here at the same time we are.

The car in front of us opens and out comes the groom-to-be with his bride-to-be and his butt buddies.

I straighten in my seat at seeing Nate unloading his things, along with Bryce and Chance’s bags, from the Uber.

Curse our timeliness to be early. But I can’t deny that the idiot is fucking sexy as hell in joggers and a sweatshirt so I’m able to stare at him unabashedly.

Mason pulls forward and puts the car in park.

“Be good for Uncle Mason.” I tell Sully and give her a kiss.

Kamryn and Mason snort at my reaction to saying goodbye.

“What!? Like you don’t do the same to Lucy and Poppy.” I say pointedly to Kamryn and climb out of the backseat but put the back window down before I shut the door.

“You two made it!” Chance bellows and rushes over, taking us in his arms.

“We wouldn’t miss this,” Kam tells him.

Sophie rushes over and tackles me in a hug like I haven’t seen her in a year.

Which to be fair, I haven’t seen her in a while due to working as much as possible to avoid Nate.

But from what I’ve seen on socials, they all do a lot of group outings when they have days off.

Which is rare, but since the season ended they’ve all gotten closer and I’ve made so many excuses as to why I can’t hang out with them.

Over Sophie’s shoulder, I see Nate watching us with a look that can only be described as wistful. And maybe a little bit of regret.

“Woah.” I hear Sophie say and she pulls away from our hug and moves a few steps away. “You’re Mason Brooks.” Chance laughs and comes up behind her.

“Guilty,” he responds.

“I’m a huge fan,” Sophie gushes.

I move back over to Mason’s car and give Sully some pets behind her ear. It’s not that I’m sad to leave her for the weekend. But I am nervous about how this weekend will go.

“Alright gang are we ready?” Chance asks after introductions are made and he’s pulled a drooling Sophie away from my brother-in-law.

As we’ve all gathered off to the side at the front of the entrance to the airport, the sun has begun to rise and I conclude I need coffee as soon as possible.

Once we’re all checked in, I make a beeline straight to a cafe.

And when I take that first sip of caffeine, I close my eyes in caffeinated-bliss and my mind stops running.

I head towards our gate to find a spot along the window and take a seat.

Good thing about early flights is that it’s relatively empty.

Bad thing is that I have a lack of options to look at for people watching.

I look at my phone to mindlessly scroll and when I feel the seat next to me jostle, I assume it’s Kamryn so I look up from my phone to look at her and the words fail to launch.

“Are you going to ignore me this whole trip?” Nate asks.

“Are you deciding that I should stop ignoring you? Or am I allowed to make that decision for myself?” I ask and I know I can’t mask my anger.

“Bee.” Nate starts and I look up to see him look around to make sure our friends aren’t eavesdropping. “If I could go back in time I would. You have no idea how much I regret ending us over text. Making that decision for you…because if any guy did that to Kayla I would beat their face in.”

I look blankly at my phone as he says this and it takes everything in me to not cry. Unfortunately when I get angry, I cry. It’s a character flaw that I deeply hate.

“What do you want me to say, Jax?” Nate asks pleadingly.

“It’s not about what you say Nate. Because as you said, your promises, which are also your words, don’t mean much.

And you can say you’re sorry until you’re blue in the face.

But it’s your actions that hold more weight than your words ever could,” my words come out as a whisper towards the end.

We sit in silence. It seems to be our default setting as the world around us in the airport moves on.

“Why didn’t you come back to me?” I ask and feel the familiar stinging of tears as they threaten to make an appearance the more I speak.

His expression drops and Nate opens his mouth to respond, but the call to board our flight is made. I quickly stand up from my seat and pull up my ticket on my phone. I smile to the attendant and make my way down the breezeway, tossing my empty coffee cup as I go.

“Hey.” Kamryn says as she catches up with me. “I saw you and Nate talking. It looked tense.”

“We got in a fight.” I keep my voice low as I tell her.

“What? When?”

“Keep your voice down,” I scold her and step in front of her as we go to step on the plane.

I was comfortable with riding economy, but Kam upgraded us to First Class.

And it seems everyone else was of the same thought process and when I sit in my seat, I see the rest of our group takes up the other seats.

Kam sits next to me and we accept glasses of champagne despite it not even being eight in the morning.

“So tell me what happened,” she whispers to me. Though it’s not needed as the engines start and nothing can be heard over us as we take off .

“We got in a fight a few weeks ago about him making the choice to end us.”

Kamryn’s eyes widen and I know she’s thinking of when Mason broke up with her in college.

Although, the decision wasn’t all his but he still went through with it.

His college coach made him end their relationship to focus on getting drafted.

When he and Kam got back together and she unloaded about her past with Liam, Mason spoke about what his college coach did to his NFL coach where he was told that was extremely unethical.

We all knew it at the time, but who’s going to take a college student's side over a decorated college football coach? So Mason eventually went to the board at their alma mater, after all those years, and outed his coach. Served the man right as it turns out that wasn’t the first instance of that happening.

Mason was just the first to finally speak up.

“Where does that leave you two now?”

I finish off my champagne and place it on the tray in front of me. “I don’t know. Friends? People who know of each other? I told him his actions need to start backing up his words.”

“Good for you, JJ.” Kamryn praises me and finishes off her champagne as well.

“You don’t think I’m being too unreasonable?

” I ask my sister because as I’ve stewed in my anger and seen the devoid look on Nate’s face, I’m starting to wonder if my anger is unjustified.

Or if I’m being too unreasonable and too hard on him.

But then I remember that we could have still been an us yet he made the choice to end it.

So while I’m doubting that this anger is productive, it is exhausting.

“I think as women we’re told that overreacting is dramatic, emotional, unnecessary.

Or it makes us a bitch, callous, cold. But how many of those instances stemmed from someone causing us to react that way?

So, no. I don’t think you’re overreacting.

In fact, I think you’re reacting with the right amount of anger and hurt.

Because when someone hurts you, it’s not up to them or anyone else to decide how you feel or when to get over it. ”

I let Kamryn’s words sink in. And I realize that on top of being angry at Nate, I’m also hurt. He hurt me, my feelings specifically, and I don’t think I’ve gotten over that. I don’t know if I can. Because no amount of words or his actions that prove otherwise, can mask that hurt with a Band-Aid.

“How do you–” I clear my throat to push back the emotion.

Through the crack of the seats, I see Nate looking our way and it’s as if he can tell what I’m talking about by the furrow in his brows.

“How do you move forward? I won’t say our situation is the same.

” I tell my sister and I don’t expand on our situation.

“But how and when did you decide to let Mason back into your life?”

Kamryn blows out a breath that ruffles her lips as she gathers her thoughts.

“I–I think I was just ready to let go of the years of hurt. I was in the same spot as you were where he never called once he was gone. He was just gone. Like disappeared into thin air, gone. I was hurt. But it was after celebrating another fashion week…oh I was angry at seeing him. Thinking he could just approach me, talk with me, and think that’s it.

But I also realized that I missed him more than I was angry at him. ”

“That was that?” I ask incredulously. Because if missing someone was all it took to have them back in my life, then Nate would have never left.

“No. I needed a little more work on myself before I decided to let him back in.” Kamryn regards me carefully. “Speaking of–when was your last session? ”

I look down at my fingers and pick at a non-existent scab. “A while ago.”

I stopped going to therapy because I felt like I talked more about my life and feelings on my podcast than to my therapist. It’s cathartic. But maybe there are some things where talking to no one can’t solve and I need more help than I realize.

“JJ, maybe you need to make an appointment?”

“Yeah. I’ll think about it.” I tell her and sit back in the seat.

The rest of the flight I think and I think and I think until I’m ready to drink so much when we land that I forget what I’m thinking about. When we finally land and head to baggage claim, check in at the hotel and find our rooms, I’m ready to crash from all of the thinking.