Page 71 of Double Dared
“I need to go,” I murmured to myself, standing upand walking out of the bar before any of the guys knew what was happening.
I walked out, realizing only when I was across the street that my jacket was still folded in the corner of the booth. But quick footsteps followed me, and I turned to see Jason bringing the jacket to me.
“Hey,” he said, handing it to me.
I put the jacket on without thinking about anything in particular.
“Are you…fuck, man, you’re not alright,” Jason said. “Let’s go home.”
“No,” I said. “I think…I’ll walk around. You go back.”
I turned on my heels and began to walk.
“Okay,” Jason said simply, falling in step beside me. “We can walk. And talk. Or not. Tell me to be quiet if you want.”
I looked at him and nodded slowly.
He nodded back to me.
And we walked deep into campus, going away from the bar and the Bel House. Jason didn’t speak at all, not even once, but he stayed nearly shoulder to shoulder with me as I meandered through the pathways and across lawns.
My mind was spinning with the sequence of events I could see playing out. Until now, Harrison could be all mine because there was nobody else who could distract him. But a few measly weeks with me were nothing compared to two years with Emma. And she needed him.
She would be glad to see him.
She would welcome him, need him, take him away from me. And I couldn’t stay a goddamn thing about it because I’d always just been an accomplice in this twisted game of winning Emma back.
So I would not tell him. I would propose to him first. I would make him move to the cottage in the forest with me, and we would cut the internet, and we would live like hermits until the end of days, and there would never be any risk again, and he would be all mine because I would be the only choice.
And was it really up to me to decide Harrison’s future for him? Could I make this choice for him and live with the consequences?
The right thing to do, the only thing to do, was to tell him. He needed to know, and he needed to hear it from me because I’d found out first.
When Jason and I reached the Bel House after a good hour of walking in silence, Jason blocked the path up the stairs to the door in front of me, and he sat down on top of the stairs, on the deck, and patted the spot next to him. “We’ll talk, now,” he said simply, not leaving any room for debate.
I hesitated, wishing I could step over him, walk into the house, climb up the stairs, and shut myself in my room forever. But I couldn’t. So I sat down next to him and looked at the lawn, grass lit by the porch light above us.
“What got you so upset?” Jason asked. “I mean, specifically. What do you think is goingto happen?”
I snorted and shook my head. “Jason, I know what’s going to happen. I always knew.”
“Tell me,” Jason said patiently.
I pressed my lips together and held my breath. After a while, broken by Jason’s relentless silence, I sighed. “You know what happened. It was a stupid dare, then an even stupider plan to make Emma jealous. And I don’t know how or why, but at some point, pretending to be together was too much fun to stop, and it became something more. But that’s just it. It’s just a farce that’s gone too far. And now we need to go back to the original plan.”
“Why do you think you need to? Things change, Taylor. People change their minds all the time,” Jason said.
I shrugged. “Just because I know.”He still has her photo in the corner of the corkboard, I thought. And it was a perfect opportunity. He would be the knight in shining armor, and she would be grateful that he existed, and they would discover that this whole interruption in their happy relationship was just that, an interruption. An intermission.
I turned to Jason, who didn’t look pleased with my answer and was about to protest. “I’m fine,” I said. “It just sucks, because it’s fun, and I didn’t want it to end so soon. But we knew it would.” And then, when Jason’s expression softened a little, I added, “I want to go to bed now.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed it hard enough that my throat tightened and my eyes stung,and he shook it. “Get some rest, buddy. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I whispered, all I could do without cracking.
I got up, entered the house, and was greeted by Peanut, who pushed his nose hard against my leg, then noticed Jason on the porch and forgot all about me.
That was my fate, I supposed. I was great, but there was always someone better standing behind me.
