Page 87 of An Unexpected Turn
“Hey, sweetheart. I’m sorry about tonight.”
“Sorry for what? Leaving with a woman you used to hook up with?” I hated the words and how they came out of my mouth. I knew Jake would never do anything with Lena, but the sting of watching him walk away with her triggered something in me that I couldn’t control.
“Peyton, you know damn well I’d never look at or touch anyone else. How could you even think that?”
I didn’t answer as I sat up in bed, the silence doubling the tension piercing my chest.
“Why didn’t you just say no? Say ‘Meet me at the office,’ say ‘I’m seeing someone’?”
“I know Lena enough that she wouldn’t let it go, and I wouldn’t have been able to get her out of the office if she came. I made it very clear that I wasn’t interested beyond business.”
It was the right answer, but my focus was on “I know Lena enough.”
“Sweetheart, come on. After all this time, you don’t trust me?”
“It’s not that.” I groaned as I sorted out the sour concoction of feelings hitting me from every direction to pinpoint which one was irritating me the most. “If we were together out in the open, I could have told her to back off, or she wouldn’t have approached you in the first place. Maybe. Paralyzed is the best way that I can describe the shitty way I felt tonight.”
“You shouldn’t have felt like that.”
“So you wouldn’t feel like that every time Ron comes to school and asks me out on a date?”
“What do you mean, comes to school? Is this hypothetical or actually fucking happening?”
“Uncle Keith has someone come to school once or twice a week on their lunch hour as a favor to him. He thinks the kids who want to pick fights may think twice if they know a uniform could stop by at any time. They just stop by and leave, but when it’s Ron’s turn, he lingers until I make something up and shut my office door.”
“The fuck he is,” he growled, drawing a surprised chuckle out of me.
“And what are you going to do? Tell him to back off because we’re together? That he has no right? I know you wouldn’t have done anything with Lena the same as you should know I blow off Ron every single time, but it’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t want him coming near you.”
I could almost hear his teeth grinding and picture the tic in his jaw.
“I come from Brooklyn and worked at schools all over the city during my master’s. Do you think I can’t handle a guy who hasn’t even grown into his gun belt?”
Another long silence.
“I was disappointed and hurt tonight. It wasn’t your intention, it’s something we have to expect if no one is supposed to know about us. It’s hard to get used to, even though it’s all we’ve ever done. And after tonight, I’m very much over it. Good night, Jake.”
I hated cutting him off and ending the call, but I was too exhausted to have the same conversation for what seemed like the millionth time, and I feared I’d say something I couldn’t take back.
As much as Jake and what we had meant to me, either we were out in the open or nothing at all.
THIRTY-FOUR
PEYTON
Iwas on my second cup of coffee and still struggling to make it through the morning. I’d drifted off to sleep somewhere around 3 a.m., two hours before my alarm went off. A slew of texts from Jake littered my screen, but I still hadn’t looked at any.
I told my friends that I had work to catch up on in my office during lunchtime and couldn’t join them. Sitting at my desk and stewing over the new tension between Jake and me seemed like a more tolerable option than answering questions about how off I probably looked. Deirdre would want a full explanation sooner or later about what she’d noticed last night, but I didn’t have it in me today.
I raked a hand through my hair before finally picking up my phone and facing whatever Jake had said between last night and this morning.
Jake:I love you. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone.
Jake:That’s what I would have said had you not hung up on me.
Jake:It was wrong to leave with Lena. I should have just dealt with her at the office. If I had to watch you go anywhere with Ron, I would have lost my goddamn mind.
