Finding Us (6 page)

Chapter 6

“What about the time we got caught
drinking your dad’s beer out in his garage?” Tyler Callihan said, laughing.

Ross shook his head. “My dad damned near beat the shit out of me for that.
It was some he’d had imported from Scotland from the Brewdog brewery that they don’t make any more. It was pretty expensive shit.”

“
We were thirteen. And that was some good fucking beer. What’d you think he’d do?” Nic Barrett said cracking up.

I’d called Ross and he’d called several of the guys who were still around and we were at Tyler’
s place having a couple drinks. It was good to see them all again and relive all the stupid shit we’d done growing up.

“How about when Ross
thought he mooned Christin Wilson our sophomore year coming home from the football game?” I said.

“Fuck. Forgot about that,” he replied with a grimace. “Who knew Mr. Vining, the fucking principal himself, drove the same make and model car that she did?”

I died laughing remembering the incident. We’d just left the game and were driving down the road from the high school when Ross told me to pull up beside Christin’s car. He’d yanked his pants down and stuck his ass in the window when I got next to her. When he’d sat back down and looked over, his face had turned pale, so I had a little look-see, and there was Mr. Vining giving us a dirty look. Needless to say, my Camaro wasn’t hard for him to know who we were, so we got called into the office Monday morning and had gotten detention for a week. Good times.

We
then talked about what was going on in everyone’s life, and it was cool hearing what everyone was doing now. Damn, I missed these guys. I needed to get home more often to hang with them.

A couple hours later we left Tyler’s house promising to get together in the next six months or so since we’d had such a good time. I’d picked Ross up from his apartment, so he rode back with me.

“Think you and Rebecca can make yourselves scarce tonight?” I asked.

“Yeah. Joe’s out of town for some job thing, so I’ve got the apartment to myself. We’ll just stay there.
” He paused for a few seconds. “Thinking about asking her to move in with me. Well, not in that place. We’d get our own place.”

“About time. Wondered if you’d ever get to that point.”

“Oh, we’ve talked about it for the past year but just kept putting it off. I almost moved in with her when Ellen moved out, but she was always afraid that she’d be coming back.” He shot me a sheepish look.

“Hm.” Always great having your girl’s best friend in your corner, I thought sarcastically.

“Hey, that was a big step for you guys. Not that Bec thought you wouldn’t make it. She was just worried, you know?”

“Yeah.” Whatever. “
Why don’t you call her and see if she’ll meet you at your place? Give me your key to their place and I’ll let myself in and wait on El,” I told him.

“Think that’s a good idea? Lot more dangerous stuff she can throw at their place. The set of knives on the counter in the kitchen comes to mind right away not to mention the stun gun Bec keeps in her room.”

I chuckled. “I think it’ll be okay. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”

“
I don’t know. There are some pretty big knives in that set, man,” he said with a laugh. “But, yeah. I just wish you guys would get this shit fixed so I can stop hearing about what a fuckstick you are.” He chuckled.

“Nice,” I muttered.

I dropped him at his place and got his key to the girls’ apartment planning to go inside and wait on El to get off work so we could talk. I just hoped she’d be willing to do so. And while I waited for her, I made sure to hide the knife set.

El came into her apartment looking
exhausted and also as if she’d been crying. Maybe our being apart was wearing on her more than I’d thought. She toed off her shoes at the door, pulling the band out of her hair to let her ponytail down then stood there for a few seconds with her eyes closed and blew out a breath. When she opened them, she took another step inside before noticing me sitting in the recliner and let out a blood-curdling scream.

I jumped up and went
to her, slapping a hand over her mouth to silence her before the neighbors thought she was being attacked, but not before I saw she’d gotten into some defensive Karate pose. As I stood holding her, I couldn’t help the shakes of laughter that went through my body at that. Could she get any cuter?

I could tell when she realized it was me because she put her hands up to my chest and shoved me off.

“What the hell, Jag?”

I reached my hands out to her, but she waved me away, turning to go into the kitchen. I followed her saying, “Sorry. I needed
to talk to you.”

She opened the fridge, bending down to get a bottle of water out, her ass looking spectacular in the little khakis she wore as part of her work uniform. Standing back up, she opened the bottle and took a drink, eyeing me the entire time.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she informed me when she dropped the bottle away from her lips.

This nonchalant act she had going wasn’t fooling me anymore. I’d seen how she’d looked when she’d come in.

“Oh, I think there’s a lot to talk about.”

She shook her head. “Look. Not sure what you’re wanting out of me here, but there really isn’t anything left to say that hasn’t already been said. I’
m tired and I smell like an enormous frappe. I need a shower and to go to bed.”

“I’ll wait.”

She let out a breath as if she were greatly annoyed. “You need to leave, Jag.”

“Not gonna happen until we get things worked out, El.”

She set the water on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. Then she looked at me and said deadpan, which totally made me tense up, “You could make me listen when we were together. But not anymore. We’re through.”

Christ.

I knew I’d hurt her, knew the commercials with Alessandra had really bothered her, but I couldn’t figure out why that meant we were completely finished. So I asked her.

Her eyebrow rose as she replied, “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” She’d called me dense when we were in LA. Guess I really was dense because I wasn’t getting it at all.

Her head went back as she stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before it came down and she looked at me like I was a complete idiot.

“You don’t get it.”

It was m
y turn to shake my head then. “I guess I don’t, El. I’m not seeing why this one little bump in the road has to lead to the end of you and me. Guess I must be a complete fucking dumbass because I’m totally not getting it.” My voice had risen a little through that making the last word come out loudly as I was getting pissed because this made no sense to me whatsoever.

“I need a shower. If you’re still interested in finding out what I’m saying, make yourself at home. Oh, and put the knife block back on the counter,” she said with a roll of her eyes as she walked past me to go to her bedroom.

Damn. This was totally blowing my mind. I seriously didn’t understand where she was coming from. I mean, I’d tried over the past several weeks to see what had made her so angry about everything, but it wasn’t getting through. I really had no clue.

I went to the fridge, opening it and seeing a beer
that I knew was Ross’s, pulled it out, popping the lid off and walked back into the living room to wait on her, grabbing the remote to turn the TV on to watch the Giants and Tigers playing in the World Series. Fuckers.

“So, I guess you guys blew it, huh?” she asked as she breezed back into the living room almost an hour later.

I looked over at her to see her nod at the television.

“Yeah. We did.” I couldn’t help but gawk at her standing there in a sweatshirt that I knew she didn’t wear a bra under and her short shorts that showed miles of leg. Damn. How she could ever think I’d want
ed Alessandra when I’d had her baffled me.

But now her indifference was unsettling. I’d been thinking that while she’d been showering, and wondered if maybe clueless old me just refused to see that she’d actually moved on.

“I see that you’ve made yourself at home,” she said as she walked back into the kitchen, coming out with her bottle of water.

“Yeah, didn’t think you or Ross would mind.”

“Nope,” she replied as she came back in and sat on the couch, folding a leg underneath her.

I picked up the remote and turned off the TV, turning to look at her.

“Wow. This must be some serious shit you want to talk about,” she said sarcastically with a chuckle before taking a drink.

“You know, I don’t know what’s happened with you over the past several weeks. I know I appear to be the dumbest man on the face of the planet
to you because I’m not understanding anything here, but what I do understand is that you’re acting like a total bitch.”

She narrowed her eyes at me then raised a brow. “Nice. She let you talk to her that way
? Because I know I never would.”

She? Who was
she
?

“Who?” I asked
, puzzled.

She huffed and rolled her eyes again then once more looked at me like I was a complete moron. “Your girlfriend.”

“
You’re
my girlfriend,” I claimed, watching her face turn dark after I’d said it.

“Uh, no, I’m not. Haven’t been for some time either.”

I moved forward on the chair, putting my elbows on my knees and clasping my hands to keep from getting up and wringing her neck.

“Yes, you are, El. Just because you left me doesn’t mean we’re over.
I refuse to accept that!” I stood up. God. She just totally pissed me off.

“
Are you being for real right now?” she yelled matching the loudness of my voice.

“
Yes! I am! Goddamn it, El! This is so fucking ridiculous!”

She stood up
too, holding a finger up to me. “Stay right there!” she commanded then left the room. When she came back in, she threw several magazines at me, which hit me in the chest and fell to the floor, some stupid tabloid-type rags. “What do you call
that
?” she said practically screaming now.

I frowned as I
bent and picked one up, looking at the picture on the cover. Great. It was from the last time when Alessandra had left my apartment, caught right when she’d kissed me on the cheek, which from the angle it was taken looked like we were in a heated lip lock.
Jag Jensen, star pitcher for the Dodgers, and Alessandra Alvarez, hottest underwear model in the business, taking it to new levels of HOT!
the headline read. Fuck.

“This isn’
t what it looks like, El. She came by the condo the other day and actually gave me some advice on how to get you back,” I tried explaining when I looked at her.

She laughed at me then. “Yeah, I can
totally
see that happening.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stopped with the fake laughing. “You were fucking her all along. All those times you said you were filming,” she did air quotes when she said
filming
, “you were out fucking her! How could I have been so stupid?” Sparks flew out from her eyes at me. Damn.

“
Are you kidding me? Alessandra—” I began when she pretty much growled at me. Yeah. She growled. At me. Jesus.

“Swear to God,
Jag, I had to put up with her and all the bullshit that came with that bitch when I was in LA. I do
not
have to hear it now. So don’t you dare even
think
of saying that whore’s name in my apartment again or I
will
kick your ass out of here once and for all! Not that I’m not getting ready to do it anyway!”

Good God. I
’d only seen her this angry one other time before, during the fight we’d had the night before she’d left me in LA to come home for good. But this. This was something new. This was scary-as-hell angry. I took a step toward her and she held up a hand at me.

“Oh, no you don’t! You keep your distance!” she yelled.

She took a step back as I again took another one toward her. As I kept advancing, I saw her eyes looking wildly from side to side as she mentally charted out her escape route. When she turned to run from me, I caught her by the arm, spinning her to face me and pushed her against the wall, leaning down to get right in her face.

“I want you to listen to me, and listen good, El. There’s not a goddamned thing going on between Ales—that cunt and me. You hear me?
” I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a little trying to get her to see things clearly. “Do you get it? Huh? Do you?” We were so close, our noses were almost touching. But I’d had enough. Maybe I didn’t get where she was coming from, but she didn’t get the entire picture. “There’s nothing going on! It’s you! It’s always been you! Always!”

At that point, I was done and leaned in,
crushing my mouth against hers, kissing her hard. She pushed at my chest trying to get me to back away, but I wasn’t having any of it and kept right on kissing the hell out of her. When her hands slid from my chest up to wrap around my neck, I knew I had her. God. Finally. The kiss went on for endless seconds before I felt her stiffen then her hands dropped to their original position and she shoved me back.