When I See You (32 page)

He wanly smiles at my outburst, amused, I guess. "I'm not enough for you, Jordan. Accept it. Move on. Go back to Malibu," he says. "I'll buy you out. I'll figure it all out and buy you out. We'll get your mother's jewels back, somehow, too."

This profound despair takes over.
He hates me? He doesn't want me; he's made that perfectly clear.
I'm a
burden
to him. I'm
needy
. The one thing I've never wanted to be to anyone.

"When did you know we could never be friends?" I ask again.

"A long time ago."

Remorse thickens the air between us. Like a dense fog, it makes it impossible to see or feel anything, and, we're bound to its silence. Both of us are enveloped in this profound impenetrable sadness. Time passes. Our breathing becomes steady and synchronized. We face each other five feet apart, but it may as well be miles. He's as far away from me as I am from him. I close my eyes and try to combat the tangible despair that manifests itself between us and I'm plunged into the dark world that he sees. A tear makes its way down my face. I succumb to the blackness. It swallows me up. This is how he feels every waking minute of every day. I attempt to quell the panic as it rises. My breath gets uneven and the tears come faster. I hear him walk away from me.

How long has it been since we've spoken? Three minutes? Five?

I will myself to stay with his world and abide the agonizing darkness, but eventually, I can't take it anymore. I open my eyes, take a deep breath, and hold it.

He stands there, facing the largest windows, touching the glass with the palm of his hands, feeling everything, but seeing nothing.

"My mother's jewels or the Lazy J?" My question comes out of nowhere even I'm surprised by it.

By the stunned look on his face as he turns to me, I can tell Brock is, too. "The jewels," he says. "Call me sentimental, but I've always had a thing for an Oscar winner's daughter."

"Okay, Sentimental, I'm going to go now. I'm going to go find Tate. Liz was very specific about cowboys."

I wipe at my tear-streaked face, grateful he can't see it. "Friends," I say with derision.

He shakes his head side-to-side and finally smiles.

I turn to go, then turn back, and rush back over to him. I reach up and pull his face towards mine and kiss him hard.

It takes a moment for him to respond, but he does.

"Thank you," I say against his lips after a while. "I think I mean that. Friends, you say. Okay. We're friends. I'll take whatever you're offering."

His arms come around me and he holds me against him for an amazing moment. Our hearts race in a strange synchronization beat for beat. His lips travel down my face, along my jaw line, and between my breasts. He lifts his head and seems to stare straight at me. I reach up and trace his lips. He leans down, kisses me long and hard, and then, lets me go. I stumble back from him, overcome by the powerful connection we just shared.

The world feels different. It's as if I've emerged from the depths of deep water and can finally breathe. Disoriented. Confused. Undone. I have trouble moving all of my body parts in the same direction. The very air, itself, feels raw and biting as it travels in and out of my lungs.

"Let's go find Tate and Ashleigh. They're probably looking for us," he says with a resigned sigh.

"Okay, Cowboy, lead the way." My voice trembles. He hears it. He seemingly studies my face for a moment.

"And, Jordan, if you ever kiss me like that again—" He takes an unsteady breath. "I won't stop."

He runs one of his hands through his dark wavy hair and gets this tormented look.

"I won't let you stop," I say.

The anger at him has mysteriously ebbed away with his kiss. Elation takes over; I brighten at my apparent power over him, however brief.

Still, the emotional turmoil from the last thirty minutes starts to rise up. My smile fades, and my eyes sting with fresh tears as my body all but betrays me again as soon as he reaches for my hand.

He brings it to his lips and kisses the inside of my wrist. My insides flare back to life again. Astonished by his action and my automatic response, I stagger back away from him again and almost trip. He reaches for me and puts his arm firmly around my waist. "Don't push it," he says.

"Who's pushing who?"

"Whom. I think it's whom. Christ," he says in irritation. "Let's go find Tate and Ashleigh. You're pushing me to the limit."

"Oh really? You have limits?"

He holds my hand and starts down the long hallway. We proceed through the various doors, and I barely glance at the yet unfinished restaurant as we pass it. As we retrace our steps back to the main house, right on schedule, I begin to feel the guilt for practically seducing him.

"You don't know how much—" His voice trails off and he turns away.

"What? Tell me."

He turns back towards me. "I can't. It'll freak you out."

"Freak me out? I don't think so."

"I do." His tone is bleak, and I wonder why.

He reaches out mid-air and makes his way past the brown leather sofa and toward the bar that dominates one side of the room. I watch him as he fills a crystal tumbler. His hands shake, betraying his semblance for outward calm. He touches the top of the glass with his index finger and pours himself a hefty amount of some amber-colored liquor. Then, he drinks it down in one swallow.

"You're not getting any. You have to drive us back," he says.

"I thought you could drive."

"Funny." He inclines his head. "They're here," he says in a flat tone.

Ashleigh's distinctive lyrical laugh comes from the direction of the foyer. It's hard to make out what she's saying, but she must have asked a question of Tate because it's easy to discern his low timbre response in answer. The intimacy between them is powerful. I shiver upon hearing it.

"Here comes your cowboy," Brock says with a wry smile.

"I already have one."

Brock practically chokes on his whiskey when I say this. I attempt to laugh, but it comes out more of strangled cry for help.

"Are you okay?" Brock asks.

"No. I'm just
needy.
" My bitchy retort does not go unacknowledged.

"We'll talk about that later." He shakes his head in disapproval at me and moves farther away.

"No," I say in a low voice. "There's nothing left to say."

≈ ≈

"What did we miss?" Ashleigh asks as soon as she walks through the front door.

She's breathless and gorgeous and loved. I can see it. She shines like a beacon of light. Her blue eyes turn almost violet with uncontainable joy as she struts into the room. Tate saunters in after her, barely able to take his eyes off of her. He rewards me with a dazed, crooked smile. Tate Matthews is still the sexy, understated cowboy, but he seems slightly overwhelmed by his newfound companion.

Drinks are quickly dispersed. Brock plies me with seltzer water with a lemon twist and gives me a deal-with-it, defiant look. All unseeing.

The undertone of what has transpired between us minutes before leaves me speechless for the next half hour. My mind tries to sort through the various emotions he's evoked inside of me, but, after a while, I just acquiesce to this numbing state brought on by his outright rejection of me.

Oh yes. We can tease and laugh and dance all around it. And, we have. But nothing takes away from the reality that he turned me down. When I needed him, when I wanted him most, he told me no.

I damp down the competing emotions of guilt and sorrow that threaten to overtake me, but they keep fighting their way back up to the surface. I wallow in the misery of it all.

≈ ≈

Tate seems to be studying our little social scene, while I covertly study him. He glances between Brock and me at regular intervals.

I play the subdued guest role, while Brock takes on the over solicitous host. My irritation with him grows almost exponentially with every charming word he utters.
He turned me down.
The thought reverberates through my mind like an endless taunt now. Truce over.

To distract myself, I continue to study Tate. Once again, I note that he's a very handsome cowboy with an ensemble complete with the casual red and white plaid shirt and the blue jeans and the signature dark wavy hair that could use a trimming, just like his cousin's.
Like Brock's.

The smile I've been forcing myself to display for the past thirty minutes disappears.
What is wrong with me?

I watch as Ashleigh reaches up and strokes Tate's hair. This loving possessive gesture is from a girl who normally dates bankers and lawyers and sometimes actors. She shoots me a can-you-believe-this-is-happening look. I subtly move my head in acknowledgment and force myself to smile at her in an attempt to share in her joy.

I'm happy for her. Scared for her. Sorry for me. All three.

Tate towers above her. Yet, he has his arm around her shoulders in this protective, manly way. My best friend seems to melt into his body as if she was made especially for him. They slide onto the sofa in one swift synchronized movement and sit next to each other, touching at every juncture. She languishes in the crook of his arm with her head pressed back against his cheek, apparently in need of all of his physical contact. There's this dreamy look upon her face and even his. I'm enchanted at the sight of the two of them, together, and have to blink rapidly as my eyes begin to tear up.

After a few more minutes of study, I conclude: they're definitely infatuated with each other. It's obvious that carnal knowledge has been breached. Yet, there's something else in the looks they exchange between them.
Love.
I've never seen it on Ashleigh's face, only mine, in photographs, when I used to gaze at Ethan that way, and someone would capture it on film.

And now? Why? Why is my life so damn complicated at every turn?
Devastation for it all silently tears through me. Ethan sold my mother's jewels.
All of them?
I have to get to the safe in Malibu and see if there's anything left. And, Brock turned me down.

It's more than a single soul can handle in one day.

I glance away from Tate and Ashleigh because suddenly I'm too afraid I will burst into tears or too afraid I won't. In that single moment, I miss Ethan so much that I practically double over with the onslaught of pain in the form of guilt over my attraction to Brock and the ever-present grief.

Brock settles next to me and reaches for my hand. He wears this apologetic look like a scout badge.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." I strive for a neutral tone, but it comes out bitchy. To make up for it I sweetly say, "I'm going to go start the steaks. Check in with your mom and talk to Max. You should take Ash around. She'll want to see it all."

"I've already seen it," Ashleigh says with a secret smile. "Tate brought me by yesterday. We stayed at his place across the way last night."

She reddens at this admission.
Ashleigh blushing?
Now
I've
seen it all.

"I'm down with the flu, and you're having a sleepover?" I ask.

"Brock took care of you; didn't he?"

"Yes. Yes. He did." Now, it's my turn to blush.

This stricken feeling comes over me for so many things. My memory flashes with my untimely vomiting right in front of him the night before and my disastrous almost seduction of him less than an hour ago. I catch my lower lip to stop it from trembling. Tears sting.

Ashleigh must see them. She studies me for a few seconds and then jumps up from the sofa and out of Tate's arms.

"Let's go work on dinner," she says, taking both Tate and me by surprise. He looks as disconcerted by her sudden reaction as I am.

The girl doesn't know how to do more than lift a fork. She doesn't even boil water as far as anyone knows. Yet, I follow her through the swinging doors to the kitchen because I'm so grateful she's here, grateful she's rescued me from the onset of an emotional breakdown that I couldn't possibly begin to explain to her or anyone else for that matter.

In a daze, I turn back and admire the swinging doors. It's just one more thing that I love about this place. Swinging doors just like ones you find in a restaurant. It's something Ethan should have thought of, but didn't. I know this is another designer touch that Brock came up with. I start to smile, but then the emotional roller coaster of this afternoon with him completely catches up to me. My head starts to pound. Too much wine. Too much angst. Too much unbridled passion. There hasn't been a release for any of it. I covertly wipe at a stray tear, force myself to smile, and turn back toward Ashleigh.

"Spill it," she says with irritation. "What's going on? You look—" Her voice trails off as she looks at me. "You look scared, freaked out, like you're about to cry. What the hell is going on?"

≈ ≈

Ashleigh has beautiful eyes. Blue-violet. She could have been an actress with her flair for drama and her golden looks. But no. She chose to be a teacher. An honorable vocation. It's in sharp contrast to her voracious appetite for sex without commitment. Yet, as I stare at her now, I can tell those days are already far behind her.