Page 82 of False Confidence

“Thank you. That’s a very helpful suggestion, baby boy.” Jasmine laughed softly, the frustration melting from her voice. She turned back to Liam, and her eyes were dull. “I don’t regret any of this, but I also wasn’t expecting to be questioning my own brain so much. It was just supposed to be sex. I’m exhausted, Liam. I’m so fucking tired.”

“Come here.” He held out his arms, and she slid into them. “I know it’s exhausting right now, but it’s not forever. One day, you’re going to wake up and everything’s going to feel a little easier. And the next day, and the next day. And you’re not doing this on your own.”

“Rule number three,” she droned.

“Fuck the rules. You, Jasmine Cannon, are my favorite person in the entire world. As far as I’m concerned, you’re never going to have to do anything on your own again. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, if that’s okay with you.”

“It is,” she said after a moment of silence, and Liam knew that it would take more than one conversation for her to believe him. He knew it would take time after time of him reassuring her, and it would take work, on Jasmine’s part, to relearn how to exist in a world that she’d spent so long hiding her true self from. But when she was ready, he would be there. Forever, if she let him.

Had bars always been this loud, or was she just not drunk enough? Sierra had suggested the Greek-themed bar, claiming they had the best garlic fries and cherry old fashioneds in the city. The fries were mediocre at best, but the old fashioneds were delicious.

When Sierra had mentioned the theme, Jazz had been expecting something like a semi-clean frat house, but it was more like a dark academia Pinterest board had thrown up all over the place. There was entirely too much fragile shit dotted around, considering the smell of liquor permeating the air.

Floating shelves were lined with busts and books, globes and typewriters, candlesticks that she was pretty sure had been burned only for decoration. Comfy armchairs were scattered around the room, and the walls were covered in prints, schematics, and pages that looked like they’d been ripped out of old textbooks. There were even tall marble-esque Greek statues, one by the door and another on a dark wood plinth in front of a window.

She really had to bring Liam here. He would love it.

Jazz swallowed the dregs of her cocktail and slammed the glass down on the table a little harder than she intended, the room tilting a little. Maggie raised a brow.

“Damn. Apparently those orgasms you’re getting now aren’t doing anything to chill you the fuck out.”

“Maggie.”

“What?”

“We’re sitting in a bar on a Saturday night and we’re the oldest people here by at least five years. And we’re talking about work! Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Should it?” Maggie asked, looking confused. Jazz sighed. So much for just like old times.

“Yes! We used to be fun. We used to go on three-day benders and fuck strangers in airplane bathrooms and stay up all night watching shitty Rom-Coms instead of sleeping. What the hell happened to us?”

“We grew up, Jazz,” Maggie answered softy, looking at her with concern. “We were in college when we did all that shit, and I wouldn’t want to go back even if I could. Even if I didn’t have Cal, I have no interest in being that hungover ever again.”

She laughed like it was all some big joke, like the panic spreading through Jazz was all in her head. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. She was the fun one; why did it suddenly feel like she didn’t even know how to be fun?

“But don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss dancing on tables and not giving a fuck about anything?”

“I’ve never not given a fuck about anything in my life,” Maggie pointed out, which was true, but completely beside the point. “And no, I don’t miss it. I don’t miss any of that. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. What is there to miss?”

Jazz pushed away from the table, running her hands through her hair. Maggie didn’t get it, and she couldn’t explain it, so where the fuck did that leave them? “I need another drink,” she muttered, ignoring Maggie’s sigh of her name as she walked away.

She leaned against the bar, watching the group of early twenty-somethings beside her toasting a birthday and downing neon yellow shots.

“What can I get you?”

Jazz turned to the bartender. “Whatever they’re having.”

“One, three, or six?”

God, she hadn’t done shots since Maggie’s bachelorette party, and even then, only one or two. “Three,” she said, and the bartender poured the shots, sliding them across the sticky bar top.

Jazz took a deep breath and threw one back, sour pineapple flooding her tongue. She shuddered, slamming the shot glass down and picking up the second. It was no better, but at least she knew what to expect this time. She picked up the third.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She turned toward Maggie’s concerned voice to find her best friend staring at the shot in alarm.

“Shots,” Jazz said, wrinkling her nose and swallowing the last shot. “You want some?”

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