Page 30 of Those Two Words

His head rears back and he sits up straighter, his entire body now turned toward me. “Wait, what? Jo, that’s no?—”

“It’s fine, Patrick. If I don’t say it now, I never will,” I interrupt, though the words taste bitter and ashy. “I have spent almost six years coming to terms with it and…it’s okay. I’m glad you’re happy. Lottie seems like a great kid.”

He looks so dumbfounded. Is it that hard to believe that I could be happy for him? At least one of us hasn’t been a total disaster and has moved on.

“How about that heat?” I ask, needing to change the subject.

It takes him a moment to shake himself out of his stupor, and once he does, he places the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it. He opens and closes his mouth before shaking his head. I’m about to ask him what’s wrong when understanding and disbelief shadow his features.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Jo.”

fourteen

PATRICK

She thinks Carrie and I are together.

How she’s come to that conclusion, I don’t know, but I feel like a fucking fool for not putting it together sooner. When I felt her anger around Carrie getting pregnant, I got it. But has she really spent all this time thinking we were a couple?

Clearly, we both did a good job of avoiding news about the other. And I don’t blame her. After the trip to Tennessee blew up in my face, I made it clear to everyone I wasn’t interested in any updates about Jo. Just so long as she was safe and well.

It hits me then how wrong we’ve been. My grief and whatever was going on with Jo clouded our judgment. I’ve seen the way she blanches whenever Carrie is mentioned. Could it have been jealousy? Some deep, primal part of me wants that to be true. Because how can she sit there and say it’s okay I’ve moved on? It’s anything but okay, and far from the truth. If the last few weeks have taught me anything, I was never over Johanna Thomas, time and distance be damned.

And I haven’t the first fucking clue what I’m supposed to do with that revelation, so I bury it where it belongs.

“Jo. I think you’ve misread the situation. Carrie and I, we aren’t together. We never have been, well once, umm…” We both know I don’t need to finish that sentence.

“You’re not…together?” she asks, her eyes widening ever so slightly.

I shake my head slowly.

“Oh.”

What does oh mean?

“We have a good thing going; she’s a good friend and a great mom. She lives in Jacob’s Bluff, but we make it work. Trust me when I say nothing has ever been romantic between us.”

“Oh.”

I really wish she’d stop saying that word and tell me what she’s actually thinking.

“I just wanted to set the record straight, so yeah.” I raise my thumbs and point at myself awkwardly. “Single dad.”

Her lips quirk, but there’s still a stiffness in the air. “Okay then. How about that heat?”

“Oh shit, sorry.” Hand still on the key, I finally turn it, only to be met with the screeching chorus of Lottie’s playlist. I curse and fumble to reach the dial to turn off my daughter’s most recent musical obsession—a song about unicorns and glittery poop. We wince and reach for the volume dial. Jo reaches it first, and the rational part of my brain knows I can pull away in time, but I don’t, and my hand engulfs hers.

She doesn’t move her hand back like I expect her to, and I slowly turn my hand—and hers—until the cab is bathed in silence. We’re impossibly still, and the feel of her hand in mine awakens something in me.

As if it has a mind of its own, my thumb starts tracing small circles on the inside of her wrist. Her breath hitches, but she still doesn’t move as we watch our intertwined hands, the feel and softness of her skin like a comfort I didn’t know I missed. I don’t question whether she’s as affected as me, because when my thumb finds her pulse, it’s wild like mine.

When I slowly circle that spot, she whips her hand away and severs our connection.

Fuck. What am I doing?

She tugs at the sleeves of her coat, like she’s trying to hide any traces of where our skin met.I clear my throat, willing my dumb heart to chill out. My head is all over the place, because not fifteen minutes ago we were laying it all out, right in the middle of the parking lot.

“Let me drive you home.” I put the car in reverse, placing my hand on the back of her headrest, and check it’s safe to pull out. These last few minutes have clearly gone to my head, because I’m dizzy for her. Drunk on her. It would be so easy for me to slide my hand behind her head and run it through that honey-golden hair.

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