Page 95 of Tangled

“I moved here after I left home. I wanted a fresh start and they needed a history teacher.”

“Seems like a great place to live and raise a family in.”

I nod. “It is.” And that’s what I want for me and Olivia. “I still don’t understand how you ended up in California though…”

“Well, after everything happened with Natasha, I had to leave. My parents couldn’t even look at me, I lost my best friend, and I had nothing keeping me in our town any more. My uncle owns a winery down there and offered me a job and a fresh start, so I took it. I met Olivia while she was on a wine tour with some of her friends.”

I shake my head. Fucking figures he would get the chance to start over and ruin it like he does to pretty much everything.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Kane. I’m sorry that I wrecked your relationship and our friendship… but I’m glad to see you happy, at least—I guess you were before I came back here…”

I huff. “Yeah, I fucking was. Let me ask you something,” I say, feeling more bold now to put him in his place. “How on Earth could you cheat on a woman like Olivia? When she told me her ex was unfaithful to her, I couldn’t imagine any man that had her could be that fucking stupid.”

T.J. hangs his head now, his eyes staying on the floor between us. “Because I’m not a fucking man. I knew I didn’t deserve her, so I sabotaged the relationship. I know it’s not an excuse, but that’s the best explanation I have.”

“Youarefucking stupid and not even close to being a man good enough for her,” I growl. “But you know what, thanks to you and your cowardness, she moved back here and I met her.”

“She deserves someone like you, Kane. I could see it on your face when you came into her apartment. You care about her the way I knew I never could.”

“Damn right I do, and you coming back here made me question what we had.”

“I only came back to clear my conscience, I promise. My life has taken an unexpected turn and I’m trying to right my wrongs and be a better person. But please don’t let the fact that she and I have a past dictate your future with her.”

I laugh. “Thanks for the pep talk, but I wasn’t planning on it. Stop fucking tormenting other people, T.J., and be the man I always believed you were. You aren’t this guy—this pathetic man who leaves a path of destruction everywhere he goes. You were my best friend, the guy I thought would always have my back.” My eyes survey his body, dropping from his face to his toes and back up. “But really, you just turned out to be the man behind me, digging the knife in deeper. You make shitty decisions and hurt others in the process. It’s time to grow the fuck up, T.J.” I shake my head at him before delivering that last bomb of truth. “And know this—you may have had Olivia first, butIwill be her last.I will be her fucking everything,” I declare, standing up tall in front of him, looking down on the pitiful shell of man I used to know.

“Good. Take care of her, Kane. I, uh, need to get going. I have a long drive,” he moves to stand as well so we’re eye-to-eye now, his face clearly showing his embarrassment and disgust in himself. The green of his eyes stare back at me, and in that moment I realize I have to forgive him—not for him, but for me—so I can move on with my life.

The people we cross paths with in life can either be a blessing or a lesson—and I’m finally realizing T.J. was both for me. He taught me that betrayal from the people closest to us feels like a knife stabbing you in the chest, depleting your lungs of the air necessary to breathe. He dug that knife deeper and twisted it in at a painful angle when I think about how I trusted him and he let me down, wrecking our life-long friendshipandmy relationship in one fell swoop. He was my best friend, the guy by my side since we were ten—the last fucking person I thought would betray me like he did. I mourned our friendship as if he died—because that’s how final it felt. When I walked in on him and Natasha, it might as well have been a picture of his casket being lowered into the ground.

But he also gave me a gift—the love of a woman that he disrespected and didn’t appreciate. Regardless of how crazy it is that Olivia and I were connected by T.J.—If he hadn’t cheated on her and messed up yet another relationship in his life, she never would have moved back to Emerson Falls and I never would have met her. His screw up this time ended up being the antidote of my sorrow, the balm to soothe the ache that his disloyalty left in my heart. In a weird and twisted way, he both wrecked me and delivered the cure to my affliction in three years’ time.

Regardless that he is partly to thank for bringing her here, Olivia is the one that has put me back together, dug her way into my heart, and there is no way I’ll ever let go of her now. She’s my treasure, the other half of my soul, the one person who makes me believe in happiness now, and I need to make things right with her.

“Take care, Kane. And take care of her too,” he says on a weak smile before turning around and walking out of the door.

“Do you want me to heat up your food?” The waitress comes by once T.J. has left and I take my seat again.

“Yeah, thanks. And can I get a slice of chocolate cream pie to go?”

“Of course,” she smiles and takes my plate, returning a few minutes later with my food and dessert.

By the time I leave the restaurant, it’s raining outside, the water coming down hard on the asphalt as rivers start to form along the roads. Still lacking food in my house, I make a quick trip to the grocery store to grab the basics, but I never make it fully inside.

The moment I step foot on the tile through the automatic doors, an orchestra of crickets jumps across the floor right in front of my feet, hopping along to escape the torrential downpour outside.

And I smile, the kind of smile that you can’t fight because it comes from a place of warmth and pure joy, a knowing feeling that the universe is sending you a sign you’d be stupid to ignore.

The kind of smile that the cricket-hating woman pulled me in with and then wove her red hair and fiery personality around my heart, bringing me back to life. And I take that as a sign of serendipity.

I turn right back out of the door, hop back in my truck, and race across town to the woman who hopefully still wants me as much as Ineedher.

Chapter 40

Olivia

Today was one of the longest days of teaching in my life. My students sensed there was something wrong when they saw me, my face red and my eyes puffy from all the crying I did before I returned to my classroom from my talk with Drew.

“Miss Walsh, are you okay?” Daisy comes up to me, her wide brown eyes full of worry as I stare down at the young girl who probably hasn’t experienced heartache like mine yet.

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