Page 134 of Sweet Little Thing

We? I frowned. “Who is we?”

His right eyebrow lifted as if I had just asked a stupid question. “You know who.”

I waited a moment for him to clarify, and then my heart picked up its pace, “Stone?”

Jasper nodded.

“Stone sentyou?” I asked, finding that hard to believe.

He winced again. “Damn, you’re trying to kill me. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the last time we were together, you took his loyalty, friendship, and a lifetime of trust and threw it in his face. You turned on him, abandoned him like every other person in his life except Gerry. You were his family, and you tossed that away. After all he’d done for you.” My voice gradually got louder as I spoke. I hadn’t meant to go off on a rant but apparently I needed to get that out.

Jasper didn’t respond right away. He was silent. There was regret looming in his eyes. It was clear that he wished he hadn’t done it. I wanted to believe that deep down he wasn’t like hismother. Was he here for Stone? Was this his way of apologizing? Or was it that he saw his faults and wanted to change them.

“I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. I let my insanity when it came to you take over. You don’t love me, and you moved on. It was easy for you to forget what we had. But for me, Beulah, it hasn’t gotten easier. Nothing has changed for me. I think about you every damn day. Falling in love with you wasn’t something that disappeared when you did. My biggest fucking fear is that I am always going to love you.”

Loving someone you can’t be with was life-altering. But Jasper hadn’t loved me the way I love Stone. I knew that even if he didn’t understand, there was a difference.

“We’re related, Jasper. We never had a chance.”

He nodded. The sadness still there on his face. “I know, Beulah. But my heart doesn’t give a fuck. I wish to God it did.”

Through all of this, everything he’d done, everything I had grown to hate him for, I hadn’t considered he was hurting and unable to move on. My heart had been Stone’s so quickly that I’d known what I had felt for Jasper had not been the real thing.

“I’m sorry.” And I was sorry I had hurt him. Not sorry that I had fallen in love with Stone.

“Me too,” he replied. “For a lot of shit and pain I caused. But I’m here now. You need me. I want to be needed. I’m not here to win you over. I know our reality will always make that impossible. But let me help you. If not for my sake, let me help you because Stone called me. He trusted me enough to call me. I don’t know why he can’t be here. I don’t know why he was so damn desperate that he asked me, but he did. Let me stay with you. Not because I traced your phone and tracked you down, but because he wants me here. He needs to know you’re safe,” he stopped and sighed. “And I need to know you’re safe.”

There were a lot of things I could say at this moment. I wanted to argue with him about why he needed to leave. I couldfight with him and send him back to Manhattan. I knew Stone was facing a fight that involved his son. If Jasper staying here eased Stone’s concern for me and he could focus on Wills, then agreeing to this would help some of my guilt. But I would have to keep the truth from Jasper. When he was satisfied that I was safe and left, I’d have to move. Go somewhere else. It made my already complicated life harder, but I would do it for Stone.

“I was thinking of staying here in Tallahassee. My next step was looking at apartments,” I told him. Knowing I wouldn’t put down money for anything he helped me find.

“Follow me to return my rental car, and we will figure out where to go. But seriously, Beulah, Tallahassee? There are better options. This may be Florida, but it’s not exactly the best parts.”

“I don’t want to go any further west and I can’t go south. It’s putting too much distance between me and Heidi.” Just believe my lies and let’s get this over with. I had to move on with my life.

“We don’t have to go any further west. It’s time we turned north. You’re in the deep south and moving further in. Time to run while you can.”

I was doing this for Stone. He loved me. He was worried about me even after I had hurt him by running away. I could survive pacifying Jasper if that was what I had to do.

Chapter

Eighty-Three

Jasper

Keeping my head straight was going to be a challenge. When I was tracking her down, it was easier to focus on doing it for Stone. Did I hate that she loved him? Yes, but since I ended our friendship with my dick move, I realized I didn’t hate him. He had the woman I wanted. The only woman I had ever wanted to keep. But I didn’t hate him. I missed him. When I needed advice, I’d catch myself thinking I’d call Stone. He always had an answer. Then I would remember that I couldn’t call him, and that hurt. It was a different hurt than losing Beulah, but just as powerful.

I’d wanted to come get her. Have a reason to be around her but that had faded when I thought about using this as a way to get back what I’d lost with Stone. Making sure she was safe was a must for me just as much as it was for him. But I already knew I wasn’t going to win her back from him. She had seen my darker side, and she couldn’t love me. All that said, I had come after herplanning on not letting my feelings for her be my motivation but getting my best friend back being the main goal.

However, I had felt it once she walked out of the fast-food place carrying that bag of food, and her eyes locked on me. The pull to her. Why couldn’t I move on and let her go? She was right in the beginning. We couldn’t ever be together. Not just because we were fucking related. But because of the twisted shit my parents had done. That darkness would always be there between us.

When I glanced over at her sitting in the passenger seat asleep, it was hard to remember those reasons. In the silence of her car, all I could remember was how it felt to hold her, how her smile fixed the bad shit. And the way it felt to make love to her. Knowing what it felt like to be inside her was the hardest thing to forget. I doubted I ever would. I feared that I would only see her when I was inside someone else. That I wouldn’t be able to truly love someone the way I did Beulah.

I expected her to stay with Stone. I thought they’d be a forever thing. He was the kind of person you knew you could trust. He was solid. He was honest. And he loved her the way I did. Why she had run, I didn’t know. He hadn’t told me, and I wasn’t real convinced he knew. There had to be a significant problem. Beulah wasn’t one to run because of a misunderstanding. She’d need a reason—a real one.

She yawned and stretched, which caught my attention again. I shifted my eyes to watch her briefly before looking back at the road in front of me. It wasn’t that she was beautiful. I’d been with many beautiful women. It was more than her beauty. Something deeper and pure that couldn’t be faked. It drew you in, making you want to be worthy of her.

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