Page 18 of All Jacked Up

Ransom: One word? That’s all I get?

“Yeah, well, you were an asshole tonight,” I muttered.

My fingers hovered over the screen. He didn’t deserve a response. Until whatever that had been at the coat check, he’d been cruel. Or maybe that was too harsh. I had seen it as cruelbecause I knew him. He didn’t know me. Was my reaction to his treatment because I had wanted him to see me differently? I’d wanted to be that female who got the sexy smile from him and know how it felt to be found attractive by Ransom Carver. I might as well admit it to myself.

I put my phone down without responding. I’d say something tomorrow. When this wasn’t so fresh and I wasn’t so sensitive.God, why did I have to make it a thing?

Pressing my fingers to my temples, I massaged them in slow circles and closed my eyes. I should have stayed home this weekend. Then none of this would have happened.

“I told you the last time I was there that I didn’t like how he spoke to you,” Jellie said over the speakerphone while I put on my mascara.

“I know. I think I just didn’t want the drama or conflict of it all,” I admitted.

That was something I’d come to terms with. I hated any and all conflict, to the point that I shied away from it. Did whatever I could to keep the peace.

“Yeah, well, I don’t mind conflict. In fact, I thrive on it. I’m tempted to get on a train and come show the bastard just how well I handle it.”

I grinned and shook my head as I looked at myself in the mirror. Jellie had always been ready to take on an entire army if it got in her way. I loved that about her. If only it had rubbed off on me, but it hadn’t.

“If you want to jump on a train and come see me, then please, yes, do. But you’re not going near Arden.”

She let out a dramatic whine. “But I want to.”

Laughing, I screwed the mascara top that held the brush back into the tube, then put it in my makeup bag that she had given me two years ago on my birthday. It was purple with pink fairies on it and said,Please don’t fuck with my shit, in lovely pink script. Even in my worst moods, it made me grin when I read it. So very Jellie.

“So, this Opal Carver—she’s from Mississippi?” Jellie asked, although she already knew that.

I’d mentioned it when telling her about my evening. I left out the part about Ransom being a guy I’d been texting since I had been sixteen years old.

“Yep,” I replied.

“Do you think she’s angling for Arden?”

I wasn’t sure. “She doesn’t know we’re engaged. No one but you knows. So, it wouldn’t be angling, I don’t think. But if she wanted him, she could have him. She’s stunning. He was basically worshipping at her feet.”

“YOU are stunning. You just can’t seem to see it. And if he was worshipping at some bitch’s feet, he gotta go. Take that ring he doesn’t want you wearing in public and shove it up his ass.”

I’d already put it back in the velvet box it had come in and placed it on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t sure if I was going to give it back or not. He hadn’t texted or called me since I had gotten home yesterday. But Ransom had sent several texts. Five, to be exact.

“I think … I think … well, I think we outgrew each other. In the beginning, it was all new and exciting. My first book was a project that we both were a part of, and the whirlwind of all that kind of became our relationship. Since I’d never had a real relationship before, I didn’t understand that it wasn’t normal, I guess. I don’t know. I just … I wish I hadn’t said yes. It would be less sticky if we’d just been dating.”

“I thought he was perfect for you too. Took me a minute to seepast his facade.”

I wasn’t sure there was a facade. I’d just seen things differently. My naivety when it came to men had led me to believe that was what it was supposed to be like. Working with him as my editor would be complicated, and I didn’t want to send him my current manuscript to read. But I wasn’t sure I had a choice.

A text came through on my phone, and I reached over to pick it up and saw Ransom’s name. I was going to need to respond. I just didn’t know how. I saw him in a new light too. It seemed my entire world was being flipped upside down.

“Okay, I gotta go. I’m meeting with Angela, the lady who is PR at the publishing house, and a magazine journalist that wants to do an interview with me for lunch. I’ll update you once I take the next step.”

“I’ll be waiting. Go be a gorgeous badass,” she replied.

“You do the same,” I told her before ending the call.

Walking back into my bedroom, I sat down on the edge of the bed and opened my text messages, then tapped Ransom’s name. I reread through the others I hadn’t responded to before reading the newest one.

Ransom: Are we breaking up?

Ransom: I gave you twenty-four hours and still nothing. What is going on, Shakespeare?

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