Page 25 of Love Among Vines

Patricia inhaled sharply.

“Oops.” Jade sloshed some whiskey onto her dress.

“Come, Nathan.” Patricia put an arm around her son and steered him back to the patio.

In their absence, Jade caught her breath.

A chapter had closed here. It was time to move on. To forget about Nate and the heartbreak that followed in his wake like a thick fog.Despite her adrenaline-induced words, though, she wanted nothing more than to flee.

“Jade?”

If this was someone else coming to confront her, she was going to lose her mind. She whipped around in the chair.

Rett stood there, dressed to the nines and looking like he had just wandered off the set of a GQ photoshoot.

Her lower lip wobbled, and tears pricked her eyes. She had never been good at hiding her feelings. And here they were, ready to spill out all over some guy she had kissed one time.

“What happened?” He took her hand and pulled her up from the chair.

“Well,” she said, swiping her free hand under both eyes. “Remember that story I told you that Nate and Ashley fell in love without doing anything physical?”

Rett nodded with a frown.

She took a deep breath and continued. “Turns out it was all bullshit. It shouldn’t change anything. It’s been two years.”

His eyes softened. “But it does. Change things.”

She nodded. “I can’t believe she lied to me for two years. She was supposed to be my best friend. She was my only friend, really. Everyone else took Nate’s side in the breakup. Now I have no one.”

The future was looking lonelier and lonelier. But compared to her impending homelessness, that was the least of her problems.

Rett drew her closer. He was warm and strong. The cologne he had picked for the occasion was so much better than the pine bullshit Nate was always wearing.

“A best friend wouldn’t have done something like this in the first place,” he said.

She grunted.

“So are we leaving?” he asked.

Jade pulled back, but he kept his arm around her.

“No. I did a dumb thing.”

He cracked a smile. “Do tell.”

She rehashed the story.

He whistled. “I really admire your commitment to the pettiness. I’m not judging, by the way. They earned it.”

“You should have seen the way she looked at me. It was exactly what I was afraid of all along. I knew everyone was going to pity me, to whisper behind my back about how my life turned out.”

“Hey.” Rett held her chin and gently turned her face towards his. “A lioness does not concern herself with the opinion of sheep. They’ll get what’s coming to them.”

She blinked. “Did you just quote a motivational poster at me?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, sorry. What I really wanted to say was ‘screw those guys and let’s go eat our bodyweight in shrimp cocktail on their dime,’ but it felt a little uncouth.”

She smiled. “I like uncouth.”

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