Page 9 of Let Me Say It Again

“Not as screwed as I’m sure you wish you were,” he replied in a rather wry manner. He turned his head and stared at me.

I waved a hand between us and clacked my tongue on the roof of my mouth. “That fucker screwed me, all right. Now I’m out on my pretty little ass again with no job. I hate searching for a job. It took me forever to find his stupid listing.”

He blew outward as we waited on bated breath for something to break up this traffic jam that came straight from hell. “You should’ve taken his money. That would’ve solved that. Then when this whole crap of you two being engaged was over, you could’ve gone back to being his assistant.”

I swayed my head back and forth. “Loveiscostly.”

“Exactly,” he agreed.

A taxi driver popped his head out of the window of his car and cursed. “Learn how to drive, asshole,” he shouted.

Jake leaned his arm out the window and shook his head again. “Have I mentioned how much I love this city?”

I laughed. “You hate the city. You love the people in it.”

“Same difference.” He leaned over and nudged my knees out of the way. “Move. I have to get something out of the glove compartment.”

I took my feet out of my ballerina flats and brought my legs up on the seat, hugging my knees to my throat as I watched him search for something. “What are you looking for?” I asked, swatting his arm. “I can probably find it faster.”

His fingers came into contact with a bubblegum wrapper, and he flicked it at me. “Put your crap in the door and then throw it out when you leave the car. How hard is it to remember that?”

“I think we both know it’s not my memory that’s the problem. And you love me regardless of my poor listening skills.”

He stopped, his hand resting firmly on top of a navy-blue ball cap, and shot me a are-you-shitting-me look. To which I tossed him a no-I’m-not-and-you-know-you-love-me look. When you were childhood friends—which was basically a lifetime of friendship—you didn’t need words to communicate. Looks were enough.

Turning away, he plucked the cap out, closed the glove compartment, and added the cap to his ensemble. In case you were curious, he was wearing black sneakers with his black socks pulled up over his calves, navy-blue basketball shorts, and an orange football jersey. He watched football, but the team he was wearing was not a team I’d ever seen him support, so I had no earthly clue as to why he owned it. Not that I hadn’t seen it nine hundred and ninety-nine times before—because I had.

Everything about Jake screamed chill, approachable, laid-back. To way too many women to count, it screamedI want to get laid by you.

He tapped my knees. “You can put your feet down again.”

I finally planted my feet firmly back on the ground and into my shoes—if you could even call them that since the soles were practically nonexistent, not that I expected much more from a clearance sale item.

Ugh, I was so not the girl to be fake engaged to a man like Red. I’d never fit into his world, which was slightly how I felt when it came to meeting my late birth mother’s family—the Morellis. The Lyons and Morellis had a lot in common, to be honest. They were both wealthy. Money wasn’t an issue forpeople like them, which was so far from the case for people like me.

I had a coupon drawer in my two-by-two kitchen, for crying out loud. How in the world did anyone—particularly Red—see this working? I had no business being with a Lyons man again, especially not Red. Pretending like I did would only result in disaster.

Honestly, it would’ve been history repeating itself since this was the exact road I’d gone down years ago. Only the road hit a dead end, and then a semi wasn’t paying attention and ran right over me. At least, that was how it’d felt when Nate—apologies, the precocious asshat’s birth name was actually Nathaniel—broke up with me out of the clear blue sky.

I still remember—unfortunately for me—the words Nate had said when he was ending things with me. Here, let me get them right so you could really understand where I was coming from when I said this charade with Red was a very bad idea. Okay, I got them, so here goes nothing.Jade, you have to see how this will never be more than what it is. I thought it could be at one point, but I’ve come to see the error of my ways. I’ve been fooling myself. We’ve been fooling ourselves. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong with me. You can see that, too, can’t you? Asking a woman like you to be with a man like me isn’t right. It’s selfish of me, actually. We don’t fit, okay? It’s best we go our separate ways now.

It had been a minute, of course, so I may have gotten a few words wrong here and there, but the gist was the same. Did I become a blubbering mess in front of him? No. That would have given him too much satisfaction the tool didn’t deserve. Instead, I’d grown furious and slapped him across his face. Served him right, if you asked me. To be transparent, I was disappointed in myself for not seeing through his dick behavior long beforeand slapping him earlier, then kicking his ass to the curb (metaphorically speaking on that one, of course).

I wasn’t a drown-my-sorrows-in-ice-cream type of girl, so I’d gone home and moved the hell on with my life. Taking one more second to even think about him would’ve been too much, so I didn’t.

Had I researched what he’d been up to every now and again when I was bored and. . . we’d say curious? Absolutely not. I’d come close a few times, but then I realized I didn’t give a flying fuck what he was up to or if he was dating some rich woman who he thought would fit better into his life. I wished them both the best. For all I cared, they could spend the rest of their days together counting their money.

But now you could see why I wished I’d never agreed to this arrangement with Red—being his fiancée, fake or otherwise. What was the matter with me?

I groaned loudly. Honestly, if I could have screamed into the ether I would have, but groaning would have to do for now. The ether would be a later task.

“Frustrated by the traffic?” he asked of my groan. “Because there’s almost no way we’re getting to that coffee shop before sunset.” He crossed his arms and leaned against his door, seemingly getting comfortable.

“No. Although, sitting here is making me wish we never set out to drive to the coffee shop. What were we thinking?” Speaking of thinking, my brain was borderline melting faster than the foundation on my face from sitting here.

He furrowed his brows as I played with my cuticles. I hated cuticles. They were high maintenance. I pushed them back, only to have to do it again in another few days.

“You might as well talk about this situation with your boss slash ex’s brother, or you’re never going to get your mind off him. So, let’s hear it,” he said, nudging his chin toward me.

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