Page 5 of The Best Worst Mistake
Not by a long shot.
I stare at the little camera, wondering if she’s somewhere inside right now, staring back.
Probably still wearing that black dress she was in earlier today . . .
I look over my shoulder at the idling SUV where my driver Patrick is sitting behind the wheel. His face is illuminated by the exterior lights lining her house. He’s already starting to fall asleep. I’m not surprised. It’s late and I told him this might take a while.
Or, knowing Jules, this might take all of thirteen seconds. Maybe seven. Probably long enough for her to get a glimpse of me followed by the guy sitting half-asleep behind the wheel, signaling that someone else drove me here. Yeah, I give her about seven seconds before she’s shoving me back out toward the car and the driver Ishouldhave had park around the corner so she couldn’t see him. She hates that shit. She hates everything about me now.
I turn to jog off the porch, ready to tell Patrick to park it further down the road, but I stop in my tracks when I hit the last step.
There’s a slow creak behind me.
Old wood on metal hinge.
Shit.
I turn around, and freeze.
It’s Jules standing in the doorway.
Her silhouette is outlined by the warm yellow glow behind her.
Our eyes meet and her face softens, then instantly morphs into stone. She stands up straighter, wrapping her arms around herself in a hug. She doesn’t have to say a word for me to know she’s not happy to see me here.
Fucking great.
I’m not happy to be here either, Jules.
I blink, and in the split second it takes to close my eyes, I realize this is the first time in years that I’ve been alone with just her and not him, too. The unshakable link between us now buried.
I was right about one more thing. She’s still wearing that black dress she had on at the funeral today.
Hisfuneral.
My stomach twists like a knife. He was the last of my family, even if it was friendship that bonded us instead of blood.
“Hey, Si,” Jules says, blinking her eyes with a sniff, like the light on the porch is too harsh for her mood right now. Her lips and nose are flushed red against the alabaster of her skin. She was crying before I got here.Of course she’s been crying, you asshole.“What are you doing here?” she asks. There’s a bite to her voice.
“Jules.” My voice cracks on theuas if I’m twelve years old again. A fitting sign of how this is going to go.
More words drain into the back of my throat.
I can’t say what I came here to say.
Not when she’s looking at me like that.
And not after today.
Before, she would have welcomed me in with a tight hug and a drink, ready to collapse on the couch. Talking for as long as it took for us to unwind everything that happened and all the words that still need to be said. But we both know those days are gone.Longgone, if you ask her.
“What is it, Si?” She swallows, like even that’s a struggle right now. “Can’t it wait until . . . until it’s nottoday?”
“Can I come in?”
She doesn’t answer. Her arms squeeze tighter across her chest.
I fucking hate this but I press on gently. “For just a few minutes maybe?”
