Page 98 of When We Were Reckless
“Your ex cheated on you?”
“He was a serial cheater.”
“He was an idiot.”
She gave me a little smile. “It’s crazy to think about it now. How much I put up with. Every time he’d be so sorry, you know? And he’d beg me to give him another chance. He’d swear up and down that it would never happen again, that it didn’t mean anything, and that he only loved me. And I always took him back. Until finally, I just couldn’t do it anymore, and I walked away. But I was stuck in that pattern for seven years.”
“Jesus.” Seven years was a long time. Looking at Shiloh, a rock star with the world at her feet, you’d never guess that she’d put up with something like that.
“Sometimes, we just fall in love with the wrong people. I guess I thought I could fix him. But you can’t fix another person.”
That sounded so much like me. It was how I always felt about Alessia. She was damaged. She was fucked up. Because of her father. And her high school boyfriend, who had abused her. She’d been with him, off and on, from the age of fifteen until she was twenty-two. Then she met me. The first time I met Alessia’s mom, she cried.
“Finally, my baby has met a good man. I prayed for this every day, and now my prayers have been answered.”
I thought I could show Alessia that men could be good. I thought I could show her what good love looked like.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Shiloh asked, jolting me back to the present. She squared her shoulders and looked me right in the eye.
I didn’t even have to think about it. “I see someone who is strong, independent, beautiful, and talented. I see a badass with a good heart.”
She gave me a dazzling smile. “That’s funny. I see the same thing when I look at you. You have a big heart, Jesse. There’s room for someone else.”
“Nah. I’m good on my own.”
“On your own, huh? So… who’s the girl?”
“What girl?”
She grinned. “Brody and I were at the farmer’s market last week… my idea, of course. I have to force-feed him vegetables.” I laughed a little, but I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “Anyway, I saw you with a pretty blonde. You two were having a lot of fun with the cucumbers.”
My body shook with laughter. Quinn practicing blow jobs on a cucumber had to be one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. But when she put those same skills to the test, I hadn’t been laughing.
“You looked really happy. You both looked happy.”
She was right. I was happy with Quinn. If only our circumstances were different. If only she wasn’t my best friend’s sister. If only she were older. If only I wasn’t a chickenshit who was afraid to fall in love again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Quinn
Ever since lastweek when I lost control of my car and Jesse had been so worried about me that he’d followed me home, it felt like something had shifted with us. We were spending the majority of our free time together now. Hanging out, laughing, talking, and doing everyday things like a real couple would.
But I had to be careful not to think like that because we weren’t a real couple. We were still a secret, and I was still sneaking out late at night to ride on the back of Jesse’s motorcycle. Midnight rides had become our thing. When the August heat wasn’t as suffocating, and the back roads belonged to us.
This summer, being with Jesse was everything I’d ever dreamed of and more. But in a little over a week, he would be gone.
Jesse signed a one-year contract with the FMX team, so it was official. Yesterday, he showed me their website. When I saw the schedule of events, I was nearly hyperventilating. For the next year, he would be all over North America. I was happy for him. I really was. But it was so hard to imagine my life without him in it.
It felt like we’d been living in our own little bubble, and pretty soon, that bubble was going to burst. But for now, I was taking it one day at a time, and I wasn’t thinking about the future.
Curled up on Jesse’s couch, I peeked over the top of my laptop. “What do you think is sexy?”
He looked over at me from the rowing machine. He’d moved it into the living room to watch a Livestream of the freestyle team he’d be joining.
“More research?”
“Mm hmm,” I said absently, my attention diverted by his laptop on the coffee table. A cable connected it to the TV, where the same action scene played out on the big screen. These guys were insane. But so was Jesse. I couldn’t believe anyone would be brave enough or stupid enough to take those kinds of risks.
