Page 42 of The Love Rematch
The words flit through his mind, no longer in Ethan’s voice, but his own. Jealousy has given way to something far, far worse—longing. It’s dangerous to let himself think for even a moment that things could be different. Five more weeks and she’ll be gone, probably with a fiancé. And he’ll be here, with the same hollow dreams that stopped meaning anything the moment he ducked through her window and drove away.
His phone rings.
Jake turns from the window and looks at the screen lighting up in the dark.Mom.She’s been calling nonstop. He hasn’t picked up because he doesn’t know what to say. But now he answers, simply because he wants to hear her voice, to know he’s not completely alone.
“Hey, Mom.”
She must hear something in the words, because she sighs into the phone. “Oh, Jacob.”
Hearing his real name throws him off kilter. Grandpa was William. Dad was Billy. He’s Jake. But he’ll always be little Jacob to his mother.
The little Jacob she completely screwed over.
Anger surges up his throat, burning with the fury of a rocket entering orbit. It’s always been an easier emotion for him to feel, coming too quick, burning too bright. A product of his bloodline. Usually, he tries to fight it.
Not now.
“Don’toh, Jacobme, Mom. This is entirely your fault!”
“My fault?”
“Don’t play innocent. I know exactly how Mrs. Peters got her intel.”
“Oh, that? Well, yes. That was me.” She has the decency to sound at least a little repentant. “But I was just spreading a little idle gossip with friends. I had no idea she’d share it with the whole world.”
“You didn’t?”
“Of course not!”
There’s a pause. He’s waiting, because he knows his mother and there’s no way she’s done.
Finally, she mutters, “But I can’t exactly say I’m mad about it.”
“Mom.”
“What? You’ve been so terrified to see her you haven’t come home in seven years. Sue me for hoping the Band-Aid’s been ripped off and I might get to spend Christmas in my own house for a change.”
“The Band-Aid’s been ripped off, all right. I’m helping her find her future husband, for fuck’s sake.”
“Language.”
“Sorry.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“What?” he responds gruffly.
“Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”
“What?” he snaps. The sympathy in her voice is too much to take.
“You miss her.”
Hearing the truth on his mother’s lips leaves him sliced open on the operating table, his busted heart visible for the whole world to see. He can’t find the words to deny it, not the way he can in his own head. It’s easier to lie to himself than to her. It always has been.
“You should tell her,” his mother murmurs tentatively, testing the waters.
Jake scoffs.
