Page 75 of Don't Game Me
Oops. Wrong thing to stay.
Noah circled the desk and yanked him out of the chair to slam him against the wall with a mid-chest thrust. “Don’t ever talk about my sister like that.”
When Noah didn’t move a muscle to attack further, Jake asked, “Don’t you want to hit me?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Jake pushed him off and backed a few feet away, smoothing his shirt. “Jesus, Noah. This is Becca we’re talking about. She’s the world’s most stubborn woman. There’s no taking advantage of her.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed to pissed off. “You let something start between you two. That meant you deliberated, weighed the risks of angering me and its effect on our working relationship, then went for it. Where’d you see it going after last weekend?”
“I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen. She’s the one who walked away. Probably for the best. Continuing anything would mess her up. I’m a user. No heart. No soul. And all that shit.”
“You like to tell yourself that, but it’s bullshit.”
“I could never give Becca what she deserves. Now she disappeared. I found her, but she slipped away.”
Noah rocked back onto his heels. Softly, he asked, “What do you think my sister deserves?”
“Long-term. Togetherness stuff. Shit I can’t do.” He felt like a total dick. “I wish you’d go ahead and hit me.”
“Is this you channeling your father, or was it something he said to make you believe this?”
Jake fiddled with a pen on the edge of his desk. “So far, he’s been right. I’m not wired for long-term.”
“You’d never treat my sister like your father treated your mother. You treat the women you date better than your father treated your mother. That proves you’re not like him. You also recognize what my sister needs.”
“I can’t be that person for her. Even if we find her… I’m not that guy.”
“Can’t or won’t? Wasn’t it you who famously said ‘can’t isn’t in my vocabulary’ when you convinced me to use the rest of my college fund to set up this company? It was you who said no to Apple buying us out not once, but twice. We could’ve been rich.”
Jake huffed out a half-hearted laugh. “If we sold to Apple we would’ve been bored out of our skulls. We’d have a new company going in months. Besides, we already have plenty of money.”
“True. I’m tired of you walking around with your head in your ass about relationships.”
“Christ, man.” Jake dropped his head to his chest and blew out a long breath. “When I try to stick around, that’s when it gets bad for me. That’s when I fuck up. I tried it once. It didn’t work.”
“Once? In thirty-one years, you tried to see someone more than one or two times once?” Noah rolled his eyes. “How exactly long-term was this once?”
Jake sucked his lips through his teeth. “Three weeks.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he muttered. Sarcastically, he said, “Well, if you can’t make it happen in three weeks, then you must be unable to do it. Three weeks? Everyone screws up once or twice at a relationship. It’s called experience. Did you break off this so-calledlong-termrelationship because you became abusive like your father?”
He shook his head. “Things just fizzled.”
“Did you feel tempted to hurt her, and that made you push her away?”
Jake shook his head. Never any anger. Only disappointment and boredom.
Noah slapped his hand on the desk.
Jake jumped.
Noah yelled, “You’re not your father!”
“It’s inevitable. I’ll become him.”
“You’ve been dealing with women for decades, even if you never attempted anything longer than a few weeks. You’ve never physically hurt a girl. Or am I wrong, and you have?”
