Page 149 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
“I’m celebrating, too, actually,” I told her. “Passed my CPA exam and accepted a job offer from my dad.”
B’s head snapped back up at that, and I saw it in her eyes before she spoke — pride and awe. She was one of the few people in my life whom I ever opened up to, so she knew what a big deal this was for me.
“Really?” she asked on a breath. “Wow, that’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And I realized then that I didn’t want to share this moment with Jenna, or the other girl at the table with them, or all the guys who’d come out to celebrate with me tonight.
The universe whispered to me that my time with her was short, and that I’d better not waste it.
“Want to get out of here?”
B swallowed, her eyes heating for a moment before she played it off with a smile. “You know I hate clichés.”
I shrugged. “I also know you’ll make an exception for me.”
“Oh? Do you now?” B shot a brow up into her hairline, an amused smile playing on her lips.
I tucked my hands into my pockets again, confident. “I do.”
B watched me for a long moment, debating, and when she bit down slightly on her bottom lip, I sucked in a hot breath I knew I couldn’t let go of or I’d take her right there for everyone to see.
“Oh, for God’s sake, go,” Jenna said. “Go before he gets me pregnant with that fucking look of his.”
B covered her laugh with her hand, and I didn’t hide my smirk as she grabbed her purse and apologized to her other friend at the table.
Then, her eyes were on me again.
“Lead the way.”
• • •
“I can’t believe you traded in ScarJo,” B said after we’d driven around town for a while, her hand running down the length of the leather seat she sat in.
Even though it wasn’t the old Jeep, she somehow made the new one feel just the same — like it was home. She had her heels kicked off and her feet on my dash, her long hair blowing in the wind, that same young, carefree smile on her face.
Except now, that smile was tinged with something a little dark, a little sad, a little all-encompassing. It was the kind of smile you earned from living for a while, the kind that came from having gone through hard-enough times that you truly understood how few and far between the good ones were. You knew to appreciate them.
And you also knew they couldn’t last.
I chuckled. “Yeah, well, ScarJo started getting cranky in her old age. I held onto her until about two months ago before giving in and upgrading.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was so hard to do,” B teased.
She was making a joke about how nice the new Jeep was, but for some reason, the way she said it made me defensive — like she should have known how hard it would be for me to give up the old Jeep, knowing everything that had happened inside it.
I sniffed. “Yeah, well, there were a lot of memories in that Jeep. I didn’t want to let her go, not until I had to.”
She quieted at that, and all the fun from the evening was sucked out the window, riding away on a breeze. I was done catching up and talking about the surf.
I needed answers.
“You never came back,” I whispered.
She grimaced, pulling her feet off the dash and tucking them under her legs, instead. “I know.”
“And you never answered my calls. You never called me back. You never…”
I grit my teeth, gripping the steering wheel hard as I worked to gain my composure. It was an effort not to punch something, not to want to scream at her and kiss her breathless at the same time.
“I know,” was all she said.
We pulled up to a red light, and B let her head fall back against the headrest, turning to look at me as the red light reflected on her skin.
“Nothing I say is going to make you feel better, Jamie. I have excuses, I have reasons why I pushed you away, but none of them will make up for the fact that it was shitty of me to do. I was young, I was hurting, and I didn’t know how to handle my new reality. I ran away from you, from California, because I thought it was the right thing to do. And in a way, I’m glad I did, because I needed to heal. But in a way, I hate myself for how I left you.”
I clenched my jaw hearing those words off her lips — that she left me. Maybe I hadn’t admitted that to myself yet.
“My dad’s death changed me, Jamie,” she croaked, covering my hand with hers. I sucked in a breath at that warmth. “And what I did to Ethan, it was against every moral code I had, and I hated myself for losing control, for loving you when I was supposed to be loving him. It was just…”
