Page 61 of Next Time I Fall (Excess All Areas 2)

Matt nodded as if understanding everything in that one word. “I’m guessing there are more songs?”

“Yeah. One more new, one partial, and two of yours I have suggestions on.”

Matt grinned. “Of course you do. Look, we’ll listen to your songs, and then we’ll do what we do best. We’ll go to a bar and hash it out over a pint. Tell Jimmy we’re taking a mental health day or something.”

Jase sighed in relief. Years of weight lifted off his shoulders, so much so he felt slightly delirious.

“Sounds good,” he replied as Matt opened the door.

“Call Iz. She doesn’t need my permission to talk to you. She’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions about who she wants to talk to. But make her cry and I’ll kick your arse.”

When the door closed, Jase blew out a breath. He was so fucking cold, his bones shook. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and dialled Izabel’s number.

“Hello,” she said when she answered. Her voice, while soft, didn’t give him the punch in the gut it once did.

“Bella, it’s Jase.” Bella, the nickname he’d given her the first time she’d ever come over to the house with Luke and Matt—because all she’d done was drone on about some vampire book she’d been reading with a heroine of the same name.

“Jase? Is something wrong with Matt?”

“No. He’s fine. He knows I’m calling. Look, I just wanted to apologise for being a shit. When you and I, when we ... well, I mishandled that whole thing. And I’m sorry for being a dick to you and Matt, when you got together, and every time I’ve seen the two of you since. I struggled to accept you didn’t feel the same way about me that I did about you, but that was all about me and not you. I was an idiot.”

Wave.

Wave.

Wave.

Now, he realised he’d wanted something ... not her specifically, but the feeling of being loved. He’d never been mad at her for loving Matt ... it had never really been about the two of them ... it had just fuelled the feelings deep inside that he was simply unlovable. That he was the piece of the puzzle that never fit anywhere. A lost piece. Just waiting to find the rest of the picture.

“Jase. Are you ... like ... you’re not dying or something? Because if you are—”

“Jesus Christ, Bella. I’m not fucking dying. Am I that much of a dick that you think it would take some terminal diagnosis to apologise?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. A pause that shook him. That’s exactly what she thought. And it was shaming to think that he could have made someone he once thought he was in love with feel that way.

“I’m sorry, Bella.”

“Apology accepted. And I’m sorry too, Jase. You didn’t deserve to be used that way. You just happened to be the guy offering what I needed. I should have realised the only person I needed it from was Matt. I’m sorry you ended up in the crosshairs of that.”

“Thank you.”

“You know, I honestly believe that we are always exactly where we are supposed to be, Jase. I don’t know what prompted this. But whatever it is, I’m grateful for it.”

Cerys.

The word whispered around him like the snow.

No, it’s me. It’s time.

And the words felt right.

Now he had to make things right with everyone else.

10

Cerys watched Jase as he stepped back into the building, shaking the snow that had gathered in his hair and on the shoulders of his grey sweatshirt. She thought back to the very first time she’d seen him, looking up at the snow with a wistfulness she could feel. Then he’d sneered and called her a child for wanting to make snow angels. Now, after having watched him make them with glee, she could see that moment for what it was. He’d not meant to hurt her; he’d simply been protecting himself.

He wasn’t hitting anything, throwing anything, or cursing. He’d reappeared instead of disappearing. And he wasn’t bleeding. All good signs that he’d stood in the waves of whatever just went down between him and the band and Matt.

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