Page 60 of Never Say Never

I don’t knowwhat’s more pathetic, the fact that I’m thinking of stalking my wife until she forgives me, or the fact that I’ve been contemplating begging her to let me sleep on the couch as long as we can be in the same house.

“Are you listening to me?”

Jessica leans into me as she gazes up like a lost little puppy, and for a second I hallucinate Brandi being there with me instead of her. Just a second, and then I’m surprised that I was ever able to mistake them for looking even remotely similar.

I’m standing in the middle of some store I’ll never remember the name of, trying to find something for my mother for Christmas. Right now, I’d rather be doing anything at all than standing next to her. I want to be at home, loving my wife.

I don’t want to deal with the bloodsucking leech who refuses to leave me alone. The one who’s ruining my life all over again.

In my hands I hold a pretty vase, something I’d been thinking about buying, but all I want to do now is smash it and run.

Before she touches me again, I step away and put some much-needed distance between us.

“For your wife?”

I look at the other woman and lift a brow. “Why are you here?”

“I saw you and thought I’d come by.” She’s practically batting her eyes at me, and my stomach rolls.

This isn’t the same woman I’d run into that day last week who looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment. Or maybe it is. There’s that small gleam in her eyes, but this time she doesn’t wear a mask of sadness. Just the craziness I’ve come to expect from her after all these years. And she doesn’t know me or my family, either, I realize.

She never really did.

Because she should know, after all this time spent in my family, even married to my brother now, who the vase I’m looking at might be for.

“You look happy,” I say, struggling to keep the sarcasm from my voice, from the snap and snarl that lies inside me. Struggling not to just slam the vase I haven’t yet decided I want down and stalk out of the store.

Jessica shrugs, the high spots of pink on her pale cheeks giving her a glow I’d have once melted over, along with the rippling sheen of her hair. “I saw you.”

“Seriously? Come on, Jessica, you really think I want to see you?”

“You hit your brother for me. That has to mean something.”

She has a point. Just not the one she thinks she’s making.

“Not for you, Jessica.”

And it wasn’t. At least, not because of any emotion I might have for her. But she reaches out and traces a finger down inside my coat, along the buttons of my shirt, making my skin crawl and my body jerk away from her.

“For me. I know it. Travis, you still want me. You married a lesser version of me. And I think we both know why.”

Anger coils through me and I carefully put the vase down, aware we’re in public, exactly where I don’t want to be. The insinuation stings because I know how easy it is to jump to that conclusion, but I’m not about to say it. I’m not going to give her any more power in this situation. It’s bad enough Brandi thinks that. Probably everyone does, and I… shit.

“Let’s leave my relationship out of this. Stay away from me, and stay away from my wife. I don’t want you causing trouble.”

“I only cause the good kind.”

“You fucked my brother,” I say, dropping my voice. “And then you dumped me for him. I wouldn’t call that the good kind of trouble at all. And I’m not interested in you, Jessica. I have everything I’ve ever wanted now.”

She touches me again, and I’m done with the bullshit. “The lesser—”

“You’re wrong,” I say, pulling her hand from me and then releasing it like it’s hot. I feel nothing touching her. Just annoyance, anger, and disgust. “Brandi isn’t less than you, not in any sense of the word. It’s the other way around. Now, go back to your husband. Leave my family alone.”

And me, I want to say.

Leavemealone.

“He wanted to move here,” Jessica says, a bitterness in her tone I don’t quite understand. “I stayed away as long as I could, until he made me move here too.” Unless of course Tyler gave up a more lucrative job to move home. “And don’t you care at all about what I said the other day?”

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