“I don’t make shit, but I don’t make much for how fucking expensive it is to live in the city. That stupid fucking apartment Lydia talked me into is more than I can afford on my own, and it only has one bedroom so it’s not like I can get a roommate. She makes even less than I do—so where the fuck is she supposed to go if she leaves, huh? She’s got no family in the area. I leave, she’s stuck with an apartment she can’t afford. She leaves, I’m stuck in an apartment I can’t afford. You see the fucking problem here?”
I put my hand up because now his tone has turned dark and he’s obviously pissed. I don’t want to fight with him, but I need to understand him. I can’t just stay in this awful place in between friendship and something more forever. It feels not only wrong but it’s just too difficult to navigate.
“Now she gets it,” he says with an angry laugh. “You think I like waking up to her instead of you? You think I like keeping you at arm’s length? Because I fucking don’t, but unlike you, I don’t get to live off money I didn’t earn.”
“You’re blaming me for a privilege I didn’t ask for.” I suck in an unsteady breath. The snooty-tooties don’t like me because I’m not manicured enough for them, and the people who I like are quick to remind me that we come from different tax brackets. Not that I’ve ever done taxes before.
But I can’t say that, because he’s right. I don’t understand his situation as well as I’d like to. I don’t understand the choices he has to make, and it kills me that he’s calling me out on it. I want him to be wrong, because then I can keep on as if my feelings are the most important thing in the world.
“You’re leaving at the end of summer, and you know what that’s going to be like?” His voice has lost that hard edge and now just sounds like defeat and sorrow. “Nothing changes in my world. I wake up, dodge Lydia’s bullshit, go to work, deal with the entire city’s bullshit. I go to my parents’ house a few times a week and hear either Mom or Royal bring you up. They’ll keep each other and the rest of us updated on how your final year is going, if you’re going to fucking stay there for grad school, and what the gulf coast is like in the winter.
“And I’m going to go home and fall asleep next to someone who isn’t you, doesn’t smell like you, doesn’t laugh like you, and sure as fuck isn’t a replacement for you. And every time someone brings you up, it’s going to be fucking torture. My family’s got you hooked, and you’re not going to ditch them just because you’re not here. I already know that, because the best thing you could do for me is to disappear, but my life isn’t that goddamn easy.”
“Jameson.” My voice catches, and I can’t—for once—say much of anything. I wanted honesty. I guess now I have it.
“So for now you get this—the little bit I can give you—and you’re going to go back to school, and I’m not going to think about you flirting with someone else or letting them touch you. I’m going to pretend everything is back the way it was before you woke me the fuck up and turned my shit upside down.”
I’m nearly breathless, totally speechless, and on the verge of tears by the time he wraps his large hand around the back of my neck and pulls my head into his chest. His breath is hot on my scalp as he places a soft kiss there.
“We’re friends, right?” I whisper sadly.
“Yeah, Lulu. We are.”
Chapter 8
Melanie
YOU CAN’T IGNORE ME FOREVER, the text reads.
I’m not really ignoring Jameson—well, kind of—though I am certainly being thoughtful about how and when to respond to him. And being as thoughtful and cautious as I am, I have yet to respond to a single one, but I wouldn’t call that ignoring him. This message is just the most recent of about ten that he’s sent since this past Saturday, which marks one week since my birthday and our stupidly epic moment at the beach house. He left right after our thing—whatever the hell you’d call it—and I’d been terrified to show up for house watch duty the following Monday. I didn’t want things to be awkward. But they weren’t, and I’m not sure if that was harder to deal with or not. Jameson and the guys at the house acted totally chill. He talked to me no more or less than any of the other guys did, and he kept his distance. I only caught him staring at me a few times.
It was good.
Since we’re friends.
It was fucking miserable.
One minute I mattered to him and the next I was just a volunteer and nobody special.
Then the texts started a few days ago, and now I’m back to being confused and frustrated and totally out of my element.
I CAN SEE YOU.
I read the message and scowl at my stupid phone and its inability to just break when I need it to. A broken phone means no more messages from the stupid, thoughtful asshole I’m apparently hopelessly in love with. Because I’ve given up thinking it’s something else.
YOU’RE CUTE WHEN YOU’RE MAD.