I raised my brows. “What the hell does that have anything to do with anything? I care about you, Jase. A lot. Okay? And I want to be with you.” My cheeks burned, but I kept going. “That’s obvious, but you’re making choices and getting things all twisted up in your head without even asking me or seeing how I feel about it.”
“And how do you feel about it, Tess?” The line of his jaw hardened as his eyes flashed a heated gray. “You really want to be with me now? After knowing all that? And you think it’s smart for you and me to get involved? What if we do? And what if you get close to Jack?”
I folded my hands against my chest. “Why wouldn’t you want me to get close to him? I thought you said I’d be—”
“You are planning on leaving, Tess. You aren’t thinking about sticking around. And I’ll be damned if that boy gets hurt just because you want to get laid.”
I jerked back, flinching. Tears crawled up my throat and burned behind my eyes. Was that what he really thought? After all I’d said? After everything he’d said and done for me? That he summed everything up in me wanting to get laid?
Knowing that’s how he really thought of me stung worse than rejection.
“You know something, Jase?” My voice wavered, but I forged on. “The fact you have a kid who is being raised by your parents or that you won’t even breathe the mother’s name isn’t what would push me away or make me think differently of you. It’s the way you act and how you make such fucked-up assumptions that does that.”
Ten
Jase didn’t show up for class on Friday.
Part of me wasn’t surprised as the lecture started on the baroque music period and Jase was a no-show. The ride back to campus yesterday once he pulled out of his driveway had been filled with tense silence.
What I had said to him had been true. Yeah, I was mind blown by the fact that Jack was his kid. That had been the last thing I’d been expecting. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and holy crapola that was true in this case. But I didn’t think of him differently. Not really. Okay. That wasn’t completely true. Of course, I thought of him slightly differently. He was a dad for crying out loud. I didn’t even know any dads close to my age, but it didn’t make me think less of him, and it hadn’t deterred how I felt about him. Granted, a relationship with him would be hard.
It would’ve been hard anyway.
But he had a little boy he might one day tell the truth to, and any girl in Jase’s future would have to be okay with that and be ready. Who knows if I ever would be, but he hadn’t given me the chance.
Like I’d said to him, it was how he viewed me that had hurt. That he believed I would get involved with Jack’s life without being aware of how a sudden departure could affect him.
Every so often, Jase’s eyes had found mine on the drive back and then he’d look away quickly. The only thing he’d said to me was good-bye. That was it.
And that made my heart ache.
Jase hadn’t called, and I refused to be the one to reach out like I did last time, only to be coldly ignored.
Jack’s my son.
As stupid as it might’ve made me, my heart bled for him. In spite of his dickdom when it came to me, he loved that little boy and it was killing him, the choices that he’d made when he was just a kid.
Just like my choices haunted me.
And then there was the issue of the absentee mother that he absolutely refused to speak about. Where was she? Did she still live around here? And did the sharpness in his voice come from a broken heart?
A pang lit up my chest, and I wanted to punch myself. There was no way I could be jealous of a woman who was nameless to me, but there was something there—something big—and I had a feeling that his reluctance to get seriously involved with anyone had more to do with her than it did with Jack.
Did it matter?
He’d said I was a mistake, and although he’d admitted something so big and so honest with me, it didn’t really change how he viewed me. Yeah, I got why he pushed me away, but it didn’t alter the outcome.
I shouldn’t have let him kiss me. Wasn’t like I didn’t know how it was going to end, but the ache in my chest throbbed as I glanced at the empty seat beside me. I’d barely slept last night, and when morning had come, the hurt had settled deep inside me. My feelings and thoughts had all twisted up into a messy ball.
But now?
Now I was pissed.
I hadn’t kissed him—not this time or the first time. It wasn’t me who had reasons to not be in a relationship. It was him, and he was the one who kept making moves, kept going from the kind of kisses that drugged the soul to shoving me away.
I didn’t have a fountain of experience when it came to boys and sex and friends, but I knew enough to know that he’d been hot for me before he’d kissed me. His body had proved that the moment he’d put his arms around me while we fed Lightning. And I did get that lust and feelings were totally different things.
Hell, I fell in and out of lust about three times a week depending on who I saw.