Jacob again ignored all I said and kept on with his story.

“When I got to town, babe, Elsbeth gave me a call outta the blue and asked to meet. Just a coincidence I was in Denver.”

“Clearly, you jumped right on that.”

His voice suddenly went low. “Baby, please, hear me out.”

“Why?” I hissed.

“Because this is not what you f**kin’ think and I need to straighten it out.”

“You know,” I started chattily, “part of me wants to hear you out just to see what bullshit you’ve got to say. The other part of me does not give one shit and would rather not waste another second on you.”

“Fuck, Emme,” he growled.

Something snapped, I lost it, leaned into him and yelled, “You met with Elsbeth! You smiled at her! You held her! Both of those aren’t hers, Jacob. Both of those are mine!”

“I didn’t hold her,” he returned.

“I saw her hug you,” I retorted.

“Yeah, she hugged me, babe, but I didn’t hug her back.”

My head jerked because that might be true. I saw Elsbeth go in for the hug but I never saw Jacob put his arms around her. I’d looked away the minute she touched him.

“She’s happy we’re together,” he declared.

I snapped my mouth shut and my torso swung back.

“Yeah. Shocked the shit outta me too,” he continued. “She said it on the phone when she called me. I reckoned she said it so I wouldn’t hang up on her ass. She kept talkin’, I was sure she was playin’ me. But I couldn’t shake that she sounded like she used to sound. Like she used to be.”

“So you thought, Elsbeth swinging back, now you’re rich and successful and she’d probably not blink at the opportunity to push out an entire Decker football team for you, you’d check out the lay of the land,” I guessed acidly.

“Fuck no,” he clipped, beginning to sound angry. “I only met with her because she told me she wanted to patch things up with you. And I reckoned if I didn’t meet with her, she’d go straight to you and I wanted to say face-to-face I was not down with that.”

Again, I clamped my mouth shut.

“She misses you, Emme,” he told me.

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Suddenly, after nine years, I’m with her ex, she misses me and contacts her ex to talk about patching things up.”

“She didn’t think you’d be receptive.”

“She was right. The weird thing is, after what you told me happened last summer, she should have thought you would be less receptive.”

“Emmanuelle, you close down, nothin’ gettin’ in unless it shoves its way in and you know that’s no lie. But, just sayin’, she had a few things she had to say to me too.”

The first part he said was indeed no lie so I had no response. The second part I didn’t want to know. So I said nothing.

Jacob did.

“Babe, you two were tight.”

“We’re not anymore.”

“Emme, f**k.”

He took a step to me but stopped when I took a step back.

Then he kept talking.

“She said she always knew it would happen between us. She said she even knew it was happening back then. We both know this. She’s now admitted it. She’s divorcing her husband. She’s not happy but she’s not with another guy and not looking to hook up. She’s trying to figure out where she went wrong and get her life back on track. But she’s doin’ that without a guy. And one of the places where she went wrong was settin’ up a life where she got what she wanted but not what she needed and lost a whole load of shit in the process. And yeah, part of that was me. But the part she’s concerned about is you.”

“Do you honestly think I’ll believe this crap?” I asked.

“Yeah, I honestly do because it’s the truth.”

“So, breaking this down,” I began, crossing my arms on my chest. “You got a call from your ex, my ex–best friend, about her burning desire to mend fences. You didn’t tell me about it, thought it was a good idea to have a heartfelt, soul-exposing chat over coffee and fill me in later. Do I have that right?”

“If I said she called. If I told you what she wanted. If I said I thought it might be good you explore that, what you lost with her, what might be good to have back. Or if that wasn’t the way it swung, still give you the opportunity to put a line under it and move on, for you, for her, for me. If I suggested that maybe it might be a good idea to talk with her and think about why you scraped her off in the first place. If I gave you all that, Emme, what would you do?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “And now I never will since I wasn’t given that shot.”

“Emme, you got shit you’re workin’ out which is big shit you need to concentrate on and I need to keep you on that path. I also need to make certain nothing veers you off that path and I definitely need to be certain to protect you from something that’ll shove you off it. Say me havin’ a meet with my ex.”

My head cocked with confusion and I asked, “What the f**k are you talking about?”

Then he said something totally bizarre.

“I won’t lie there and think how f**ked-up shitty it is to be so goddamned alone and so f**king lonely. Scared I’ll die, no one will care. No man. No kids.”

My brows shot together because he was making no sense whatsoever.

“Jacob, what the f**k?” I mostly repeated.

“That’s what you said to me.”

“What?”

“When you lost it when you thought I was playing you.”

I probably said that, just like that. Jacob remembered everything.

I still didn’t get it.

“So?” I asked.

“No man,” he stated then finished with emphasis. “No kids.”

Hearing his words, my words, my entire body locked.

Jacob kept going.

“You said that. You said straight up you thought about kids. You said it, giving me indication, since you were opening yourself up to finding a man, that man bein’ me, you also want kids. Then, you take hold of Chace and Faye’s son and the world melts. It’s just you and him. You were so into little Jake, there was nothin’ else but you and him. Weeks later, we’re there, we’re in love, we’re movin’ down that path, I ask you how many kids you want, suddenly you don’t want any. Suddenly, you’ve never thought about kids. Suddenly, that’s not you.”

“I—”

“Disconnecting. Again.”

“Jacob—”

He interrupted me again. “See, babe, for some reason I cannot get a lock on, you’re clueless. One minute, you’re sweet, so f**kin’ sweet, swear to Christ, Emme, don’t know what I did in my life to deserve that kind of sweet. Perfect for me, top to toe, brain and body, free and easy givin’ me not just everything I want but everything I need.”

I sucked in a sharp breath as his words hit me hard in my sternum.

Jacob must not have noticed my reaction because he kept speaking.

“The next minute, you’re sharin’ your past with me, workin’ it out in your head, tellin’ me how you understand that guy who snatched you scarred you. Then the next minute, back to clueless, and out of the blue you’re slippin’ away. You don’t see it happen, feel it happen, even know you’re doin’ it. But I feel it. I don’t get how you don’t get it when you f**kin’ told me you got it. And last, I don’t know how to fix it, and when it happens, it kills. So I gotta be on the lookout for everything,” he leaned in, “every-fucking-thing you could use to tear yourself away from me. So yeah, Elsbeth called, she seemed to be pulling her shit together, I took the meet and I didn’t tell you about it precisely because of this. Because you’d use it to tear yourself away from me.”

Again, I had no response. This time because everything he said was right and I was freaked because I didn’t know why I was so clueless, how I didn’t get it and I also didn’t know how to fix it.

Jacob didn’t seem to mind I had no response. He kept sharing.

“And by the way, Emme, she also wanted to apologize about pulling that shit on me last summer. And that was genuine too, so it was another reason I took the meet. It obviously seems f**ked to you, since you’re in your head and can’t pull yourself out, but I’m glad I did. Months I spent wonderin’ what the f**k was wrong with me I fell and did it deep for a total f**kin’ cunt. It was good to know she wasn’t. It was good to know she was messed up and doin’ stupid shit at the same time tryin’ to sort herself out. It was good to know I fell in love with a decent woman who made stupid choices.”

That all made sense too, which sucked.

But he wasn’t done. He’d saved the best for last.

“And it might make me a dick but it was good to be drinkin’ coffee with a woman f**ked up because she f**ked me over knowin’ in the end it worked out for me. Because I was not with a woman who was not right for me. I was with the woman who was made for me.”