My voice is strained when I finally say what’s been holding me back.
Because the people I love either die or leave me.
Harvey sighs and sits back down in the large leather chair next to the fireplace in the large living room.
“You’ve been the apple of that girl’s eye for almost two decades and she’s not gone yet. It doesn’t matter how much damage you do.
Nausea is followed by a sinking feeling.
“I never wanted to do it.” I swear I didn’t know… not when nothing could have come out of her anyway. I mean, we all knew that when I was a kid. But as an adult? How was this so obvious to everyone but none of you morons made fun of me for it until now?
“Because you never seemed to feel the same way.” We did it quite a bit when I was a teenager. It started to seem cruel. At some point it wasn’t fun anymore. I don’t know if anyone has told you this, Jasper, but it’s hard to understand you. You are moody and temperamental. Closed. A little insecure deep down.
-OK. Yes, I understand. This is great for my self-esteem. Please continue. I rest my elbows on my knees and let my head fall.
“You’re also sensitive.”
Is not wrong. I live in my head and feel things intensely. I have always done it.
“And you’re scared,” he adds, just to make it clear how badly I’m screwing things up…
-Yeah. I am. I’m fucking scared.
I hear Harvey’s heavy footsteps as he crosses the room and plops down on the couch next to me. When he plants his hand in the middle of my back, the bridge of my nose stings.
-About what?
“What if I make the wrong decision?” What if I risk it all and it blows up in my face? What if he realizes I’m not worth it and leaves me? I… I’m paralyzed by all the ‘what ifs’. This isn’t just like what happens if I miss a puck? Then I lose the match. Life goes on. But this? I have a knack for screwing up the lives of the people who love me and the ones I love. It is my specialty.
-That is not true. You’re looking at it wrong. I love you and you have done nothing but improve my life.
A strangled noise lodges in my throat, and Harvey’s hand comes up, squeezing my shoulder. I nod.
“I don’t know your Adam parents, Jasper. But I have to say I don’t want to. Someone who could leave you behind? They don’t love you like you deserve. And I know Sloane would agree with that. That girl has never left you behind, not even for a moment. No matter how unlovable you have been, she has loved you anyway. She has loved you when you didn’t love her and she didn’t ask for shit. I think all she’s asking is for you to love her back now. And you’re telling me that you already do it but you’re too chicken to tell him. She’s waited long enough, don’t you think?
-What am I supposed to do? Beg him to choose me over his family? I know what it’s like to lose your family. Even if they’re jerks, you still want them around somehow. I don’t want to be the one to make that decision for her.
You don’t need to make a single decision for her, only for yourself. That girl has been choosing you for years. She’s tired of waiting for you to choose her back. I can’t blame her. You’re slow as molasses at understanding things. And now he’s broken up with you. Has anyone ever told you that Sloane is the best you’ll ever have?
“She didn’t break up with me.” And yes, Willa told me that today. They are all very considerate. Thanks for that.
-They are talking?-
I turn around and glare at him, but deep down my heart races. Has he broken up with me? I really am an idiot.
“There’s really only one question, Jasper.” He takes a sip of his coffee and leaves me hanging.
The old man has to get his kicks somehow.
Moron.
-What is the question?
He shrugs as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Would you make that bet?”
-And again.
I love hockey, but it’s not even close to how much I love Sloane. Two weeks without hockey compared to a few days without Sloane showed me two things: I can live without hockey but I can’t live without Sloane.
He hits me affectionately on the back of the head. If that exists.
“Then tell him, idiot.”
A quick knock on the door catches both of their attention. Harvey pats my knee.
-I’ll answer. Sit here and wallow in your own stupidity while you make a plan to fix this.
I chuckle. Only Harvey could give me an emotional talk and then openly mock me to make me laugh.
The door hinges creak and I hear a voice I wasn’t expecting.
Harvey.
“Cordelia?”
I get up and walk to the front door, turning the corner just in time to see Sloane’s mother lifting a Louis Vuitton suitcase as she says, “Any chance you have a spare room?” She looks down at the suitcase, then He looks back at Harvey. His smile is watery. I could really use a safe place to get my bearings.
-Of course. I…
“Oh,” he breathes when he sees me. Are you here.
I nod at him, suddenly wishing I had my cap on so I could hide behind it.
-Mrs. Winthrop.
He stares at me for longer than necessary and his eyes fill with tears.
“Don’t let it scare you, Jasper. -She fixes her light blue eyes on me, so similar to her daughter’s-. Don’t let it control you too. Is a teacher. It sinks its claws into you and suddenly you wake up in your fifties with nothing but a ton of regrets. The best thing I can do for her right now is lead by example. I don’t want that life for Sloane. I don’t want him for Sloane. She’s going to need you to be there for her when she gets free of them.
-Who is it? I ask, alarm running through me as I understand what he’s saying. What has been done.
I look between Harvey and Cordelia. Harvey’s eyes lock onto his late wife’s little sister with an intensity he’s never seen before.
Sterling. Robert. Men like them don’t take kindly to being despised. They maneuver. They plan. This dinner will not just be a birthday celebration. It will be a coup d’etat, and I can’t be there for that. I can’t see how they keep playing with her.
My heart pounds in my chest, hard and heavy.
-They will not.
His mother sighs and looks at me sadly.
“Maybe not, but that won’t stop them from trying.”
I take the keys from the table in front of me and leave them with them both with a nod.
“Jasper!” “Cordelia calls me just as I reach the driver’s door.” The Frontier Steakhouse.
I almost laughed.
The place where it all began. I hate that damn restaurant, but I can’t get there fast enough. She has never left me behind, and I am not going to leave her behind either.
The only thought in my head as I make the hour-long drive back to the city is that Sloane needs me. He needs me to be by his side .
And I love her.