Before You (Before You #1)(64)
Jax pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and then dropped his hands on his thighs. “You need to choose. You can’t keep playing this game with both of them.”
“Anna isn’t pushing me to get rid of Bre. She understands that Bre will always be part of my life. And Bre, well, she’s doesn’t live here, so it’s not a big deal.”
“And what about Bre, does she get a choice?” Jax asked, his voiced raised.
“Her choice is being with me. It wouldn’t matter to her whether or not she knew about Anna; she wouldn’t leave me. Bre and I are each other’s forever.”
Jax started laughing, but rather than sounding amused, he sounded distinctly bitter. “That’s comical. If you believe what you’re saying, she’s your forever girl, you have a f*cked up way of showing her how much she means to you.”
“What do you mean?” Cam asked, shoving Jax’s shoulder lightheartedly.
Jax stood up from the sofa and walked to the front door of his loft, opening it, hoping that Cam would get the point that he wanted him to leave. He couldn’t stand being around Cam. Cam had Bre, and he didn’t even have enough sense to appreciate her. He knew there was a saying about the best man winning, but he knew that Cam wasn’t that man. He would never be that man for Bre, and yet she would probably be his in the end.
“For starters, why are you here looking for Anna instead at home with Bre?”
“Anna, well, you know Anna. She can be a little self-destructive. She needs me.”
Jax threw his hands up into the air. “And Bre doesn’t?” Jax paused, shaking his head. “Don’t answer that. I don’t care. I’m not involved anymore. This conversation is hurting my head. I’m going to bed.”
***
When Bre let herself into Cam’s apartment, it was dark and empty, just like her heart, she thought sullenly. After Jax had left her in the conference room, she swore her heart shattered into a thousand pieces. Every cell in her body begged her to run after him and promise him anything to let her come with him, but she was too scared to follow her heart, particularly when she didn’t know where her heart wanted her to go.
She could blame her problems on her mother, but if she were honest with herself, she was probably long past the age where she could continue to fault her mother for all of her deficiencies.
She had watched her mother flutter from one man to the next, always claiming to be more in love than ever before and telling Bre that this man was the one, her soul mate. Her mother had used the phrase so often to describe so many different men and different relationships that the phrase alone forced bile into her mouth. Her mother claimed that her creative nature made her restless, unable to commit for a long time, but Bre knew better. Her mother used her artistic nature as a license to be self-absorbed and impulsive.
Her mother’s reckless search for love left so many broken hearts and lives in her wake that Bre swore she would never be like her. She wanted to be realistic, loyal, and stand by the people she cared about through anything, and that meant Cam, because for as long as she could remember, Cam was the center of her life, first as her childhood friend and then as her boyfriend. Ironically instead of being Cam’s loyal girlfriend, she found herself wrapped up in twisted love triangle that was so reminiscent of her mother’s behavior that she struggled to swallow due to the unfamiliar constriction in her throat.
Not wanting to dwell on Cam and Jax or her screwed up life, she dragged several blankets out of the linen closet, intending to make up a bed on the sofa. Even in her depressed state, she knew sleeping in Cam’s bed wasn’t an option. She didn’t correct Jax when he accused her of going back to climb in Cam’s bed after what happened in that room, but she knew even then that she could never do that. She had to tell Cam the truth, anything less would be an insult to their friendship, their history. She had to face the facts. She didn’t love Cam like he was her whole world anymore, maybe she never did.
Laying back on the mass of blankets stretched over the lumpy sofa, she stared at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity. When she realized sleep wasn’t happening anytime soon, she pulled out her phone to call Sara, hoping that she didn’t wake her. It was nearly midnight with the time difference.
“Hello, Bre,” Sara yawned. “What are you doing calling me so late? Don’t tell me Cam left you alone again.”
“No, I mean yes. He’s not here right now. We went to some charity event, but he disappeared and I didn’t wait around for him.”
“What? Where are you now?”
“At his house, alone.” Bre rolled onto her side.
“Did you two fight?”
“No. Not exactly,” Bre replied, pulling a blanket over her shoulder.
Sara didn’t respond for a few minutes. “Then why do you sound so… unhappy?”
“I slept with Jax.”
“Excuse me. I’m still half asleep.” Bre could hear the sheets rustling. “Did you just say something about sleeping with Jax, as in Cam’s friend, Jax?”
Bre hesitated before confirming what she’d just said. Saying it again made it real and inescapable. “Yes.”
“I knew there was something there. And how did that go?”
Bre closed her eyes and covered her face with her hand, suddenly feeling as if a thousand eyes were on her. “Which part, during or after?”