Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(93)
But only if he let go of scales and doubts and all the little things that had made him shove her away. Only if he believed in himself, too.
He stood, swallowed, then picked up the note and the AirPod, shoving both in his pocket. Checking the clock, he strode out of his office and down the hall. He managed to restrain himself until he stepped out of Castell Cottage completely and into the cool night. Then he ran all the way to the Rose and Crown.
*
“Jesus, man, are you okay?”
Jacob stood in the doorway of the Rose and Crown, one hand on his thigh as he bent double, breathing hard. He hadn’t been for a run since fracturing his wrist, and according to his doctor’s advice, he probably shouldn’t have taken that one. But this was an urgent situation, so . . .
Catching his breath, he looked up at Mont, who was all wide-eyed astonishment and obvious alarm. He had a mop and bucket in his hands, and behind him, Katy, the barmaid, was drying glasses at the bar—or rather, she’d frozen in the act of drying glasses, and was also staring at Jacob.
He briefly considered dragging Mont off somewhere private for this little chat, then decided there was no time. If he didn’t get answers soon, he might die. Of uncertainty. Or love. Or regret. At least one of those had to be deadly, and possibly all three.
So he straightened up and just blurted it out. “I love Eve and I didn’t tell her. Do you think I should’ve told her?”
Mont blinked rapidly. At the bar, Katy made a strangled noise before putting down a glass and grabbing her phone in what she probably thought was a very subtle move. Fucking teenagers.
“I—I don’t know, mate,” Mont said finally. “Maybe. Probably. Are we going to talk, now, about why she left?” Because Mont had been bugging him since yesterday about it. So had Aunt Lucy. So, for God’s sake, had Liam, the man who never called or texted, managing to get on Jacob’s arse all the way from the United bloody States.
“She left because I told her to go,” Jacob said. “She’d been planning to—eventually—so I told her to go. Because I thought she’d always leave anyway. I just, I really fucking believed it, Mont, and it seemed so reasonable at the time, I swear it did, but now I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t, and I don’t know which half of my brain is the smart half and which half is all emotional and shit.”
Mont sighed and ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Jacob. Mate. Maybe the smart half is all emotional and shit.”
Jacob collapsed at the nearest table. “Yes, I’ve been afraid of that.” And afraid of facing just how badly he’d fucked up, hurting Eve with all his insecurities. Shit. Shit.
He had to fix it. He had to. Even if she wanted nothing to do with him after the crap he’d pulled, she had to know exactly how vital, how powerful, how perfect she was. He had to make her know, even if she despised him. Even if he’d ruined the fledgling magic between them.
“I don’t think you need me to tell you all this, Jake,” Mont said. “I think you just want me to confirm you’re not completely deluded before you run off and do something wild.”
Yes. Yes, that was true.
“So ask,” Mont continued. “Just ask me.”
His voice hoarse, Jacob managed the hardest question of all. “Do you think Eve could love me? If I told her I was sorry, and I—I trusted her, and she—gave me a chance?”
“Yeah, genius. I do. Aside from anything else, you’re pretty fucking lovable.”
Something in Jacob wanted to ignore those words, to brush them aside as unlikely or impossible. But that something didn’t have permission to lead—not anymore. It was old and battered and bruised. It was toxic and it told him such utterly believable lies. It belonged to a far younger version of himself, and it also belonged to his parents. Worst of all, that thing had hurt Eve.
He decided to squash it.
It would definitely pop back up again, but in order to maintain the level-headed analysis he so prized, Jacob would happily—and ruthlessly—continue to squash.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Thanks. Going now.” He turned to leave.
“Hey.” A viselike hand clamped onto his shoulder. “Reminder: it’s almost two o’clock in the morning.”
Jacob deflated a little. “Oh. Right. Yes.” No fetching Eve just yet, then. Fetching Eve later. Never mind. He had a feeling he’d be able to sleep, now, so that was something. “Thanks, Mont. Bye.”
*
No matter how hard she tried, Eve couldn’t make her old bedroom feel like home. All the things she used to do here—lying in until noon watching porn, ordering new T-shirts because she was bored with the many, many slogans in her walk-in wardrobe, bitching about her “friends” in her journal—felt silly and pointless and wrong. Which, in turn, made the room itself feel silly and pointless and wrong, because it offered no other diversions. She couldn’t even focus on her favorite romance novels, since the idea of reading about love suddenly made her feel sick to her stomach.
This was most unfortunate, since she also couldn’t get up and leave her room. If she did, she might bump into one of the relatives lingering worriedly about the house, and she hadn’t yet decided what she wanted to say to them. She knew she was pissed off about their behavior yesterday, but she couldn’t quite articulate why.