Straight Up Love (The Boys of Jackson Harbor #2)(61)

That’s just your guilty conscience, Ava.

When all the food is on the table and I’m finally in my seat, he pours me a glass of wine.

“Have you thought any more about a wedding date?” he asks.

“Maybe we shouldn’t set one yet.” My voice gets caught on the emotion in my throat and hitches, and then my eyes fill with hot tears. I love Harrison, and I’m so angry at Jake right now for ruining days that should be full of excitement and celebration. I’m also mad at myself. If those old feelings hadn’t come rushing to the surface the second his mouth came down on mine, I’d have been able to brush this off. I’d be planning my wedding right now instead of hurting the man I love.

“Because of Jake?” Harrison asks.

I shrug. We both know the answer to that question.

“Ava, I love you,” he says. “And I thought you loved me.”

“I do!” My chest squeezes. “Of course I do. But if I have feelings, I should . . . It’s not fair to you.”

“He’s manipulating you to control you.”

I blink at Harrison. That doesn’t sound like Jake at all.

Harrison rubs the back of his neck and leans back in his chair. “I didn’t want to upset you, baby, but maybe you need to know. After you told me what happened, I confronted Jake.”

“You did?”

His eyes meet mine, and he nods slowly. “He kissed my girl. I couldn’t do nothing.”

“Harrison, what did you do?”

He draws in a long breath. “I didn’t hurt him. Don’t worry.” He shakes his head and looks away. “I went to the bar, ready for a fight. I was so angry. I called him on what he did. What he said to you. And do you know what he said to me?”

My heart is in my throat. I haven’t talked to Jake since I sent him away three days ago. “What did he say?”

“He said you were his best friend, but his feelings stopped there. He told me you are nothing more than a sister to him, but he’d have said anything to you to keep you from marrying me.” He holds up a hand. “I’m not discrediting your feelings, but I think you need to understand his.”

Nothing more than a sister. My gut twists around the blade of those words, and the pain makes my breath shudder.

“I’m not saying he doesn’t have feelings for you, but I don’t think they’re the feelings you want him to have,” Harrison says. “Before you break my heart and walk away from our life together, I want you to think about the fact that this guy never looked at you twice before I put a ring on your finger. I want you to think about his words. He admitted he’d have said anything to you to keep you from marrying me. What kind of friend is that, Ava? Are those the words of a man going after the woman he loves, or are those the words of a selfish child who thinks his playmate is being taken away?”

The blade twists again and again in my stomach until there’s nothing left. I feel empty inside, hollowed out. I push my plate away. My appetite is gone. “How can you still want to marry me after all this?” I ask. “I love you, Harrison, but I don’t want to misrepresent what I’m feeling right now.”

“You’re confused,” he says.

I nod. Hot tears roll down my cheeks. I’m so confused.

His chair squeaks against the tiled floor as he pushes it back and steps to my side of the table. He turns my seat so I’m facing him but stops me when I try to stand. Lowering himself to his knees in front of me, he cups my face in his hands and looks up into my eyes. “We love each other,” he says. “I’m not going to pretend this hasn’t hurt me, but I don’t want to lose you either.”

My head bobbles as I nod. “I don’t want to lose you.”

His big thumbs swipe at my cheeks, wiping away my tears. “Then marry me, Ava. Set a date. Make me the happiest man in the world.”





Jake


Present day . . .



Ava: Thank you for this weekend. I was looking forward to it all week, but then it was even better than I’d hoped. You know how to make a girl feel special, Jake. Let me know how Mom’s doing.



The text came sometime this morning while I was passed out in a chair in Mom’s hospital room. Levi and I arrived around three a.m. I made Ethan go home to be with Nic and convinced Shay she needed sleep if she was going to help with Mom today. Carter had gone back to the station to finish his shift before we arrived, but Levi, Brayden, and I have lingered at the hospital all night, unwilling to leave Mom alone despite optimistic reports from the nurses.

It’s just me and Mom now—Levi and Brayden went down to the cafeteria to scrounge up some breakfast—but any minute, the room will be flooded with my siblings. I take advantage of these last moments of peace and let myself read the text over and over again.

“You look like you’re trying to solve the world’s problems over there,” Mom says.

I look up from my phone and blink at her. She was awake when Levi and I made it into town last night, and thank God for that. I don’t think I would have slept a minute if I hadn’t been able to hear her voice and see her smile. By the time I got here, she was laughing about her fall. She’d been changing a light bulb in the bathroom and hopped off the stool and landed wrong.