Until We Touch (Fool's Gold #15)(82)
That was the moment that had truly changed him. He’d said all the right things—that he was heading off to college and of course, he would be fine on his own. He had his friends and football. He didn’t need his parents. At that moment, watching them leave, he’d vowed never to give his heart again. He’d vowed never to get involved again, and he’d kept that promise. For a while he’d gotten soft. He’d allowed himself to care about Taryn, about Larissa. But all that was over now. Taryn was gone and he was about to get rid of Larissa.
“Jack, you have to believe in yourself.”
“I do,” he told her, then took a drink. “It’s you I don’t believe in. You’re fired.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“You’re fired. I’m your boss at Score and I’m firing you. Go get your things out of the building, turn in your key and never come back. I want nothing to do with you.”
For a second she didn’t move. In that heartbeat, he found himself hoping she would call him on his ass**le behavior. That she would force him to see that he was making a mistake and doing things he would regret. He wanted her to be the one to show him the error of his ways. Because somewhere inside there was still enough humanity to know that one day soon he was going to have regrets.
But he’d placed the knife too perfectly and she didn’t have the strength. He saw the way her hands trembled. He saw the tears fill her eyes. She swallowed, then nodded and stood.
As she walked past him, she paused.
He’d always had the gift of timing in the game and apparently it followed him into life. Now he was able to sigh with the right combination of long suffering and boredom before shaking his head.
“Don’t bother telling me you love me,” he said. “I can’t stand to hear it again.”
A single tear slipped down her cheek. Jack watched it and felt that knife he’d placed so deliberately turn and cut through him. It made its way to the aching part of his own heart—the part that had never healed—and found a home there. The pain made it impossible to move, impossible to breathe. He could only stand there bleeding from the inside out and watch the very essence of who he had always wanted to be walk out without once looking back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LARISSA LAY STRETCHED on her sofa with Dyna sprawled across her. The fluffy cat purred loudly and stared into Larissa’s eyes, as if offering all the feline support she had.
“Thank you,” Larissa murmured, her voice muffled because her throat hurt. It was all the crying, she thought with a sniff. The horror of what had happened with Jack yesterday hadn’t gotten any better with the passage of a night and most of a morning. Her heart was still as shattered, her spirit crushed. Right now all that kept her going was the purring devotion of her cat.
“I’m glad we’ve bonded,” she told Dyna, tears slipping from the outer corners of her eyes and down her temples to get lost in her hair. “It really helps to know you’re here for me.”
Dyna’s gaze never wavered.
“It’s just I don’t understand,” she continued. “Jack is a lot of things. He can be stubborn and when he’s tired he can be a little snappish. He resists getting involved. But he’s also giving and fair. He’s been there for everyone he cares about. He’s never once been mean.”
But he’d been plenty mean yesterday. He’d broken her heart and left her feeling small. As if the gift of her love was both annoying and a burden.
She’d spent a long night trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Because something had. Something big. Something that had made him lash out.
She cradled Dyna and sat up, then wiped her face. She really had to get moving on her day. For one thing, she had to clear out her stuff from Score. Although just thinking about that was enough to get her crying again.
She set her cat on the warm sofa cushion and walked into her tiny kitchen. Once there she boiled water for tea and then sniffed through waiting for the bag to steep. Once the tea was ready, she carried it back to the living room and set it on the coffee table.
She stared at the pad of paper she’d dug out sometime in the long night. She needed to start making lists. If she didn’t work at Score, what was she going to do with her life? Should she stay in Fool’s Gold or move back to L.A.? The former meant seeing Jack, which added a whole new level of salt in the wound, while leaving was a lot like giving up. More important, she really liked living in Fool’s Gold. She liked her friends and the community. She wanted to see it at Christmas and in the spring.
Just as pressing was how she was going to make her living. She’d never been much of a saver. All her extra money had gone to various causes. She looked around the apartment and consoled herself with the fact that the rent was cheap. So she could stay and get a job.
She heard footsteps on the stairs outside her door, followed by a knock. Her heart knew better than to hope, so she figured her visitor had to be one of her friends.
She opened the front door and found both Taryn and Bailey waiting for her. An unusual pairing, she thought, fighting more tears. At some point, wasn’t she going to run out of fluids?
Taryn didn’t say anything. Instead, she reached for Larissa and held her close.
“That man is a total jackass. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s something. And I’m willing to bet it’s all about him and not us. Even so, I’m sorry he hurt you.”