Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(62)

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

“You’re not upset, are you?”

She’d upgraded from feeling punched to feeling as if she’d been shot with an arrow. But no. Not upset. She couldn’t be. And she would never show him that she was anything but okay. Because she couldn’t... Suddenly she felt small and foolish. Because she had tempted him and taunted him, and told him that he wouldn’t be able to resist her. Because she’d laughed and told him that boys had penises, and claimed all manner of nonchalance when in reality she’d felt none.

When she felt younger and softer than she had for a long damn time.

When she felt silly and undone.

She wanted to slap the girl she’d been just a couple of days ago. For kissing him out of anger. For treating such a deep, intimate thing like a sporting event she had to learn how to do.

And this was why they couldn’t do it again. This was why he was right.

And this was why it made her feel like a hollow, scraped-out pumpkin.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat ostentatiously. “Thanks for teaching me.”

“Don’t say it like that,” he said.

“Why not? That’s what it was. A lesson.”

And he would always be the first man.

Maybe someday she would think there was something special about that.

That the first man had been her friend. A guy she still had a relationship with, even. One that she could always have fond feelings for. That was a gift, wasn’t it? One that later she would appreciate. That her first time wouldn’t be with someone she couldn’t even bear to think about because he broke her heart, or something.

She decided then and there, on the back of her horse, that she didn’t have a heart that a man could break. Because she didn’t want forever. And she didn’t want a real marriage and children or anything like that.

So how could it break her heart?

The thing with her and Jake was that their only option was going deeper into something neither of them would be able to take all the way. And that’s really where someone could get hurt. She didn’t want that. She wanted it to be good. Always. So that was what it had to be.

“Now we just have to get through the rest of Christmas,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “Christmas.”

“You really don’t like Christmas.”

“Christmas got increasingly tense with my family. And that last one...my parents were in a bad space and my aunt and uncle were planning this Alaska trip for all of them to go on. They couldn’t even be in the same room together. Except when we’d have the whole family over and then it was all these bright, tense smiles I thought would break their faces.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And then...they fought about the trip and my mom wasn’t going to go, and then she decided to, and I... Well, it looked like things would be okay. I remember feeling this incredible sense of hope. Like it would...all be okay. And then it wasn’t.”

His voice was hollow and so were his eyes. And she could see it, right there, the death of hope. That moment it had all gone out for him.

“And you know that it was terrible that they died,” he said. “But...after. In my dad’s things I found a plane ticket. Just one. Los Angeles. One way.”

“Oh... Jake...”

“I don’t know if he would have gone. If he was saying goodbye to my mom by going on the Alaska trip with her. If he’d changed his mind and decided not to leave us, after all. If he was really leaving us. All I know is I thought everything was finally going to be good. But not only...not only was it not okay, it never was.”

“Jake, I don’t even know what to say.”

“So yeah,” he said. “I don’t like Christmas.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry that because of me you have to have two.”

“Hey,” he said. “It’s worth it. I promise.”

Really. Was it worth it? The two of them treading around the weird, broken territory of their friendship thanks to all this. Thanks to the way she’d... Used him. She had trusted him so much. Except... It wasn’t even that.

What she had done was give herself complete and total tunnel vision when it came to what she wanted. And she’d been so sure that he could help her. That he would help her, that she hadn’t even thought about what all this meant for him. She hadn’t given any thought to the potential issues he might have with Christmas.

Hadn’t considered him at all when she’d made her move on him. She felt so misunderstood by her family. She was so wrapped up in this idea that she was fighting against something, fighting for the greater power of getting what she really wanted, that she hadn’t realized how... How little she thought of Jake’s feelings. She claimed he was her best friend.

“I’m a bad friend,” she said.

“What?”

“I haven’t considered how this affected you enough. I thought about me and what I wanted. And I didn’t ever think that this time of year might be hard for you. I didn’t think about the way that it might change things for you if I kissed you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his voice rough. “I already told you. Sex isn’t a big deal for me.”

“You didn’t stay in the bed, though, did you?”