She rubbed her face with her hands then straightened, shuffling things around on the bass drum cum coffee table, feigning busyness to mask her extreme discomfort. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t see us…being together like that. You’re too important to me to risk getting involved with.”
He crossed his arms. “So you’d never fuck me.”
Kimber gasped and stared at him, open-mouthed. “Jay!”
“Just tell me, yes or no. Would you ever fuck me?”
She cleared her throat and coughed, wishing she were anywhere but there. Even an Iraqi war zone would be preferable. “No. I’m sorry. I just can’t see it.”
“Oh, I fucking know you can’t see it.” Jay breathed out a nasty laugh. “And I’ve got news for you—you’ve been doing it for weeks.”
* * *
Jay regretted the words the second they burst from his mouth. The blank, uncomprehending look in Kimber’s gold-brown eyes meant he’d have to explain them, too, which could only be a thousand times more agonizing for the both of them.
“What?” Her voice was calm and controlled and on the verge of being neither of those things.
He took a deep breath. “Kimber, I—”
“There is no way you’re telling me what I think you’re telling me. And if you are, you better follow it up with a confession that you’re lying.”
“I wish… I wish I was.”
Kimber stared at him, unmoving, but in the silence of the room, he could hear her breathing turn heavy and shallow and her jaw tightening as she watched him as if deciding how best to torture him. She shook her head slowly. “No. You’d never do that to me. There’s no way.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the heels of his palms to his stinging eyes, not replying.
“Deny it, Jay.” Her tone became shrill. “Tell me you’d never do that.”
“I’m sorry,” he croaked, his mind and body paralyzed with the shock and fear of this moment finally happening. This was it. This was the end.
Jay looked up as she rocketed to her feet, and now it was her turn to pace. “No, no,” she kept repeating, as if trying to convince herself. “That’s not like you. This isn’t happening.”
“Kimber—”
She whirled on him, her eyes blazing and her cheeks red. “Are you fucking serious? It was you the whole time?”
“I can explain.”
“I can’t even imagine what you have to explain. I can’t believe this. You and Moquest arranged this whole sick game, and for what? To get your revenge on me because I said I didn’t want you? Then how fucking hilarious it must’ve been for you both to see me lose my shit over this whole thing—over
you
. That must’ve felt really good to make me look like a fucking fool.”
“No, I don’t feel good. I don’t feel good at all. I never wanted to make you feel like a fool.” He pressed his palms together and clasped his hands to his chest. “Please believe me, I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“You didn’t mean for it to happen on three separate goddamn occasions? Fuck you, Jay, this wasn’t an accident, and you didn’t do it under duress.” Tears dripped down her face but she didn’t seem to notice them. “After all these years, now this. Now you decide it’d be a great idea to use me, embarrass me, take advantage of me, degrade me, lie to me… Who the fuck are you? You’re obviously not my friend. Friends don’t do this to each other. No self-respecting person would do what you did.”
“I know, I know.” His body shook, like an earthquake devastated his insides.
“No, you don’t know. You arrogant asshole, you just sat here, requesting a play by play on everything
you
did to me. What a power trip. Did that make you feel like a real man? Like a god? Did you get the ego boost you so psychotically craved you’d do the most fucked-up thing in the world to get it?”
“It wasn’t about an ego boost,” he whispered, hating how he couldn’t find the words to explain himself, but maybe she was right; what was there to explain? “I did an awful thing, I know. I regret everything. Believe me, I never intended to degrade you or use you or any of that, and I wanted to tell you but I just—”
“But you couldn’t because you were too busy fucking me? Oh my God.” She sank down hard on the futon, as if her knees could no longer support her, and stared at the floor like it had just told her that her family had been devoured by cannibals. “We had sex.” She glared at him, more angry tears welling her eyes. “We had sex, a lot of sex, and you didn’t bother to tell me. My fuck, Jay, I’ve done things with you I didn’t even feel comfortable doing with Dane. I opened myself up and—God, I think I’m going to be sick.”
He sucked in a shaky breath. “Kimber, I—”
“You of all people treated me like a whore then tossed me away.” She covered her head with her hands like a makeshift helmet, a wild, stricken look on her pale face. “You fucked me without my knowing, got your rocks off, and dumped me on hotel stationary. Then you have the audacity to come here and treat me like I’m crazy for getting emotionally attached to quote-unquote a stranger.” Her face crumpled with misery. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Where do you get off, thinking you could do this to me and it’d be all right? That everything would continue as normal?”
“Kimber.” He couldn’t stop saying her name, clinging to it like a life raft as everything whirlpooled out of control. “Please, listen—”
“No, you listen.” She sprang to her feet again and advanced on him, backing him toward the front door. “You know all facets of me now, but it turns out that I know absolutely nothing about you. I
trusted
you, Jay, more than anyone. Do you understand how badly you betrayed me?” She wrenched open the door. “Get out. Get out of my apartment, get out of my life.”
“Look, I know you won’t believe anything I say,” he hiccupped as he edged into the hallway, registering only then that he was crying. “What I did was the most selfish, fucked-up thing I’ve ever done, and I know this won’t make sense or right any wrongs, but I want you to know I did it because I’m in love with you. I mean,
really
in love with you. I’ve wanted you since the day we met. You’re everything I could hope to find in a person, a friend, a girlfriend, everything. You mean the world to me, and I hate myself for hurting you.”
“You love me,” she repeated in a monotone. “Well, that’s very unfortunate for you, because right now, I can’t think of a person I hate more.” The door slammed and he heard the lock slide into place.
Jay stood there for a moment, staring at apartment 18’s brass number below the peephole and giving his brain a moment to catch up and comprehend everything that had just happened. Still in shock and having no other choice, he wiped his wet eyes on his sleeve and eventually forced himself to shuffle down the stairs to the exit with lead legs. Tremors still rippled through him like aftershocks. The nightmare had finally happened. His worry of losing Kimber for good was out of his head and real now. In a way, it was almost a relief; there was nothing left to fear. But he knew the worst was yet to come. All those endless minutes of passing life without her and trying to live with himself and what he’d done still had to be faced.
Outside the building on the concrete steps sat a woman. He recognized her as Kimber’s neighbor, Taryn, who had nearly gotten freaky with her boyfriend outside Kimber’s door on moving day. Now she looked anything but orgasmic, smoking a cigarette and wearing owl-print pajamas. She looked at him as he descended the steps like a zombie. “Hey,” she said softly. “Jay, right?”
“For the most part. I’ve answered to worse.”
“Rough night, I take it?”
“Nothing that a bottle of whiskey and a rooftop can’t fix.” He feigned lightness but knew the truth wasn’t that far off. He violated and betrayed the only person he ever loved. It was a stretch, wondering how he might eventually come to live with himself.
“I figured.” She wrinkled her nose and flicked the ash. “I could hear the whole thing.”
“Oh.” Until then, he hadn’t even thought of how others outside the situation might view his actions. Suddenly that rooftop didn’t seem like such a joke.
“Don’t worry. I heard it, but I didn’t understand it. Nobody understands a relationship except for the people who are in it, and sometimes not even them.”
That was for sure. Jay didn’t even understand himself anymore. He let out a gusty sigh. “I’m not in a relationship,” he admitted, his voice cracking. “Not with Kimber. I totally fucked up any chance of that.”
“Oh, I know all about doing things like that. Why do you think I’m out here, pretending I’m a smoker?” She took a brief, inexperienced drag then eyed the cigarette. “My mom smokes these—Misty 100s. I used to wave them in the air and pretend they were magic wands that could make everything all right. But now I know the truth—all a cigarette does is make my mouth taste like my mood.” She glanced at Jay. “See, Brad and I got in a fight, and he left for who knows where.”
“That sucks.” Jay struggled to care more, but his own problems loomed too massive to see around.
“Yeah. Tomorrow was supposed to be our anniversary, and I don’t even know if we’re together.” Taryn looked at him. “Check us out, a couple of screw-ups.”
“Pretty much.” Just what he wanted to dwell on.
“Look, I know we don’t know each other well at all, but right now I can’t think of anyone more miserable than me aside from you, and they say misery loves company. Since my friends are somehow nowhere to be found and I really don’t want to be alone tomorrow night, what do you think of feeling like hell together?”
“Sure.” He shrugged, just eager to get away from her and return to his seedy apartment in a neighborhood so shady it made Skid Row look like Beverly Hills. For the first time, he felt like his address suited him—and his character—perfectly.
“Great.” Taryn sounded anything but as she crushed the cigarette out on the step and tossed the butt in the bushes. “I’ll find you.”
She retreated indoors, leaving Jay alone with his morose thoughts. He realized then that not even five minutes after pouring his heart out to Kimber, he accepted a date with a woman who may or may not still be in a serious relationship. He unlocked and climbed into the Monte Carlo, where he rested his head against the steering wheel and tried to remember when he’d become such a terrible person.
Chapter Seven
“Oh my God!” Ferney’s eyes went so wide Kimber could see the whites all around the cool gray irises. “Your mystery lover was Jay? The whole time?”
“Apparently.” Kimber’s voice broke on the word. She hated to admit it, hated the pain and nausea it caused to do so, hated thinking about the truth, remembering how libertine and wanton she’d been. She’d put herself in a vulnerable position and it made her sick to think the person she’d trusted most took advantage of that.
“I’m aghast. Aghast.” Ferney sloshed the rest of the bottle of pinot noir into two glasses, pouring most of it on the breakfast nook’s table, and pushed one toward Kimber. “I can’t believe sweet, worshipful Jay would do something so manipulative and conniving. The guy’s about as devious as a Care Bear. Since when did he start being such a guy and thinking with his dick?”
“Who knows.” Kimber picked up the glass, her fingers shaking, and took a greedy gulp.
“Talk about an opportunist.”
“Mmm.” The wine was tasteless on Kimber’s tongue.
“However…” Ferney paused, drumming her manicured nails. “It sounds pretty hot, too.”
Kimber nearly choked on the wine. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me. Weren’t you raving about the whole thing a week or so ago?”
“I said all that about someone who I thought wasn’t a fucking liar.” Kimber’s face flamed as the trembling moved from her fingers to the rest of her body, and she tore a hand through her bedraggled, unwashed blonde hair. “It makes me physically ill, thinking about the things I did with Jay. I put myself on the line, assuming that I could. I thought I was with someone I could trust, not someone who would take advantage of me like this. It was degrading.”
“I’m sure Jay didn’t see it that way. Degrading you was likely the last thing on his mind, considering you were fulfilling his dreams. So.” Ferney leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “You said the sex was amazing?”
“Ferney!”
“You’re right, how dumb of me to ask. Of course it was amazing. You kept going back for more, after all.”
Kimber swallowed back a rush of nausea, her sister’s voice the equivalent of an air horn being blasted in her ear. “Please. Focus.”
“I am. I’m very focused. I’m focused on what you can’t focus on.”