The Closer You Come

I’ll do things that will send me right back to prison.

“What’s so difficult? I’m attracted to you, as I said, so I kissed you. But I won’t do it again. You have long-term written all over you, and I respect that. I just wish I didn’t have to be the one to break the news to you. Relationships fail, honey. Always.”

* * *

BROOK LYNN STUDIED the man she’d just used as an oxygen tank, basically sucking the air from his lungs. There was no lingering sign of Jase’s desire for her. His cold, hard mask was firmly in place, his eyes pure green frost, his lips pressed into a hard line.

Miss my tender lover already. But really, he wasn’t hers, and that was becoming clearer by the moment. She couldn’t allow herself to think otherwise, even for a moment.

“Relationships do not always fail,” she said. “I know couples who have been together thirty, forty and fifty years.” And she’d think of their names at some point...probably.

“Honey, just because they’ve stayed together doesn’t mean they still make each other happy.”

Wow. He wasn’t just jaded—he was jaded.

Marry him? Jessie Kay didn’t stand a chance.

Jessie Kay! Crap!

I’m the worst sister ever born.

Brook Lynn had only one saving grace. In no way, shape or form would Jase and Jessie Kay ever have ended up together. Unlike her sister, Brook Lynn believed a man when he said he wasn’t interested in something, or someone, and she wasn’t willing to try to change his mind. Why should she? He either wanted to be with her or he didn’t. He was either honored to put the work in, to do whatever was necessary to keep her, or he wasn’t. There was no middle ground.

Jessie Kay saw a man’s reluctance as a challenge. The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory. What she didn’t get? The worse the fall.

Would she view what Jase and Brook Lynn had done as just another hurdle to climb? Or as the betrayal it was?

I have to tell her what happened. Soon. No more putting it off.

Brook Lynn stifled a groan.

“What?” Jase asked.

She waved the question away, not wanting his answer or his opinion. She and her sister had never liked the same man before. And she did, she thought. Brook Lynn wasn’t just attracted to Jase. She liked him. A lot. Despite the fact that she’d lined up a date with another man before kissing him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Tell me about your parents,” she said, remembering the way he’d shut her down the last time she’d tried to ask about his past.

“I don’t even know who my father is,” he admitted, surprising her. “While I lived with my mother, different men paraded in and out of our apartment. Could have been any one of them. Or none of them.”

Her heart broke for him. Clearly, he had seen the worst of relationships. “Did they treat you well? These men?” she asked.

His gaze skidded away from her, sticking to the wall just behind her. “Sometimes. Not always.”

The urge to curl up in his lap, wrap her arms around him and offer comfort bombarded her. Only the thought of rejection held her back. That, and Jessie Kay.

“Despite your abysmal experience,” she said, “I still believe happily-ever-afters are a possibility. My parents adored each other.”

He shook his head, pity filling his eyes. “Given time, who knows what would have happened with them. All relationships, even those that start out great, end up toxic. Why would you want one to last?”

“Not all relationships. What about you, West and Beck? You’ve been friends for...how long?”

“Since we were eight,” he said.

“And do you hurt each other?”

He frowned. “Sometimes.”

“Really?” She found that astounding—how had they hurt each other?

“But it’s never on purpose, and we always do the kiss-and-make-up thing,” he admitted.

“Well, there you go. Your own life has just proved your theory wrong. But tell me more about this kissing.”

He snorted. “I don’t like to kiss and tell. As for our relationship, we know everything there is to know about each other. We’re honest to the point of brutal in a way couples never are. They always keep secrets and blunt the truth, thinking it’s a kindness.”

She wondered what he’d say if she asked how fat her butt looked in her shorts. “So you don’t think a woman can deal with knowing everything about you? Knowing the real you?”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m certain of it. Therefore, I’ll amend my argument to state that only sexual relationships are toxic.”

There was no winning with a man who’d already made up his mind. And what had happened to this one to make him so jaded? Had to be more than he’d admitted.

“Have you ever trusted a woman enough to tell her everything there is to know about you?” she asked.

“No.”

“Well. Until you do, you can only guess about how she’ll react. And if one woman reacts poorly, it doesn’t mean others will react the same way.”

He brushed his fingers through his hair, the motion jerky. Was this getting through to him?

“You can’t change what’s happened in the past,” she said, “but you can change the path of your future.”

He arched a brow, all cocky assurance when he should have caved under her logic. “Want to go there, do you?”

What did that mean? “Are you implying I’m trying to change the past?”