I also noticed with childish satisfaction that neither of them seemed to have brought a date. Axel turned up with his mom and Micah... well, I didn’t intend to double check, but I hadn’t seen a woman with him when I’d been eyeing him up.
Was it wrong that I enjoyed a little bit of satisfaction that they were both there alone? Was that petty of me? Yeah, probably.
Did I give a damn? Nope.
Not even a tiny little fraction of a damn.
I was alone and dateless by choice. But if karma really was a bitch, those two deserved it because of all the grief they’d caused.
And I hoped they realized that.
I hoped they felt bad about it.
I risked a glance through my eyelashes to see them both sitting down far away across the room from me. Thank God for small favors, at least.
Now I only had to get through dinner without looking at either of them again.
Easy. Super easy. So why was I still tempted to peek?
Chapter Two
Axel Stevenson
I’d spent all week looking forward to this dinner and dreading it at the same time.
Not dreading the actual dinner part, since Lakeview would serve up some terrific food. But knowing Micah and I would be under the same roof with Jasmine Bailey once again after all these years made me anxious in a way that I honestly wasn’t used to.
“She’s looking over here again.” I elbowed Micah for the third time in almost as many minutes. “She has to see me looking back at her, right?”
“Hell if I know,” he grumbled, shifting his chair to move an inch beyond the reach from my insistent elbow. “Why do you even care? I thought we both agreed to leave her alone this weekend. No talking. No looking. No nothing.”
“I never agreed not to look,” I said. “That didn’t enter into the discussion. And I’m not saying we should go over there and say anything to her, but... would it be so bad if we did?”
Never mind that I didn’t have a clue what to say or where to even begin, but I owed her an apology for all the times I acted like a complete dick to her. Owed her one hell of a mammoth apology, and even that wouldn’t be enough to rectify the wrong we did her.
Yes, we’d been young. And stupid. And immature. But I still knew better than to bully someone; I knew it then, and I damn sure knew it now.
I couldn’t take back the mean things I’d said and done over the years, but I could start making amends.
Starting that night.
“She hates us, Axel,” Micah sighed. “She has every right to hate us. And I don’t think this is the time or place to try and do anything about that. Some other time and place, sure, we’d try to make it right—if we even can at this point. Now, we should drop it and leave her alone. That’s what we should have done from the start.”
He was right, of course, even if I didn’t want to admit it. But I hated the thought of leaving unfinished business. I hated the tension that hung in the air when Mom and I walked in and saw Jasmine standing there.
The tension that still hung in the air with every sideways glance Jasmine stole in our direction.
But Micah didn’t want to cause any trouble, and I respected that. Like he’d said, we should never have bothered her in the first place all those years ago. We sort of owed it to her to leave her in peace now that we had all grown up and moved on.
It wasn’t like we ever ran into her anymore or saw her on a daily, monthly, or even yearly basis. For all we knew, we might never lay eyes on her ever again once the wedding weekend wrapped up.
So I bit my tongue. I did my best to mind my own business all through dinner, making small talk with Micah and my mom and whoever else, in order to avoid looking back at Jasmine Bailey.
And I even managed to stick with that plan right up until the dinner ended right up until we saw her stand and move toward the door.
That was when something snapped inside me. Something I didn’t have time to think through or explain to Micah.
Muriel and Poppy were still talking to other guys, which gave the tiniest opportunity to get Jasmine alone for a minute or two.
I needed to talk to her. I had to at least try.
“I’m going to catch her before she leaves,” I said to Micah.
“Wait, what?” He grabbed my arm, but I was already halfway up out of my seat, so I ended up dragging him along with me. “I thought the plan was—”
“The plan has changed,” I interrupted, waving him off. “You don’t have to go with me, but I want to make this right, and I might not get another opportunity.”