Wright with Benefits

“And for your information, I already put in my rank choices for residency programs.” I glared at him, trying to keep the tears at bay long enough to escape him before he could see me breaking. “I knew the minute that we found out about your mother’s cancer diagnosis that you couldn’t leave her, and I would never ask you. So I chose to stay in Lubbock and changed my rank choice to Tech.”

Jordan’s eyes rounded and he opened his mouth, a small startled noise escaping him.

“You’d know that if you had talked to me at all in the last fucking week.”

“Annie…”

“Save it,” I snapped. “If this is what you think of me and…what you think of us…” I choked back on my tears and shook my head. I couldn’t finish. “Good-bye Jordan.”

Then, I turned on my heel and walked away.

Grief was an excuse for his behavior up to a point, but it wasn’t enough to make up for how much he was hurting me. He could have talked to me. We could have worked through it together. Instead, he’d assumed that I’d leave him rather than staying here.

Part of that was on me. I had drawn the line in the sand and put a time limit on our love. But I’d thought that things were different since Seattle. I thought he knew what he meant to me. We’d just been on a different chapters of the same book. I’d seen the happily ever after waiting at the end of the tunnel and he’d only seen the inevitable destruction. Then he’d gone and destroyed it all himself.

“Annie,” Sutton said, dashing to my side.

“How much did you hear?”

She bit her lip. “Everything.” She took my hand. “I didn’t think this would happen.”

“Me either,” I whispered.

“Annie…can you still change your rank?”

I shook my head furiously. There was no changing rank after the deadline. Everything was already set.

“I guess I’m stuck here…just like he said, with or without him.”

34

Jordan

I sat at a stool by the bar. An ice pack on my right hand, bourbon in my left, the bottle sitting in front of me, next to Annie’s claddagh ring. The one I’d dug through the dirt to find after she threw it at me.

The winery was empty. All of the patrons had gone home. The party was over.

Jensen had been the representative of my cousins to come over and offer me help if I needed anything. I’d expected to see disappointment in his eyes. See that he finally saw me for who I really was, but it wasn’t there. Just steady Jensen.

“We’ve all been there,” he’d said as he shook my hand to go. “Trust me. I’ve pulled Austin out of much worse.”

I still wasn’t sure how I’d lucked out with them.

Then finally, even Nora had given up on cleaning and left for the night. She’d promised she’d be by in the morning, but I couldn’t seem to care.

Hollin and Julian settled into the seats on either side of me. Julian blew out a long breath. Hollin leaned his elbows against the bar and laced his fingers together in front of him.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Hollin said.

Julian managed a choked laugh. “Understatement of the century.”

I said nothing.

What was there to say? I was the reason things had gone horribly wrong, and I was supposed to be the sensible one.

But I hadn’t been sensible about any of it. I’d thought that if I cut Annie out of my life for the last week, it would make it easier to break up with her tonight. It had seemed like the only sensible idea. I loved her. I wanted her to be mine. At the same time, I couldn’t leave Lubbock. Not when my job was here and my mom had cancer again. I couldn’t do that to her or Julian. Those two thoughts were incongruous.

Annie wanted to leave. I had to stay for my family. Thus, the only solution in my grieving, addled brain had been to let her go. Let her go live the life she had always wanted far away from here. It had hurt to think of a life without her, but I wouldn’t be the reason she stayed.

Then she’d told me that she’d changed her rank choice to Lubbock anyway. She’d done it and I’d been too much of a fool to see that she wanted to stay here for me. Too much of a fool to see past my own grief.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

And how the fuck was I going to fix it? If I even could…

“I wonder who called the fucking police,” Hollin muttered.

“Don’t know,” Julian said with another sigh. “Cops said they got an anonymous tip. Could be anyone.”

“What do you think, Jordan?” Hollin asked.

“I think I want to finish this bottle and forget tonight happened.”