Unwrapping the Best Man

Baby—I call Cait that too. I say it just like that.

She steps towards me and my eyes refocus. She’s untying the knot in her coat, her head slightly bowed as she watches me from beneath her lashes. ‘I can take...just as much as I can give.’

‘You take one more step and I’ll have you thrown out.’

She stalls, her hands pausing in their task as her lips quirk with an uncertainty I’ve never seen in her before. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly.’ I can’t look at her any more. I can’t look at her without seeing everything she did to me merging with everything I did to Caitlin. I turn to my desk and take up the whisky bottle, praying she doesn’t see the way my hand shakes, the way her words cripple me inside.

‘But my business proposition... I want to talk about Berlin, Madrid too. I—’

‘Nothing on this earth would make me go back into business with you.’

She gives an anxious chuckle. ‘Jackson, be rational for a—’

‘I won’t ask you again, Eliza.’ I focus on pouring the drink. ‘Leave or I will make you.’

* * *

I let myself into Jackson’s apartment and try to ignore the unease that’s making its way into every part of me. I don’t like her, and it’s not just jealousy. She looks at him like she owns him, like she’s made her mark and no one else can have him.

And I know she broke him. I know it’s her that stands between us having a future, that whatever happened, it still affects Jackson now and he won’t open up to me.

But seeing her tonight, hot on the back of Jackson’s outright panic at my invitation from Mum... My patience is wearing thin. We can’t keep doing this. I can’t.

Either Jackson takes the leap or this has to end. Before I get in any deeper.

Before?

I shake my head, the painful realisation like an arrow through the heart. It’s too late for holding back. I love him with all of me and if he turns me away now, if he...

I can’t finish the thought. I throw my overnight bag onto the sofa and head to Jackson’s fully stocked bar. It’s state-of-the-art, all glass and accented lighting. I go straight for the whisky. I need the hit of something strong to offset what’s happening deep down inside.

I pour a hefty measure and walk right up to the glass, looking out on the glittering lights below and I see nothing. My head is full of him, of us. I replay all the moments of intimacy, all the signs that things were changing, that he was starting to feel the same. The signs that made me confident he wouldn’t turn down Mum’s invite...

Not true—you used it as a test, and look where it ended.

I take a swig of the whisky, wince at the burn and take another, wanting it to be more painful than the pinch around my heart.

I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed. Stood my ground.

And then what? End up in a bitch fight over a guy? Never.

And he asked me to leave.

Maybe that hurts more, maybe I wanted to see him throw her out, and choose me over her. But he didn’t.

My stomach rolls and I lean my forehead against the glass, pressing hard. It’s cold and unrelenting. I drag in a breath and my mind replays how he spoke to me, how he asked me to come up here and wait for him. The way his eyes blazed, the gentle squeeze of his fingers around mine, the connection...the very real connection that Coco spoke of.

The connection you thought existed when you invited him for Christmas?

I spin away from the glass, squeeze my eyes shut and when I open them again I know this is it. Make or break.

I check my watch, clock the time and wait.

And wait.

* * *