Next to Never (Fall Away #4.5)

“Yeah, me, too.” Jared plucked my set out of my purse.

But I shot out my hand, snatching them back. “Absolutely not,” I snapped. “You don’t move a muscle without my say-so. You got that? And you will apologize to Tate as soon as she gets home from school.”

“I’m not doing shit,” he bit back and turned around. “I’ll be in the parking lot.”

“Jared!”

But all I could do was watch as both boys walked out of the office, leaving Jase and me alone.

“Genetics is amazing, isn’t it?” Jase commented at my side. “Jared hasn’t seen his father since he was a baby, and yet there’s so much of the man in him.”

I darted my eyes to Jase, my nostrils probably flaring. “You don’t know Jared or anything he’s been through, so don’t act like you do.”

Spinning around, I walked out of the office, trying to get far away from him.

But he was on my heels instantly. “Well, I’m wondering if you even know him.”

I clutched my purse strap, fisting my hand around it to keep it from shaking.

“And what do you mean ‘what he’s been through’?” he asked. “He hasn’t seen his father, has he?”

I charged down the hallway, his familiar scent of sandalwood, angelica, and something else I couldn’t place washing over me like an ice-cold martini. I licked my dry lips.

“Kat?” he pressed when I didn’t answer. “Please tell me you weren’t stupid enough to let that man near him.”

I refused to answer. Jase was out of my life, and I wasn’t sure why he felt the need to act concerned. He might not be a criminal like Thomas, but they were both neglectful fathers. He had no right to judge me.

A young woman, about Jared and Madoc’s age, came down the stairs, catching us right before we walked out the door.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked, clutching her backpack straps at her shoulders. Her eyes moved from Jase to me, and then back to Jase.

“I needed to pick up Madoc, so I thought I’d grab you, too,” he answered.

Ah, the stepdaughter.

Her green eyes turned annoyed behind her glasses. “Awesome,” she bit out. “Moron screws up, and I have to go home, too.”

Jase sighed and pushed open the door for her. “Just get in the car.”

She strolled outside and he looked to me, gesturing with his arm. I walked through the door and stopped at the top of the steps, watching the kids in the parking lot. Jared’s face was buried in his phone, while Madoc made faces like a five-year-old at his stepsister.

“They seem to get along well,” I mused, not caring I sounded sarcastic. “I heard you remarried a couple of years ago. Congratulations.”

He let out a long breath, descending the stairs with me. “Life moves on, I guess. How about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

I stared at him, with his face like stone and his voice almost bored like he was asking me if I’d tried the new restaurant on High Street yet.

He almost looked calm.

But then I noticed that he wasn’t breathing again.

I tilted the corner of my mouth up, letting out a small smile. “Like you said, life moves on.”

• • •

I held my pen in my hand, sitting curled up in the dark living room in the chair. Music played from the stereo, and I covered my legs with a blanket, staring at the words on the paper, the beautiful oblivion of the rum heating my veins and clouding my brain.

He was never mine. I knew that much all those years ago, so why the hell did I let him in? My chest ached with a sob I wouldn’t let out, my eyes burning with tears. I swallowed the lump in my throat and picked up my drink, forcing it all down my throat.

I never learned how to be someone. Who was I without him?

His life had moved forward in our time apart. His father had passed away last year, and Jase now ran one of the most successful law firms in the country. Many mornings I woke up faced with him in my newspaper and, as always, he won everything he went after. Nothing had ever distracted him, least of all losing me.

I, on the other hand, remained still. I’d rarely dated, and I hadn’t moved forward in a long time. My heart was still broken.

And that was proven after seeing him this afternoon and completely falling apart as soon I’d gotten home. Jared charged for his room, slamming the door, and I made for the freezer, pulling out what was always in there, and chasing the promise of escape. I could forget him every night.

Or remember him. If I drank enough.

I clutched the diary in my hand, holding it against my knees, and dug my pen into the paper.

“I wish I’d never met him.”

“Who?” a voice asked. “My father?”

I popped my head up and saw Jared leaning against the door frame between the living room and the foyer, staring at me with his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, your life would’ve been better if you’d never met him and I’d never been born, wouldn’t it?”

I glanced back down at the words I’d written. Had I said them out loud?

Looking back up, I shook my head. “That’s not what I was talking about.” I closed the diary, leaving the pen inside when I set it down on the end table.

He continued to watch me, and I heard rain begin to fall against the window as the clock chimed on the mantel. What time was it?

Taking a quick look at the clock, I saw it was after eight. I hadn’t made dinner, and he hadn’t eaten anything, having been up in his room since one this afternoon.