Dear Heart, I Hate You

I knew what he was thinking—that not only had I brought a girl I’d just met to his game, but also to hang out with him. This was so out of character for me, I’d never hear the end of it; that much I knew for sure.

“Yeah,” I said, cutting in. “She’s just here for a conference. I had a retreat, and we were staying at the same hotel. She stalked me relentlessly, followed me everywhere I went.” Taking a bite of the sourdough bread, I relished the fact that it was still warm.

Cooper gave me the eye. “I’m sure she did.”

“Oh yeah, she definitely looks like the stalking type,” Katherine added with a smile.

“I don’t even know why I’m here. You’re all horrible people,” Jules said with a laugh before taking another bite of her roll.

“When do you leave?” Cooper asked.

“Tomorrow evening.”

When Jules said that, I felt something inside me sink. I didn’t want to talk about her leaving while I still had her here. My hand squeezed her thigh, and she rested her hand on top of it before weaving her fingers through mine.

“That sucks,” Katherine said with a frown as Cooper tossed his arm over her shoulder and carefully moved her long brown hair out of the way so he wouldn’t pull it. He was so thoughtful when it came to her.

“It does suck,” Jules agreed before looking at me.

The sadness written all over her face gutted me. In that moment, I realized that I didn’t want her to go. I was tempted to ask her to change her flight, to beg her to stay, but I couldn’t do that.

“It’s not like you guys can’t see each other after she leaves,” Katherine said, always the optimist. “Right?”

I glanced back at Jules. It wasn’t as if the thought hadn’t occurred to me since she’d left my bed last night, but I hadn’t voiced it to anyone before now, not even myself. When our eyes met, hers were filled with hope.

“That’s true,” I said, shrugging in a noncommittal way. “It’s not like you’re flying back to Sydney, or somewhere a thousand hours away.”

“Nope. Not Sydney. Just LA.”

Jules might have agreed, but her tone was off and I couldn’t read it. I didn’t like not knowing what she was thinking, and right now I had no clue.

Maybe Jules didn’t want to see me after she left. She was as busy with work as I was, and had no more time for a relationship than I did. Was she fighting her feelings the same way I was? I had no idea.

The waiter came back to take our drink order and told us that the kitchen closed soon, so we needed to get our orders in. We focused on our menus and quickly placed our orders before the conversation started up again.

Katherine turned toward Cooper. “If I had moved home after freshman year in college, do you think we still would have ended up together?”

My brother didn’t miss a beat. “Yes.” He kissed her cheek and looked at her the way a man truly in love looked at his woman. Their over-the-top mushy shit usually made me a little sick, but tonight I found it sort of sweet.

What the hell is happening to me?

“You two met in college, right?” Jules asked, and Katherine nodded. “Why would you have moved home?”

When Katherine and Cooper exchanged glances, I knew what they were thinking. They had a unique history between them, and the accident that had landed them both in the hospital fighting for their lives was only part of it. There was more to the story that they didn’t share with anyone, some big secret only the two of them knew.

As much as my curiosity had been piqued by that fact, I’d never pushed them for details. They wouldn’t have told me anyway. When pressed on the subject, they always said that some things were just too personal to share.

Katherine gave Cooper an adoring look before turning her attention back to Jules. “It’s hard to explain, but I basically had a really difficult freshman year. I went through a lot of stuff and almost failed out.”

“Really?” I’d never known that before and was shocked, unable to believe it. Katherine wasn’t the type to fail at anything.

She nodded, her eyes sad. “Yeah. It was pretty bad.”

“What would you have done if she had?” Jules asked my brother.

“Gone to LA and gotten her,” he said matter-of-factly. When I laughed, he glared at me. “What are you laughing at?”

“You say that like it’s so easy. You were just a kid. How the hell were you going to go to LA and get her?” I used my fingers to make air quotes around his words.