Fall into Her (Fall into Him Book Two) (3 page)

Jennifer carefully folded the note and slid it back across the desk to
where it had fallen. Apparently, she hadn't learned her lesson with Brad. She
was seriously regretting taking the note. Though vague, it indicated a deep and
personal connection with Philip, a history and level of intimacy that didn't
appear to need any explanation. It hadn't been perfect, she could see, but
whoever J was, she seemed to be willing to forget about it and try to start
again.

Brad immediately sprang to mind. Wasn't this exactly what he was doing?
He'd asked her to put aside their rocky past and try again. She hadn't wanted
to consider it, not really, since she had Philip, but now it seemed like Philip
was more interested in mending his previous relationship with J than starting a
new one with her. Sure, the note was crumpled, but he'd kept it, and J had
kissed his cheek. He hadn't disagreed when she'd suggested seeing him again and
he'd obviously been intrigued enough to watch her walk away. Jennifer wasn't
stupid. If her time with Brad had taught her anything, it was what it looked
like when a man was cheating.

Okay, she conceded, maybe it wasn't actually cheating because it hadn't
sounded like Philip and J had been doing anything, not yet anyway. And, it was
true that she and Philip didn't necessarily have a real relationship, or at
least not one that they'd defined. If they didn't know what they were to each
other, could it still be considered cheating?

“Well,” Jennifer stood. “He could've at least told me that we weren't
anything serious.” She wasn't speaking loudly, but she had to speak the words.
Sometimes things came across differently, more clearly, just because they were
heard with ears rather than in her mind. Her habit of talking to herself had
driven Brad crazy.

Brad. Jennifer sighed as she gathered her things. The two men just kept
circling each other in her head, alternating which one seemed to be the smarter
choice. With Brad, she had this tumultuous history that made her suspicious and
untrusting. Their break-up had been one of the hardest things Jennifer had ever
had to go through, but she ended up thinking of it as being the best thing that
had ever happened to her. Now, he was back, promising a new life with all of
the good and none of the bad. And there had been good between the bad. Or had
it been bad between the good? Did it even matter?

Then there was Philip. Like Brad, he seemed to shift personalities, but
none of Philip's quirks included making Jennifer feel bad about herself...
well, at least not intentionally as far as she could tell. When they were
together, Brad had defined their relationship, what they were, what they
weren't. Philip, on the other hand, either didn't want to, or wasn't able to,
define them. She knew how things had been with Brad, but not how things would
be. People could change from bad to good. Philip, however, was a complete
unknown.

She was still thinking about the similarities and differences of the
two men she was torn between when she arrived back at her apartment. She was so
preoccupied that she almost stepped on the figure sitting in front of her door.

“Brad!” Jennifer stumbled backwards, cheeks flaming at the sound of her
squeaking his name.

“Hiya, babe!” Brad bounced to his feet. A wide grin spread across his
face. He looked good in a pair of faded jeans and a fitted black t-shirt.
“Thought I'd surprise you but it turned out that your roommate wasn't here to
let me in either.”

Jennifer shook her head, automatically answering. “No, she's at the
restaurant today.” She fumbled the keys in her hand as she tried to find the
right one. She hadn't been expecting to come home and find Brad there and her
brain was scrambling to catch up. “U-uh…come on in.”

Brad followed Jennifer into the apartment. “Looking good, Jenny.”

She could hear the admiration in his voice and thought of how nice it
was to get a compliment and know that it wasn't because he expected sex. “Thank
you.” She set down her purse and keys. “Have a seat while I go change.”

Brad settled on the couch while Jennifer headed into the bedroom. She
thought about trying to find something casual-dressy, her ingrained response
being to make herself nice for Brad, but the thought of that much effort only
made her feel even more tired than she already was. “Fuck it,” she muttered as
she pulled a pair of gray cut-off sweats and a black t-shirt out of her
dresser. She'd had a tough twenty-four hours and she just wanted to be
comfortable. If her ex didn't like it, he could leave. She walked back out into
the living room, steeling herself to deal with snide comments about how she was
letting herself go. What she wasn't prepared for was the look of concern on
Brad's face.

“Jennifer, are you okay?” He slid over on the couch and patted the seat
next to him.

She sat on the edge of the cushion, still not entirely sure if she
could trust this side of Brad. She very much wanted to, but, at the same time,
knew she should be cautious. She was just so tired of having her guard up all
of the time.

“You can talk to me,” Brad said, turning slightly so he could focus all
of his attention on Jennifer.

She nearly squirmed under the intensity of his gaze. She'd never had Brad so intent
on her while they were talking. He was notorious for only half listening to
anything she had to say. “Well…I had a bad day at work. A bad couple of days,
actually. It's no big deal, really.”

Brad looked at her expectantly. “You'll feel better if you talk about
it.” He stretched his arm along the back of the couch, but didn't touch her.

Jennifer was going to refuse to talk, to just shake it off and pretend
that it didn't matter, but the look of concern and sympathy on Brad's face was
so refreshing, after hours of Philip's aloof demeanor, that she gave in.

“My boss is really moody.”

“The guy from the hotel?” Brad prompted.

Jennifer nodded. “He hired me as his assistant and told me that he
wanted to groom me to one day be a manager or higher, but sometimes he acts
like I'm not even there. He goes from wanting me to do all kinds of stuff, and
other times, it's like I'm not competent enough to answer his phone.” Jennifer
prayed her cheeks wouldn't give away that she wasn't just talking about work.

“The guy doesn’t sound like he’s a very good boss,” Brad said. He
touched her shoulder but didn't linger, as if unsure how his touch would be
taken. “If he can't see how great you are at your job, he's either blind or an
idiot.”

A memory flashed into Jennifer's mind and she couldn't resist asking.
“Why the sudden change of heart?”

Confusion crossed Brad's face. “I don't understand.”

“You don't remember telling me to get a boob job because that’s the
only way I could get a promotion at my job?” Jennifer was more honestly curious
than angry. She'd long since decided that being angry at things like that
wasn't worth the effort. Now she just wanted to know. What Brad was saying now
didn't mesh with his previous behavior and she was wondering what had caused the
change.

Brad flushed and had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Things like
that are part of why I came by today. I wanted to talk to you about what
happened between us.” His eyes darted away from hers and back again. “But that
can wait if you need to debrief some more about work.”

“No,” Jennifer shook her head. She couldn't tell Brad anything more
specific about what was going on with Philip without revealing the personal
side of the relationship. Besides, she was truly interested in what he had to
say about their past, especially in light of Philip's own prior relationship
appearing at the office. “I'm more interested in talking about us.”

Brad's eyes lit up at her use of the word
us
, and Jennifer
immediately regretted its use. It was too late to take it back so she just
decided to plow ahead. “What did you want to talk about?”

Brad started to reach for her and then seemed to think better of it.
His hand dropped back down onto the couch. “When we were together, I said a lot
of mean things, things that hurt you.” He locked eyes with her. “I'm sorry,
Jennifer. I never meant the way those things came out. Most of the time I was
just trying to say something that would help you or point something out to you
and it just came out all wrong.” He looked away from her as he continued. “You
know that I've never really been good with words. Sports and numbers were
always my thing. So, sometimes when I would say those mean things, it was just
because I didn't know how to say them the right way.”

Jennifer couldn't believe it. Brad was apologizing? That definitely
wasn't like him. And what he said made sense. He hadn't really done poorly in
school, but communication never had been his strong suit. Was it really
possible that all of those things he'd said, they'd been met to help her and
not hurt her? Could he really have just been unable to articulate his true
feelings?

“I've always been like this, you know,” Brad looked up at her from
under his thick lashes and her heart constricted. “I think it's because my
parents always told me that men don't talk about their feelings, so I never
learned how to express myself. Think about it. My dad never told me he loved
me. He'd talk sports with me, usually to tell me how I could do better or
something. He never once said he was proud of me. It was always criticisms,
what I'd failed at, not what I did well. I think I just learned it from him.”

“What made you come to this realization?” Jennifer's mouth was dry.
She'd never dreamed that Brad could be any deeper than the physical stuff.

Brad shrugged. “I looked into other stuff I could do with my degree and
was told that I could do, like, Masters classes. One of them was this
psychology course so I took it. Lots of interesting stuff and it made me think
about our relationship and where it had gone wrong.”

“And you think it was all about the things you said to me?” Jennifer
wanted to ask about the other instances but wasn't sure how he'd take it if she
was that blunt. Things seemed to be going well at the moment and she didn't
want to jinx it.

Brad shook his head. “No, I know that I treated you badly too. I never
should have tried to control you.” The looks in his eyes turned to one of near
desperation. “I was just so scared of losing you that I held on to you too
tight.”

“Tight? Brad, you were suffocating me. Controlling my every move.”
Jennifer couldn't believe she'd actually said it to him. She cringed as she
waited for the explosion at her accusation.

“I know. I was wrong, and I'm sorry.” Brad couldn't have shocked her
more if he'd said that he'd wanted to move to Guam or become a priest. “I
wanted to know where you were because I was worried about you disappearing on
me. I didn't want you to spend time with other men because I thought you'd see
how much better those guys were than me and leave me. I knew your family didn't
approve of me, so I didn't want you to be around them in case they talked you
out of loving me.”

If he really had loved her the way he said he did, Jennifer thought,
those reasons could very well be valid. Had she been wrong all this time? Maybe
it wasn't that Brad had really changed, but that he was now able to face that
the way he'd handled things hadn't been the best.

“Brad, you really hurt me back then,” Jennifer's voice was hesitant.
She still wasn't positive that she could trust him not to blow up, but she
wanted it to be real so badly that she was willing to take that risk. “I
thought that it was intentional. That you liked being mean to me and
controlling me.”

“No,” Brad leaned closer, his expression earnest. “I only ever wanted
you to love me.”

Jennifer swallowed hard around the lump forming in her throat. Tears
pricked at her eyelids. “I did love you, Brad. So much.”

He reached for her again and hesitated. This time, instead of drawing
back, he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. “Do you think
there's even the slightest possibility that you could love me again?”

“I don't know,” Jennifer admitted. She turned her face into his
shoulder and breathed deeply. He still smelled the same. Spicy body wash and
deodorant mixed with the fresh linen scented detergent he used on his clothes
and, under that, the scent that was uniquely his. “So much has happened since
we broke up.”

“Have you found someone else?”

The pain in that question made the tears spill over. She'd never
considered how this thing with Philip would affect Brad, even when she was
debating between the two men. Now, she wondered if Philip would feel the same
way if he knew she was in Brad's arms. Would he be hurt if she went back to
Brad or would he just move on with J or some other girl?

“Jenny?”

Jennifer pulled back and wiped her hands over her cheeks. “I'm sorry.
It's just been a long couple of days. I'm stressed and tired.”

“I understand.” To Jennifer's surprise, Brad didn't push his question.
“You try to relax and get some rest.” He stood. “Just remember that I'm here
when you need me. No matter what.” He leaned down and pressed his lips against
Jennifer's forehead. “Whatever you need, I'll be.” He turned away from her. “I'll
let myself out.”