Give Us a Chance (28 page)

"I'll call you tonight," I say, then walk out the door before I say something I don't mean. I'm angry, and I need to get some distance from her until I calm down. I knew our relationship was too good to be true. We've gone an entire month without problems and now she's giving me the silent treatment and won't tell me why.

When I call her later, she doesn't pick up. Then she texts me and says she's tired and going to bed early so won't be able to call me tonight.

"I don't know what the hell's going on," I say to Nash as I sink into his recliner. It's six and I just got here and we're each having a beer. "She's never acted like this before. Well, she did when we first started dating, but that was when she still hated me."

He chuckles. "She never hated you. She's always had a thing for you. She just didn't want to get involved with you."

"What are you talking about? She didn't have a thing for me. For months, she completely ignored me."

"Yeah, because she thought you were only interested in sex. But she still liked you. We all saw how she looked at you. How she acted whenever you came around."

"Why is this the first time I'm hearing this? You and Bryce and Austin made fun of me all last fall, saying Ivy had no interest in me."

"We said she'd never date you, but we all knew she was interested in you."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"You needed to figure it out yourself. If you knew she liked you, you wouldn't have worked so hard to get her."

"If she liked me, then she wouldn't have kept turning me down."

"She turned you down because you slept around and she didn't want someone like that." He swigs his beer. "Anyway, that's all in the past, so tell me why you're here. You said Ivy's been acting strange?"

"Yeah. It started Monday night after we um..." I shouldn't be telling him this. It's private and intimate and should stay between Ivy and me, but she won't talk to me and I need to talk to someone.

"Had sex," Nash says.

"Yeah." I glance away.

"Don't be shy, bro. I can't help you if you don't tell me anything." He puts his feet up on the coffee table.

"Fine. Then yeah, we had sex. It was our..." I clear my throat, "first time."

"First time?" He brings his feet back to the floor. "Are you serious?"

 
"Yeah, I know." I shake my head. "We waited a month. An entire freaking month."

"I can't believe you waited that long, especially since you were used to getting it every night." He pauses, his eyes on me. "Wait. You didn't cheat on her, did you? Is that what this is about?"

"No! What the hell? Why does everyone assume I'm a cheater? I've never once cheated on a girl."

"What do you mean by 'everyone'? Does Ivy think you're cheating? Is that why she's acting strange?"

"I don't know. I've told her a million times I'd never cheat on her, but her ex cheated on her so now she assumes I will."

He nods. "So a whole month. That's a long time."

"You waited longer than that with Callie."

"But we weren't actually dating, or at least we said we weren't."

"Yeah, well, whatever. Ivy wanted to wait. She wouldn't do it with me until the other night. And now she'll barely talk to me."

He smiles. "Maybe she wasn't pleased with your performance."

"Shut up, asshole." I pick up the cat toy next to my chair and throw it at him. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"Yeah. Go ahead."

Cat appears and sees the cat toy next to Nash and jumps up on the couch.

Nash pets his head. "You should stick around and listen to this. You're good at figuring out relationships."

I roll my eyes. "Maybe I should just go. I can tell you're not going to be any help."

"If you'd hurry your ass up and tell me something, I would." He puts his feet up on the table again. "I'm all ears. So you had sex and then what?"

"She wanted to talk about our relationship."

"About your future?"

"She didn't specifically say that, but yeah. She wanted to know what we were doing, meaning where this is headed."

"And what did you say?"

"I told her I don't have an answer. That I need more time."

He holds Cat up in front of him. "Do you want to tell him or should I?"

"What?" I ask. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He sets Cat down. "You can't tell a girl you don't have an answer, especially after you've been seriously dating her for a month."

"We're not seriously dating. We're just dating."

"Well, there's your first problem. You're in denial. So let me lay it out for you. You and Ivy are in a serious relationship. You two are together all the time. She comes to Sunday dinner. You remodeled her dad's bathroom and paid for it. She practically lives at your apartment."

I sigh. "I'm not in denial. I know all that. I know it's serious."

"Then why didn't you answer her?"

"Because I don't know what this means. I don't know what to tell her. I don't know where we go from here."

Nash sits there quietly for a moment, petting Cat, who's curled up beside him, then asks, "Do you love her?"

The question takes me surprise and I stare at him, not sure what to say.

"Do you love her or not?" he asks.

"I um, I...I don't know." I never stammer. I'm always sure of myself, but his question has thrown me.

"Figure that out and you'll know how to answer her." He yawns and stretches his arms up, then folds them across his chest. "I'm freaking tired. I need to get to bed early tonight."

I'm still staring at him. "That's it? We're done here? You're not going to help me?"

"I just DID help you."

"You asked me a question. That's not helping."

"The answer to that question is all you need to know. When you figure that out, everything will be clear."

"What the hell kind of advice is that?
The answer to that question is all you need to know?
You sound like a damn fortune teller. That's not advice. It doesn't even make sense."

"Jake." He tips his head back. "You're so damn clueless. How could you not know the answer to that question? Even
I
know the answer. So does Callie."

"Then fill me in. What's the answer?"

He sets his eyes on mine. "When have you ever dated a girl for this long?"

"Never."

"How often do you think about her?"

"All the freaking time."

"Does the time go fast or slow when you're with her?"

"Fast. Too damn fast."

"How do you sleep when she's not there next to you?"

"I don't. I toss and turn all night."

"How do you feel when she's not around?"

I pause to consider it. "Lost. Like something's missing."

He lets out an exaggerated sigh. "You putting the pieces together yet? Because if not, I'm gonna have to knock you upside the head."

"Yeah, I know what you're saying, but it's not true. Just because I think about her, and can't sleep without her, and feel lost without her doesn't mean I—" I'm afraid to say the word out loud. I've been too afraid to even think it.

"That's exactly what it means," Nash says. "You have your answer, Jake."

"It's not an answer. It's not even true." I hear the anger in my voice and see Nash's face become concerned.

He leans forward, his forearms resting on his knees. "Why are you denying this?"

"I don't know." I drop my head, moving it side to side. "I can't explain it. I guess I'm just afraid."

"Of what?"

I don't want to tell him this. He'll think it's stupid and tell me to get over it. Believe me, I've tried to get over it, but my mind won't let me. When I try, I keep imagining my dad, stuck in that room for months on end. Not eating. Not sleeping. Not able to go on with his life because her loss was more than he could handle.

"Jake." I feel Nash's foot nudge my leg. "Talk to me."

I glance up and see him looking even more concerned. "I told you, I don't know."

"That's bullshit and you know it. Now tell me what this is about. What are you afraid of?"

I shake my head. "Just forget it."

"Jake, this is me. We tell each other shit. We always have."

It's true. Nash and I have always been close. I've always looked up to him, gone to him for advice. Even though he isn't my brother by blood, I'm closer to him than I am to my other brothers. I can talk to Bryce and Austin, but when it comes to the really serious stuff, I'll only talk to Nash or my dad.

"What are you afraid of, Jake?" Nash asks.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. "I'm afraid of..." I take a breath and whisper the words, "Losing her."

"I don't understand," Nash says softly. "Why would you lose her? Is something...is she sick?" he asks cautiously.

"No. Not now, but..." I swallow and open my eyes, looking down at the floor. "Mom wasn't sick."

Nash sits up straight and I hear him take a long, deep breath. "This is about Mom."

I don't answer. I don't need to. He's figured it out.

"Jake." He reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder.

I shove it away and stand up, walking toward the kitchen. "Just forget it. This is stupid. I don't want to talk about it."

He remains on the couch. "It's not stupid. Now get your ass back over here and talk to me."

"I already told you everything. There's nothing else to say."

"Fine. Then I'll do the talking." He leans back on the couch, his eyes on me as I stand by the kitchen island. "When we lost Mom, our world fell apart. Dad broke down and basically disappeared from our lives for five months. I was living on my own and had to take over the company."

I huff. "Yeah, I was there. I don't need a recap of our lives, Nash."

"You had your chance to talk, so shut up and let me finish."

I sigh. "Fine. Finish."

"I wasn't there for you, or Bryce and Austin. I wanted to be, but shit, I'd never run a business before so I had to spend every waking moment trying to keep it going until Dad got better. And honestly, that's the only thing that got me through that time. I couldn't be there at home, watching Dad go through that. I was pissed at him for acting that way, and if I were living there, we would've fought."

"He couldn't help it," I say, getting angry. "He'd lost his wife. What the fuck did you expect him to do? Get over it in a week?"

"Of course not, but he wasn't the only one who lost her. We all did. And he wasn't there for us. And the thing that really bothered me was that he wouldn't accept our help. Just a few years earlier, I lost Becky, and Dad was the one who helped me move on. But then Mom died and he wouldn't let me do the same for him. He shut me out. He shut all of us out."

Becky was Nash's best friend. She died when they were in high school. He was devastated. It took him a long time to get over it.

"So what are you saying?" I ask. "You're pissed at Dad?"

"I was, but I'm not now. I get that everyone deals with grief differently. Just look at Callie. She shut down for an entire year after her family died and she's still trying to get over it. What I'm saying is that you can't let the fear of losing someone keep you from living."

"I AM living. I just don't want—" My eyes go to the floor as I shake my head. "You weren't there, Nash. You didn't see him every day. You didn't hear him crying in his room. You weren't the one begging him to eat something after he hadn't eaten for days. You weren't the one who had to lie to Bryce and Austin day after day and tell them Dad was getting better. You didn't know how bad it was. You weren't there."

He gets up and comes over to me. "I DID know how bad it was. And I WAS there. When you were at school, I went over there to check on him, sometimes several times a day."

"You did? Every day?"

"Every damn day. I'd go there and talk to him and force him to listen. I even threatened to send someone over there, a counselor, if he didn't come out of that room." He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. "Jake, I know how hard it was for you back then. I wish I could've done more, but I could only do so much. I was barely 20 years old and trying to run a business I had no idea how to run."

 
I nod. "I don't know how you did that."

"We do what we have to do, and we all made it through those times, even Dad."

"I can't do it, Nash. I won't. I saw how much you suffered when Becky died, and then watching Dad after Mom died, and seeing Callie struggle. Who the hell wants to go through that?"

"Nobody does. It's just a shitty part of life. You can't avoid it."

"I can if I don't get close to anyone."

He stands back. "So you'll just have no one?"

"I have my family. That's all I need. I don't need a wife. Kids."

"If Dad had said that, you wouldn't be here. Neither would Bryce and Austin. And I would've grown up without a mom. Dad would've had to raise me by himself. Mom was the best thing that ever happened to him."

"Yeah, but look how it ended."

"He would do it all again, even knowing it would end this way."

"I don't think he would."

"Then ask him. See what he says."

My phone rings and I check it, thinking it's Ivy, but instead it's some girl I slept with last December. I only remember that because her name was Holly and I slept with her right before Christmas, which I found to be funny at the time. But having her call me now isn't funny. I can't get these girls to stop calling and texting me. I even ended up changing my number and I still get calls.

"Some other girl?" Nash asks.

"Yeah." I shove my phone in my pocket.

"You know, a few months ago, you would've had a big ass grin on your face getting a call from a girl. But just now, you looked disappointed. Because you don't want some other girl, not even for sex. You want Ivy. You were hoping she was the one calling."

I don't respond.

"So what are you going to do about this?"

"I don't know. I have to think about it."

"You don't have to make plans for the future, but at least tell Ivy how you feel."

"I'm not ready to. And besides, if I don't see a future for us, there's no point in telling her how I feel."