Thursday Nights (The Charistown Series) (27 page)

Kyle’s normally easy smile appeared forced, his face slightly pinched. “You okay, Ky?” Janie asked.

“I’m fucking great. I love being a fucking waitress…even if it is for the two of you.” He quickly placed down the drinks and left the table. Shrugging their shoulders they women went back to their conversation.

Looking at Janie suspiciously, Lyla brought the conversation back to Owen. “As you were saying…”

Janie took a small sip of her drink and continued. “Owen is great. He’s so good looking and his eyes...God, they’re like chocolate morsels. He smells so good, I just want to snuggle up close to him. His voice is smooth like hot fudge and his kisses are just as sweet––”

Reaching over the tabletop, Lyla placed her hand on Janie’s. “Jane, you can sugar coat him, you can chocolate cover him but in the end, does he make your heart melt?”

“I don’t know Ly, but he’s just really… sweet.” They both giggled at the candy-coated conversation and allowed the laughter to dissolve the tension.

She Was My Wife

After an hour of thinking, Max pulled the Ferrari over to the side of the track. Sweat was dripping down the sides of his face and his back as he got out of the car and stepped into the cool early fall air. It had been a full week since that Monday evening when he watched Janie walk away from him. A full week since he stood there like an idiot and let her go. Aside from his breathing, there were no other sounds of life, just him, the asphalt, and his thoughts.

I love you, Max…I deserve more than one step…
He had been replaying her words on a loop in his mind for seven days. He watched her on Thursday night as she and Lyla sat at their table and laughed. She was being exactly who she was, Janie Silver,
not
Chloe Smyth. He lied, claiming his parents were hosting a dinner party he needed to attend just so he could avoid going to Sunday dinner last night because he still wasn’t ready to face her.

“She has never been like Chloe,” he said out loud. As if on video montage, the seven months of their friendship replayed in his mind. He was happiest when he was with her. It didn’t matter how they spent their time together, they had fun. She made him feel relaxed, safe…whole. She gave him all of herself, and he gave her the Cliffs Notes version in return. She was right: she deserved so much more. She deserved a man that would meet her halfway, that would reach out, pick her up, and carry her if she were too tired to walk on her own. And he wanted to be that man. He had to be that man.

His body moved on autopilot, and he ended up standing in Gage’s office.

Still sweaty and sticky from his drive, he said to his friend, “I love her.” The words felt strange on his tongue at first, but they tasted sweeter each time he repeated them. “I tried not to, but I do. I’m in love with her, Gage.” He then turned around and ran out of the office. The sound of his boots echoing in the hallway as he ran for the exit.

“Max, wait!” Gage’s voice called down the hallway, but Max ignored his friend because he needed to find his girl. He needed to tell her how he felt. And no one was going to stop him.

“Janie, it’s Max. Please call me back.… I need to talk to you.” When he was done his message, he hung up, then left similar messages on Lyla’s and Ashley’s voice mails.

“Where the fuck is everyone?”

A foreboding sensation crept up his spine as he realized it was Monday night. Most of the bars, including Danny’s, would be slow. Maybe the girls were all out together…or maybe… Could Janie be out on another date? He gave himself a mental shake before the thought of her out with another man made him physically ill. Now that he accepted that he was in love with her, the thought was incomprehensible.

Skidding into the parking lot of Danny’s, he barely threw his car into park before jumping out and hauling ass towards the back office. Maybe Julie would know where Janie was.

Recognizable voices came from the office. “She’s having a good time—she deserves it,” Julie’s soft voice stated matter-of-factly.

“Look, I know what I heard. It’s more than that. She’s into this guy.”

“Kyle, you of all people should know that what you hear isn’t always how it is,” Danny reminded him.

“Who’s into what guy?” Max growled, knowing that he wasn’t going to like the answer. Identical looks of surprise covered their faces as Kyle, Danny, and Julie all turned to see Max standing in the office door. He could feel the warmth in his cheeks as he clenched his fists. He watched as shock morphed into what looked like relief for Danny and Julie, and shame for Kyle.

“Max,” Danny said calmly. ”Come sit down.”

“I am
not
sitting down, Danny. I only came here to see if Julie knew where Janie was tonight.” He trained his gaze to Julie. “Apparently you do. Tell me where she is.”

Julie opened her mouth to speak, but Kyle cut her off. “Max, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, man. I heard Janie and Lyla talking on Thursday night. I just couldn’t bring myself to be the one to tell you…again.” Kyle’s eyes were downcast, his posture drawn in tight. Max could feel the turmoil radiating from his friend.

“Kyle, this isn’t your problem.” The memory of the day Kyle told him that Chloe had been cheating on him flashed through Max’s mind. They’d barely known each other at the time and that bit of information changed Max’s life forever. Reaching over, he placed his hand on his friend’s arm. “We’re good, man. This isn’t your fault…it’s mine.”

Lifting his head once again to Julie’s, he begged. “Please, Julie. You were right, I made a mistake. Tell me where she is.”

With the information he needed, he turned on a booted foot and ran out of the office, through the bar, and out to his car. The sound of screeching tires and the smell of burning rubber were the only signs that Max had even been there.

Sitting on the front patio of the White Knight restaurant, Janie sipped her wine and listened while Owen regaled her with tales of his latest eighth-grade pseudo-stalker.

“What do they expect me to do? Be like, ‘Oh, okay, I love you too…as soon as you’re eighteen we’ll get married’? I mean, honestly,” he teased. Janie laughed at his story and at the silly way he described his reactions to his students. He truly didn’t understand how they could be so attracted to him, and it made him even hotter.
I bet even the fourteen-year-old girls could pick up on that
, she thought to herself.

He reached his hand over the table, lacing his fingers with hers. The light from the fire pit cast a warm glow on his skin as a beautiful smile slowly spread across his mouth. “A penny for your thoughts?”

Keeping her hand nestled in his, she rubbed her thumb along his knuckles. “Oh, Owen…my thoughts…”

Janie wasn’t sure which came first, the small hairs standing up on the back of her neck or the deep growl that said, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

Janie whipped her head to the right. The low partition separating the sidewalk traffic from the diners wasn’t enough of a barrier to ward off the anguish that pulsed off Max’s body. As her eyes traveled up, for once, it seemed as though she could read his emotions. Sadness, frustration, and contempt? Was he angry? She watched as his glare shifted to Owen and hardened even more.

When Max first walked up and saw Janie holding hands with her date, fingers tangled in an intimate caress, he felt a pain in his heart. But when he recognized who the mystery man was, he felt like he had been punched in the gut. Anger bubbled out of his mouth before he could control it.

Janie looked at Owen and saw his own expression was full of sadness and something that looked like shame. He removed his fingers from her grasp and stood up to face Max eye to eye.

“Really, Owen?” Max hissed. “Christ, I’d hoped to never see you again, you lying motherfucker. You called yourself my friend? Did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out?”

“Max, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I—” Remorse was pouring out of Owen’s mouth. Max’s nostrils flared as his fists tightened. The other diners stared at the scene that was playing out like dinner theater. As if scripted, the hum of a motorcycle pulled up to the sidewalk, and Gage was immediately by Max’s side.

“Step back, brother,” Gage said with a tense voice. Just then, Ashley and Lyla came running up the street in their stiletto heels. Lyla had her cell to her ear and was reassuring Danny that she would call him as soon as the situation was under control. If the predicament weren’t so serious, Janie would have been laughing at the public display. But it was and she wasn’t.

Owen looked at Janie. “Do you remember the situation I told you about from high school?” Janie knew exactly what Owen was referring to. They had discussed it a couple of times—Owen had slept with the girlfriend of a good friend of his. At the time he knew it was wrong, but the girl was “hot” (his words) and she kept throwing herself at him. Owen had explained that back then, he finally gave in to the girl, but after the one night they were together, he couldn’t look his friend in the eye ever again. He said he’d spent the rest of his senior year practically avoiding him, without ever giving a reason. While the guilt weighed on him for years, it wasn’t until he caught his fiancé cheating on him with his best friend that what he did really hit home. He had spent the past few years licking his wounds and trying to be a better man. While hearing about Owen’s heartbreak was sad, Janie was thrilled that he had offered her information about his past and that he was willing to put it behind him.

Owen hedged around the table and out of the gated area, onto the sidewalk.

“Stay the fuck away from me,” Max snarled. “You never cared about our friendship. You fucked my Chloe. When you knew I loved her.” His eyes darted from Owen to Janie and back. “And now…now that I’ve finally allowed myself to love again, you’re gonna take Janie, too?”

Janie had no idea what was going on around her. Her head was spinning.
Did he just say love?

“What did you just say?” she asked quietly, her voice paralyzed with incredulity. She waited a beat, but no one answered her. They were all too busy watching for impending signs of violence. She got up from the table and walked over to the assembly on the sidewalk.

“Look, Max.” Owen scrubbed his fingers over his hair. “We were kids. I’m not making any excuses, I was an asshole. We were friends, and I gave that up for what I thought at the time was a piece of ass.”

Owen’s words felt like a knife twisting in his gut. “A piece of ass? Dammit, Owen, I married her! She was my
wife
!” He let out a laugh that held no humor. “Christ, you should’ve just taken her…you would have saved me twenty years of hell.”

Wife?
“What the hell is going on?” Janie demanded.

That finally got the attention of all of the people around her.

Owen’s eyes were red-rimmed and damp when he answered. “Janie, Max was the friend.”

Max couldn’t hear what Owen was saying. He saw the man’s lips moving, but his mind only registered the closeness of Owen’s and Janie’s bodies. The woman he loved, the woman he wanted more than air, was facing Owen with her hand on his shoulder. With jealousy and hurt to fuel his fire, Max threw the first and only punch, landing it square on Owen’s jaw.