Unraveled (Holding On Book 3) (15 page)

She did a quick check of her make-up in the rearview mirror and decided it was acceptable. Then she alighted from
the warmth of her car. The air had a bitter chill to it so she hurriedly made her way up to the house. For just a moment, she worried that she’d misunderstood. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to come here. Or maybe he hadn’t meant tonight. There was also the possibility that something had come up but surely he would’ve called or sent a text. Just the thought of one more night without seeing him sent a shot of disappointment through her.

Before any of those thoughts could take hold too firmly, the front door opened.

“Hey, Cricket,” he said. “I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to show up.” He pulled her into a hug and nuzzled her neck before she even had a chance to take her jacket off.

“Sorry,” she said. “I know I’m running a little late.
Carter accidentally knocked the babies’ formula off the counter. The top came off the canister and it spilled out all over the floor. It was the only can they had so Luke had to run to the store to get more. I decided to stay with Quinn so I could clean up the mess. Also, both girls were awake and hungry and Carter needed a bath so he could get to bed.”

Jesse released her as he chuckled. “They really have their hands full, don’t they?”

She nodded as she smiled. “They do. For the most part, they have it completely under control. I’ve never seen the two of them so happy.”

“Good,” Jesse said as he took her coat from her. “If anyone deserves it, it’s those two.” He put her coat on the coat rack and then reached for her hand so he could lead her into the living room.

“I know I’m a little late, but you weren’t sleeping already were you?” she asked. “When I first pulled up and realized all the lights were off I was worried that maybe you weren’t home. Oh…!” She exclaimed, finding the answer for herself.

As they rounded the corner into the living room, she realized Jesse had a fire blazing in the fireplace.
The light of the flickering flames danced across the room. There was a quilt spread out in front of the blaze. A pile of pillows had been tossed down as well.

“Well. If this doesn’t look like a seduction waiting to
happen, I don’t know what does,” Carly said as she cocked an eyebrow at him.

Jesse laughed. “That’s th
e last thing this is. Come here.” He led her to the quilt and lowed himself onto it as she followed his lead. “This? This is a night of just us. Talking, hanging out, just enjoying each other’s company or whatever.” He leaned over to the hearth where Carly now realized he had several items spread out. He reached for a thermos. “Hot cocoa,” he said with a smug smile. “Your favorite. Or, at least that’s what Quinn said when she gave me her recipe. I thought since you had dinner with them, you could have dessert with me.” He pointed to the other items.

Carly turned to him; sure she had a silly smile on her face. “You want to make
s’mores?”

He hesitated as if rethinking everything.
“This is completely lame, isn’t it?” he looked abashed.

She quickly shook her head.
“It’s not. It might just be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Well that’s just sad,” Jesse said with a little laugh.

For the next half hour, Jesse carefully roasted marshmallows while Carly assembled the desserts. She ate so many of the sticky concoctions she felt like she was going to burst. They finally both agreed they couldn’t eat another one and Jesse set everything aside.

“This wasn’t a lame idea at all,” she said after she licked her fingers clean for the last time. “It was a
delicious
idea.”

“I’m glad you approve,” he murmured as he pulled her close.

“I do,” she said as she pushed him down into the pillows. He went willingly, pulling her along with him. He grinned up at her as he gazed into her face, his hands sliding down her backside until they were cupping her bottom, pulling her in close. She felt her heart begin an out of control beat at the sight of him. The amber glow of the fire lent a softness to his expression that began to melt her. One hand slid up the back of her shirt, resting on the bare skin at the small of her back. That was all the encouragement Carly needed to place her mouth on his. He willingly accepted the kiss. While his hands caressed her backside, hers slid up into his hair. He let out a little sound of contentment as she ran her fingers through it.

She hadn’t realized how badly she’d been craving him until that moment.
Both physically and emotionally.

Her body started to spark to life with the familiar feel of Jesse beneath her. As
the hand on her back pulled her into him, she let out a little moan.

Of frustration.

“I don’t think I can do this right now,” she said as she rolled off him. She landed on the pillows beside him. “You stuffed me so full of chocolate I can barely move.”

His eyes twinkled in amusement as he chuckled at her.

She playfully slapped his chest. “Did you plan it this way? Did you plan to make me eat so much chocolate that I would be miserable? I mean, I get that you’re still insisting we don’t get too carried away yet, but making me this miserable was just plain cruel.” She rested a hand on her stomach and made a pitiful face at him to prove her point.

He rolled over on his side, leaning over to kiss her on the nose as he did so. “I didn’t make you do anything. It’s not my fault that chocolate is your weakness.”

She let out a sigh. Since the mood had already been killed by her overstuffed stomach, she decided now was as good of a time as any to dredge up some unpleasant business.

“Why did you stay with Betsy for so long?” Carly asked quietly as she rolled onto her side to face him. It hurt. Getting that question out in the open? It hurt. She hated
thinking
of Jesse and Betsy together. She was sure she didn’t want to
hear
about them together. And yet…she had to. If they were truly going to start over, she had to know.

“Why were you with Nolan so long?” Jesse volleyed back.

Carly felt herself bristle in annoyance. Leave it to Jesse to not answer. To simply throw the question back at her instead. Her initial
near
-response was to give in to her frustration. She tamped that desire down. Instead, for once, she decided to give in without a fight and go first.

“I guess because…”
She faded off, gathering her strength as she prepared herself for baring her soul. “Because I thought I couldn’t have you. I thought I’d lost you forever and,” she shrugged, “I didn’t want to be alone. That’s how things started with him. I guess they grew from there.”

Jesse nodded slowly.
“Yeah. You pretty much summed up my relationship with Betsy. I mean, we did have a lot in common. And we had fun together. She could be a real bitch sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “But to be honest, I figured I deserved it. I mean, I couldn’t blame her. Sometimes I knew I was leading her on even though I’d
try
to convince myself that I wasn’t.”

Carly nodded as she glanced
at the shadows flickering across the wall. She wondered if she’d been unintentionally leading Nolan on. Had he felt that somehow? They had broken up early on in their relationship. But then they’d decided to try things again. She’d thought the relationship was on solid ground. She had thought she loved Nolan. But now, she was seriously doubting it. Now that she’d taken that all important step back, she kind of had to wonder if maybe she’d simply been in love with the idea of being in love with him. Was it possible he’d felt that, too? Is that why he’d broken up with her?

She decided she didn’t want to think of Nolan right then. She needed to concentrate on Jesse and the conversation they were hav
ing. Once they had it, once everything was laid out, she hoped to never have to have the conversation again.

“What I really want to
know, is why you ran to her in the first place,” Carly admitted. It was Betsy, Jesse’s long-term relationship with her, that had effectively halted what they’d had.

He shook his head. “I didn’t run to her. That summer, I asked you out, time and again. And you just wouldn’t commit. I was so frustrated with you. I couldn’t get you to commit to a
picnic
. I knew at that point, I’d never be able to get you to commit to forever. I thought I needed a clean break. I thought if I did it on my terms, I’d get over you. It sure as hell didn’t work out that way. I got myself stuck in a relationship with Betsy and
you
got engaged. So you can see how trying to get over you really blew up in my face.”

Carly knew he was trying to keep his tone light. Yet his confession was heavy with the truth. Something in his expression intuitively told her that he wasn’t done.

“
Things got really complicated with her for a while,” he admitted cautiously. “I stayed with her for so long because it was the right thing to do.” Carly was about to question him on the comment but he continued with his explanation. “I don’t think Betsy and I ever really had a chance, though. I don’t think we were ever a good fit.”

Carly cringed and chose her words carefully. “
I’m not trying to bash her, I swear, but I never thought you were a good fit. You know she said some really horrible things to Luke one night. I couldn’t imagine how you ever ended up with someone like that.”

Jesse sighed.
It was clear to Carly that he didn’t like talking about this any more than she did. Yet, he must’ve felt the same way; that they needed to get everything out there. He finally said, “I’m not defending her. I know she was confrontational with Luke more than once. She was out of line. I
know
that. And I’m sure that whatever impression you have of her, it’s bad. She and Quinn had a few run-ins and yeah…Betsy was, well, she was a bitch. To Quinn. She obviously wasn’t always like that. I think she just felt jealous. Or insecure.

Carly’s eyebrows twitched.
“Because of Quinn?”

He scoffed. “No.
Because of you. Things were fine with us for a long time. Then Quinn started dating Luke and, I don’t know. I think that connection bothered her. He was my roommate at the time. He was dating my ex’s sister. An ex that she knew I still felt something for. When Quinn and Luke started getting serious—when he would come back to the house and talk about Quinn all the time and your name would come up occasionally—things got bad between us. Part of that was because she started treating Luke like shit. I think, again, because of Quinn and her association to you.

“Then there was that night at Shady’s, when she got into Luke’s business and I just realized I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Up until that point, I thought I’d rather be with her than be alone.
And I felt like I owed her. But that night, I realized that maybe being alone for a while wasn’t that bad. And honestly? It hasn’t been. I’ve dated some this past year—nothing ever got serious. But mostly, I took some time to get my head on straight.”

“Did you love her?”
Carly asked, bracing herself for the answer.

He looked at her and she was under the impression
that he was trying to get the answer straight in his head. He was propped up on an elbow and he settled his free hand on her hip. His fingers slid into the space where her shirt and jeans met. He absently rubbed his thumb against her bare skin.

“I don’t know how to answer that. See, there’s the way I feel about you. And there’s
the way I feel about other women that I date. The way I feel about you? I’ve never felt that way about anyone else. So did I love her? I guess I did as much as I could. But obviously, that wasn’t enough.”

She flinched at his words. Even though he’d been telling her how he felt about her every chance he got, she still had a hard time hearing it. Years of believing it couldn’t be possible had given her a mindset that was hard to break.

“Carly?” he asked, troubled by her reaction. “What is it?”

She scrunched up her face apologetically. “I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to hear you say things like that. It’s hard to believe you really mean them. That you’re not just trying to mess with my head,” she quietly admitted.

“Do you really think so little of yourself that you think I couldn’t love you?” he asked. He pulled her to him, tunneling his hands through her hair, forcing her to look him in the eye. “If I knew what jackass ever made you feel that way about yourself, I’d kick his ass. But the thing is, I have a feeling that jackass was me. Carly, you’ve got to know, or if you don’t know, then you have to believe me when I say this: You are damn easy to love. You might not be easy to get along with. You might not be easy to understand or easy to communicate with. But you are so damn easy to love.”

Carly felt her lips curl up in a small smile. It was a slow, sad smile. She was only now realizing just how much time they had wasted. How much unnecessary hurt they had caused one another.

“Did you love Nolan?” His gaze was zeroed in on her. She could see him grimacing slightly in preparation for her response. He shook his head. “That’s a stupid question. Never mind. Of course you did. You accepted his proposal.”

She internally cringed, not wanting to answer. Yet Jesse, as far as she could tell
, had been brutally honest with her. She needed to do the same. “I really, truly thought I did. And I probably did, as much as I could,” she said, mimicking his response. “But obviously
that
wasn’t enough. Because he wasn’t you.”