Beyond Eighteen(68)

“Wilson, remember, I will do everything in my power to get to you as soon as I can.”

“I know…I am just…I’m going to miss you so much.”

I pulled her away from my neck. I held her face in my hands as her tears ran down her cheeks and shattered against her chest.

“Wilson, you are my everything. My heart belongs to you…it always will. I promised you I would be there as soon as I can. I will not break that promise.”

She pushed against me and I pressed my lips to her creased forehead. Delicately, I pulled her arms from around me and walked her down to the limo. Joanie’s arms reached out of the door Allen was holding open. I gently pushed Wilson into Joanie’s arms and he made sure to secure the door. I held my fingers to my lips before thrusting them forward to the blackened window.

“I’ll take care of her, Mr. Goldstein,” he said.

“You have my entire life in the back of that car, Allen,” I answered him before he reached over, shook my hand, got into the car, and drove out of the driveway with the main reason I was living again.





Chapter Twenty-five


~ Wilson ~





Again, J had the arduous task of holding me in the limo as I cried in her lap. But this time I wasn’t crying because I lost Max. This time I was crying because life got into the way while Max and I were trying to live it.

I hated the fact that we had to be separated. I was angry because Max had to choose a company he grew up despising his whole life, over me. I was hurt that nobody stepped up to fight for me. Hell, I was really mad at my grandparents for dying, my mom for abandoning me, and the fact that my best friend in the whole wide world had fallen for the one guy that almost destroyed everything I had with Max. What the hell was that, anyway? Why did Nick drop my best friend off at my boyfriend’s house? I couldn’t believe he did that. And I couldn’t believe J even thought that was okay.

I turned over and looked up at her, her maple brown eyes filled with tears for me.

“I’m sorry, Wilson,” Joanie said, dragging her hand across my forehead, combing my hair out of my eyes.

“I am so tired of being hurt,” I whispered as tears filled the corners of my eyes. J pressed her hands to either side of my cheeks. I felt her warm hands thaw the stinging cold that struggled to keep my skin numb.

“Why Nick?” The words flew past my lips like a bullet blasted from a gun. I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me what made him so important to her. Why she would choose to be with someone who basically hurt her best friend through his lies.

Joanie’s hands dragged down past my hair and I felt her legs tighten under my head as her body shifted. I sat up off her lap and turned to look at her. I watched as she adjusted the way she was sitting. Almost as if she was cornered, I watched her lips curl and her eyes shift from her hands, to my face and back to her hands.

“I’m really sorry, Wil, he was supposed to drive away when I reached the steps,” she explained as she pushed her hair back from her eyes.

“No, I mean, of all the guys...why Nick?” I pushed.

“I don’t know, Wilson, it certainly wasn’t intentional. We just…connected. He needed someone to talk to, and he seemed so devastated by what he’d done. He made it so easy for me to feel for him.”

Unfortunately, I totally understood what she was saying. Nick was easy to talk to. He had this touching side that made you fall for him. But still, she should have kept her distance.

“Yeah, but Joanie, you know he lied to me about Max. He kept me from Frank’s funeral. He kissed me, even when he knew I loved—”

“Wilson, I know the whole story. I know everything that happened between you and Nick. He didn’t spare me any details, trust me. But you don’t know his whole story, Wilson. He’s more broken than you know. So yes, I’ve begun to feel for him. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to spend time with him. Come on, Wilson, it isn’t you or him. He isn’t going to take me away from you.” Joanie was seething. Her eyes were narrow and her lips were moving faster than the words could escape her mouth. I’d seen that side of her before. I’d known her almost my whole life, and when it came to protecting someone or something she loved or wanted, she would fight tooth and nail.

I felt every inch of my body react to her words. She was in deep with him. Yeah, that was J. All it took was one night of deep conversations and seeing that he was broken and she would hop on board as if he was sailing her to paradise. If he needed fixing she would sign up to be his first mate. Let’s face it, it’s written all over her track record with everyone in her life. Look at me. Broken, missing a family…and voila, J finds me. Then there was Messed-up Mike in the seventh grade, whose father was the DA for San Ramon and got away with beating the shit out of his kid until J helped him escape to his grandmother’s house. Once he had his life back, he wanted nothing to do with her; she began to lose interest anyway. Oh, and there were those abandoned kittens and broken winged birds she’d stay up all night nursing back to health, or to their deaths. Yeah, that was my best friend. The person who would bring back lost dogs so they wouldn’t be picked up by the pound. What made her so giving? What made her care so much? And why would she need to fix the one guy who should have been off limits? He kissed me, so that makes him automatically unapproachable. Where’s the code of conduct about best friends not sharing sloppy seconds?