The Lover’s Game (No Exceptions #2)(29)
Author: J.C. Reed

“I wish,” I muttered, “just as much as I wish I could kill myself this instant.” To my horror, a tear ran down my face.

“Oh my God,” Sylvie exclaimed in shock. “You didn’t!” Slowly, she shook her head in what I assumed was exasperation; that was understandable as I, too, was slowly growing exasperated with myself. “Why would you do that?”

Why indeed?

“Because I didn’t know it was him.” I raised my hand in defense, feeling defeated.

Her eyes widened. “But how…how could you not know it was Jett?”

“I don’t know.” I raised my hand in defense, feeling defeated. “And before you ask, no, I’ve no idea how I couldn’t know. I just didn’t recognize him. It all happened so fast. It was dark and the lights in the club made him look strange and distorted.” The whole thing rang farfetched, unbelievable, because it was.

“But still. You have ears. You must have spoken at some point and yet you didn’t recognize his voice?” Sylvie asked in disbelief, her tone dripping with accusation.

Talk about not being judgmental! What happened to compassion?

“There is a term for it,” I muttered. “It’s called selective perception, seeing and hearing only what your mind chooses to see and hear. Google it if you don’t believe me.”

“I might do that,” Sylvie said and plopped down on the edge of the bed. “What was he doing at the club anyway?”

“I’ve got no idea.” That was the one question I didn’t get the chance to ask.

She shook her head in disbelief again. “Jesus, Brooke. I thought we talked about this.” She kicked off her expensive shoes, exposing swollen feet and red, painful marks that would soon turn into blisters. “Don’t you remember what you’ve been drilling into me for years?” She cocked an eyebrow meaningfully.

I shook my head to signal that I had no clue.

She picked up her left shoe and held it up in the air like a preacher waving a Bible around. “If a shoe doesn’t fit the first time you try it on, it’ll always give you blisters. Why don’t you trust your own advice and accept that if a man hurts you once, he will always hurt you?”

Her footwear analogy summoned a faint smile to my lips. “Jett isn’t your average pair of shoes,” I retorted. “He’s a big, fat gumboot and too much to handle. Nothing gets to him. Nothing can change his form. He does what he wants, whenever he wants, and how he wants it, paying no mind to anyone else’s feelings. I’m swimming in those shoes, but I can’t seem to pull them off.” Hysteria bubbled in the back of my throat. I turned to Sylvie in the hopes she’d get the joke, but worry was still etched into the lines of her face.

“I’m serious, Brooke.” Her frown deepened. “A shoe is a shoe, and if it doesn’t fit the first time you try it on, it never will. There are no exceptions.”

My laughter died in my throat. I let out a sigh and nodded. She had always looked out for me, and as much as I would have preferred otherwise, she was right. No matter how hard I tried to deny it, Jett wasn’t good for me. I might have adjusted to his ways, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have to endure all sorts of pain along the way, unless I gave up on us forever.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I relented. “I know I shouldn’t have slept with him. It’s just…” I struggled for words.

How could I possibly explain to her that, on a subconscious level, my body responded to him because I loved him? That it didn’t matter if Jett wore a paper bag on his head, that something inexplicable kept pulling me to him. I couldn’t change that, whether I wanted it or not.

Sylvie’s face lit up.

“I know what went wrong,” she said coolly. “You had to be drunk, because no woman in her right mind would ever take back a guy like him after the stunt he pulled.”

What she didn’t realize was that I very well might not have been in my right mind. All rational thought had flown out the door the moment Jett entered my life.

I pressed the pillow against my chest as I recalled the previous months’ events. Even when I knew I shouldn’t trust a guy with a Southern accent, gorgeous lips, and a body to die for, my brain had switched off at the mere sight of him. His charm and looks had persuaded me to jump into bed with him soon after we met. I had let my guard down and allowed myself to fall in love with him.

Fighting the urge to explain, I gave a careless shrug. It would have been much easier to let Sylvie think the influence of alcohol was to blame. But, for some reason, I just couldn’t.

“You know me,” I said. “I don’t get drunk easily. I had one drink, two max. That’s it. I swear.”

“I knew it. You would never let a guy like Jett back into your bed under normal circumstances.” In spite of her stern voice, a gentle smile lit up her face as she regarded me. “You know your Jersey-Shore-partying days are over. As much as you love to party, you can’t do that anymore, not in your condition.”

I rolled my eyes. Sylvie was worse than my mother. Not only was she trying to see straight through me, but she also always managed to make me feel worse. My previous life couldn’t have been more different. It had all been about work and building a career that had gone nowhere—until Jett entered my life and offered me a job with Mayfield Realties.

“You’re right,” I replied, unconvinced. “I should give up on fun altogether.”

“That’s not what I meant. But drinking yourself into a stupor so you didn’t even recognize the devil? That’s…”

Figuring that Sylvie would go on for a while, I stopped listening. As I crossed my legs on the bed, I noticed a blue bruise on my thigh, and I realized it must have happened when I stumbled. Fuzzy images began to flood my mind.

Even though I hadn’t realized it was him, Jett had managed to break my fall. I remembered the way the stranger had held me, his arms wrapped around my waist, his hot breath on my face as he said something I couldn’t remember. While I knew for a fact that I had barely had one and a half cocktails and the alcohol might have wreaked havoc on my body, was it enough to make me believe I was in a dream and cause trouble remembering specific details such as the events after my fall?

Possibly.

However, not likely.

And why had I kept seeing a wolf? It must have been some kind of hallucination, brought on by Jett’s intimidating flair.