And the wrong one.
Because he could see that it got to the crux of the matter pretty quickly.
She hesitated.
“I...”
The following little pause was like a spear in the gut. Something about Townes was a secret she’d been keeping.
Never fall for an enigmatic woman, his friends had warned.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I would have told you. Probably. Eventually.”
“So he’s not your cousin or a dear friend of the family, and he’s not your invisible brother Jesse?”
She drew in a breath. Like she was siphoning up courage. Sighed it out. “No. He is exactly who he looks like. He is Jasper Townes.” She said this reluctantly, as though she were up on the witness stand testifying against herself with painful but necessary words.
“And you do have a previous acquaintance similar in nature to the one he so charmingly described.”
She was within rights to say,I don’t owe you any information at all.
And he didn’t have the right to ask that question while they were standing just a few feet away from the guy. The knowledge that he had no actual defined rights did nothing to assuage the sensation that his guts were in a vise.
But after another little hesitation: “Yes.”
Oh, fuck me, Gabe thought. Why had he even asked that question? No part of her answer made him feel better. It didn’t illuminate much of anything. And asking made him feel like even more of a jerk.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, reasonably. “I get it, Eden. Who wouldn’t cancel a date for a chance to sit across from the guy who dressed up as a warlock in his last video?”
She stared at him, jaw set.
He stared back at her. There was no way she saw anything yielding in his face.
Her cheekbones had gone dark red.
“Youdon’tget it. It isn’t what you think it is, and my word on that matter should be enough for you.”
It really should be.
Shouldn’t it?
Were theythereyet—relationship wise?
Were they even in a “relationship”?
Maybe they have been there from the very beginning? Because wasn’t that the premise of their whole relationship? Radical honesty? Cutting to the chase?
But he’d heard it—the faintest bit of doubt in her voice. As if she suspected that the blind acceptance she was asking of him wasn’tentirelyreasonable, but she was throwing a Hail Mary. Hoping he’d be noble and just let her slide.
He honestly didn’t know what to say.
All he knew was that he wasn’t feeling noble, or selfless, or magnanimous.
Finally he just turned around and examined the dusty jukebox. He fished through his pocket, dropped a quarter in the slot, and punched in a song.
Then he fished out another quarter and punched in another song.
In the reflection of the glass he saw that Eden was standing motionless behind him. He couldn’t see her expression.