Page 13 of Diesel’s Second Chance

"Let me finish." His voice cracks slightly. "Please. Because if I don't say this now, I'm never going to."

I nod, throat too tight for words.

"When Tommy died, I thought maybe—" He stops, shakes his head. "That sounds terrible. I thought maybe after enough time passed, after you'd grieved, maybe there'd be a chance. Maybe I could tell you, and it wouldn't be a betrayal, and we could..."

He trails off, but I know what he can't say. *We could be something.*

"But then I realized I couldn't," Jackson continues. "Because telling you would make it seem like I'd been waiting for him to die. Like I'd wanted it somehow. And I didn't, June. I swear I didn't. Tommy was my best friend and losing him destroyed me. But losing him while being in love with his wife? That's a special kind of hell."

Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and fast. I can taste salt on my lips.

"So yeah," Jackson says, voice barely above a whisper. "I wish things were different. I wish I'd met you first. I wish Tommy were still alive and you were happy and I'd gotten over this twenty years ago like a normal person. I wish a lot of things. But wishing doesn't change reality."

The silence after his confession is deafening. Just the rain hammering the windows and my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

"Say something," Jackson finally says. "Please."

I open my mouth. Close it. Try again.

"Twenty years?" The words come out broken.

"Give or take."

"The whole time?"

"The whole time."

I press my hands to my face, trying to process. Jackson Reed, steady, reliable, always-there Jackson, has been in love with me since before I married Tommy. Has carried it through my wedding, through fourteen years of marriage, through Tommy's death, through seven years of monthly dinners where we both pretended everything was fine.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" I ask.

"Because you weren't mine to tell," he says simply. "You were Tommy's. And after he died, you were grieving. And then enough time passed that saying something felt like I'd been lying all along, which I guess I had been, but…" He stops, exhales roughly. "There was never a right time. And I convinced myself there never would be."

"So why tell me now?"

Jackson's quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks his voice is rough with something that sounds like fear.

"Because there's a war happening and men are dying and I don't know if I'm going to survive it. Because Demon's out there somewhere planning revenge and the club's on high alert and every time I leave the garage I wonder if I'm coming back." He takes a shaky breath. "And I realized I'd rather die with you knowing the truth than live another twenty years with you not knowing. Even if it ruins everything. Even if you hate me for it."

"I could never hate you," I say immediately.

"You should." There's something bitter in his voice. "I lied to you. To Tommy. For years."

"You didn't lie. You just didn't tell us."

"That's the same thing."

"No, it's not." I move closer, close enough that I can see the pain etched into every line of his face. "Lying is active. You were just... surviving. Trying to protect people you loved."

"That doesn't make it right."

"Maybe not. But it doesn't make you a bad person either."

Jackson laughs, sharp and hollow. "You're being too kind."

"I'm being honest." My hands are shaking. I clasp them together to stop the trembling. "You want to know something?"

His eyes meet mine, guarded. "What?"