Page 202 of ClickBack

“I meant what I told him, Jarrett. Every word.”

“I heard you.”

She stands there a moment, then takes my hand and leads me into the living room. We sit beside each other instead of in the places where she and Byron were.

“I wasn’t going to let him back in here talking to you like that,” I tell her.

“I didn’t ask you here to stand around pretending you don’t care.” She looks at my wrist again. “But I do want you leaving with everything you came with.”

“I’ve got all of it.”

“Good. We have plans.”

I turn my hand beneath hers and hold it. The anger is still in me. I keep looking at the door until she touches my face.

“The way he said it,” she says. “Like I wore him out.”

She looks toward the window. I hate that he got those last words in after everything she told him.

“He still knows where to put it.”

I wait. She turns back on her own.

“Do I make it that hard?”

“Sometimes.”

Her face stills.

“You want me to lie?”

“No.”

“Sometimes you decide how I’m going to feel before I get a chance. You go quiet, and I have to find out what happened. We’ve fought about it.”

“We have.”

“I’ve also had you telling me exactly what you need while I stand there wanting you to need something else.”

She looks at me then.

“I’m not always easy to be with, either, Zel.”

“You have moments.”

“Generous.”

She almost smiles.

“If I’m unhappy, I have to tell you,” I say. “What I do after that is still on me. You don’t get to make me faithful by never getting on my nerves. That’s my job.”

Her eyes fill again. She looks down at her lap, and I leave my hand between us. After a while she puts hers in it.

“I loved him,” she says. “There were years when we were happy.”

“I believe you.”

“I don’t want to lie about that now.”