Heidi Betts - Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Instead of following him inside as she probably should have, she slowly moved away. “I’ve got another one in the fridge. I’ll just go get it for you. Be right back.”

Sidestepping along the railing that ran the length of the upstairs hallway with a too-bright, too-wide smile stretching her lips, she quickly spun around the banister and danced down the stairs… not breaking her neck, thank goodness, although there were a couple times when her feet slipped and she nearly took a header.

This wasn’t part of the plan, she knew. Grace would crown her if she knew Jenna was running away from the bedroom where she’d finally managed to corner Gage.

But she needed that beer, darn it. She needed Gage to drink it, and drink it fast.

If he didn’t… Well, if she couldn’t get it into him, then she’d just drink it herself and be done with this whole stress-inducing, blood pressure-raising, faint-worthy mess.

While Jenna was off God knew where doing God knew what, Gage touched the bottle of Corona to his lips and took a long swallow, wondering what Jenna was up to. It didn’t take a detective-which he just happened to be-to figure out that she was drunk off her ass, he just didn’t know why . Or what had apparently caused her to drunk-dial him after more than a year of no direct contact or one-on-one conversations between them.

He’d bet a month’s pay she was up to something.

Or maybe she wasn’t up to anything, but was simply nervous about having him around when they normally made a point of keeping Zack, Grace, Dylan, and Ronnie around as buffers.

But he still got the feeling there was more to it than that.

The minor bathroom issue that could have been resolved with a single twist of a wrist.

The sudden need to have a lamp looked at in her bedroom, when she could have just unplugged it and told her aunt she should have an electrician check over the house’s wiring when she got back.

The cold bottle of beer shoved into his hand the minute he walked through the door, and the second one she literally ran downstairs to retrieve.

That was the strangest thing of all. Even while they’d been married, he could count on one hand the number of times Jenna had greeted him at the door with a cold beer. Or brought him a beer at all, unless he’d asked her to.

If he didn’t know better, he’d suspect she was trying to get him drunk, too.

Of course, he shrugged off that thought as soon as it popped into his brain, because even Jenna could figure out that it would take a heck of a lot more than two beers to put him under the table. He was a big guy; two six-packs might not even have done it.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been three sheets to the wind, let alone flat-out, ass-on-the-ground drunk, but if it was going to happen, it would take something stronger than Corona.

Taking another pull from the bottle in his hand, he set his toolbox down beside the bed and flipped the switch to turn on the lamp Jenna had complained about. It came on smoothly, with no flickers or sizzles that might signal an electrical problem.

He shook his head and lowered himself to the corner of the bed, facing the doorway. Continuing to sip the beer that had no chance of making a dent in his blood-alcohol level, he listened to the sounds of Jenna moving around below.

The muted shuffle of her rapid steps as she crossed the floor. The smack of the refrigerator opening and closing. The echo of her moving back the way she’d come. He heard her bouncing up the stairs, heard her stumble and mutter a mild curse (because for Jenna, they were all mild) as her shin hit a runner, and knew the second she rounded the corner even before she reappeared at the door of the bedroom.

Then again, he had a feeling he’d have been able to sense her movements anywhere. Not only in a big, empty house, but in the middle of a crowded city street… a busy bar… an ear-splitting rock concert. Something about Jenna had always gotten to him on a level that didn’t necessarily require her presence. He smelled her, heard her, felt her, even before she walked into a room.

Living without her these past eighteen months had been a fun and inventive form of pure torture. He’d brought it on himself, he knew that. And he’d wished a thousand times, or maybe more, that he could go back and handle things differently.

But even if he had, it wouldn’t really have changed anything. They’d still have been in the same boat as when she’d filed for divorce in the first place.

So as much as he might have hated it, it was probably better that he’d been forced to move into a small, two-room apartment. A place where, even though Jenna had never set foot there, he still sometimes heard her or imagined her moving around.

He wasn’t crazy. His friends might have thought he was if he’d ever admitted to them just how much he missed his wife, but he figured it was no worse than an amputee who continued to feel their missing limb and think it was still there, even when it clearly wasn’t.

And that about summed up his relationship with Jenna perfectly. She’d been a part of him, a part he’d never wanted to live without, and when she’d left, it felt like she’d ripped his heart out and refused to return it to the big, gaping hole in the center of his chest.

Yeah. That was something he’d prefer no one-especially his best friends and his ex-wife-knew. He sounded like a damn Lifetime movie-of-the-week. Sappy. Broken. Pathetic.

Much more of this and he’d have to check his nads at the door.

Eyes locked on Jenna-and hers locked on him-he downed the rest of his beer.

No sooner had he set the bottle aside on the same nightstand as the lamp he was supposed to be fixing than Jenna was right there beside him, shoving a second bottle into his hand.

“Is there something I should know about this beer?” he asked her, eyeing the cold Corona quizzically. There was something going on here, getting fishier by the minute.

“No, why?” she replied just a little too quickly and with a little too much pitch to her tone.

He remained silent for a beat before shrugging a shoulder and raising the bottle to his mouth. “Just wondering.”

His throat flexed convulsively as he swallowed, taking in a full three-quarters of the fresh beer. He didn’t have a reason for taking so long to drink, except that it bought him some time to think, to contemplate what might be going on here, since he didn’t believe for a minute that she’d called him over just to help with a few random household tasks.

“So tell me again what the problem is with the lamp,” he said, setting the second bottle of beer next to the first and beginning to rise from the bed.

A wave of dizziness washed over him and his vision went from black to fuzzy to black again.

“Whoa.” Blinking in an effort to bring the room into focus, he stretched an arm out toward the carved oak headboard and slowly lowered himself back to the mattress.

“Gage? Are you all right?”

Jenna’s voice, filled with concern, came to him as if through a wind tunnel, hollow and reverberating. He lifted his head to glance at her only to have her face go all blurry and indistinct.

“I’m fine. I just-” He continued to blink, trying to shake off whatever had suddenly taken hold of him. His eyes were dry and tired, his tongue feeling about three sizes too large for his mouth, making it hard to talk. Not that it mattered much, considering his brain seemed to be having a difficult time putting two thoughts together.

“Why don’t you lie down,” Jenna offered.

She was beside him now, one arm around his back, helping to lower him to the mattress, the other pressing against his chest to make sure he went down.