Marilyn Brant - According to Jane

I took another step back but, in a flash, I was pulled nose-to-nose with Sam.

“Don’t. You. Dare. Leave,” he said in a low, very dangerous voice, his clenched fist full of my pink light-knit shirt. “If we’re having a public confession session, you’re damn well going to be a part of it, Ellie Barnett.”

I swallowed and looked into his enraged face. He hadn’t changed much, really, in the years since I’d last seen him this close up. His skin was a little tauter now, perhaps. His bone structure a bit more defined. His hair a fraction shorter. His muscles a tad firmer. His eyes were the same cool blue, though, with maybe a hint more malice.

Jane cried out, Make him release you. Insufferable man!

“Let go of my shirt, Sam,” I managed to say in what I hoped was a composed and level voice. Inside, though, every part of me quivered, and I couldn’t figure out the reason. Fear? Shame? Anger? Jane’s unaltered disdain? All of the above or something else entirely?

Sam released me, but his eyes didn’t let me go. They trained on me with a wrath I hadn’t been the recipient of since, well, since high school.

Camryn’s response to this little scene bespoke a different reaction altogether. She no longer looked infuriated, just deflated. Disappointed. Sad and kind of hurt. “You don’t love me, Sam. And you’re not going to, are you?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “I’ll take a cab home.”

“Aw, Camryn, c’mon.” Sam tried to touch her again and, again, she pulled away.

“No,” she said.

“Can’t we at least talk? Can I call you tonight? Tomorrow?”

She gave a short, humorless laugh. “We’ll see, Sam.” She turned and marched out of the bar.

Sam stared after her in stunned silence.

I should’ve shut up, but I was slightly toasted. So, I said, “Well? Get going. Aren’t you gonna run after her? Aren’t you gonna tell her you love her and that you really do want to go with her to her brother’s stupid wedding?”

My hands shook. To stop them, I squeezed my fists so hard my fingernails dug deep into my palms. I looked at them and saw those familiar crescent-shaped welts. Visible signs of a habit I’d never broken.

“I don’t love her.”

“What?” I glanced up from my hands to study Sam’s face, now shuttered against all emotion.

“I’m not going to run after her because I don’t love her. But” — he gave me a frozen glare — “I really did like her. She’s bright, funny, a little high-maintenance, maybe, but a good person underneath the cool exterior. And you had no business at all doing what you did. That was heartless, Ellie.”

My breath caught in my esophagus. “ I’m heartless? Me? Screw you, Sam — ”

He raised a brow. “So, your relationship with that Dominic dude is real wonderful, eh?” he said, implying with a tilt of his head that he didn’t think so. “You two have got it all together? You’re happy ?”

“It — it’s pretty good,” I lied.

His eyes traveled down my body and then back up again. “How good?”

Intolerable rudeness , Jane muttered, along with a few other choice phrases.

I mentally turned down the volume on her complaints and swallowed. “Don’t be an ass,” I said to Sam.

“Don’t sidestep the question,” Sam shot back.

“It’s better than it was with you,” I retorted before I lost my nerve. No doubt I’d burn in hell for all the lies I’d been telling, but I couldn’t let Sam know the truth. He already had too much dirt on the real me.

Sam pressed his lips together until they were nearly colorless. He then focused the intensity of his gaze on Dominic, whom we spotted chugging the last of his beer and bumming a smoke off of Mick.

“Hey, Dominic!” Mick called out, too loudly because he was, as usual, thoroughly smashed. “Maybe you can score some more cash off your girlfriend and get us another coupla beers.” He blindly looked around. “Where is Miss Moneybags anyway? She didn’t take off on you again, did she?”

I sucked in some air and hoped, no, prayed that Dominic would take offense at Mick’s words. That he’d say, even if only for appearances’ sake, that he appreciated lots of qualities in me, not just my willingness to share my paycheck.

But Dominic said, also too loudly, “By the bar, I think. I’ll go ask her in a sec.”

As their voices floated back to Sam and me, I closed my eyes. I had to block out Sam’s steady gaze. I didn’t want to see that look of his, be it retribution or pity.

“So, that’s how it is,” Sam whispered, not unkindly, just very matter-of-fact.

My injured pride made me want to lash out at someone. At Sam. At Dominic. At anyone who crossed my path. Being that Sam was my only choice at present, I started with him.

“You know,” I said in the iciest tone I could produce, “it’s amazingly hypocritical of you, doing the medicine thing. I mean, I always thought doctors had to take an oath — ‘First, do no harm,’ or something like that.” I shook my head. “That’s gonna be a tough one for you, considering your tremendous skill in hurting people.”

I glanced at him once to see if I’d hit my target. I had. His face colored red and his jaw turned even more rigid. At first I thought he merely looked angry, but then I looked again. The expression in his blue eyes exposed as much worry as it did offense. I guessed I’d found a way to blister one of his insecurities while meting out my revenge.

Unfortunately, it didn’t make me feel any better.

“When did you turn into this, this…person, Ellie?” he asked softly. “You’re not who I remember. God, this can’t all be because of me or what happened between us. Because I hurt you once, can it?”

I forced myself to stand up straighter. “Hey, you were the one who called what happened between us a ‘stupid thing’ from the past. What makes you think it’d affect me or that I’d care about it now?”

“Jesus, Ellie.” His expression turned to one of pure pain. “I meant my idiotic reaction in school after what happened. That was the stupid thing you wouldn’t forget…”

Sam’s words still dangled in the air between us as Dominic jogged up ten seconds later. “Hey, darlin’,” he said. “Seeing as how you’re having a deep discussion of your own right now, maybe we could hang out here a little longer?”

My mind, reeling from Sam’s revelation and the consequent reinterpretation of those end-of-high-school memories, couldn’t shift gears so quickly. I knew Dominic wanted something, as usual, but I was in no mood to offer a light, agreeable response. I just stared at him.

Dominic glanced between Sam and me, but received only silence back from us. “Hmm. Are you getting hungry?” He studied his watch. “We’ve kinda missed our dinner reservation, but I’ll order us up some nachos at the bar. Maybe a few beers, too.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly. After all these weeks he still didn’t remember that I detested beer.

“But, uh — ”

“Yeah?” I wanted to hear him ask for it this time. I wasn’t just going to hand him another twenty.

Dominic turned to Sam. “Could you excuse us a minute? I need to talk to Ellie privately.”

Sam raised both eyebrows and folded his arms across his broad chest. He didn’t budge from his spot.

I silently blessed him for this, and even Jane, to my shock, murmured, Correctly done, Mr. Blaine. For once .

Dominic squinted at him and said, “Okaaaay” under his breath. Then he tugged on my arm. “Can we go over there for a sec — ”

“I don’t think so,” I told him.

Dominic looked confused. “What? You don’t think you can talk to me alone for a minute?”