Keep Me If You Can (If You Can #3)

17. …Mean

Chapter seventeen

…Mean

“W hat are you doing home?” Sydney asked, trying not to sound panicked. “I thought you were… away.”

“What are you doing in my apartment?” I replied, my voice muffled by Anne-Marie’s shoulder, since she’d lurched forward and thrown her arms around me even though I was pinching my robe closed in the front.

“It is my fault, chérie ,” Anne-Marie said as she let go of me. “I came to town on a whim. I needed to see my best friends and I know I should have called but I was not thinking entirely. I did not even think you would not be home until I tried buzzing your apartment a few times before calling dear Sydney.”

“She said she needed the bathroom,” Sydney said, her chin trembling. “Reid and Hope are hogging the shower, so I thought she could use yours.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I was going to call.” She glanced towards the hallway. “I… I’m so sorry.”

Anne-Marie let go of me, her eyebrows pinched together. “It is that big a deal that we came to your apartment, chérie ?”

“No, I… I was, uh…”

She gasped, bringing a hand up to her mouth as her eyes widened again.

“Ohmigod,” she said. “Who?”

“What?”

“You said you were in the middle of fucking.” She giggled. “ Who is he? Or she? Or… they?”

“No… no one,” I said. “I was in the middle of fucking… sleeping.”

“Fucking sleeping with who?” she asked lightly.

“Why—” I started, then realized this might be the best possible option and heaved a semi-fake sigh. “Fine. I was sleeping with someone.”

She squealed and did a little dance where she stood, which felt highly unnecessary.

“So can you maybe just, uh, go… for a bit?” I said.

“Oh, absolutely not.” Anne-Marie’s smile grew into a sly grin. “We’ll wait while you finish up.”

“I’d rather not,” Sydney said.

Anne-Marie waved her off. “You do not need to be embarrassed, chérie . We will make some coffee while you do what you need to do, and then you can come out here and introduce us to them so we can ensure they are good enough for our best friend.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said. “We haven’t, uh… we’re not really…”

“Together? Pah.” Anne-Marie waved her hand again. “I still want to see what fine person you are hooking up with. Sydney and I do not mind waiting.”

I glanced at Sydney, my heart pounding in the base of my throat.

“I do, actually,” Sydney said. “If Nellie doesn’t want to introduce us, she doesn’t have to.”

Anne-Marie huffed and turned to put her purse on my kitchen counter. “Fine. You can go.”

“Annie—” I started.

“Oh!” she said brightly. “But you should steal one of Nellie’s donuts before you leave. Where did you get Trou de Beigne? I thought you said they did not sell these in Ottawa.”

I watched as she opened the white bakery box, my stomach churning. “I, uh… got them from a friend.”

Anne-Marie picked up a coconut lime donut. “Your friend in your bedroom? They are from Montreal?”

Shit.

Shit .

“No,” I said.

Anne-Marie studied me for a moment, one eyebrow higher than the other. She looked back at the bakery box, then slowly turned her head to survey the rest of my kitchen.

Which would’ve been fine.

Except the way my apartment was laid out, the kitchen, entryway, and living room were all in one open area.

And JP had left his suitcase near the door.

“Hmm,” she said. “This looks familiar.”

“It’s not,” I said. “It can’t be. It’s mine and I just got it, so you’ve never seen it before.”

“Is that so?” Her lips began to turn up, creases appearing in the corners of her sparkling eyes. “So if I opened it, it would not be filled with men’s clothing?”

“Nope,” I said, half-ready to jump forward and tackle her if she tried.

But she didn’t. Instead, she motioned at a pair of shoes sitting next to my door.

“These are much too large to be yours,” she said. “So they must be your friend’s?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Mmm,” she said. “Because they also look very familiar, chérie .”

“I thought you had to pee,” Sydney said loudly. “Shouldn’t you go to the bathroom?”

Anne-Marie ignored her. “I could swear my brothers both have shoes like these ones.”

Fuck.

“They’re shoes,” I said. “Lots of people have similar shoes.”

“Yes, but these are unique.” She folded her arms across her chest. “My mother purchased two pairs like these for Jean-Paul and Marc-Andre last year for Christmas. They are custom-made by LB Bespoke. One of the preferred vendors for my company. You know, where I am a personal stylist?”

Fuck .

“They’re probably knock-offs,” I said.

Anne-Marie’s smirk grew. “I see. So the donuts from Trou de Beigne are from your friend, but that friend is not from Montreal, where Trou de Beigne is located and where my brother Jean-Paul happens to live. And the shoes are knock-offs that just so happen to look like the custom pair my mother had made for my brother Jean-Paul. And the luggage here is yours, even though it looks much like my brother Jean-Paul’s luggage, right down to the monogrammed luggage tag with the initials JPM on it.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck fuck fuck.

“This has nothing to do with JP,” I said. “The donuts are from a few days ago and the shoes are clearly cheap knock offs and the tag is, uh, upside down. It says ‘wdr.’ Which is the brand. Wandering… Done… Right.”

“I have never heard of this brand,” Anne-Marie said. “Is it new?”

“You’re trying to find patterns where there aren’t any. That’s called apophenia, actually”—inspiration struck and perked up—“and I learned it from Ben. This guy I was sleeping with who was a psychology professor.”

“Mmm,” she said, unconvinced.

“ My psychology professor,” I continued. “Which is why I didn’t tell you. And that’s way more interesting than whatever you think is going on here.”

“Sure, chérie .” She bit her lip, excited energy trembling off of her. “And this Ben, is he in your bedroom right now?”

“Well, no, but—”

“And so if I were to go over to your bedroom right now, I would see…?”

“Nothing.”

“Well then”—without warning, she pushed past me and raced down the hallway—“there’s no reason for me to not look, is there?”

“Fuck,” Sydney said.

“Anne-Marie, don’t ,” I said, starting after her. “Please.”

But before I’d even caught up to her, Anne-Marie had her hand on my doorknob and threw the door open.

And there, in the room, was nothing.

The room was empty.

JP was gone.

Where, I couldn’t say. Maybe the closet. Maybe dangling naked out the window, passersby on the street catching the rare phenomenon of a full moon in the middle of a sunny morning. Maybe underneath the bed, even though my bed frame was from IKEA and had convenient under bed storage drawers where I kept my spare linens and also a few stuffed animals I was too embarrassed to leave out.

Or maybe I was delusional.

Once I’d accepted that I was, indeed, delusional, it became clear that JP hadn’t even bothered trying to squeeze himself in the three inches of space between my headboard and the wall and was sitting exactly where I’d left him.

“Hey, sis,” I heard JP say as I reached the bedroom far, far, far too late to stop Anne-Marie from opening the door.

“I knew it!” she shrieked, jumping up and clapping her hands together. “Oh, Nellie Belanger, you sly girl. I knew you’d eventually—”

“Nellie, I’m so sorry,” Sydney said from behind me. “I had no idea. I thought you were staying in—”

I looked into my bedroom. JP was sitting on the edge of my bed, the sheets around his waist. His hair was tousled almost artfully and there was a bemused expression on his face as Anne-Marie blabbered on.

“How long has it actually been?” Anne-Marie was rambling. “Since the Diamond Gala? Or was something going on before that? I suspected but you are so stubborn sometimes and—”

“—please don’t hate me,” Sydney said.

JP caught my eye and pressed his lips together, but he wasn’t quite able to stop his shoulders from shaking with laughter.

At least one of us found it funny, I guess.

“—cannot wait to tell everyone! My mother is going to be thrilled that someone finally managed to get you to—except you ,” Anne-Marie said, her pitch lowering into a half-growl. “How could you ruin this for me, Jean-Paul? Tu es un gros plein de merde. ”

Anne-Marie had insulted JP many times. Many, many times. They were siblings, after all. But I couldn’t say I’d ever heard her say something in such a cutting, hateful tone.

“What?” JP said, taken aback.

She waved a hand. “I will not let it stop me being happy for you. But so you are aware, I am absolutely disgusted by you right now. You and Dad.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but clearly, that meant something to JP. Patches of pink appeared on his cheeks.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“Oh, of course not,” Anne-Marie said sarcastically. “This has nothing to do with you telling Dad you want to move out of corporate law. There must be some other explanation for why you’re defending Clinton Thibault on his horrible charges.”

The idea of time standing still was strange to me. I could understand the concept of shock. I could understand how moments, big moments, could affect people. The concept of time pausing at those moments didn’t make sense to me. A second is a second, no matter what is happening in that second, and a minute is a minute.

However, the moment those words left Anne-Marie’s mouth, time slowed the same way things feel slower underwater. Her statement hung between us like water-logged fabric, too heavy to float but too light to fall straight to the bottom. Anne-Marie’s lips were still moving, but the sounds didn’t make it to my ears until what she’d said finally sank in.

JP was Clinton’s lawyer.

Clinton, the man who’d started a drunken car chase because some girl decided she wasn’t interested in him.

Clinton, who women warned each other about. Who no one wanted to be caught alone with. And whose parents paid off the ones who did get caught with him.

JP was defending him.

“And what would that explanation be, dear brother?” Anne-Marie was saying.

JP said nothing.

“He could have killed someone, Jean-Paul!” Anne-Marie said.

“I am very aware of that,” JP said.

“Are you? Because if you were—”

“And you are very aware of the fact that I can’t say—”

“You are still my brother and I still love you, but I have never been so ashamed,” she said. “That is literally why I came here. Dad told me and I couldn’t—I needed my friends. Remy is away this weekend and I needed a hug, so I drove myself here. And you know I hate driving, so you must know how upsetting this is if I drove all this way just for a hug. So if you want Nellie to stay with you, you had better—”

“I’m not with him.”

JP and Anne-Marie both stopped talking and looked at me.

I think.

I wasn’t looking at either of them.

“ Chérie —” Anne-Marie started.

“Get out,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“You heard her,” JP said.

“Both of you. All of you.” I stepped back in the hallway and pointed at the door, still not looking at either of them or at Sydney. “Get out.”

“But—”

“Out.”

“ Chérie —”

“Out!” My voice cracked. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

Anne-Marie turned, holding her hands up. “First let’s talk about—”

“About what?” I snapped. “About you barging into my apartment and going into my room even though I told you not to? About you screeching about what you think is happening? You’re calling him a pile of shit like you aren’t pushy and overbearing and obnoxious. I said no , Anne-Marie. This wasn’t fucking okay.”

“Nellie,” she said, her voice regretful. “I was just—”

“Mean,” I interrupted. “You were just fucking mean . You think this is some big joke like it doesn’t matter that it bothers me. You didn’t respect me saying no. Just like the fucker you’re pissed your brother is defending.”

Hurt flashed across her face, which was fair, because what I’d said was also pretty mean. I would’ve lost my mind if someone compared me to Clinton. He was obviously far worse than Anne-Marie was, and I should’ve probably had some level of grace for my best friend.

But right then, she didn’t feel like my best friend, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to care.

“We’re not together. We’ll never be together. We’re not even friends, Anne-Marie. I’ve told you a hundred million times I don’t like your brother and that hasn’t changed.”

That was also mean. Mean enough that Sydney glanced at me in surprise.

“Nellie,” she said softly.

“It’s okay,” JP said, his voice dry. “She’s right. I’m pretty awful.”

“Especially now,” I said. “So get out.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw JP shrug and start to get out of bed.

“Ohmigod, you’re naked,” Anne-Marie muttered, her face going red as she turned away.

“No, really?” JP replied. “I don’t know how you usually do it, but most people take off their clothes. So unless you want the whole view, maybe you should listen to Nellie.”

I was too angry to be grateful for him taking my side, so instead, I turned on my heel and walked three steps to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me without another word. My hands were shaking as I flipped the toilet lid down and sat on it, waiting for the three of them to…

To just go .

Anne-Marie finally listened to me. I assumed Sydney did, too, since it was after the muffled sound of my apartment door closing that I heard JP moving around my bedroom. I picked at my thumbnail until the skin was raw and painful and JP was knocking on the bathroom door.

“I told you to leave,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “But—”

“No buts. Get out.”

“No.”

I looked at the closed door, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

“I said no. Because—”

“Because what? You’re the kind of guy who corners people now? Has defending an asshole like Clinton rubbed off on you already?”

“You’d think, since even though I’m not into this whole miscommunication thing where I have a perfectly good explanation that you refuse to listen to, no one is letting me finish a fucking sentence,” he said. “But mainly because my stuff is in there.”

I glanced at the counter, where a small toiletry bag was sitting next to the hand towel. “Your toothbrush is that important to you?”

“I, at the very minimum, need my contacts so I can drive without crashing.”

Fuck. I’d forgotten he wore contacts. Gritting my teeth together, I stood and grabbed the bag, then cracked open the bathroom door enough to hand it to him.

“And I’m no longer working at my dad’s firm,” he said, taking his bag out of my hand. “Anyway. Bye, Nell.”

My mouth dropped open and I opened the door the rest of the way. JP’s back was to me, since he’d already started down the hallway. “You what?”

“I’m quitting,” he said without looking at me, turning the corner as I followed him. “I had a job interview yesterday.”

“In Mont Tremblant?”

JP walked into the kitchen, stopping at the sink and opening his toiletry bag, taking a contact case out. “I didn’t technically sign anything, but they said they’d send the offer on Monday.”

“I…”

He started washing his hands. “You what?”

I was lost for words. “Congratulations.”

His mouth twitched as he turned the tap off and opened the small case with his contacts in it. “Thanks.”

I looked down at my feet. Mainly because he started fishing his contacts out and I didn’t want to watch him touch his eye, but also so he couldn’t see my face burning. “I should have let you explain.”

“Yeah, you should’ve.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? Or say something when Anne-Marie…?”

I trailed off. He paused so he could pop his contacts in before taking a breath and letting it out. “I couldn’t. It hasn’t been announced that Clinton’s defense is Dad’s firm. And considering Anne-Marie blurted that little fact out like it was common knowledge, I now can’t risk her knowing until I’ve officially accepted the other offer.”

“Because your dad might find out?”

“And because I wouldn’t want a new employer to find out I’m leaving because of a case.” He washed his hands again, then put his contact case back in the toiletry bag. “That could fuck me over. Which is also why I needed you this weekend. I told the people I was interviewing with that ‘my girlfriend’ and I were looking to move, which backfired a bit when they invited me and said girlfriend to the retreat this weekend while I did the final interview.”

I didn’t say anything as he walked over to his suitcase and put his toiletry bag in it, even though I still had questions. Like how he’d expected me to cover for him if that little bit of information had come up during the retreat.

And where he was moving to, since it would still have to be in Quebec because I knew from my Forensic Science and Law class that moving from province to province as a lawyer took more than a job interview.

And if this was it as far as things went with us. Because I hadn’t totally meant it when I said I didn’t like him, but that Anne-Marie’s reaction was exactly the reason why we shouldn’t have been doing this in the first place.

I mean, one of the first things she’d said was that she couldn’t wait to tell everyone.

Which meant there was a chance my dad would find out about this.

And that…

He couldn’t.

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t tell anyone,” JP said, like he could read my mind.

“Thank you,” I said.

He reached down to grab his shoes, which were very clearly not knock-offs in any way, and I…

I didn’t want him to.

“You don’t have to leave,” I said.

He hesitated just enough that the pause was noticeable. “I appreciate that. But I should still go.”

My chest ached and a taste that felt as real as it was imagined filled my mouth. I knew what that hallucinated taste was, and I knew what I needed to say to get rid of it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, glancing down because even though I knew I needed to say it, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

“Don’t be.” He finished putting his shoes on, then straightened up. “Honestly, I would’ve thought the same thing. But if it’ll make you feel better, apology accepted.”

It did. I hated that it did, but it very, very much did.

“Okay,” I said. ”So we’re still—”

And then I stopped, heat flushing my face as my own words echoed back at me.

That I didn’t like him.

That there would never be anything between us.

That we weren’t even friends.

“We’re still what?” JP asked.

I swallowed hard. “We’re… good?”

There was another moment of hesitation, though I wasn’t sure which of us was hesitating. But a heartbeat passed, then another, and then JP’s mouth twitched into a lopsided smile.

“Yeah, babe,” he said. “We’re good.”

Before I could say anything, he brought a hand to my cheek, dipped his head, and kissed me.

“Don’t call you babe,” he murmured against my lips. “I know.”

Then he pulled back, grabbed his suitcase, and left.

And not that I was an expert on kisses or anything, but something about that one felt like goodbye.