The Big Mistake Read online

  THE BIG MISTAKE

  Miami Hearts Book 3

  L E X I E R A Y

  Copyright © 2015

  Published by: Rascal Hearts

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at [email protected]

  Cover Art: Rosy England Fisher

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Maybe I’d been laughing Nick off too often. Maybe I was just that terrible at making him understand that I just wasn’t that into him. Or maybe he’d just decided he was tired of being yanked along, exiled to the friend zone for all this time.

  I didn’t mean to lead him on, and I really did value him as a friend. But he’d just asked me out — for real, for serious, for all the marbles — and I had to let him down gently. There was no way I was going to date Nick. He was more like a brother to me than anything — someone I could tell anything to, a shoulder to lean on and someone to laugh with all at once. How could I ruin that by agreeing to date him?

  He stood in front of me awkwardly, handsome to a fault but just not my cup of tea. I didn’t really go for the starving artist type, even though Nick was a talented guitarist. I was holding out for Prince Charming, for the guy who would swoop in and save me from my existence here in Miami. I was a huge romantic at heart, a believer in happily ever after and fairy tales and all of that. To be perfectly honest, what girl wasn’t?

  The only difference between me and everyone else who wanted a knight in shining armor galloping in on his white horse was that I wouldn’t settle for anything less. Settling was deadly. Settling was giving up in the face of adversity. My Prince Charming was out there, and I was almost certain it wasn’t Nick.

  “Jennet,” he said, shuffling his feet a little. I wondered if I should stand up from my partially reclined position on my couch. I felt kind of exposed, vulnerable. He’d taken me by surprise, just entering my apartment without knocking and popping the question, demanding an answer to us taking our friendship to the next level.

  Of course, I never knocked when I sashayed across the hall to his apartment, either. But I wasn’t the one demanding to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Generally, I just wanted to borrow something or hang out or gossip about our mutual friend and my former roommate, Faith.

  This was something entirely different.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Nick,” I said, staring down at my hands. It was too hard to look into his eyes. I didn’t want to hurt him, but he wasn’t backing down, wasn’t leaving me any sort of room to wiggle free and save us both a ton of embarrassment and regret.

  “Say that you’ll give the idea of you and me together romantically a try,” he urged. “Give it a chance, Jennet. We’re already friends. We already get along just fine. What’s to stop us from taking it to the next level?”

  I didn’t want to be his girlfriend. He didn’t come in here and sweep me off my feet, kissing me passionately. When I first met Nick, there was no romantic stirring inside of my chest. My heart didn’t sprout wings and fly at the sight of him. There was no chemistry there, and I expected that I’d know who my Prince Charming was the moment I laid eyes on him.

  Fireworks hadn’t gone off all those years ago when I’d signed a lease on this apartment and we’d run into each other in the hallway. He’d introduced himself, I’d said hello, and what started as a casual acquaintance between us grew into an awesome friendship.

  I wasn’t looking for anything else with him.

  “I really don’t want to harm what we already have,” I said, speaking slowly, wondering if I was saying the right thing. How could I make him see that we wouldn’t be good together? I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but this just wasn’t going to work out.

  “Then let’s agree not to let it harm our friendship,” he said. “Go on one date with me. Just one. If there aren’t any sparks, if there’s nothing there, then at least we can say we tried, right?”

  “I don’t want to risk making our friendship awkward,” I said, rubbing my forehead with my hand. It was all I could do to keep myself from tearing out my hair in frustration. “You’re my best friend, Nick. Why mess with a good thing?”

  “Because I think we could really have something special together, Jennet, if we give it a try.”

  I dragged my eyes up to meet his baby blue ones and tried to will myself to feel something for his sake, but it just wasn’t there. I didn’t want to be forced into anything I didn’t want to do, particularly in the realm of romance. It was too special to me, and I didn’t want anything that was less than perfect to ruin it.

  “I’m sorry, Nick,” I said. “I just don’t see it. And I care about you too much to try to force anything.”

  “You don’t see it because you don’t want to see it,” he said with a sudden and unexpected flash of anger. I’d never seen him angry before, and it surprised me.

  “Finding the right guy is really important to me,” I said. I didn’t want to have to explain myself, but Nick wasn’t backing down. “I’ve been through relationships that weren’t the real deal, that ended badly, and I hated that. I don’t want to do that anymore, Nick. It takes so much time and effort to get over something as simple as a crappy relationship and I just can’t do that anymore. I’m locking everything down until I know I find the one.”

  “Nothing is perfect, Jennet, and you’re naïve to think it exists,” he said. “And for the record, I don’t think us being together would classify as one of your crappy relationships. I think we could have something really special. You’re just not giving it a good enough chance. How can you expect to find the right guy if you don’t open yourself up to the possibilities? It’s sad, honestly.”

  I stood up from the couch, filled with a self-righteous anger.

  “Just because I don’t like you the way you like me doesn’t give you the right to act like this,” I said hotly. “I thought we were friends, Nick.”

  “I want to be more than that,” he said, persistent to a fault. “We’re good together, Jennet. You have to see that.”

  “Sure, as friends,” I said, emphasizing the label. “But you can’t just waltz in here and demand for me to have feelings for you that just aren’t there. I don’t think of you romantically. Our relationship isn’t like that.”

  Nick began to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He stalked to the door and stopped, turning back to me.

  “If I wasn’t a musician, if I was someone who had a ton of money and was ready to lavish it on you, you’d think about making me your Prince Charming,” he said, his voice bitter. “I think you’re shallow for holding out for that, and I think you’re going to miss out on true love.” He turned to leave.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “You can’t just say that and walk out. How dare you! You have no idea what my Prince Charming would be like!” Practically screaming those words across my apartment made me feel like an idiot. I did like to think about my Prince Charming, but it was embarrassing to talk about that dating ideal like this. My biggest prob
lem was that I didn’t know what my Prince Charming would be like. Of course, I loved to talk about the white horse and the castle and the idea that I’d be swept off my feet, falling head over heels in love the moment I laid eyes on him. Love at first sight could be a real thing. I’d read articles about it. That wasn’t so farfetched.

  “I’m sorry for wasting your time, Jennet,” Nick said simply, not making eye contact with me, and left.

  I was so angry — furious — with nasty retorts bubbling up and no one to throw them at. I flung myself down on the couch and screamed into one of the pillows. What had just happened? Nick, my best friend, my neighbor from across the hall, had just asked me to date him, and we’d gotten into a huge fight after I refused.

  I’d been afraid of ruining our friendship over just one date. Had I ruined our friendship by refusing that date?

  Chapter 2

  All of this would’ve been easier if Faith still lived here. I sighed as I listened to Nick slam the front door of his apartment, stomping off to be somewhere. It was like this every day. I could hear him enter and leave his apartment — just as I was sure he could hear me do the same. I knew he was going somewhere, but I didn’t know where. We both seemed to be avoiding each other, and maybe it was for the best. If he couldn’t handle us not dating, then maybe we didn’t need to be friends in the first place.

  Even as I thought that, guilt surged through me. Nick and I had been really close. Maybe he just needed time to get over having his feelings hurt, being rejected. He really hadn’t dated much in the time that I’d known him, but he was good-looking and probably not used to girls refusing him.

  Some time apart would be good for our friendship, probably — if there was anything left to salvage in it — but I hated the feeling of hearing him leave every day.

  As soon as the echoes down the hall faded away from him slamming the door and stomping off, silence reigned. I hated it. I hated the quiet, hated feeling this kind of loneliness. I’d been alone more often than I hadn’t, but lonely and alone were two different things.

  This fight with Nick never would’ve happened if Faith still lived here. My old roommate would’ve helped diffuse the situation, or something. More than likely, Nick never would’ve broached the subject with Faith here.

  At the very least, if Faith had been here and everything had still gone down the way it had, she’d have some words of wisdom or advice for me to keep me from feeling so freaking crappy.

  I swiped the screen on my phone to turn it on before heaving myself back down on the couch. No messages. No calls. No e-mails. It was almost as if I were living in some kind of exile, but that didn’t make sense. I had friends. No one was mad at me — except Nick, of course. I had a ludicrous thought that maybe he’d somehow called everyone in my contacts to let them know what a terrible human being I was, but that was impossible, of course.

  He and I were apparently the only ones who knew that truth.

  I had to reach out to someone. I selected Faith’s smiling face and mulled calling her before talking myself out of it. She worked at St. Anthony’s now, in administration, and it was still school hours. They had pretty strict policies on cell phone use while on the grounds, and I didn’t want her to think something was seriously wrong and risk the consequences of answering my call.

  I decided that the middle ground would be a text. That way, if Faith happened to see it, she could at least know what was going on without being forced to dole out feedback immediately.

  Nick asked me out, I typed, skipping any sort of preamble. I said no, of course, and now he’s pissed.

  I didn’t expect an answer right away, but that didn’t stop me from wishing for one. I flipped the television on just for some noise, and wondered what a girl should do to get a new roommate around here.

  It had been so much fun to have Faith and Luke around. They were never really that loud, but they helped a lot in banishing the feeling of being lonely. Luke was only talkative once you got to know him, and taking him to and from school every day was the best way. He came out of his shell whenever he was around me, and it was like Faith was letting me borrow her kid brother all the time, just to have someone to entertain me.

  But now that both she and Adam were at the same campus as Luke, there was really no need for me to pick him up. I always volunteered for babysitting duties to allow Faith and Adam some alone time and date nights, but the kid was getting too old — or he was hanging out at his friends’ houses. I was happy to see Luke become more social, but there was still a sadness that came with it. He didn’t need me anymore, didn’t see a need to confide in me or tell me anything. It was good that he was becoming more independent. Faith had told me that there was a time when he didn’t speak at all.

  Maybe I was just being selfish, but I felt like I was being cut out from their lives, now. I was happy for them both, happy that they were both thriving here — living with Adam in a real house.

  But I could at least feel a little sorry for myself, couldn’t I? I’d lost two awesome roommates in the process.

  I could hear Nick playing the guitar across the hallway, and realized he’d come back and I hadn’t heard him. I was too deep in my own despair. Maybe he’d snuck back in, unwilling to give me any clue as to his movements. Scowling, I turned the volume up on the TV, not caring that it was some trashy daytime talk show. That actor was cheating on that actress, the niece was actually the daughter, and I was all alone, left out of everything.

  I felt bad — and guilty, angry, and confused — but I knew it took two to tango. Nick shouldn’t have pressured me so much. If anything, that told me that he wasn’t my Prince Charming. The man I wanted to be with would respect my feelings and boundaries and would never try to convince me of something I didn’t believe in. There. That was something solid for my Prince Charming file.

  I went to my bedroom and retrieved a small notebook from my bedside table. Maybe it was a little childish, but I’d been writing down little factoids about Prince Charming in it for years. Several of the observations and wishes directly stemmed from unfortunate incidents with former boyfriends, but a girl had to learn somehow. I’d done the dating scene and hated what it had to offer.

  I penned, supportive of my ideas and doesn’t try to force his down my throat at the first available blank page and flipped back through my previous thoughts. I’d had this thing for a long time, and it had come a long way with me.

  The very first quality my Prince Charming would have? Prince Charming would never cheat on me. That had been my first really bad experience with a boyfriend, the situation that had served as a catalyst for the rest of my life. I’d left an entire state because of his betrayal, unable to face our shared group of friends. They’d all known he was cheating on me, and I simply couldn’t do it anymore.

  Miami was the place I’d lived in the longest. I wished I had more patience at being alone. Then perhaps I could put down some roots, really develop the relationships I could have with people, push myself to make new and deep connections.

  But the moment something bad happened, or the moment somebody pissed me off enough, or, and I just wanted to be honest with myself here, the moment I just got bored, I would pack up and move.

  It wasn’t a quality I was proud of. It was just the way I was. I’d never stayed anywhere longer than a year or two, and I’d been in Miami for five long years. Wasn’t it time I left it for something different? Wasn’t this the pattern I needed to adhere to? Wasn’t this who I was?

  I flipped a few more pages forward in my notebook and read another important quality my Prince Charming would have: Prince Charming would never raise his hand in anger against me.

  I sighed. That had been a testament to my terrible relationship. After a heated argument with my then-boyfriend, he apparently couldn’t handle me being right — or thinking I was right. It was so long ago, and so stupid, that I couldn’t remember what the fight had been about in the first place. But when he’d shoved me away from him, and I’d tak
en a tumble over an end table, it had been my sign to get the hell out. I’d stopped really dating after that — too hurt by the idea that someone I loved had turned on me as quickly as that. He’d apologized, sure, but everyone knew that once the possibility of violence was there, it would never truly go away. I could see myself refusing to disagree with him, shrinking inside of myself whenever he got angry, tumbling over a table and getting a nasty knock on the head.

  I didn’t want to live like that, so I left. I went clear across the country that time, ending up here in Miami.

  Prince Charming wasn’t just a fairy tale to me. It was who I wanted the man I would someday end up with to be. There was nothing in these pages that said he had to ride a white horse or live in a castle or have lots of money to throw at me. My requests were so simple, I thought — to cherish me, to respect me, to make me pancakes as often as I made him pancakes.

  To be faithful.

  To refrain from violence against me.

  Maybe it was sadder that I couldn’t seem to find any man who could be all of those things for me.

  A lot of people thought it was childish that I was waiting for Prince Charming — Faith included. She had been one of Nick’s biggest advocates while she still lived here, thinking that I was being immature and prissy for not giving him a chance.

  I’d given all kinds of guys chances and been sorely disappointed. Faith had never known the extent of my dating drama — had never even guessed at it. She probably would’ve been more understanding about the whole Prince Charming thing if she’d have known, but the nightmares of my dating past weren’t things I just skipped around sharing with everyone.

  My phone buzzed, and I lunged at the coffee table to retrieve it.

  You had to have known that was coming, Faith had sent, referencing Nick asking me out.

  Knowing it was coming was one thing, I fired back. I just wish he wasn’t so pissed I didn’t agree to it.