Knowing You (The Jade Series #2)
Read Knowing You (The Jade Series #2) Online
Authors: Allie Everhart
Tags: #New Adult Romance, #College romance, #Contemporary romance
Knowing You
By Allie Everhart
Knowing You
By Allie Everhart
Copyright © 2013 Allie Everhart
All rights reserved.
Published by Waltham Publishing, LLC
Cover Design by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, things, and events are fictitious, and any similarities to real persons (live or dead), things, or events are coincidental and not intended by the author.
The author holds exclusive rights to this work and unauthorized duplication is prohibited. No part of this book is to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.
1
“Jade? Are you in there?” I jump up from my bed when I hear her voice.
“Yes. Just a second.” I quickly check my face in the mirror to make sure I’ve wiped away any remaining tears.
I open the door to find Harper standing there. She usually looks like a model with her long blond hair, bright blue eyes, perfect skin, and the latest clothes. But today, she’s hunched over wearing sweats with swiggly lines of mascara running down her face. Her hair’s in a messy ponytail and her eyes are red and puffy.
“Harper, what’s wrong?” I lead her into my room.
“Cole dumped me last night.” She collapses on my bed, then curls up into a ball, shoving my pillow under her head.
“What happened?” I sit on the bed next to her.
“Last night at the Halloween party he said he needed a change. So I asked him what that meant and he wouldn’t say anything. Then later, I found him in one of the rooms doing it with some girl in a French maid costume. I guess that was the change he was looking for.” She sniffles, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her bright pink sweatshirt. I grab a box of tissues from my desk and offer them to her.
“I thought we had something, Jade. Cole and I were the perfect couple. We liked the same things. We could talk about stuff. We had great sex.” She grabs a wad of tissues.
“You had sex with him?”
“Of course I had sex with him. Have you seen him? Who
wouldn’t
have sex with him?” She pauses a moment to blow her nose. “I guess that’s why he left. He just used me, then moved on to the next girl.”
“When did you two start having sex?”
“Since I’ve been staying over there. Like a week ago, I guess.”
Harper and I are friends, but not super close friends. I’m not someone who likes super close. I’m more of a stay-on-the-sidelines type of friend; just someone to do stuff with when you’re bored.
In the few months we’ve known each other, the sideline friend arrangement has worked well, at least for me. Harper and I eat in the dining hall together almost every day. We hang out in her room and watch TV. And sometimes we’ll go into town and shop. But we’re not the type of friends who share all the intimate details of our lives with each other. Although today she seems to want to do just that.
“I didn’t know you two were that serious. I guess we haven’t talked much since you guys starting dating.” They’d only dated for a few weeks but she’d spent almost every minute with him.
She wipes her face with her hand, smudging the squiggly lines of mascara. “I should’ve known he would cheat. Guys that good looking always cheat. Do you ever worry about Garret cheating?”
“Um, well, we’re not dating so it doesn’t matter. He can do what he wants.” Given that Harper and I aren’t super close, I haven’t told her everything that’s been going on with Garret and me and why we’re still only friends.
She sits up and takes another tissue. “Why do you always say you’re not dating him? You two are together all the time. You’re always up in his room. What do you two do up there? And how can you just be friends after all this time? You seriously haven’t had sex with him?”
“No. Now can we just talk about something else?”
“I don’t get you, Jade. I know you really like him, so why aren’t you two going out?”
Part of me wants to tell her why. I’m curious if she knows how to handle the situation given her own wealthy background.
“Harper, does your family have certain rules they make you follow? Like dating rules?”
She gives me a strange look. “Dating rules? What do you mean?”
“I was just thinking that since your dad is a well-known director your parents might put pressure on you and your sisters to date the right guy. Like maybe they’re worried that the person you date is a reflection on the family.”
“What are you talking about? That’s crazy. My parents don’t care who I date. Why would you ask that?”
“It’s just that I’ve heard that some of the people here at school are forced to date people their parents pick out. It’s all about image, making the family look good.”
“That’s an East Coast thing. People with old money do that stuff. West Coast people tend to be new money. They’re more laid back.” She wads her tissues up and stuffs them in the front pocket of her sweatshirt. “The people out here are formal and stuffy. They’re always trying to hide anything that might embarrass them, like a kid in rehab or their recent nose job. But in LA, practically everyone’s in rehab. And everyone gets plastic surgery, so we don’t worry so much about hiding stuff. My sister, Kylie, embarrasses my parents all the time. They just ignore it.”
“So your parents never told you that you couldn’t date someone?”
Harper gives me this look like she’s finally making sense of my odd line of questioning. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that Garret can’t date you because of his family? Is that what this is about?”
I don’t answer her.
“Is his family the reason you guys can’t be together?” She scoots up next to me and waits for me to respond.
“Yes.” As soon as I say it I feel a sense of relief. I’ve been dying to talk to someone about this but wasn’t sure if I should. And like I said, I don’t usually share that much with Harper.
“Why are you guys listening to them? You’re both 19. You’re adults. Do whatever the hell you want.”
“I know, but Garret’s dad threatens to take stuff away from him.”
“Like what? Money? Who cares? What does he need money for? He’s in college. Everything’s paid for.”
“They could take his car away.”
“Seriously? Who are these people?” She laughs. “If that happens then Garret can take the bus. I’m sure he’s never even been on a bus. It’ll be good for him.” She nudges my arm to get me to look at her. “I know you guys have only been dating, or whatever it is you two are doing, for a few months, but Garret is like totally and completely in love with you. It’s written all over his face. And I think that at least part of you loves him, too. You can’t let his family get in the way of that.”
Hearing her say Garret loves me makes me smile for a brief second. Then I come to my senses, knowing it isn’t true. He doesn’t feel that way about me. It’s too soon. Plus he knows my darkest secrets and nobody would love someone with those secrets.
“Garret doesn’t love me. We’re just friends.”
“Oh my God, Jade. Have you seen the way he looks at you? I wish a guy would look at
me
that way.”
“He’s dating Ava. Haven’t you heard? They’re a couple now.”
“Ava? She’s dating that guy, Kenton. They were at the party together last night hanging all over each other.”
“Yeah, well, she’s supposed to be dating Garret.”
“So that’s who his parents picked for him? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. She’s the girl of the month. Or maybe they’ll date for the rest of the year.”
“Garret doesn’t even like her, does he? He always looks annoyed when I see Ava talking to him at parties.”
“He can’t stand her. She went to his high school and he didn’t like her then either.”
“Then forget about it. Don’t worry about her.”
“The two of them have to go to social functions together. They have to be seen together. Photographed together.”
“So they go to a few charity events. That doesn’t mean you and Garret can’t still date.”
“You don’t understand. His dad banned Garret from seeing me. As in we can’t even be friends.”
“That’s crazy! He can’t do that.”
“He can. And he just did.”
I get up and go over to my desk. Just thinking about it is causing a build-up of nervous energy. I take out a pen and begin doodling in my English notebook.
“What are you talking about?”
“Garret’s dad was just upstairs. He told me to get out and basically never come back. I’m not supposed to see Garret ever again.”
Saying it to her, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my chest. I didn’t realize how much I needed to tell someone this. And I could never tell Frank or Ryan. They already don’t like Garret. And even though this wasn’t his fault, they would blame him for hurting me again.
My face must show how upset I am because Harper comes over and attempts to hug me in the chair.
“Jade, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know all this was going on. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There’s nothing you can do about it, so why bother talking about it?”
“Because I’m your friend. And friends talk about stuff. Even if I can’t do anything about it, I can listen. You can’t keep something like this to yourself. If it were me, I’d be telling everyone. But I’m kind of a talker.”
“Don’t tell anyone about this. This is just between you and me. His dad would kill me if he knew I told you.”
“His dad can go to hell.” She goes and sits on the bed again. “Stop worrying about him. And stop letting him control everything. If you want to see Garret, you’ll see him. End of story.”
“The Kensingtons are paying for my college. If I lose my scholarship I’ll have to drop out of school and go back to Iowa. I can’t piss them off.”
“Sounds like you already did. And you’re still here.”
“Even if they let me keep my scholarship, I won’t be able to see Garret anymore. We never should’ve started something together.”
“Jade, do you really want to let his dad win? Because I’ve always seen you as someone who doesn’t back down. You seem to go after what you want. But maybe I was wrong.”
Her reverse psychology technique is so obvious I almost laugh. But I know she’s just trying to help. She tries again with a different approach.
“Do you really want to give up on Garret? Never talk to him again? Never have one of those movie marathons you guys do? Never go to that pancake world or wherever you guys go every Sunday?”
That approach works. It brings up images of Garret and me doing all the things we love to do together. I don’t want those things to end. I don’t want Garret to go away.
“I don’t know what to do, Harper. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. I don’t understand how these people work.”
“Give it some time. Let his dad cool off. Maybe he was just in a bad mood today.”
“He won’t cool off. You should’ve seen him this morning when he caught me in Garret’s room. He was so pissed. He’ll probably make Garret move back home so we’re a safe distance from each other.”
She comes over and hugs me again. “We’ll work this out, okay? Garret makes you way too happy. I’m not letting his dad ruin that.”
Makes me happy? Is it that obvious? As much as I try to hide how much I like Garret, apparently I’m not very good at it.
“Harper, you came in here for us to talk about you and all we did was talk about me. Now tell me what happened last night.”
“I don’t want to. Actually I don’t feel so bad anymore. The more I think about it, Cole was kind of an ass. Okay, he was a total ass. I lied earlier. There was nothing between us other than pure physical attraction. I just didn’t want to admit it because it makes me sound like a slut, which I’m not. He’s only the third guy I’ve slept with.”