Page 74 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
“Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Kate said again, patting his knee awkwardly.
“Is it?” Spencer groaned, looking at her through his fingers. “Because it feels like a pretty disastrous start right now.”
“It’s… not the most auspicious of beginnings,” Kate admitted. “But, hey. Nowhere to go but up from here, right?”
“Don’t do that,” Spencer said, closing his fingers up again.
“Don’t do what? Try to make you feel better?”
“Dismiss my feelings,” Spencer said. “You always made me feel like shit.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do,” Kate said in surprise. But Spencer was still going.
“‘Why are you sad about not getting the executive editor position when you said you didn’t want the responsibility anyway?’” Spencer pitched his voice up in what she guessed was supposed to be an imitation of her own. “‘Hey, I know your dad ignores your existence, but at least yours is still alive!’ Or, my personal favorite, ‘of course I love you, Spencer, why would you even question that? I’m just emotionally unavailable, daydreaming about Jake as Blake the bartender. But you’re the one I’m sitting on the couch with, so it’s all fine, isn’t it?’”
“That’s…” Kate frowned to herself. “Possibly a valid point. But you’re not innocent here! You cheated on me with Kennedy!”
Spencer sighed, pulling at his hair. “I kissed her once, Kate. And I came home and confessed right away. I thought it would finally be a wake-up call to stop dragging your feet on the wedding. But you acted like it meant the end. Like you couldn’t wait to get out. I ended things because you made it so obvious it was what you wanted.”
“What I wanted?” Kate said, sitting up in shock before remembering the comforter. Spencer’s eyes followed the fluffy white material as it dropped dangerously low, before she snatched it back up. “You are not making this my fault. You fell in love with someone else!”
Spencer looked so ragged it squeezed her heart. “Just because I fell in love with her didn’t mean I fell out of love with you. The only difference was she loved me back.”
“I loved you,” Kate said, quiet, hurt.
“Maybe at one point.” Spencer sighed. “But not in the end. Not for a long time. I was just a security blanket for you, and you were the kid who couldn’t grow up and learn to sleep alone.”
It was a hurtful accusation, if possibly a true one. Still, there was something that needed resolving in this weekend of mysteries. “Spencer, when Jake and I had our falling-out… how did you know I tried to kiss him?”
“Oh.” Spencer’s expression turned sheepish. “I was kind of hoping that would never come up.”
Kate narrowed her gaze. “What did you do?”
“For the record, I just want to say it happened years ago, and I’ve grown since then—”
“Spencer!” Kate said, prodding him hard in the leg. “What did you do?”
“Ow,” he said, rubbing at the spot. “Fine. You called me.”
“I did not!” Kate said. “You called me, and said that Jake had called you!”
“No, no, I mean, you called me that night. After he’d left. I think you thought I was Marla. I guess our names must be in your phone right next to each other.”
Lieman. Lynch. It never occurred to Kate that they were. That explained why Marla had never called her back that night.
“Anyway, you left me a voicemail, and you were pretty hysterical. Saying you’d screwed things up with Jake. So, I called Jake the next day, and I swear I only intended to fix things. To figure out what exactly happened, and make sure Jake didn’t file an HR complaint or something. But once I started talking to him, it just kind of… spiraled.”
“Spiraled?” Kate echoed, deadpan.
“I’m sorry,” Spencer said. “It was wrong, and deceitful, and definitely unprofessional. It’s just… I liked you so much. I’d been trying to work up the courage to ask you out for so long, but I didn’t want to compromise our working relationship. And then you met Jake, and it was like the sun came out for you. I figured he would pass out of your life eventually, but you started working on theWandering Australianbooks. When you called me and said you tried to kiss him, I just felt like I needed to do something. I never thought it would go as far as it did.”
“You mean destroying our entire friendship and ending the book contracts early and then dating me without telling me the truth?”
“I know, I know!” Spencer moaned into his hands. “I’m such a fuckup. Honestly, when I proposed, I figured you would say no. You were always half out the door, anyway. I was just as shocked as you were when you said yes.”
She had been shocked—not that he’d asked, but that she’d said yes. And shehadbeen half out the door their entire relationship, even when she’d told herself she was over Jake and ready to build a life with Spencer. It was all so clear now, from the other side. But they’d had to wade through all that shit to get here.
“Aren’t we a pair.” Kate sighed, laying her head against Spencer’s leg. “I’m sorry, Spencer. For everything.”