Chapter 27

"I can't believe this," Elizabeth murmured, sinking down on the arm of the couch. "It just doesn't make sense."

Jason shrugged, letting out a heavy sigh. "Well, if you really know Johnny it does." Her jaw tightened and her eyes flashed to his. "I didn't mean it like that."

She nodded, sliding herself down onto the couch. "I feel so guilty."

"This isn't your fault," he said, glancing towards the stairs as he made his way over to the couch and sat down beside her.

"It could be," she replied, holding her hands over her face. "I wasn't very nice to her, but in my own defense, she wasn't always very nice to me."

He couldn't help but laugh as he slid closer to her and draped his arm over the back of the couch. "You didn't do this."

"You are such a man," she moaned, dropping her head back against his arm and looking over at him.

"Meaning?"

"That Lulu was so desperate for us to like her, to accept her relationship with Johnny," she answered, furrowing her brow in frustration. "No wonder she was always talking about wanting me to like her. Instead, I bitched and whined and snapped at her over everything, which made her feel anything but welcomed."

"Of course I can't tell her I didn't mean any of it because that would mean admitting that I wanted to break them up, and that I was just being a stupid girl," she continued, leaning into the crook of Jason's arm. "And it makes sense now as to why Johnny was so frustrated with me. They weren't accepted by her parents, and he wanted us to, which is the least we could do seeing as we're his best friends."

"You keep saying us," Jason muttered, pressing a kiss against her hair, "but you were the-"

"You're not making me feel any better," she interrupted, smacking him gently in the stomach.

"This isn't your fault," he repeated, curling his arm around her shoulder.

"He needed us," she whispered, gently smoothing her hand over where she'd hit him. "He needed us last fall when he left. He needed us when he came back."

"You're still saying us," Jason teased, trying not to think about how upset Johnny had been when he'd picked him up from the airport.

"I hate you," Elizabeth groaned, burying her face in his side.

He didn't have to see her face to know she was crying and he didn't need her constantly saying it was her fault to know she blamed herself. As soon as Johnny had gotten in the car with a long face and broken heart, Jason knew Elizabeth would carry this. And while she had been rude and condescending, it was all out of jealousy, and she hadn't meant any of it. He had no doubt that she wanted Johnny to be happy, even if it meant him being with someone like Lulu. Sure, she was perfect and polite in a way that made Jason want to curse and mess up her things, but she loved Johnny, and that was what mattered.

Jason had suspected some kind of underlying issue between them when they first came back to town, but Elizabeth was so caught up in her own heartbreak that he didn't dwell on it. Johnny was happy and excited about life, not to mention very sober, and all the problems that he'd had when he left town seemed non-existent. Yeah, he had screwed up a deal or two when he first arrived in Europe, but Jason managed to clean it all up – still was, in fact, and he was thankful that Elizabeth didn't press him about the numbers for the books. He didn't want to have to tell her that Johnny made some mistakes and Jason was paying for it out of his own pocket.

Johnny had offered to sell his half of the business, to give it all to Jason when he lost the first deal last year in London, but there was no way he could let him. His father left him the company, and he was generous enough to bring Jason on, and while he did a lot of the work and knew more about it than Johnny ever did, it wasn't really his company. Besides, Jason owed Johnny's father for how kind he was after his accident, and he wouldn't let his namesake get ruined. That was probably the single reason that Jason put up with his best friend's shit all these years when it came to the business.

"I just don't get it," Elizabeth said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. "Lulu talked about her dad loving Johnny, like he was ready to adopt him as the son he never had."

"People lie to themselves sometimes," he replied, lowering his eyes to hers.

"Yeah," she murmured, her cheeks flushing at the list of lies she had following her. "Self-convincing – I've mastered it by now."

"Look, uh, I have to tell you something," Jason muttered slowly, taking a deep breath when he felt her tense up in his arms.

"Something tells me I'm not going to like this," she said, pulling herself out of his arms and pushing herself up from the couch.

"Elizabeth…"

"What?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest and looking down at him.

"Johnny – he didn't leave last year because he wanted to," he replied, shifting his eyes away from her. Sighing, he got up from the couch and turned away from her, suddenly not feeling as if he had the right to even look in her direction. "He left because I made him."

"What?" she asked harshly. "I don't – why would you make him leave?" She raked her fingers through her curls and held her hands at the sides of her head. "What? I don't – are you going to answer me?"

"He was a mess, Elizabeth," he replied, turning to face her. His shoulders slumped in defeat, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so disgusted with himself. "You know how he was." Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded, and Jason knew she understood. "I should-"

"Have told me," she interrupted, sitting down on the couch arm. "I still don't – what was the plan? Was he going to leave and get better and just come back?"

"Yeah," Jason shrugged. "He was drinking too much and screwing up at work. I tried to get him to do rehab here – to just go to Manhattan, but he refused. We had some buyers interested in Europe, so I told him to go to rehab there and once he was out, he could jump right back into work. I would have done anything to get him sober."

"He never really got over his father's death," she whispered, sniffling as she wiped her eyes. "This life – of business and hard work was never what he wanted, and he just didn't know how-"

"He didn't want to," he cut in seriously, doing his best to hold back when Elizabeth made excuses for him.

She always made excuses for him.

"He tried, but Johnny is – that's just how he is."

"Elizabeth."

"That's how he's always been," she glared defensively.

"Sorry, I don't remember," Jason hissed, clenching his fists as he turned away from her.

"I didn't mean it like that, and you know it," she replied, wringing her hands. "You should have told me."

"It wasn't my place," he murmured, debating on whether he should tell her he tried to get Johnny to, but at this point would it make things any different?

"Wasn't your place?" she asked in disbelief. "Didn't you just say that you made him go?"

"Yeah, he had a choice between rehab and losing his father's company," he replied angrily, turning back around. "You always coddled him and made excuses for the stupid choices he made, and maybe I did too because I didn't want to admit how bad he was, but he almost tanked the entire company last year.

I never minded cleaning up his messes, but it got to be too much, especially when he went to Europe and…"

"And what?" she asked, holding her glare. "What did he do that was so bad that you had to send him away? I just don't understand any of this."

"Come on, Elizabeth. He was a stupid drunk, who could sweet talk any rich man out of his money, but he ripped them off more times than I'd like to admit. I should have picked up on it – I should have known what he was doing, but I didn't want to think that Johnny was practically stealing people's money."

"So I covered for him," he continued, placing a hand on his chest. "I used my money to bail out the company and almost went broke in the process. I gave him an ultimatum to either clean up or I'd take him to court to take over."

"He went to Europe and refused to go rehab immediately, deciding he wanted to meet with some investors first. That was how he met Lulu, whose father was all but ready to kill him. He saw Johnny coming a mile away, but Lulu didn't. Somehow they got involved, which was a good thing because she convinced him to go to rehab."

"But he's still drinking," she said, as if that was supposed to make some kind of difference.

"It's Johnny. He's never going to stop drinking, but…"

"Lulu stays on him about it," she filled in, shaking her head at herself in disgust. "I thought she was just being a bitch."

"No, she kept him together."

Elizabeth flinched at his words, her lip quivering. "I knew he needed help, but I thought if I was patient enough and was just there…"

"You could fix him," Jason murmured softly.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" she asked, clearly more hurt by the secret than anything else. "You gave me all that shit for wanting to know what happened to him when you knew all along."

"I knew what I sent him there for, and I only know that he did his stint in rehab like I asked him to, but the details-"

"Don't really matter right now. I just – I would have never kept something like this from you, Jason."

He stiffened. "That's not fair. You and I weren't close until after he left, and I wasn't going to tell you that I sent him away so you could resent me."

"So you lied for your own benefit," she spat.

"Are you trying to find something to be pissed off about?" he asked, throwing his hands up. "I'm sorry I lied to you, but it was Johnny's truth to tell. I had no right-"

"As my friend you did," she interrupted.

"I'm not doing this, Elizabeth," he replied, shaking his head. He almost stopped before he got ahead of himself, but he was too angry to care. "You can be pissed at me all you want. You can blame and hate me. Do whatever it takes not to tarnish Johnny's halo or knock him off that fucking pedestal you have him on."

This was exactly why he hadn't told her, and why he'd been so patient every time she cried and worried over Johnny. He'd been responsible for her heartbreak, so he'd done his best to hold her together every time she fell apart.

"You know you're both really important to me, Jason," she whispered, moving to her feet. "I never meant to put one of you in front of the other, but if you want to be really honest, Johnny wasn't the one on the pedestal. That was you. And he knew it, so I just tried to make it up to him."

Jason started to reply, but stopped when he noticed Johnny coming down the stairs, and he had to wonder exactly how much their friend had heard.

"Really, guys, I've been dumped before," he said, rolling his eyes when he noticed how quiet and tense his friends were being. "Operation Save Johnny isn't necessary."

"I, uh, I should go," Elizabeth murmured, giving Jason a long look before heading over to the desk to grab her purse. Without so much as a goodbye she headed out the door, not realizing that Jason was right behind her.

"Hey," he called after her, pulling the door closed behind him and shutting them off in the hallway.

"I really wish you would have told me," she said, hitting the elevator button and tipping her head in his direction. She forced a smile and held out her hand. "I'm not mad, Jason. It's just so much…"

"I know," he replied, tugging her towards him. "I wanted him to tell you, but…"

"It's okay," she said, stretching to gently press her lips to his as she slid her arms around his neck. Sighing, she leaned against him, burying her face in his neck. "I just wish I knew when we all fell apart."

Jason nodded, though he knew they could probably pinpoint his accident as the moment that changed everything. "I promise we'll talk about everything later," he murmured against the side of her face. "I'm going to try and do something with him…and figure this out."

"Okay," she sighed, pulling away when the elevator dinged open behind them. She smiled before stepping inside, and Jason couldn't help himself as he stuck out his arm to stop the doors from closing.

"Are we okay?" he asked nervously, knowing that all of this – Johnny's truth, the end of the engagement, and the kept secret would affect them in some way.

Her lips twitched into a crooked grin. "We've never been better."