Harsh sounds of a bell ringing and raucous knocking thundered down his ear canal. Lifting his arm, which felt like dead weight, he pulled a pillow over his head to try and mute the offending noises.
Lying perfectly still on his back, Jake took in steady breaths in hopes that the nausea rolling through him would pass. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. It had to be when he’d been in college.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” his brother’s voice boomed.
“Go away,” Jake said into the pillow that was still covering his face.
He heard two steps, some fabric rustling, then another two steps before the only thing that was protecting him from the harsh realities of the world was yanked off of his face.
Jake hissed as he rolled his head to the side to try and avoid the intense rays of sunlight shining brightly through his now wide-open window.
“Get up,” Eric commanded. “Meet me in the kitchen. We need to talk.”
The blurry outline of his brother turned and Jake watched the dark figure leave his room. Eric was usually not such an asshole, but the past couple of days his brother had definitely been displaying a-hole-like tendencies. Jake wanted nothing more than to tell his brother to kick rocks and go back to bed, but he knew that Eric wouldn’t leave and it would just draw out this little meet and greet. So even though his entire body was screaming in protest, Jake sat up and carefully lowered his legs off the side of the bed.
When his feet hit the cold hardwood floor, he rested his hands on his down comforter and pushed up. Jake stood gingerly, giving himself time to adjust to the entire world tilting on its axis.
Breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, he walked slowly down the stairs and into his kitchen, where he found Eric leisurely sitting at the breakfast table, eating a Danish, with Lucky sitting like a ‘good boy’ beside him, begging for a bite.
“Sit.” Eric motioned to the seat pulled out across the table from him. “Drink.”
Jake noticed a piping-hot cup of coffee sitting in his black Batman mug on his white oak kitchen table, and the tempting smell of roasted coffee beans overrode his instinct to tell Eric to go to hell and not bark commands at him like he was a dog.
Sliding into the chair, Jake sank down and leaned his elbows on the cold wooden surface of the table. Closing his eyes, he lifted his warm java-filled mug with both hands, bringing it to his mouth. The second the hot liquid touched his lips, he began feeling more alert. After several drinks of the strong coffee, the hangover-induced fog he’d been navigating through began clearing up.
When he opened his eyes, he found his brother staring at him with a smug look on his face.
“What?” Jake asked defensively.
“You look like shit,” Eric stated bluntly.
“Thanks.” Jake set down his mug. “Is that what you came over to tell me?”
“No, I thought you might need to talk,” his brother said calmly as he finished off the last bite of his breakfast.
Jake’s eyebrows rose as he shook his head. “Nope. I’m good.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” Jake confirmed with a nod of his head.
Truth was he was confused as shit and furious at himself for still wanting Tessa as much as he did. Last night in his truck, he’d been seconds away from stripping her out of her clothes and burying himself inside of her in the driveway of the home that he owned and did not live in.
Then when he’d gotten home, he’d been so tempted to drive back over to her that he kept having to stop himself from grabbing his keys. So in an attempt to just go numb, he’d started drinking. It had started with a glass of whiskey, but if memory served, he’d finished off the entire bottle and then some.
“Rough night?” Eric asked, his gaze falling on the empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s tipped over on its side and about a dozen empty beer cans sitting on Jake’s granite countertops.
Jake didn’t feel like justifying his bender to his big brother, and it pissed him off to be questioned about it. Eric had no idea what the hell was going on in his life.
“Eric, if you have something to say to me, say it.”
“Actually it was you, little brother, who had a lot to say last night—or this morning. Why don’t I let you do the talking?” Eric picked his phone up off the table and pressed on the screen then turned it around.
Jake was stunned to hear his own drunken voice coming from the small device. At the beginning of the message, he sounded mad and wasn’t making much sense. He was rambling, speaking in broken sentences, talking about love and how unfair life was. And then, when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, he heard himself slurring, “…she lost the baby and just left. Who does that?! How could she leave me after that?”
Jake reached across the table, pulled the phone out of his brother’s grasp, and pressed delete.
“She was pregnant?” Eric asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.
Jake didn’t look up at his brother. His gaze was focused on his fingers that were wrapped tightly around Eric’s phone. Jake nodded.
“And she lost the baby?”
Jake nodded again.
“And then she left,” Eric concluded.
Sighing, Jake figured that since his brother knew this much—thanks to his own dumbass drunk-dialing!—he might as well tell him the whole story.
Taking a deep breath, he just started talking. “About a month after high school graduation, we went to The Train Museum in Sacramento. We’d been there about an hour when Tessa started complaining of stomach cramps. I was barely able to get her to the car in the parking lot before she started crying and I saw blood between her legs. I remember how bright red it looked against the pale blue shorts she was wearing. I got her in the car and then I raced towards the hospital I’d seen from the freeway on the way to the museum. I ran red lights and was doing about seventy. When I finally got her there, everything happened so fast. They took her out of my arms and rushed her back into the ER. They wouldn’t let me go back with her because I wasn’t family.”
Jake set the phone down on the table and took a deep breath. A knot formed in his throat and his hands fisted, remembering the fear that had rushed through him and how completely powerless he’d felt when there had been nothing he could do to help her. Clearing his throat, he continued. “She was so scared when they wheeled her away. She was reaching out her hand, begging me to go with her. Not to leave her.
“I didn’t know what to do. I called Adeline. I don’t even remember how long it took her to get there, but the next thing I knew, she was sitting beside me in the waiting room, telling me everything was going to be okay. She kept going up to the front and asking to see Tessa, but they told her she was in surgery. It was dark outside before they came out and told us that Adeline could go back and see her. She tried to convince them to let me go too, but they wouldn’t.
“From the moment Adeline walked through the sliding glass door until she appeared again, I just paced. Back and forth. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. I didn’t know what to do with myself. She just had to be okay. I remember the look on Adeline’s face as she came out of the doors. Everything stopped. I tried to ask if she was okay but I couldn’t speak. She assured me that Tessa was resting comfortably and was going to be all right as she ushered us into a small waiting area off the hall. After we sat down, she told me that Tessa would be okay but that she’d lost a lot of blood and that she’d lost the baby.”
Jake looked up at his brother, who was staring back at him with a blank expression. “I had no idea what she was talking about. Adeline must have seen it on my face because she said, ‘You didn’t know, did you?’ I told her I didn’t. She said that she didn’t think Tessa had known either because if she’d had any idea she was pregnant she would have told one of us.”
“Do Mom and Dad know?” Eric asked.
“No.” Jake shook his head. “Just me, Adeline, and Tessa know about it. Her parents were still i
n Germany, and I told Mom and Dad that I was on a camping trip.
“She was placed in ICU and I wasn’t allowed access to her until that Monday. I didn’t leave the hospital all weekend. I just stayed there waiting to see her. Adeline kept coming out and giving me updates. When she was moved to a regular room, they finally let me go back.
“I remember how small and pale she looked lying in the bed. I was so relieved to finally see her, but when I saw the look in her eye, I knew something was wrong. I moved beside her and leaned over to kiss her forehead but she moved away from me. When I sat down, I tried to hold her hand but she pulled it away from me.
“I told I loved her and how sorry I was for what she went through. I told her she was going to be okay now, that we would be okay. She wouldn’t even look at me at first. She just stared out the window and told me that this whole thing made her realize what she really wanted and that it wasn’t to be married and have kids. She said that she didn’t want to be tied down. She said that when she left the hospital she wasn’t going back to Hope Falls. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going. She just said that she didn’t want to be with me anymore and that we should both move on with our lives.”
Jake stared down at his coffee cup sitting on his kitchen table and wrapped his fingers around the warm ceramic. “I tried to reason with her and tell her that she’d been through a lot and she might feel like that right now but that we could work it out. She wouldn’t listen. Finally, she did look at me. She screamed at me to get out of her room and leave her alone. Nurses came and escorted me out of the room. Adeline was in the hall and she said it would be best to give her some time. She told me to go home, get some sleep, take a shower and come back and see her the next day. She promised she’d talk to her and call me with any updates.
“I hadn’t slept or showered or eaten in days, and I felt so lost. So I listened to her. I went home took a shower, ate, and slept for twelve hours. As soon as I woke up, I got in my car and drove back to the hospital in Sacramento. I got there at noon but she wasn’t there. She’d been released earlier that morning. So I headed back to Hope Falls thinking that I must have missed the call from Adeline, but when I got to her house, Adeline told me that Tessa wasn’t there and she wouldn’t tell me where she was. I freaked out. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I searched the whole house. She was gone.”
Jake was surprised that he actually felt better after telling his brother what had happened. He’d never talked about it before, but now he was thinking that maybe he should have.
“And that’s the last time you saw her?” Eric asked in a tone that Jake was sure many a criminal had been interrogated with.
Jake nodded as he confirmed, “Yeah. That’s the last time I saw her. Until the other night at JT’s. She sent me postcards from Italy and Paris. They just said that she was thinking of me and hoped I was happy and doing well.”
“Have you talked to her?” Eric’s tone softened to sound more like a brother and less like a police investigator.
Jake shrugged. “There’s nothing to say.”
Eric’s arm reached to the counter, and before Jake even saw it coming, an empty beer can tagged him right in the head.
Jake’s hand flew up too late to block it. “Hey! What the fu—”
“I knew you could be an idiot, Jake, but I didn’t think you were really that stupid.”
Jake threw up his arms. “She left. Now she’s back because she has to be and then she’s going to leave again. End. Of. Story.”
His brother slowly shook his head at him. “Jake, I know that I have been giving you some shit. Making you dance with Darla. Getting in your business. But I was only doing that because I wanted to see what this really was. If it was something real or just a memory that you couldn’t let go of.”
Eric leaned forward on the table with an earnest expression on his face. “This is real, Jake. You love her. I’ve never seen you move as fast as you did when you thought Tessa had left last night. Or be less interested in a blond with a huge rack as you were when Darla came to ask you to dance. And I know you didn’t listen to the rest of the message but it went into great detail about everything that you miss and love about Tessa. Great. Detail.”
Jake covered his face with his hands and rubbed them up and down. How could Eric know the whole story and still be giving him shit about her? He should be on his side.
“Look,” Eric said as he stood, “you guys have some serious unfinished business that, if you ever plan on moving on with your life and finding happiness, you need to deal with. Yes, she might leave again. But she’s here now. Talk to her—before it really is too late.” Eric slapped him on the shoulder as he headed out of the kitchen towards the front door. When he got there, he turned back before opening it. “I am sorry that you went through all that. Losing the baby. Losing Tessa. I wish you would have told me sooner. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone. You were just a kid. But when you talk to her, try and remember that she was a kid too when she lost a baby she didn’t even know she was carrying.”
With those words, his brother was gone. Jake winced at the loud cracking sound of the door shutting, still feeling the effects of his hangover.
He laid his head on the cool surface of the table until Lucky started crying and scratching at the sliding glass door.
“Sorry, boy.” Jake felt bad that it was so late in the day and he hadn’t been out yet. He decided he would take him on a run to make it up to him. Maybe he could sweat out some of the alcohol he’d ingested the night before and clear his head a little bit, because Eric’s words were playing over and over in it.
“…she was a kid too when she lost a baby she didn’t even know she was carrying.”
Chapter Fifteen
‡
“Thank you so much for going shopping with me,” Tessa told Nikki as they grabbed the last bags out of the trunk.
Nikki shut the trunk of Tessa’s car and they headed into Jake’s house. “Oh please, you never have to thank me for going shopping, even if it’s for cleaning supplies. Also, as much as I enjoy being able to go to school full time, I get a little stir-crazy shut up in my house taking online classes.”
Tessa could understand that. Nikki had always been adventurous, even as a pre-teen. So it made sense that she’d been a flight attendant. Seeing the world. Always on the go. But now that she was working on her Master’s in Psychology, she was studying full time.
“Do you think it’s weird that Jake doesn’t live here?” Nikki asked as they unloaded the bags in the front room.
Tessa normally hated talking behind people’s back, but in this case she just couldn’t help herself. She was just so happy that someone else felt the same way she did. “Yes!” she exclaimed.
Nikki eyes lit up, apparently happy to find someone else to discuss the subject with as well. “Every time I ask him about it, he gives me a different reason-slash-excuse. Amy and I even surprised him by getting him the couch and a new bed. We figured that, since the old ones had been so well used, he could have a new ‘slut-free’ start. We told him he could burn his old stuff. But even cootie-free furniture didn’t get him excited about living here.”
Tessa must not have covered her reaction to Nikki talking about Jake’s colorful, slut-filled past.
Nikki’s eyes widened in horror. “Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t have a filter.”
Tessa waved her hand dismissively. “It’s fine.”
“None of those girls meant anything to him.” Nikki bit the inside of her lip.
She appreciated Jake’s sister trying to make her feel better, but the facts were the facts, and the little bit she’d heard in the few days she’d been back in town had told her that Jake had been a busy boy. Very busy.
Still, she didn’t want Nikki to feel bad or think she’d upset her. Trying to assure her, she said, “Seriously, it’s fine. Jake and I are… Or, um, we were…just kids. It was a long time ago.”
Nikki slowly nodded her head, not seemin
g entirely convinced. Then she said, “I really thought you guys were going to get married. I used to imagine what the dress I would wear at your wedding would look like.”
Tessa smiled. She remembered that Nikki always used to ask what her wedding colors were going to be. She didn’t know then that it was because she had been picturing herself in the wedding.
“You guys were really perfect together,” Nikki said with a hint of sadness in her voice. “He hasn’t been the same since you left.”
Tessa’s head shook slightly back and forth. There was no way that was true. Jake was so strong and he lived his life to the fullest. Fun should seriously be his middle name.
Grandma Adie had told her he’d left for college a month after she’d left and that he hadn’t really come back to visit that much before he graduated. College changed people. They matured. “He just grew up, that’s all.”
Nikki’s face grew serious. “I know my brother, and I’m telling you, it’s not ‘he grew up.’ He’s never gotten over you.”
Tessa didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t gotten over him either. But none of that mattered, and there was no way she could explain that to Nikki. Part of her wished that what Nikki was saying was true, that Jake really did still feel the same way he had. But another part saw how tragic that would be if it was in fact the truth.
Before she came up with a response or even had time to process her feelings on the matter, she heard ‘Freak Me Baby’ by Silk playing loudly. Nikki started busting out laughing as she pulled her phone from her pocket. She wasn’t able to answer it before the lyrics ‘Let me lick you up and down, ’Til you say stop’ rang out in the cavernous house.
Nikki answered the phone, grinning from ear to ear, her face lit up like the Christmas tree in Times Square. “How could you possibly have changed my ringtone?”
Tessa picked up a few of the bags and went into the kitchen to give Nikki some privacy. While she was unpacking them, she thought about what Jake’s sister had said.
Let It Snow (The Hope Falls Series) Page 11
