I bolted from my bed and found my phone on the coffee table in front of the couch. It was already past noon, and there were no messages, no calls. Damn it.
I grabbed my T-shirt from the floor, intent on shoving it on and driving to her house, but I caught a whiff of cigar and alcohol from it. Even though I didn’t smoke and rarely drank, every time I went out, my clothes smelled as if I had slept in the gutter.
Shit. I undressed on the way to the bathroom and took a quick shower. I found a pair of clean jeans and a black T-shirt on my dresser, shoved on my boots, and ran out of the apartment. I knew about their Saturday family lunch, but I was hoping that at 1:15 p.m., most of them were already gone. Right.
As I suspected, Luke’s bike was in the driveway between his mother’s Honda and a rental car I had never seen before. I parked my Mustang in front of the driveway and raced to the front door.
I rang the bell and knocked.
A few seconds later, Jason opened the door. “Hey, man, where’s the fire?”
“Where’s your sister?” I asked.
Frowning, he stood in the doorway. “What happened?”
“J-man, you’re like a brother to me, but please, don’t fuck with me now. Where’s Jessica?”
“What’s going on?” Jessica asked, coming down the stairs.
Jason stepped aside. “Ryan is here.”
I fixed my eyes on hers. “We need to talk.”
Someone came down the stairs behind her. A man. A man I didn’t know. He halted beside Jessica, his shoulder touching hers. Her face paled.
“Everything okay, babe?” the guy asked.
Babe? Babe? I clenched my fists as anger seeped into me. “Who the hell is this guy?”
Jason stepped out of the house and placed a hand on my arm, probably noticing the rage in me.
“His name is Gavin. He’s a friend from Cleveland.”
“I’m her boyfriend,” he said, smiling.
Shit, I would break his teeth.
Jessica snapped her head to him. “You’re not my boyfriend.”
The guy’s face fell. “But—”
“What’s with the commotion?” Luke emerged from the kitchen. He looked from me to Gavin and back to me. “Oh shit.”
In five large strides, he was by my side, positioned like Jason in case I snapped, which I was about to.
“Jessica?” I called her. She looked at me, still pale. “Talk to me.”
“You better go, Ryan. We can talk later.”
I took a step forward, and both Jason and Luke tensed, their hands ready to grasp me. “Like hell. We’re gonna talk now. You can’t just crawl into a guy’s bed and then disappear like that.”
The guy gaped at Jessica and her face became beet red. The guy’s features hardened and his chest stuffed as he turned to me. “If you didn’t notice, my girlfriend doesn’t want to talk to you. Why don’t you go back to the hole you crawled from, huh?”
Oh no, he didn’t.
“Oh shit,” Jason muttered at the same time Luke said, “Damn it.”
Knowing they would stop me, I stepped back from Jason and Luke, ducked under their arms, and lunged at the guy, connecting my fist with his jaw. The guy staggered back. I was ready to punch him again, but Jason and Luke caught up with me, wound their hands around my arms, and pulled me back.
Jessica stepped in front of me, her eyes glassy, her face closed. “Get out, Ryan. Right now,” she said, her voice cutting through me like a dull knife.
I went slack. Jason and Luke dragged me out of the house, down the porch steps, and to the driveway. The front door closed, and I could hear yelling coming from inside.
Fuck. What had I done?
***
Jessica
From the living room window, I watched as Jason and Luke worked on damage control with Ryan. Jason tried taking the car keys from Ryan, but he evaded him, threatening to punch him too if he tried to take them away.
His shoulders sank, his head lowered, and Ryan dragged himself to his car. I hoped his rage didn’t blind him, and he drove to his apartment safely. God, I hoped he was driving to his apartment, and not some bar to get wasted.
Ryan peeled away from the curb, the tires of his Mustang squealing. Luke mounted his bike and went after him. Jason jogged back to the house. He came in, sparing me a look that told me what I already knew. He was also going after Ryan. He raced upstairs, probably to get his bike’s keys from his bedroom, and ten seconds later, climbed down the stairs, three steps at a time. Without a word, he left, pulling the door closed behind him.
A groan woke me from my stupor.
I turned and found Gavin leaning against a bookshelf, his hand on his face.
“Shit,” I muttered. Of all days for him to show up, to surprise me with his “wonderful presence”—as he put it. He had arrived only thirty minutes before Ryan, and I had just taken him to my bedroom so we could have privacy when I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t into him and that we would never hook up again.
“So,” he croaked. “Are you going to explain what that guy was talking about?”
Not if I could help it. “I’m gonna get you some ice.” I started for the kitchen, limping with my twisted ankle, but Gavin grabbed my arm.
“Jessica, what’s going on?”
I sighed. All right, if he wanted to do this now, then we would do this now. “Gavin, remember I told you before I left that we weren’t a couple anymore. In fact, we were never a couple. We hooked up a few times; that was it.”
“I came here to prove to you we can be more.” He gestured to himself. “See? I’m here because I missed you. I care about you, and I want you to see I’m here for you.”
I shook my head. “Please, Gavin, don’t make this harder than it has to be. I don’t want a boyfriend, and I don’t want to hook up anymore.”
“Give me a chance, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe. I hate it.”
“Okay, then I’ll call you love.”
“Gavin, please …”
He pushed away from the bookshelf. “In a week or so, you’ll be going back in Cleveland and we can start anew. We can go out on a few dates and—”
“Gavin, I don’t want that.” God, I felt like the bad guy, but he gave me no choice. “Look, it was nice spending time with you, but I don’t like you. I’m not attracted to you, not as I thought I could be. I don’t want to start anew. I don’t want dates. I don’t want anything.”
“But—”
“No, Gavin. You shouldn’t have come.” I sighed, feeling tears coming. “I’m sorry you wasted time and money coming down here, but please, go back to Cleveland and forget about me.”
“Jessica, you can’t be serious.”
I crossed my arms and raised my chin, willing myself to remain calm. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
His face fell. “I … but … I don’t understand. The moments we had, they were great.”
“They were good, not great.” I winced. Damn, the bitch award went to me after all. “I don’t want to go out with you anymore. I’m sorry.”
He took a long breath and nodded. “I’m sorry too.”
Slowly, he walked to the door. He paused there before opening it and looked at me, as if waiting for me to stop him, to tell him I was joking and that he could stay. That I liked him. Poor guy. Finally, after a long moment, he opened the door and left.
I let out a long breath and a couple of tears rolled down. They weren’t for Gavin per se, but because of how bitchy I had to act so he would understand. Mostly the tears were because of the previous night. Making love to Ryan—a grown-up, hot as hell Ryan—had been wonderful. The perfect closure for our crazy, bittersweet story.
Why then was I hurting as if my heart had broken all over again?
***
I couldn’t sleep that night. After tossing and turning for hours, I finally gave up around 3 a.m.
Not sure what I was doing, I changed my PJs for jeans, a tee, and flats, grabbed my pho
ne and my purse, and exited the house.
Thankfully, the truck was still in the driveway. It would be easier to leave without waking Mama or Jason, without needing to open the garage door. Not that I was trying to sneak out, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
Jason had come home late at night and let me have it.
“I can’t believe you were messing around with him,” he barked. “Didn’t he tell you what happened? This will send him spiraling out of control again!”
I shook my head, tears brimming in my eyes. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“If he does something, anything that results in him going back to jail, or even an extension of his parole, I swear, I’ll …” He pressed his lips together and clenched his fists. “I’ll never talk to you again.”
After his onslaught, Jason told me Ethan was with Ryan now. Then he shut up and shut me out.
In the silent night, I drove to the hospital. I knew it wasn’t exactly visiting hours, and I was ready to argue about it, but the nurse in charge recognized me and let me in without any explanation.
Carefully, I entered my papa’s room and, in the dark, sat in the chair beside his bed. He looked thinner and frailer every day, and the monitors beeping beside his bed sounded a little slower than before. An IV dripped heavy painkillers directly into his bloodstream.
It was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that he was dying, that in a few months or weeks, he wouldn’t be here anymore, that he wouldn’t be around. As much as I hated the fallout between us, he was still my father, and I didn’t want him to die.
I ran my fingers over the pale skin of his arm and rested my hand on his.
I had to get over the fact that he might never forgive me for—
“Jessica?” Papa asked, his voice just above a whisper.
I pulled back my hand and sat straighter. “Yes, Papa, it’s me.”
He glanced at the window. The drapes were closed, but a tiny crack let the moonlight seeped through.
“What time is it?” He pressed the button on the bed’s control and the mattress folded, sitting him up a little.
“Some time past 3:30 a.m., I think.”
He turned his eyes to me. “What are you doing here?”
“I … I couldn’t sleep, and I don’t know, I just drove here.” I sighed. I was leaving in a week, and finally, he was awake. It was now or never. “Papa, I know sometimes we don’t see eye to eye, but—”
“Ryan came to visit me the other day.”
I stilled. “W-what?”
“At first, I asked him to leave, called the nurses, but then he said you saved him. He said I had to know how. The nurses came to the room to take him out, but I told him to stay. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted to hear him.”
“What did he say?”
“That you’re an amazing young woman, even more than when you were sixteen.” His voice was weak, but he didn’t stop. “He told me that you stayed by his side while he was working on his motorcycle, and even though you two didn’t talk, your presence was enough to calm him down. He told me about when the storm destroyed the Habitat for Humanity site, and you called in a bunch of people and organized everything to have them help rebuild the homes. Because of that help, the time to fix all the damage was cut to less than half. He also told me you took him to see the guy he injured in the accident, that he’s practically one hundred percent, as if he had never been a paraplegic.” He paused for a long breath. “And Ryan told me that you called John and that you may have gotten him into the circuit again. He said that even though he had hurt you, you had taken the high road and helped him through his problem. That those were characteristics of a decent, kind girl.” One corner of his lips curved up. “I confess it was a nice surprise, to hear how grown-up and kind my daughter became.”
My eyes teared. “Papa …”
“When I remember that day, anger swarms me, but it isn’t only because of what you did, or what Ryan did to you. After a while, that anger grew and turned toward myself. I hated myself for exploding that way, in front of all those people, for slapping you. I’m not sure I would do anything differently, if I could go back in time, because of the way I am, but I do regret it.” He reached over and took my hand. I could feel him trying to squeeze my fingers, but his grip was too light. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have acted that way, and I should have gone after you when you left and brought you home. Home with your family, who loves you no matter what.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “I’m sorry too, Papa.”
“It’s okay.” He took another long breath. “I just want you to know I love you and I’m proud of you.”
I stifled a sob. “I love you too.”
He patted my hand and withdrew his arm. “Home with family,” he repeated, closing his eyes.
“Papa?” I asked, worrying about his condition. He didn’t answer, but I could see the slow up and down of his chest and the steady beeping of his heart monitor.
Well, I knew he was sleeping a lot, but still, his outburst had surprised me. I hadn’t expected him to wake up, let alone give me a long speech.
I sank in the chair as a couple of tears fell.
The fact that Ryan had come here and talked to Papa about me boggled my mind. Why would he do that? Did he think he had to repay me for the things I did for him? I had told him it wasn’t out of pity, and it certainly wasn’t because I wanted something in return. I had acted the way I thought was right, the way it made me feel better. Still, I was glad he had come and practically defended my honor. If it wasn’t for his visit, my father might still not have forgiven me, and I wouldn’t feel like a boulder had been lifted from my chest.
I took a deep breath. It was nice, this light, free feeling. The only thing that could make this moment better was if a doctor walked in and told me Papa was miraculously cured.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ryan
I wrapped my tie around my neck and stood in front of the mirror. Black suit, black tie, black shoes, and a white shirt. I didn’t remember the last time I had worn one of these.
I was working at Habitat for Humanity last evening when Luke called me to let me know.
“Paul died this afternoon,” he said.
Pain cut through my chest, not for the man I barely knew, but for his daughter, for his son, and for his wife. I called Jason right away. He answered, but said no more than two or three words. I almost went over to their house last night, but Luke assured me they needed some time on their own.
Finally, I got the tie knot right and closed my suit jacket as a rap came from the door.
“Come in,” I yelled.
Ethan opened the door. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed my phone and wallet from the kitchen counter and headed to the door with him.
We didn’t speak much as I drove us to the church. The place was packed. Probably the whole town had come to pay their respects to the man who slapped his daughter in public and made her run away. I shook that thought from my head. Yes, I had hated the man, but he was still Jason’s and Jessica’s father, and the fact that sweet, kind Corinne loved him must count for something.
It took a long time, but we reached the front of the church, where the family was gathered. Seated between her children, Corinne looked dazed, as if she had taken something strong to calm her down. Acting like a macho, Jason fought the tears in his eyes, and Jessica clutched her mother’s hand, her glassy eyes fixed on the coffin. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and her skin was pale. It was obvious she hadn’t slept the previous night. The three of them probably didn’t.
Ethan and I halted in front of them. Jason stood and we hugged. I patted his back and he patted mine.
“I’m so sorry, man,” I whispered.
He nodded, before stepping back and turning to Ethan. I thought I would pay my respects to Corinne next, but Jessica stood instead.
“She’s out of it,” she said, her voice low.
&
nbsp; For half a second, I considered shaking her hand, but then I saw the sad glint in her eyes and lost it. I wound my arm around her waist and pulled her to me. Her arms knotted around my neck as she rested her face on my shoulder. I ran a hand up and down her back as she cried.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” I whispered. “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”
She stepped back and wiped her tears. “Thank you.” She kissed my cheek, her soft lips lingering on my skin, and the urge to pull her to me again was almost too hard to contain. I wanted to console her, to support her, to stand there and hold her—if she would allow me.
Then she turned to Ethan and hugged him.
I couldn’t help but notice her arms went loosely around his shoulders, and that she didn’t bury her head in his shoulder or cry. She also didn’t kiss his cheek.
Ethan nudged me and I finally moved. Walking down the side aisle to the back, we saw Luke, Lindsey, and their mother. My sister, Brianna, was with Lindsey. A few pews back, we saw Sophie and Rachel.
Ethan and I found a spot in the back as the ceremony began. I hated these things. They were too gloomy, too sad. And it was so much worse when Jason stood and went to the front to talk about his father. His voice broke several times. I thought maybe Jessica would speak too, but she didn’t. Neither did Corinne. Understandable in her state. A few more people spoke—work colleagues, cousins, and friends.
After the ceremony, we all walked the grounds where the reverend spoke a few more words before lowering the coffin into the ground. That was when Corinne broke down and Jason had to take her in his arms. Jessica looked worried about her mother, but Rachel and Sophie were beside her, holding her up.
If it depended on me, the day would be done, but no. Close friends and family moved from the cemetery to the Hayeses’ house.
When Ethan and I arrived, Corinne was on the couch being checked by a doctor, and Jessica was seated at her mother’s side, talking to the doctor. Across the room, Jason had a glass of whiskey in his hand.
Cadence, Luke’s mother, ran around the living room, making sure everyone was okay, and Lindsey helped her.
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