“Well, I got to see two of the three,” Jess said with a wink.
“Oh, wow,” I said. “You and him sharing dirty pictures online?”
Jess threw her head back and laughed. “Trust me, Jett. If a guy ever asked me to send something like that… you know what? I don’t even know what I’d say or do. Other than stop talking to him. But anyway… we were going to meet tonight. Here. My best friend is also a psycho.”
“Oh, I like that,” I said. “Is she single?”
Jess punched me. “Wow, you have no filter.”
“Nope.”
“She’s not single. And she’s psycho because she wants me to date but gave me all these rules so I don’t end up on some crime show. So Ryan and I chose this bar. I’ve never been here before.”
“Just like me,” I said.
“Good job, Jett. You’re putting the pieces to this puzzle together. Anyway… the guy that walked up to me was Ryan.”
I looked back as though he were still there. “Wait a second. You’ve been talking to this guy for a little while and you make plans to meet up and the you just bail?”
“I didn’t exactly bail,” Jess said. “I showed up. I found something better.”
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m not better. I warned you.”
Jess leaned toward me. “What did she do to you?”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s written all over your face. Who was she? What did she do?”
I was suddenly pissed off.
But instead of getting away from Jess, I kissed her again.
I kissed her harder than before.
I wanted to show her I wasn’t heartbroken and I didn’t need some old girlfriend in my life.
Someone let out a whistle.
“When’s my turn?” a voice yelled.
I broke the kiss and stood up.
The guy who whistled was cackling to himself.
His stomach ready to burst through his black t-shirt. The messy scruff on his face and his dark hair giving him the appearance of some badass dude.
I lunged at him, bringing the whiskey glass to his forehead. It shattered with ease.
The guy screamed and grabbed for his face.
I managed to land one left punch before the entire bar erupted.
I heard Charlie’s booming voice that I needed to get the fuck out.
Jess wrapped her arms around me. “We’re leaving, Jett. Or else you’re going to get yourself killed here. Right now.”
She pushed me back toward the bar.
I dug cash out of my pocket and threw all I had on the bar, which was way more than what I had to drink.
I stumbled out of the bar with Jess grabbing my arm, my hand, my shirt, anything to try and keep me settled.
That’s when the entire day and night caught up to me.
Kissing Jess wasn’t the same as kissing Julia.
And I would never kiss Julia again.
And I would never love someone else…
* * *
I woke up on a couch and gasped for a breath of air like I had been underwater.
My legs swung off the couch and I stood up.
The room spun so fucking fast, I started to run.
I tripped over a table, hit a chair, but managed to get to the sink.
As I hung over it, feeling hungover, living in this sick world of rinse and repeat, I splashed water on my face.
“I have bottles of water. You don’t have to drink from the sink like a hamster.”
I spun around and Jess stood leaning against her fridge.
She was in a white hoodie and it looked like nothing else.
I looked at myself.
Then at her.
“Don’t worry, Jett, we didn’t fuck,” she said. “You stumbled to the couch and collapsed. Kind of sucked.”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I said. “I barely remember anything.”
“Well, you smashed a glass over a guy’s head for whistling at me. I appreciate that.”
“Shit,” I said, shutting my eyes. “Cops?”
“Nope. We got out of there. Luckily nobody knows who we are.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for that.”
“You never answered my question. Who is she?”
It took me a couple seconds and then it all came back.
I slowly shook my head.
“Jett… if that’s your real name…”
“It’s my real name, Jess,” I said. “I have no reason to hide my name.”
“I’m just saying it might help to talk about it. Get it all off your chest.”
“I have to go,” I said. “I’m late for work.”
“Of course. I can get you back to your car or whatever.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll manage.”
“The bar is only a couple miles away. Opposite end of town. You can call for a ride or walk.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks for the couch.”
“Hey, before you leave, want to jump in the shower with me?”
I lifted an eyebrow at Jess. “What?”
She giggled. “It was a joke. Get out of here. You’re not my type.”
I walked to the front door of the house. “She was the only one I ever loved with all of my heart. And we had a lot of bad things happen to us. We both drifted a little and we broke up. I don’t even remember breaking up with her. Or what it was actually over. It was just… done. I figured it was nothing but a time thing. Wait a little. Figure it out. Then she met up with an ex and she married that guy yesterday. I had to stay away. So I sat at a bar and talked to a pretty lady for a while.”
I ripped open the front door and stepped out onto the porch.
It was a normal looking neighborhood.
Houses lining each side of the street.
A two car garage for each house.
Basketball hoops. Bikes. Toys in the yard.
I looked to the driveway and saw only one car there.
I walked down the porch and down the sidewalk.
The perfectly square, red barn looking mailbox was open with a magazine dangling off the edge. The least I could do for Jess was get her mail, right?
I touched the magazine and it unrolled.
My eyes saw the address sticker.
Her name wasn’t Jess.
It was Robin.
She had been the one giving out a fake name.
I left the magazine and the rest of the mail where it was and hurried down the street, hungover and confused.
But more than that, Jess-slash-Robin saw it all over my face.
I was forever brokenhearted because of Julia.
Chapter 13
NOW
Julia
Business slowed in the early afternoon so I sat down and put my head back and let out a breath, a sigh and a growl and whatever other noises I could possibly think of.
Did it help?
Nope.
What was it supposed to help?
I didn’t even know.
I stretched my neck and Whitney appeared at the table.
“Got a second?” she asked.
“Of course I do,” I said.
Her eyes were always bright and cheery. She was something like a symbol of hope to me with all the craziness in my life.
But today… she looked lost. Like her spirit had been sucked out of her.
And, hey, we were entitled to those days.
Only today wasn’t the first day.
“This is just an example of what I was talking about,” she said.
She opened a folder and I looked down.
“Whoa,” I said. “How…”
“I took classes in graphic design,” she said. “I know the basics.”
“Basics,” I said. “This is amazing. It’s a food truck with our name and logo on it.”
“Not ours, Julia,” Whitney said. “Yours. This is all yours.”
“You’re in this too,” I said. “I don’t get any of this. You w
ant to drive a truck around town? And do what? Park at a red light and sell coffee?”
Whitney grinned. “This is a big deal, Julia. We can take the truck outside of Hidden. Or keep it here too. Park it somewhere people are hanging around. I’m sure there’s places where people walk the beach in the morning, right? Go there and get some easy foot traffic.”
“You think?”
“Just a thought,” she said. “It’s your business though.”
I noted a little attitude.
Whitney was annoyed with me.
I didn’t call it out right away though.
“Yeah, I guess it is my business,” I said. “Hey, why don’t you start your own business?”
That got Whitney’s full attention. “Excuse me?”
I turned the folder around and stared her down. “You’re young, smart, and you have a little bit of a ruthless attitude to yourself. What I’m paying here is nothing compared to what you’re actually worth. And even then, it’s not enough. So you should be on your own to make sure you’re doing exactly what you want. Then you won’t have someone like me in the way. I mean, look at this work. You spent how many hours on this? The research. The planning. Not to mention the graphic design work. This is a full business presentation here, Whitney. This is the kind of thing you’d take to a bank for a loan.”
“Are you going to give me a loan then?” she asked.
I noted the very intense cockiness coming from her voice.
I looked at the folder again.
Then back to Whitney.
I let out a humph sound.
“What?” Whitney asked.
“You’ve mentioned this before,” I said. “I never said it was a bad idea. I don’t know much about it. I think the concept is interesting. It would require more work from both of us. That doesn’t bother me. Work has never bothered me.”
“Work doesn’t bother me either,” Whitney said. “And neither does the money. Why would you want me to be your competitor? That makes no sense to me. I’m just trying to help you. I’m not some young, dumb, bitch looking to take everything from you. Okay?”
Whitney stood up.
The chair scratched across the floor.
And just like that she was on the move.
She walked to the front window, ironically standing at the table where Kinney had been sitting at.
Kinney.
Damn.
Jett.
Shit.
That was a whole other messy bag that I just slung over my shoulder and carried it around. Like I had any other choice at the moment.
I slowly stood up and grabbed both coffees - mine and the one Whitney forgot, which was hers.
The place was completely empty.
People were walking the sidewalks.
A normal day for Hidden.
I laughed in my head at that word.
Hidden.
It seemed those who lived in the town were exactly that. Hidden.
Or they were hiding something.
It was almost a rite of passage.
Well, that and the size of your bank account.
I stuck my hand out and Whitney took her coffee.
“French vanilla,” I said. “I never quite got used to the taste.”
“Freshman year,” Whitney said. “I shared a dorm with a girl named Oasis. No lie. That was her name. All she drank was French vanilla. I hated it. The smell made me want to throw up. But I got used to it. She would drink the stuff by the gallon. And I had no money at the time. I could barely keep myself together to stay enrolled.” Whitney looked at me. “Yeah, I know. Overbearing parents who insisted I needed to be there, yet they both had nothing to offer me to actually make it all work. Kind of backwards, right? That’s a whole other story for another time. Anyway, to wrap up this stupid novel, Oasis let me drink as much of her coffee as I wanted. Just as long as I read over her papers and made sure she wasn’t going to fail. The smell and the taste eventually grew on me. Now I can’t drink anything but that. Go figure.”
“So drinking it is like a memory to you,” I said. “A reminder. Of where you came from. That you survived a crazy time.”
Whitney lifted an eyebrow. “Wow. That’s what you took out of it?”
“Yeah. How did you get through college?”
“Honestly? On the side, I took investing classes. And I worked any job I could get to make cash. I walked dogs. I babysat dogs.”
“You babysat dogs?” I asked.
“Don’t ask. I wrote papers for people. Not smart, but oh well. And I learned how to invest it all. It wasn’t a get rich quick thing but I kept going. I split what I had in half, investing half smart and the other half invested really risky. Some of paid off, some of it didn’t. Let’s just say a few things did work out to my benefit. Then I got lucky enough to have a professor catch me writing papers. When I told her what I was doing, instead of punishing me, she got me involved with this group of investors. Blah, blah, blah, things worked out really nice for me. I got out of college with a degree, no debt, and a lot of money. So here I am.”
“Pissing everyone off,” I said with a grin.
“Yeah. Am I pissing you off?” Whitney asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle. I’m more pissed that you’re making me feel old and grumpy.”
“How so?”
I laughed. “The woman who opened this place, Aunt Bea. I would suggest things to her and she would get mad at me. Push back at me.”
“Ah,” Whitney said. “So you’re Aunt Bea. And I’m the new Julia.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say that, Whitney. You don’t want to be the new Julia. Or the old Julia. Or the just right now Julia.”
“Maybe I already am,” Whitney said.
“Oh?”
“Got anything we can put in this coffee?”
Whitney’s eyes became glossy.
I walked to the front door and locked it.
“What are you doing?” Whitney asked.
“We’re closed for employee training,” I said.
“Julia…”
“Follow me,” I told Whitney. “I’m sure I can make that coffee taste much better.”
* * *
Young, dumb bitch trying to take everything.
That stuck with me.
We sat shoulder to shoulder at the open back door, smoking, sipping coffee laced with whatever I had hidden in a desk drawer.
Vodka and coffee had an interesting taste, but the side effects were what we both needed.
“I had my first cigarette after I won the high school science fair in ninth grade. I beat out all the nerds. All the kids that had been working for years on doing something great. And I was just some bitchy ninth grader.”
“What was your project?”
Whitney looked at me. “Theory of gravity. It was really fucking cool. I won’t explain it all.”
“Good. I’m too dumb for that stuff,” I said. “Other than knowing gravity makes it so I don’t float away. Which… after another cup of my special coffee, I just might do that…”
Whitney laughed. “How much vodka did you put in these?”
“A little.”
“Liar.”
So I might have dumped most of the coffee out… oops.
“So you wanted to be a rebel then and now,” I said.
“It’s a stupid curse. And you’re totally right, Julia. I should open my own business. I have the time and the money to do it. But everything in my life that has been… should. My parents used me as their only good thing in their lives. That’s a lot of pressure to live under.”
“Yeah. That sucks.”
“It sucks big time. So I do my little things. Like smoking.”
“Got it,” I said.
“I’m almost not stupid.”
“You’re far from stupid.”
“I know you’re dying to know why I put all that stuff together for the food truck.”
“Yup.”
“My friend…”
&
nbsp; “Friend?”
“Friend,” Whitney said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Oh. That friend.”
“Yeah. Him.”
“Things go south?”
“Plane never got off the tarmac.”
I laughed. “Whitney, what did you think would happen?”
She frowned at me.
I touched her shoulder. “Shit. Sorry.”
“You’ve been holding that in, huh?”
“No.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“Fine. That kind of thing never ends well.”
“And I know that, Julia.”
“But it’s hurting you,” I said.
“It’s hurting me because he has a girlfriend.”
“What a dick.”
“No,” Whitney said. “He didn’t have a girlfriend while we were together. He had… whatever. But he made his choice, I guess. I don’t know. Feelings grew with someone and he did the right thing. He didn’t play anyone or anything like that.”
“But you liked him.”
“No,” Whitney said.
I tilted my head. “Then what was it?”
“The other bitch. She said I was dumb. That I was young. That I was going to take everything away. Like who the fuck are you to say that about me?”
“Wow. She really said that?”
“Yeah,” Whitney said. “I went to talk to him. Right? Just to… I don’t know. And he was open and honest. I was kind of there for a different reason.”
“Right.”
“I appreciated his honesty. And then this… thing came out of nowhere.”
“She was there too?”
“She showed up. I guess she felt I was stepping in?”
“Okay, so he is a dick then.”
“You know what? He is a dick. A big dick. No. He doesn’t get credit for that. He’s a totally mediocre, average dick.”
I laughed. “Good. Give me that cup.”
“Fuck the cup, Julia. Just get the bottle.”
I set the coffee on the ground and hurried into the office.
I was starting to feel it.
Really feel it.
Which was good.
Really good.
I stumbled back to the back door and sat down next to Whitney again.
“Are we good with this?” she asked.
“With what?”
HIDDEN CREEK NOW: a hidden creek high novel Page 11
