A little bit of time away gave me a chance to breathe from her ideas. Lack of love attention from her guy friend left her brain in overdrive. All of her ideas were genius, but the poor woman needed to get laid.
Which made me laugh because it had been… what… a cup of coffee since she last had fun? She had no idea what it meant to wait yet.
The back door slid open and Margaret walked out, clutching a leather folder to her chest. I smelled her a second later. Her hair stood a mile high and wide, naturally bright red in color. Match that with her super fair skin, blue eyes, jangling bracelets, nails that were painted to match her women’s suit, and you could tell she meant business. She was going to talk you into buying whatever she was selling.
The first thing she did was point to my cigarette.
“You don’t smoke in the house, do you?” she asked. Before I could answer, she decided to keep talking. “Because if you do, you need to stop. Non-smokers can pick up on that smell in a second. And that’s a deal breaker. Not even the smell, but… well, whatever. I didn’t smell any smoke. If you decide to smoke inside, let me know. I have some fantastic odor killers. I once had a house where a woman had ten cats. Hear that again. Ten damn cats. Litter boxes everywhere. And I managed to keep the boxes not only hidden but the smell gone while I showed the house.”
“Margaret,” I said. “I don’t smoke in the house.”
“Good for you,” she said. “I don’t know if you’re going to want to hear what I have to say next.”
“Okay…”
“This town is flooded with mansions,” Margaret said. “That means those who buy and sell are looking for that.”
“Right,” I said. “But this kind of place… beachfront…”
Margaret put up a hand and smiled. “I’ll have you on the street in no time.”
“What? Really?”
“Are you kidding me, Julia?” Margaret asked. “I see it one of two ways. I either get someone like you to live here. And by that I mean someone who can appreciate a house on the beach without fifteen bathrooms. It’s cozy. It’s comfortable. The entire vibe is just… perfect. Or I sell it as a getaway place. Like someone buying a small cabin in the woods. Not saying this house is small.”
“It’s small,” I said. “You’re not going to offend me there.”
“Well, what isn’t small is the price tag. Granted, it’s not a seven figure mansion, but…”
Margaret showed me a number and I craved another cigarette.
To celebrate.
And just like that, I was selling my house too.
Not copying Jett.
Moving forward in life.
Where was I going to live?
I had no idea.
I was now Julia without a plan.
Worst case, I’d live in the apartment complex Whitney did.
I didn’t have much in the house to take with me that really mattered. And anything that important I could just throw into a storage unit. Which made sense to me. It would be a total do over in a way.
The house meant a lot to me and had served its purpose.
I stood on my own two feet when nobody believed I could.
I reopened the bakery and bought a house.
Part of me wanted to sell the house last year but I ignored the urge more than a few times. Which worked out perfectly when I got the call about Aira. There was no way Stella would have let Aira live in a cramped apartment with me.
Aira was gone again.
She and Wes were doing their own thing.
It was time.
And the price Margaret just gave…
“This is going to be fun,” Margaret said.
“Yeah it is,” I said. “A new chapter.”
“I love new chapters,” Margaret said.
“Me too,” I said.
Which was a complete and total lie.
I didn’t like new chapters.
I didn’t like new stories.
I had the book I wanted to live in for the rest of my life.
I still had it too.
It was just shut.
For now.
Maybe for good.
* * *
Whitney poked her head around the corner and made a face that made my heart sink.
“Please tell me something’s on fire,” I said.
She shook her head. “You’d probably wish that instead of this.”
“What?”
“Kinney is at the door.”
“It’s locked.”
“He’s knocking. Shaking the door.”
“Is he drunk?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. Want me to call the cops?”
I considered it.
That would have been fun to see.
But, no.
Police lights. Dusty. Kinney. My messy past. Right there on the main street in Hidden.
“I’ll let him in,” I said. “You go home.”
“You sure?”
“Whitney, you’ve been here since three this morning.”
“I can’t sleep,” she said.
“Go to a bar or something. Have a drink. Talk to a guy.”
“Take him home, right?” Whitney asked.
“I didn’t say that. Take yourself home.”
She laughed. “Thanks.”
“Your ideas are amazing. We’re going to make it all happen. But one thing at a time.”
“So you mean we deal with the food truck and annoying ex-husband first?” Whitney asked.
I grabbed a spoon and threw it at her. “Get out of here.”
Whitney caught the spoon. “Oh, this is smooth. I like it. I might take this home with me.”
I rolled my eyes. “You do that. Keep the spoon. By all means.”
Whitney laughed. “Please call me if you need anything. I’m not relaxing until I hear from you and know he’s gone.”
I nodded.
Whitney and I at some point had crossed the line of friendship.
It wasn’t a bad thing.
I wiped my palms on my jeans as I walked to the front of the bakery.
Anger ripped through me that Kinney still made me jittery.
And not the same kind of jittery as Jett.
Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter…
Kinney knocked on the glass even as I approached. He kept knocking even as I reached for the lock. And he continued to knock even after I opened the door.
He stepped into the bakery, knocking, grinning at me.
“Hey, Pretty J,” he said.
“Kinney. We’re closed.”
“Now you’re open. Got anything to drink?”
“No… are you drunk?”
“Not drunk,” he said. “I had a drink. Celebratory drink.”
“For?”
Why are you asking this?
“Just a good day today,” he said. “Not that you actually care.”
“Good. No need to bullshit each other.”
“Nope,” he said.
He reached for my face and I stepped back. “What are you doing?”
“You have flour on your cheek. No harm. Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Break the habit then, Kinney,” I said.
“You’re pissed off that I’m here.”
“I’m pissed off at a lot of things.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No.”
“I know something you don’t.”
Kinney wiggled his hips and tried to do some kind of weird looking dance thing.
“Kinney, I’m busy,” I said.
“Packing up. Right?”
“What?”
“You’re selling your house.”
“How the hell do you know that?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
He grinned.
I jumped at him and grabbed his shirt. “Did you go by my house? What the hell are you trying to do here? I’m not okay with that. At all.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kinney sai
d, putting his hands up. “Don’t shoot.”
I swallowed hard.
I let him go.
When I tried to step away, he put a hand to my back.
He pulled me close. “I might stay, Pretty J. Not sure. Stella got herself into a mess. I got her out of one deal. There’s a lot more. So for the hell of it I called an agent to help me find something. Saw your house was newly listed. Caught my attention. Are you moving on or moving forward?”
I swallowed hard again. “That’s not your business, Kinney. I don’t even know why you’re here. You just do nothing but cause problems.”
He grinned. “That’s right. The mention of my name or the sound of my voice causes all kinds of problems. Yet I’ve done nothing to actually cause those problems.”
“You’ve done enough already,” I said.
“Have I? We haven’t even really talked yet. A lot was left just hanging there.”
I opened my mouth to tear into him but Kinney didn’t give me a chance.
“It was my fault,” he said.
My mouth shut.
I waited.
“I should have never left everything the way I did,” he said. “Knowing I was leaving for months, leaving behind the divorce papers. I just thought it was the best thing to do and way to do it.”
Kinney got closer to me.
His lips inching toward mine.
I was frozen for the moment.
Because that was the thing. The big it. The whatever that nobody knew about.
Kinney left for that stupid trip to Canada and had me served with divorce papers the next day.
But he and nobody else knew that I had printed papers to figure out how to divorce him first…
Chapter 16
NOW
Jett
I had a cigarette dangling from my mouth, my hand tight around a wrench, fighting the good fight against a bolt that wanted nothing to do with listening to me. My hand had already slipped three times, leaving a nice pool of blood on the garage floor.
Sweat collected at my forehead and ran down my nose and dripped.
The motorcycle was in rough shape but a little time and care and she’d be back up and running. There was no reason for me to be working on the piece of shit that had sat in the back corner of the shop for the last six months.
Maybe it was a little victory in life.
Maybe it was going to keep my mind off getting shit drunk.
Maybe it was-
My hand slipped again and the wrench hit the floor.
I stood up and took a deep drag of my cigarette.
From the corner of my eye I saw Wes.
And I saw the look in Wes’s eyes.
He was out for blood.
Wes had no problem expressing how he felt. Which was a damn blessing and curse rolled into one.
As he walked toward me, his hand shot out and he grabbed a wrench.
He lifted it into the air and came for more.
I just stood there, cigarette in my mouth, ready for him.
Wes closed in on me and when my eyes moved to the wrench, he shoved my shoulder with his free hand.
Nice fake out, kid.
Wes dropped the wrench and stepped back, lifting his fists.
“You’re out of here?” he asked.
The anger on his face turned into hurt. A deep kind of hurt. The kind of hurt that I only saw when it came to his father.
“Wes…”
“Don’t fucking make shit up,” Wes yelled. “Don’t fucking run behind my back either, Jett. Are you fucking serious?”
I grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward me. “You want to hit me? Do it. I’ll give you one or two for free. You want to keep going after that and you’re going to be kissing the concrete floor.”
“Jett…”
His voice cracked.
Dammit.
I wrapped my arm around Wes and hugged him.
I shut my eyes and felt worse than I already did.
So many moving parts in this goddamn town and I let one of the most important slip through the crack.
“I’m not leaving you, Wes,” I said to him.
He pushed away. He cleared his throat. “You’re out though.”
“I’m not out, Wes,” I said. “I’m selling the house. That’s true. Yeah.”
“Then what?” he asked. “What are you going to do then?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m not ditching you. Pop. The shop. If he told you that, he was wrong. I was fucking with him.”
“Fucking with him?” Wes asked. “He’s two hundred years old, Jett. You think his heart can take that?”
“He doesn’t have a heart.”
“Don’t fucking make a joke out of it,” Wes said. “I grew up like this. Watching West leave. And it didn’t hurt me, Jett. But I saw who it hurt.”
“Now who’s lying, Wes?” I asked.
“About what?”
“It crushed you when he left,” I said. “Each and every time. Don’t hide that shit, Wes. It’s okay to love your father. It’s okay to hate your father. And it’s okay to miss him.”
“I don’t fucking miss him!” Wes yelled. “I’ll miss you though. I love you, Jett. And I’m starting to goddamn hate you too.”
Wes let out a little growl sound. Which was him fighting back tears.
Ah… damn…
I dropped my cigarette and stepped on it as I moved toward him again.
I wrapped my right arm around him and hugged him again.
“Fucking hell, Wes, I love you too,” I said. “I’d never fucking leave you. Never.”
Wes looked up at me.
I grabbed his face with my other hand.
We were in an awkward position, but whatever.
“I’m sorry I made it look that way,” I said. “I would never just drop everything and leave you.”
“It hurts because you don’t have to be here,” Wes said. “But you choosing to be here… means something to me. I’m sorry if I never say it.”
“Shit, don’t take any guilt here,” I said. “You did nothing wrong.”
“Can we stop hugging now?” Wes asked.
I moved my hands and Wes backed up. “So what is it? Is it Julia?”
“It’s not easy, Wes.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking kid, Jett.”
I rubbed my jaw. “I don’t know if I ever wanted that house. I think I bought it knowing it was the kind of house Julia would never live in. My way of forgetting her.”
“Just like what she did.”
“Buying a house and getting married are two different things.”
“Maybe,” Wes said.
Fucking kid is right, Jett.
“Wes, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have to get rid of the house. That’s what I’m doing. If I have to sleep in my truck, I will. If I go rent some place for a bit, I will. That doesn’t matter. But I’m not leaving. Hell, let me rephrase. If I left, I’d be back. If I took a road trip to clear my head, you have to know I’m coming back.”
Wes nodded. “I just heard shit going down. That’s all.”
“Yeah?”
“My mother was talking to Cherry,” Wes said. “There’s just a lot going on.”
“Yeah, there is.”
“Fucking HCH never quiets down,” Wes said.
I folded my arms. “Try me. What’s up?”
“Well, Leo has himself in a nice mess,” Wes said. “You don’t even want to know. I don’t know what he’s trying to prove with this girl…” Wes shook his head. “That’s not important. Shit, there’s heat with BFH again.”
“Like what?”
“It’s their shit this time,” Wes said with a grin. “East vs West. It’s all crashing down again. Plus other shit. Stuff that touched close here. With Ryland…”
“Say no more,” I said. “I don’t want to hear anything else. What’s done is done.”
“Got it,” Wes said. “I just wish Aira and I could be…
calm.”
“Join the club.”
I never thought in my life I’d have a conversation like this with Wes. He and I talking about how busy Hidden was for being a small, rich beach town. And the fact that all we wanted was to spend time with the women we loved.
I moved toward Wes again. I grabbed him by the back of the neck. “I’d never leave you, Wes. I’d never hurt you. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“Got it,” Wes said. “And I hope this shit with Julia works itself out. One way or another. Hate seeing you hurt.”
“There’s a wrench back there,” I said to Wes. “Pick it up and start taking this piece of shit apart. I’m going for a ride. When I get back, you better have work done on it. Or else your ass is gone.”
Wes grinned.
I walked out of the garage and to my truck.
I needed to hide somewhere… for a minute.
* * *
I stood on the beach and enjoyed a cigarette.
I hated the fucking beach.
Ever since that day.
And to think there was a time when I used to surf.
I was the cool guy who would hand off his cigarette to a pretty girl, run into the water, catch the biggest wave I could, then come back to the shore to get both the cigarette and the girl.
But after seeing the size of the casket little Azel was buried in after drowning in the ocean…
I hung my head.
It hurt.
It still hurt.
It would forever hurt.
A guy like Pop - who really had no heart - was so messed up that he changed the name of the garage to WEAZ AUTO - naming it after Wes and Azel. It maybe meant nothing but it was something Pop needed to do to get through it.
My eyes had to be open the entire time though.
I had to watch Carolyn. I had to watch Wes.
There was no time for me to figure it out myself.
It caught up to me when Carolyn came by the shop a few months after Azel’s passing and I went to the back door and opened it, waiting to see his smiling face in his car seat.
There was no car seat.
There was no kid.
And by then there was also no West.
He took off.
After telling Wes is was his fault.
Throwing that kind of thing on Wes…
I lifted my left hand and waved my middle finger at the ocean.
HIDDEN CREEK NOW: a hidden creek high novel Page 14
