Jessica was awakened by her phone vibrating.

She rolled her head slowly to the side pretty sure that she was dreaming. It took a few moments and another round of buzzing for her to come to the conclusion that she was not dreaming and she had just received a text message. In the dark she could read that it was from Alex.

She picked up her phone, noticed that it was three-thirty in the morning. What in the hell could he possibly want at this hour? She debated ignoring it and thought about just drifting back off to sleep. She darted her eyes to the left, making sure that Dean hadn’t heard the phone.

He was dead asleep.

She decided to ignore it. Whatever Alex had to say to her he could say in the morning. Now was the time for sleeping. She had been dreaming about something amazing, but she could not remember what. She hated when that happened. It was something that was going to bug her the rest of the day and she silently cursed Alex. Hopefully her subconscious would remember it and she could get back to sleep easily.

A few minutes later she was on the verge of drifting back to sleep when the phone vibrated again. It somehow seemed to be louder this time. She couldn’t believe it. The man would not take no for an answer. She used to find that sexy, but now she was finding it totally annoying.

She slipped out of the covers and grabbed her phone. She clicked on the first message.

Hey, meet me outside the cabin. I want to talk.

That is a very vague message, she thought. Why would she even take that bait? Come on, Alex. You are going to have to do better than that.

She clicked on the second message.

Come on, don’t be a chicken shit.

Jess glared angrily in the dark. How did he know how to push her buttons? How did he know that being called that was the worst thing in the world for her?

She tried not to give in. It was late and she was exhausted. She had actually thought about going into the other room to get some work done; she always worked much more efficiently when she was tired. She was not sure why. Maybe it was because her brain was moving at a slower pace and she could actually concentrate better. She had read an article once about the effects of limited sleep on overachievers and she believed one of the studies had proven that theory on its test subjects. She wondered why they had never contacted her. She would have been great for a study like that.

It was going to eat at her if she didn’t go. Being called chicken shit or anything close to it had always had the same effect on her as telling her that she couldn’t do something or that she couldn’t be something. Jess had always been the type of person who could not stand being told what to do or being told that she was inferior in some way. She had gotten better with it and at times she thought she had even cured it, but then some idiot would say something to her and it would send her over the edge a bit. She hated to be treated that way and could not stand the idea of someone looking down on her.

She knew that Alex was just teasing and he was trying to aggravate her. Well, it’s effing working. She knew as soon as she had read the words that she was going to be going out there tonight. It was stupid and he was probably going to try to get her naked or do some other weird shenanigans.

On second thought, he was a grown man. She had dated far too many insecure little boys in her time who needed to grow up. Alex was many things and most of those things were shadowed in a negative light, but he was a strong, dominant man who was in charge of his own life. That was one of the things she found most intriguing about him. She had really been giving him an extra hard time of things and she wasn’t sure why.

Maybe it was because Alex was the quintessential bad boy and she had vowed never to get seriously involved with one of those. This was precisely the reason that she had pulled herself back from him, she realized. She liked Alex way more than she liked to admit and that scared her. She was as afraid of him as she was turned on and drawn to him. It was a weird bad boy sickness and most women alive today had dealt with it and they either moved on or matured out of it or they clung to it convinced that they were right in assuming that these men could change. But they could only change a little bit. If they changed too much then they were no longer exciting and bad. There was no excitement, mystery, or danger. Some women thrived on it.

Jess knew she was one of those women, but she had refrained from allowing herself to become too involved with that kind of man. She knew that if a man like that ever sank his teeth into her then she would be his forever and it would be hopeless. She would fall madly in love and then her heart would eventually become shattered into a million pieces, never to be repaired again.

Jess took a deep breath, got out of bed, put on a pair of sweats and a hoody. Five minutes later she was standing outside of the cabin looking for Alex.

She saw no one. The anger began to rise inside of her and she felt like screaming. Had he just sent her this text so that she would go outside for no reason? It was freezing out and she wasn’t dressed that warmly. She didn’t think she would be out there that long. And she was right. Alex was nowhere in sight so she was going back inside.

“Hey, looking for me?”

Jess stopped mid step and spun around. Alex’s grinning face was standing there. He had been hiding behind a tree and now he stepped out into full view, his face lit up by the huge, bright full moon that hung low in the clear sky. He was clearly enjoying himself and his little trick on her. She was filled with a sudden urge to ram his face into a tree. But the way he was laughing was beginning to make her laugh. She held onto her straight face by sheer force of will.

“What are you doing?” Jess asked.

“I was out for a walk and I got bored. So I came up here.”

“You walked all the way up here?”

“It’s not that far. I’m at the resort about two miles down the road. It’s a pretty nice walk actually,” Alex said.

“You take a lot of midnight strolls?”

“I do when I’m this close to the beauty of nature,” Alex replied seriously.

Jess was trying desperately to figure this man out and just when she thought she had him, he threw her another curve. It was exhausting but also very exciting. Oh, no--- those are two of the symptoms, she thought.

“Ok, I’m here. What was so important that you had to drag me out of bed at four in the morning?”

“I needed to talk to you. I need to talk to you about Dean.”

“What about Dean?”

Alex walked closer to her, his feet shuffling the snowy asphalt beneath.

“Dean is dangerous,” Alex said.

Jess laughed. “What do you mean dangerous? He is your best friend.”

“Yeah, he is. I know him better than just about anybody. Trust me when I tell you the man is dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“A few years ago he got a girl pregnant. She was one of our interns. The girl tried to blackmail him into marrying her. Her grandpa is Judge Williams. If you know anything about Judge Williams then you know that you never want to piss this guy off.”

“Ok. I’m listening.”

“Well, Dean wasn’t sure what to do. He was really in a bind. If he didn’t marry her then she was going to make him pay out the ass for child support for years to come. Based on his earnings and some extra doctoring from the judge with the court documents, the man was looking at paying a king’s ransom for a kid with a woman that he barely knew.”

“Wow. So what happened?”

“That’s where it gets weird. Dean decides to marry the girl and a few weeks before the wedding the girl is driving home from work when she loses control of the car and rolls it over a big hill. She was found dead at the scene.”

“Wow, that’s awful. Did he ever recover from it?”

Alex laughed. “You don’t understand. The girl meant less than nothing to him. He had been forced into marrying a woman he hated and suddenly in a flash all of his problems are solved.”

“No, way. You aren’t suggesting that he actually did something to make her crash so he wouldn’t have to marry her.”

“That is what the cards are showing.”

“Did the cops ever look suspiciously at him?” Jess asked.

“No, of course not. It was a pretty clean, textbook case.”

“So, you have no way of knowing he did that.”

Alex smiled. It looked wicked in the moonlight.

“Did you know that Dean’s dad was a mechanic?”

Jess shook her head no.

“Did you know that Dean worked there part time until he was in high school? The man knows how to mess with an automobile. His dad used to do it all the time. You know, a customer comes in who knows dick about cars and needs a repair. He cuts them a deal and fixes it, but then he tampers with something else that is a lot more expensive so they have to come right back for that.”

“That’s messed up. You really think he did that?”

“I don’t have any irrefutable proof and neither did the cops, but there are far too many coincidences there to ignore for my comfort.”

Jess thought a moment about what Alex had said. Was that what they were talking about before? Was it possible? Could Dean actually have gotten away with murder? Maybe more than once? If it was true then who was to say that he wouldn’t do it again if the opportunity presented itself to him?

But it all could be a coincidence. There was no proof and why would she believe Alex about any of this? He saw Dean as competition where she was concerned and he wasn’t past saying anything to tarnish Dean’s good name to put him in better graces with her.

“So, where is Chelsea?”

“Oh, God. I had to get away from that girl. She has a body that will melt your mind, but she has a brain that will fill it with air.”

Jess laughed.

“So, your weekend is a bust?” Jess asked.

“Well, not totally. I still get to spend time with you.”

“Yeah, but I’m here with Dean.”

“Well, actually you are here…with me,” Alex replied.

Jess smiled. She was now aware that Alex had closed the gap and he was invading her personal space. What was weirder is that she seemed to have no problem letting him. She did not know what it was about this man that had such a huge allure over her, but she wanted to touch him, almost like a driving need. It was weird because between him and Dean she was being pulled equally hard in two directions. She knew that she had to pick one of these guys. She understood now as Alex pressed his mouth against hers and began to pull her close to him—as she wrapped her arms around his thick neck and enjoyed his lips massaging hers—that she needed to make a decision. She could not have it both ways here. This feud of theirs was getting out of hand and she was the cause of it. They were best friends and business partners who had built a hugely thriving business that was in jeopardy of being dismantled with some stupid jealousy and lies.

As she enjoyed Alex’s lips on hers she realized that she had made a decision. She was going to tell them both who she was going to pick on Monday. It had to end.

It had to end.