Chapter Nine
Jake didn’t speak until they were out of the spa, showered and put together again. He held the passenger open for Jessie and stared at her profile through the window for a few seconds. It was time to face the facts. For all his hemming and hawing, he was about to throw rational thought right out the window.
Jessie might have been right in her fears about how they would have ended up if she’d stayed, but she hadn’t stayed. They were in different spots now than they had been at eighteen. They could work it out if they wanted to. There wasn’t an easy answer about how they’d accomplish that, but Jake had never been afraid of a challenge—not before his accident, and sure as hell not after.
The woman in his truck was nothing if not a challenge.
She already looks more herself. He walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in. “You have something for the masquerade ball.” He grimaced. “I wasn’t going to dress up, but Karly Stocker called me directly and threatened not to let me through the doors if I’m not in costume.”
Jessie laughed. “She sent me a pointed email.”
“That woman is as mean as a snake, and the power of organizing this event has gone to her head. Best not to tempt fate by disobeying a direct order.”
“I have a costume.” She smoothed her hands over her dress.
He pulled out of the parking lot and headed back in the direction of Catfish Creek. “I don’t know if I said it before, but you look mighty fine today, Jessica Jackson. I like that dress. It suits you.”
“It’s silly to be rebelling against my mama at twenty-eight, but I’ll admit that knowing she’d lose her mind seeing me in black was part of the reason I chose it.”
“I know.” Jessie wasn’t his pet project. It wasn’t his job to fix her. She was a person and didn’t need fixing. But it made him all kinds of happy to see her stand up to her mama. “What do you have lined up for tonight?”
She grinned. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
He pulled into her parents’ drive. Their house never failed to give him a kick in the gut. He hadn’t grown up with money that way the Jacksons had. Jake never went without, but his daddy had worked on a ranch and his mama did other ladies’ hair for a living. They were beneath the Jacksons, and Jessica’s parents had never hesitated to let him know it.
It didn’t matter that he could buy and sell this place ten times over now. He still felt a day late and a dollar short.
“Sometimes I wish things were different.”
Jake kept quiet while the truck bumped along the gravel driveway. She rewarded him by continuing her thought. “The whole beauty queen thing never made me happy.”
“I know.” It was her big, dark secret that she’d confided in him when they hit middle school. She went along with her mama’s craziness because she didn’t have another choice. Somewhere around their freshman year, Jessie had decided that she’d never escape her mama’s plans, so she might as well embrace them. He hadn’t liked that much, but he knew the girl beneath the mean exterior.
The one she only let him see.
He stopped the truck, but didn’t turn it off. “Do you still think about interior decorating?” It had always been her dream—her dream, not her mama’s.
“It’s not the most stable of markets. Hard to get into, and even harder to stay relevant.”
Logical thinking. He still hated to hear it come out of her mouth. “Since when had something being tough stopped you? I swear, you became Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen out of spite because Karly Stocker decided she had a chance.”
“She gave me a run for my money.” Jessie gave a faint smile.
“But you beat her in the end. There’s no reason you couldn’t be an interior designer if you wanted to.” From what she said, between her two friends’ connections—not to mention her own connections—she should have more than enough people willing to give her a shot. Hell, he had a client list of rich, bored women who would like nothing better than to have Jessie put their vision for their mansions into reality while Jake’s guys cleaned their kitchen in Speedos.
He wasn’t a fan of those types of jobs, but most of the guys preferred them. It saved them the necessity of making small talk, and there were strict rules against touching that Jake had created to protect them. He had a no tolerance policy for clients who violated those rules.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But I’m not really in a position to go back to school, and so it’ll likely never happen.
“All I’m hearing are excuses.”
She reached for the door. “You’re welcome to your opinion, but ultimately it’s my choice. You might have forgiven me, Jake, but that doesn’t mean you get to start acting like my boyfriend again.” She snorted. “Even if you were my boyfriend, you still don’t get to tell me what to do with my life. I have one dad. I don’t need another one.”
Considering that Benjamin Jackson probably had his secretary bent over his desk right at that moment, Jake didn’t appreciate the comparison.
But that was the problem. Jessie looked at her parents’ dysfunctional relationship and assumed that she would naturally cleave to that—that it was her future set in stone. Well, he wasn’t Benjamin Jackson, and she sure as hell wasn’t her mama.
Just because her fears when she was eighteen had some credibility didn’t mean the same for whatever was holding her back now. He frowned. “What are you so scared of, Jessie?”
“Some days it feels like everything.” She was out of the car before he could say another word, hurrying up the walkway and into the house.
Jake huffed out a breath. “That went well.”
***
Jessica finished with her hair and fixed her dress for the seventh time. This whole masquerade ball had to be Karly’s revenge for not getting Prom Queen back in the day. Or maybe I’m overestimating my importance. She’d decided to go subtle for her costume. It was a slinky strapless dress that framed her breasts to perfection and highlighted her waist and ass. The dark blue faded to black at the bottom, and the whole thing was inlaid with a subtle floral pattern that a person really had to be paying attention to see. Her mask was just as simple—a black lace that set off her creamy skin and dark hair and made the color of her eyes pop.
She wasn’t trying to be the center of attention, but she was just vain enough not to want to fade into the background either.
Before she could think too hard about facing the theoretical firing squad, she marched out of her room and down the stairs. Jake waited by the front door, looking downright lickable in his suit. He fiddled with a black domino mask which was a perfect complement for her mask. Even after all this time, we coordinate without trying to.
She couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or a bad one.
He looked up and went still. “Jessica.”
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She couldn’t remember the last time Jake had used her full name. Resisting the temptation to turn around and race up the stairs like some kind of Cinderella in reverse, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “Jake.”
“You look…” He shook his head and crossed the living room in two big strides. “You look ravishing.”
“There’s a ten-dollar word if I ever heard one.”
“A true word.” He touched her chin with two fingers, looking for all the world like he was going to kiss her, but then Jake gave himself a shake and took a large step back. “Your mama has retired to her room again.”
Disappointment soured her stomach, but she pushed the reaction back. “What was it this time?”
“Something concerning Drew.” He held up a hand. “I don’t know what about, and it didn’t sound serious, but your mama took it badly.”
Jessica still didn’t know why her brother had chosen to move back here after fighting so hard to get out, and the few times she’d brought it up, he’d changed the subject so blatantly, she’d have to be an idiot to keep pushing. Maybe I should have pushed anyway. It made sense that their mama had turned her sights on Jessica’s brother since she’d stopped returning her calls.
Guilt tried to rise, but she shoved it down next to the disappointment. Drew was an adult. If anything, he had always been better able to deal with their mama’s crap than Jessica was. He was the one who’d saved her when things got too tense at the dinner table, or when their mama dragged her shopping and then complained about the size of her hips or how she’d put on a few pounds. Drew excelled at drawing the fire to give Jessica a reprieve. “I should call him.”
“Now?”
“Yes.” She dug her phone out of her clutch. “This will just take a minute.” The phone rang and rang, and right when she was about to hang up, her brother answered. “Hey.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why would you say something’s wrong?”
The fact that he’d just evaded her question spoke volumes. Drew was the steady one. He didn’t dance around anything, no matter how uncomfortable the subject. Jessica swallowed hard. “Is this about Mama? Do I need to call Dr. Pepper?”
He huffed out a laugh at their old S.O.S. code. “No, Jess. It’s fine. I’m just distracted.”
She almost asked what had him so distracted, but she and Jake were in danger of being late, and she’d promised to keep the call short. Still, she hesitated. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If we did need to call Dr. Pepper.”
A pause, painfully silent. “Sure. Yeah, I would.”
Her brother had just lied to her. It struck Jessica that while she’d been doing the equivalent of hiding out in LA, the world of Catfish Creek had been going on without her. It seemed silly that she hadn’t really thought about it, but this town had a way of feeling stagnant. Or maybe it just felt stagnant because I was a teenager under the thumb of my mother.
It wasn’t that Catfish Creek was too small. It was that she was too restless.
Would it fit better now?
She didn’t know. It was too much to think about—and that wasn’t even getting into the tangle that was Jake. So she forced a smile into her voice. “You have a good night, now.”
“You too, Jess. Try to have fun at the reunion.”
Not likely. “Mm-hmm. Bye.” She hung up and turned to find Jake watching her. “What?”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.” She answered before she could think too hard. “He sounded weird, but he said he was okay. I don’t know if the weird is from Mama or from something else.” Her plane ticket back to California wasn’t until Sunday, two days from now. She’d take the time to corner her big brother and figure out what was going on before then.
Tonight… Tonight was about her and Jake and making amends with her past.
Easier said than done.
“Should we go?”
Jake nodded and offered his arm. “Yeah, let’s get this show on the road.”
And with that rousing comment, they were off.
***
When Jake said “show,” he meant “shit-show.” He had his own reasons for not wanting to attend the reunion. It started the second they walked through the door.
Karly Stocker let loose a shriek when she saw him. “As I live and breathe! Jake Davis, you look like some kind of fancy movie star.” Her big blonde hair had enough hairspray in it to withstand a hurricane, and she’d erred on the side of 80s blue eye shadow. She handed over his nametag, which he stuck to his jacket with a grimace. What was the damn point of having a masquerade if they had nametags?
“I’ll be needing one as well.”
Karly’s expression did such a quick one-eighty, it was a wonder she didn’t give herself whiplash. “Jessica Jackson. I didn’t think you were going to show up.”
“The one and only.” Jessie slid up next to him, and he obligingly put his arm around her waist. He didn’t even blame her for putting on a show. Karly got under his skin like none other, and the way she’d been eyeing him made Jake feel like he was in a meat-packing facility.
“I didn’t realize that y’all…” She motioned between them and then made a visible effort to recover her smile. “I’m engaged to Jason St. Dalton. Isn’t this ring just glorious?” She flashed it close enough to his face, she almost took off a piece of his nose.
“Jason St. Dalton.” Jessie put a wealth of judgment into the name.
Karly flashed her an ugly look. “You have something to say, might as well get it out. I can see you chewing on it, and we both know you’re not one to couch your opinions in something resembling class.”
Jake tensed, but Jessie squeezed his arm and gaze her best pageant smile. “Oh, honey. Bless your sweet heart. That boy already went and had himself a marriage and a few kids. You never did manage to be first for anything worth having.”
He grabbed Jessie’s nametag out of Karly’s slack grip and towed her away before they could get kicked out. “Damn, love. Retract the claws.”
“Crap. You’re right.” She pressed her lips together and glanced over her shoulder. “She just brings out the worst in me. There are a lot of things I regret about high school, but taking Karly Stocker down a notch every chance I got isn’t one of them.
Bobby Fischer stumbled up to them before they made it ten steps, barely stopping before he ran into Jake. From his rank breath, he had hit The Grange before coming here. “Jake motherfucking Davis. The myth! The man! The legend!”
Jake tensed even as he told himself to relax. “Hey, man. How’s it going?” He’d known he’d have to deal with the kid he used to be—superstar football player, destined for the NFL. For as many people had moved on from high school, there were just as many who saw it as the best years of their lives.
Bobby was one of the latter. “Who cares about now? Do you remember that touchdown pass you threw to get us to State? And then we partied at Jeremy’s mom’s place all weekend? That was the best.”
A hand lacing with his made him aware of the rest of the room. Jessie shifted closer to him, glaring daggers at Bobby. “Robert Fischer, what a pleasure.”
He sobered. “Jessica Jackson. You have some nerve showing your face here.” His gaze raked over her in a way that made Jake see red. “You’re still hot, though you got kind of fat.”
Her grip tethered Jake when he would have gone for Bobby’s throat. She smiled in a way that was sugary sweet and cut right to the bone. “I’m not the only one. Or is that a keg you’ve smuggled in here?” She turned that smile on Jake. “Shall we?”
“Yeah.” He nodded at Bobby. “See you around.”
“I thought you got rid of that bitch. Guess some things never change—you’re still thinking with your Johnson.”
Jessie towed him deeper into the gym. It had been converted into a slightly more red, blue, and gold version of itself. The lights were dimmed enough that one could almost overlook the fact that they were in a gym, rather than a ballroom. They were close enough, he could hear her muttering under her breath. “Johnson. Who the hell uses Johnson anymore? It’s a dick, or a cock if you’re going above and beyond. God, I can’t believe you hung out with that idiot.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stopped. “What?”
“I shouldn’t have let him talk to you like that.”
“Oh, please.” Jessie rolled her eyes. “I’ve had worse things said to me on a weekly basis. I live in LA, remember? I was too ‘fat’ for them at eighteen. I’m a behemoth now.” She held up a hand. “I don’t think that about myself. You don’t think that about me. Who the hell cares what anyone else thinks?”
He didn’t… But it pissed him the hell off to think that Bobby might have hurt her beneath that shiny armor she wore. He pulled her into his arms, inch by inch, and she let him. Jake rested his face against the side of hers. In her heels, she was only an inch or two shorter than he was. “You are beautiful, Jessica Jackson.”
“Why thank you, Jake Davis. I think you’re pretty beautiful, too.”
He chuckled. “Thanks.”
“Anytime you need a pick me up, you give me a call.” She frowned. “I guess you don’t have my number anymore. Oh wait, yes you do. I put it in my paperwork.”
He stroked a hand down her back. The reminder of how this whole strange second chance got started was a bucket of cold water over his head. He had to tell her the truth sooner, rather than later. It wasn’t a huge secret that he owned Diamond Dates. He wasn’t a silent partner, but he also didn’t advertise it. The chances of there being someone at the reunion who knew was a solid fifty-fifty.
A familiar voice sifted through the speakers, and he glanced up to see none other than their local celebrity—Travis Walker—singing his newest song. “Look who’s here.”
“One of the few people I wasn’t dreading seeing again.” She smiled. “I love this song.”
“Dance with me. Fuck the rest of them.”
“You know it’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is.” It was the most natural thing in the world to guide them onto the dance floor. Jessie sighed a little and melted into him. They swayed back and forth as Travis sang about love and loss.
None of the other people in this building mattered. He’d figured that out a long time ago. Jessie would figure it out, too. Jake would walk over hot coals for the people in his life he cared about, but he could give two fucks what acquaintances thought of him. If they weren’t close enough to seek each other out since high school, their opinion of him was irrelevant.
The woman in his arms, though?
She mattered all too much.
He spoke without thinking. “I don’t want this to end after this weekend.”
“What?” She tensed but didn’t stop dancing.
There was no going back now. He’d planned on waiting until tomorrow to broach the subject, but now was as good a time as any. “We’ve grown up since high school. I think we might fit even better now than we did then, and I want a chance to find out.”
“But… I live in California. You live here.”
“We could make it work if we tried.” He had money to spare. He could fly in on weekends to see her until they reached a point where relocation was on the table. “I want to try, Jessie. I feel like I just found you again. I don’t want to miss this chance because of fifteen hundred miles.”
Her spine was steel beneath his hand. “I don’t know. What if it doesn’t work out? It’d be losing you all over again.”
“You can’t live your life being afraid of what you could lose. Think of what you—what we—could gain. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a hell of a time the last two days. And I’m not just talking about the sex, so don’t even start with that shit.”
She laughed softly. “It’s been good. Aggravating and strange and different. But good.”
“Yes.” He swayed them around in a slow circle and let her work through it. Pushing right now would just result in her digging in her heels and telling him to fuck off. Jessie didn’t like being backed into a corner. Her mama had done it too many times over the years—would still be doing it if she hadn’t left Catfish Creek.
Travis stopped singing, and the DJ picked up where he’d left off with another slow song, so they kept dancing. While she worked through whatever was going on in her head, the gym slowly started to fill around them. He’d gotten them here early on purpose to give them a chance to relax before she started running the gauntlet. Jessie could take Karly on her worst day, but facing down a crowd could be intimidating as hell—especially when she was so determined to find…whatever the hell she was looking for by coming here. Penance, maybe.
The gym was full.
The reprieve was over.