Page 6 of Jesse's Girl

Four words I barely understood, but the terrified way my sister spoke them was enough to send me racing to the nearest ticket counter. Mom collapsed in the grocery store, Claire had said. There’d been massive internal bleeding. A quick-thinking cashier had helped her get to the hospital in time, but they hadn’t been sure if she’d make it through surgery. So I didn’t know if I’d make it back in time to see her before she…

Well, thank God she didn’t.

“Scary shit.” Marcus shakes his head, then reaches out to squeeze my shoulder as we stop at the conveyor belt. Between the bear hug and the shoulder squeezes, this is more physical affection than I’ve had in months. He’s always been like that, though, and comes by it honestly. The Russo family crest might as well have a hand squishing your cheeks on it.

My suitcase approaches on the belt, packed to bursting with everything I’d need for a couple months with only sporadic access to laundry facilities. For a weird, detached moment, I think about how this wasn’t what I’d envisioned when packing up at the farm. I was supposed to be on vacation, fleeing the Australian winter by traveling all over Southeast Asia for the next two months. I’m still scrambling to process the sharp left turn my day—or week? hell, maybe my life—has just taken.

“Hey, thanks for coming to pick me up on short notice, man,” I say, hauling my suitcase off the belt.

“Best friend duties,” he says, waving a dismissive hand between us.

The truth is, he was the only person who I knew would drive an hour out of his way to collect me. The only friend here I haven’t lost touch with.

“Just sorry we’re not getting to hang out under better circumstances,” he adds.

The automatic doors hiss as we leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. My bags loaded into the trunk of Marcus’ car, we settle in for the drive to small-town Lennox Valley. Home, I guess, though it doesn’t feel like it anymore.

“Alright, so what the hell happened to you?” Marcus stares at me from the driver’s seat as he buckles his seatbelt with one hand and starts the car with the other. “Like, seriously, when did you turn into blond Jesus?”

“Nice to see you, too, dipshit.” Even after spending the exhausting, seventeen-hour flight in a haze of worry, I can’t help but smile at how easily we fall back into this comfortable banter. I run a hand over my scraggly beard as I try to remember how long it’s been since he last visited me in Oz. “I dunno, man. You work in the bush long enough, you stop giving a shit. Been a few years, huh?”

“Yeah.” He blows out a breath and pulls out of the parking lot. “And, clearly, you’ve gone feral in the meantime.” With a smirk, he adds, “Is that what Australian women are into? Long hair and a big fuck-off beard?”

“Ah, who the fuck knows,” I say on a long exhale. Admittedly, it’s a dodge, but I’m not ready to get into the details of my love life right now. There wasn’t exactly much opportunity to date in rural Queensland.

“You sure you’re cool crashing on our couch?” he asks, seeming to sense I don’t want to go there. “It’s a long couch, but, uh… you might be longer.”

I glance down at where my knees press against the glove box and stoop forward to adjust my seat. After the nonexistent legroom on the plane, I’d barely noticed. My six-foot-three frame and uncomfortable seating are old friends. “Oh, no, man. The couch is great,” I reassure him.

“You sure? Not your mom’s place?”

“Don’t have a key.” That much is true, but I don’t elaborate. I don’t want to talk about how Mom practically dropped out of my life during the divorce—and how I returned the favor by leaving. We haven’t exactly been close in recent years. “Besides, your place is closer to the hospital, right? Close enough to walk?”

He nods.

“Good. As long as I won’t be cramping your style,” I add, turning to him as he pulls out onto the highway that’ll take us home. “Or Renee’s. I don’t even know how long I’m gonna be here. It all depends on… uh…” I trail off and look out the window, feeling the tightness in my throat return. My brow pinches together and I try not to think about it.

We both know it depends on how my mom does.

Fuck. She’s only fifty-eight.

“Totally, yeah,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about figuring it out right this second. You can stay as long as you need. Renee doesn’t mind at all; she’s barely home, anyway. Real estate is wild here. She’s working all the time.”

“Thanks, man.” I’ll have to sort out the logistics later, because, right now, I feel like I could slip into a week-long coma. Preoccupied with all the what-ifs swirling in my head about my mom, I hadn’t been able to sleep on the flight.

I pull out my phone, tapping through the process of connecting to the local network for service. When I get a signal, I send a quick text to my sister that we’re en route and shut off the screen. I sigh, rubbing my eyes, then lean back against the headrest.

The scenery whips past. While the billboards have changed, the places along the side of the highway are mostly familiar, with a few new builds scattered here and there. The names and landmarks swim back into my memory so easily I almost feel like I never left. I guess the place where you grew up pulls at you like that.

Fuck, it’s weird being back.

Eight years. Eight fucking years I’ve been hiding on the other side of the world. I press my lips together and inhale an unsteady breath through my nose, hating myself for my shit-for-brains, short-sighted cowardice. It had been easier to keep running than to think about the mess I’d left behind. I’d shut everything and everyone out—except Marcus, really. I exhale, fighting against a fresh wave of suffocating guilt.

According to a sign that sails past, Lennox Valley is another seventy-three miles away. As antsy as I am to get to the hospital, we’ve got time to kill.

“What’s everyone up to these days?” Flopping my head in Marcus’ direction, I try to stuff my internal wince about not keeping up with our friends. Not that it was easy to stay in touch with anybody—even if I’d tried—thanks to shoddy internet access in the bush. With Marcus, it was different. We’d talked on the phone here and there. It helped that our friendship has always been the kind where we could pick right up where we left off. It never felt like work.

The corner of his mouth lifts slightly. “You sure you wanna just, like, shoot the shit?”

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