Page 18 of The Sandover Beach Billionaire

Chapter Seven

Before headinghome from Bohn’s, Jenna made a pit stop for a latte at McDonald’s. The only local island coffee shop closed at four o’clock, as though that’s when they thought people should stop drinking coffee. Since college, coffee at night had been her calming ritual. She had worked at a coffee shop on campus the last three years. Drinking coffee for a seven-hour shift four days a week essentially broke caffeine’s ability to affect her. At least, it didn’t send her heart beating like crazy or keep her awake. Often the very last thing she did every day was drink two cups of coffee.

McDonald’s coffee was surprisingly good, less bitter and cheaper than most coffee shops. But if you didn’t remind them and tell them 100 times not to add anything they always put in liquid sweetener or, inexplicably, hazelnut syrup. She had forgotten that reminder today and got syrup, sickly sweet. Even though her latte tasted like a cupcake, it did the trick, easing the tension building in her shoulders since she saw Jackson. She felt like she was losing a battle with herself, a battle being waged over her heart. One she couldn’t afford to lose.

It threw her the way Jackson just continued to be kind even when she was rude. Going out of his way to talk to her when she clearly didn’t want him to. Giving her gift bags of who knows what. Was he trying to redeem himself from the past? Or, maybe, was he trying to win her over? That thought sent her heart racing.

As Jenna turned onto Dunesway Road, she realized she was speeding, and heard the echo of her mother’s voice: Now, normally you don’t want to be driving forty miles an hour in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone.

Jenna had been almost sixteen, learning to drive in her mother’s silver minivan. Most of her friends’ mothers were terrible to learn to drive with—always screaming or jamming on invisible brakes. Her mom had been completely calm, a perfect teacher.

And then Jenna was crying. Again. Tears that she had held in while standing in the candy aisle of Bohn’s and tears for this current memory of learning to drive. She could hardly see through the tears as she pulled into the dark driveway and she sat there, engine running, blasting heat at her toes. She didn’t want to lose the memories or have them fade the way they had with her dad. But it was so hard to have her grief knock her over like a rogue wave whenever a thought like this hit her.

It didn’t seem fair. Many people her age still had grandparents. Most had their parents. Mark’s parents had divorced and remarried, so he had almost an excess of family. Jenna had only Rachel and her girls. Her parents had been older when they had kids, but they were still so young to be gone. Her life was so thin. She felt unmoored, floating loose without people or a place to anchor her.

Jenna pressed her head into the steering wheel and sobbed, thinking of her three nieces, probably the closest she would ever come to having kids. She thought of the divorce papers that she had signed with her lawyer not so long ago. A divorce her mother never even knew about.

After a few minutes Jenna was sweating under her jacket. March was unpredictable and the temperature had dipped into the forties over the past day. Jenna realized that the radio station was blaring, playing song after song that all sounded remarkably like Taylor Swift wannabes. She shut off the car. The moment the car’s headlights shut off, there was a tap on the window next to her.

Jenna screamed and dropped her keys.

A familiar face grinned at her. She knew those white teeth even in the dark. Steve. Her heart fluttered with a confusing cocktail of emotions. Almost as confusing as the feelings she had around Jackson. But where her walls had started to crumble around Jackson, just the sight of Steve made her want to reinforce the walls with steel and maybe a moat.

“It’s just me,” Steve said, voice muffled through the window. He held up a bottle of wine. “I come bearing gifts. You coming out or what?”

Jenna threw back her head and laughed, knowing that it was not a good sign of emotional health to move so quickly from sobbing to laughter. She opened the door and he hopped out of the way.

“Hey, now. Watch where you swing that thing.”

“Steve.” Jenna felt awkward as she stood. She had instinctively been going in for a hug, but now questioned that move. She put her hands into the pockets of her jacket instead.

Studying him, she couldn’t help but think of the boy she had spent hours playing with in the woods and riding bikes to the beach. They had been friends first, after all. Even after what he did, so many of her good childhood memories involved the guy who had been the boy next door. Rachel always said that she had a soft spot for him, and that she didn’t see him the way everyone else did. She should have been angry with him or at least as upset as she had felt with Jackson when she ran into him for the first time this week. But she didn’t feel angry, just resigned and emotionally spent.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” he said. “It’s as cold as you were to me senior year of high school.” He had that way of trying to disarm her with humor and a crooked grin. She could get on board with light humor. Much easier than going deep.

“Wow, really? That’s where you want to start? Also, you totally deserved an arctic winter. But do we really want to rehash the whole you-dumping-me-for-Anna thing?”

Steve rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. When he did, Jenna realized that he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. What did that mean? He gave her a lopsided grin. “Truce? At least for the night. I did bring a peace offering, after all.”

“I thought you said the wine was a gift. Now it’s a peace offering?”

“Can it be a little bit of both?”

“Only if you make yourself useful and help me bring in the groceries.”

Their pattern of witty banter returned so easily. Carrying groceries in was a nice distraction and allowed Jenna to center herself. This was Steve. Her first best friend, first boyfriend, first heartbreak. They were different people now. When all the groceries were inside, they stood across the kitchen from each other like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Except Jenna felt an odd sense of warning, like she needed to keep that whole kitchen between them. Steve may have been her best friend at one time, but he no longer felt safe. The bag Jackson sent with her shoes sat behind Steve on the counter. She wished he would go. She was dying to see what kinds of things Jackson had thought to put in the bag. But not in front of Steve.

“It’s good to see you, Jenns.”

It bothered her that he used her nickname. Only Rachel still called her Jenns. “What brings you here? It’s not every night I have a creeper waiting outside my car for me.”

“Creeper, huh? That’s what I’ve been reduced to? It just happened to be your lucky night. I was visiting my mom. I procured this bottle from her kitchen when I saw your car. Would you like a glass?”

“I don’t have glasses. Just red plastic cups.” Jenna handed Steve the corkscrew she had bought at Bohn’s, pushing the thought of Jackson from her mind. Did she want a glass? She hadn’t had any wine since she arrived and couldn’t buy it at Bohn’s. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t miss it. Which felt like progress. Drinking with Steve seemed like a definite backward step.

Steve grinned. “Red cups. Just like the old days.”

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