Page 39 of Love and Loathing

He dropped his head to his hand. Great. Just great. He was a jerk. “Hmm. Mom, I just got back from a run. I need to shower. Were you calling for a reason?”

She cleared her throat. “Yes, actually. Charlie mentioned that there was a girl in that town you’re in—”

“Harvest Ranch?”

“Right, whatever,” she said dismissively. “He said there’s a girl you like and that what happened with your deal ruined it.”

Alex would beat Charlie. He’d talked to him on the phone after his fight with Jessie—had told him everything. Now, after a few days with his mom, apparently Charlie had told her everything. The woman had truly missed her calling; she should have been an interrogator. “It’s not like that, Mom.”

“What’s it like, then?” she asked.

“We were never … we didn’t. We weren’t together.”

“Wow,” she said. “You really like this girl, don’t you?”

He breathed out long through his nose. “Why are you calling again?”

“This is why I’ve always told you to keep your head down. Celebrity doesn’t buy loyalty; it only buys temporary adoration.”

“She didn’t care about my fame.”

“So she knew you well enough to know the kind of man you are? To know the guy who does service when no one’s looking, the loyal friend, and the guy who works harder than anyone else around him?”

No, she didn’t know that. He thought maybe she knew him better than she’d turned out to, but he’d been wrong. “No,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry. I know how painful that would be for you,” she said, and this time it did sound sincere. And for a moment, he wanted to hug her and wished she was here so he could. Then, of course, she spoke again. “I hate to beat a dead horse, but you know who knows who you really are and doesn’t care about your fame?”

“Mom, no.” He glanced heavenward.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “This resistance. Roxy is beautiful, and she loves you. Why can’t you give her a try?”

“Whose side are you on, Mom? Mine or hers?” Alex asked.

She huffed. “Yours, of course.”

“Then stop pushing Roxy at me,” he said. “It’s not fair to me or to her.”

“Okay, but I think you’re making a mistake there.”

“I gotta go. I’ll call you Sunday,” he said.

“Fine, hang up.”

“Love you. Bye.” He hung up and glanced heavenward. “God, I want to be better, but do you think we can start with easier trials? Please.”

He shucked his shirt and headed for the shower.

* * *

Jessie sat silently in the booth with Caroline to one side of her and her parents to the other. Her dad put his arm around her back, and Caroline linked her arm through Jessie’s. On the other side of the aisle and up a couple rows, Aunt Clara sat by herself; her daughters, Allie and Jo, were both absent because they were on their respective honeymoons. Jo was with Cash, and to everyone’s surprise, Allie and Brandon had jumped in on Jo and Cash’s wedding a week after getting engaged. Jessie grinned thinking about it. She kind of envied Allie’s nerve. It’d gotten her married to the man of her dreams, and in a lot of ways it had skipped all the messy parts of how normal relationships evolve.

Jessie thought of Alex and glanced over her shoulder for the umpteenth time as people gathered into the chapel. She looked for him in his usual seat in the back pew on her row. Still not there. Her stomach sank a little each time she looked and he wasn’t there.

He hadn’t been to service in two weeks—she hadn’t seen him in two weeks, and she was going crazy with the need to see him. To know if he was okay. To apologize.

Jacob sauntered in and up the aisle. He stopped at their pew and winked at Jessie. She stared forward and folded her arms. She wanted to yell at him, but they were in church, so the cold shoulder would have to do. He waved at her younger sisters in the pew in front of them and kept walking. He sat at the second row from the front, next to Barbie from the hardware store, the blond vixen who also happened to look like her namesake.

People all around him leaned forward to talk to him, smile, and shake his hand. Jessie couldn’t believe just how spot on Alex had been. The townsfolk were inviting him to victimize them again. They were all a bunch of suckers, and she’d been just as bad as the rest of them. If it’d been a snake, it would’ve bitten them. Worse, she’d believed they were friends enough that he would turn on his brother for her. How could she have been so stupid?

---