Page 10 of Love and Loathing

“Jessie—”

She lifted a hand. She was done with the crazy. “No. Please, just stop.” She turned on her heel and marched right over to Caroline and Charlie, but he followed her, right on her heel.

“Wait, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that.”

“Right. I’m sure you’re used to girls fawning all over you, so when they don’t, they get the do-you-know-who-I-am treatment.” She knelt down by their bags and grabbed her car keys. “Caroline, it’s time to go. Could you pack up while I go get the car?”

“Sure,” Caroline said, but Jessie was already halfway out the door.

She’d barely reached the fountain when a large hand came down on her arm and swung her around. “Wait, Jessie, I—” he started.

But he didn’t get the chance to finish. Halfway back to face him, Jessie caught her foot on the edge of the fountain, lost her balance, overcorrected, then toppled backward over the lip. Her legs went up and her body went down, sinking into the fountain until she was fully submerged. She popped back up, sitting with her legs in front of her, her hair down and stringy about her shoulders, and water splashing her from the fountain behind.

Someone hopped into the pool next to her, standing by where she sat. “Jessie, are you okay?” He reached down for her.

She glanced up at Alex and swatted his hand away. “Are you nuts!? Are you trying to drown me? Is this your idea of revenge or something?”

“Well, turnabout is fair play.” The look on his face quickly morphed from concern to amusement to downright hilarity.

She scowled at him.

He made a valiant attempt to hold back his laughter as she got to her feet, but it was just that: an attempt. Soon he was hunched over, grabbing his stomach with laughter. She stepped closer to him and shoved. He went down on his butt in the water under the flow from the upper tiers.

“Now we’re even,” she said.

She stepped out of the fountain with as much dignity as she could muster and marched over to the concierge desk. A couple seconds later, loud, booming laughter rushed up to meet her ears from behind her. The young man at the desk stared at her with wide eyes.

She brushed her wet hair off her face and squared her shoulders. “Can I get my jacket, please?”

* * *

“Wait, you’re telling me that pushing her into the fountain was supposed to be some kind of apology?” Charlie plunked down on the couch in Alex’s suite’s living room as Alex hurried into his room and grabbed a towel.

Alex ditched his suit coat jacket and came to the door, rubbing the towel over his hair. “I didn’t push her into the fountain. She tripped and fell in it,” he said.

“Because you were apologizing?”

He stopped rubbing his hair and looked at his friend. “That wasn’t my fault. She kept walking away from me.” He grinned just thinking of it. He was pretty sure no girl had ever walked away from him like that before. Of course, she was being ridiculous, and if she’d just stopped to hear him out, they never would’ve ended up in the fountain in the first place.

“Why are you grinning?” Charlie frowned. “I felt so bad for her when she went out to get her car. She was chattering so bad when she came back in, it made my teeth hurt.”

Alex had felt terrible about that. He’d even offered to get her car for her and then load it, but she’d refused both times. At least her jacket had been big and warm, and when she’d come back with her car to pick up Caroline, he’d managed to get close enough to her vehicle to feel the heater working. Falling in the fountain was funny, but being soaking wet in winter? Not so much.

He went over to the couch, laid his towel on it, and sat. “I wish she would’ve let me help her.” He’d watched her through the ceremony and during the reception, sneaking glances when she wasn’t looking and occasionally when she was just to see the blush rise on her cheeks. She was good at her job. Without even seeing the end result, he could tell she knew what she was doing.

Charlie sat up from the back rest of the coach and pointed at Alex. “You like her!”

Alex furrowed his brow. “No, I don’t. I don’t even know her. Besides, she’s cranky, and argumentative, and haughty.”

Charlie chuckled. “Sounds like someone I know.”

Alex punched him in the arm. “What about you? You and Caroline seemed to hit it off.”

Charlie got a dreamy look on his face. “She’s an angel and a first-grade teacher.” He sat up a little. “I mean, she’d have to be to be a first-grade teacher, right? And her accent melts me.”

Yeah, Alex understood that one. Jessie’s accent and little Southern phrases had done something pleasant to his insides. His favorite had been when she’d called his behavior ugly.

Charlie continued, “And, better yet, guess where she lives?”

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