Page 22 of Highball Rush
“People are gonna dig,” he said. “The sheriff knows you aren’t dead. He knows someone falsified that forensics report so they’d say that body in New York is you. And it’s not just him. Hell, it was June Tucker who exposed that woman claiming to be you earlier this year.”
“Do the Kendalls know that? Do they know about Jenny?”
“I don’t think so.” He dropped his hands. “But they probably know about me.”
I whipped around to face him. “What about you?”
He rubbed the back of his neck again. “Do you remember when I took you to that concert over in Perrinville?”
“Yeah.”
“We hopped in that photo booth on the way back to my truck.” He walked over to the kitchen counter and picked up his wallet, then pulled something out.
I took a faded photo strip from his hands. A fresh wave of tears stung my eyes. “Oh my god. I forgot about these.”
“Misty Lynn Prosser stole my wallet out of my truck after I told her off. She found those and turned them in. Sheriff hauled me in for questioning. The whole town knows now.”
I remembered Misty Lynn. She was a few years older than me, and basically a nightmare. “Why did Misty Lynn steal your wallet?”
He groaned. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“She’s crazy, all right? I dated her for a little while about a million years ago and she’s been trying to worm her way back into my life ever since.”
I gaped at him. “Oh my god. Please tell me you’re kidding. You dated Misty Lynn Prosser?”
His expression clouded over. “It’s not like I’m proud of it. Fuck’s sake, I was twenty-one. Everybody makes mistakes, especially at that age.”
I didn’t know why I found it so funny. Maybe it was because he was getting so defensive. “Sure, but not everyone makes a Misty-Lynn-sized mistake.”
The veins in his forearms popped as he clenched his fists.
God, he had nice arms.
“I’m never gonna live that shit down, am I?”
“It’s Misty Lynn.” I tried to suppress my smile. “Probably not.”
He spun around and stomped down the hallway. Before I could react, he stomped his way back. “I want to yell at you to get out but if I do, I’ll probably never fucking see you again.”
I covered my mouth again, trying not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Callie was retreating back into the recesses of my psyche, and I felt like Maya again. “I’m sorry. I’m just giving you a hard time. I wouldn’t want you to meet some of my mistakes.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, but I couldn’t tell what that expression meant. “All right, you can stay.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “We both know I really can’t.”
“What if you just stayed for a little while?” he said, his voice soft again. “If you have to disappear again, fine. I get it. But it’s been thirteen years. You really gonna show up here after all that time and stay for half an hour?”
“Like I said, I don’t know what I should do.”
With his hands on his hips, he looked down at the floor and took a deep breath. Some of the intensity in his posture seemed to melt away. When he lifted his face to meet my eyes, he looked so much like the Gibson I remembered, it nearly made my heart stop.
“How about a song?”
I bit my lower lip. I didn’t think I could refuse him anything when he looked at me like that. “You want to play with me?”
“It was our thing, right?”
