Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Jess
S tepping into All Booked Up was a freshly wrapped gift every time. The soft scent of new books and brewing coffee paired with the sound of my dearest friends laughing and razzing each other made the last thirty-six hours melt away.
Okay, well not exactly melt away completely, but recede enough that I could accept the glass of Prosecco Jo offered and slump down next to Elise and Dove and exhale dramatically.
“Um, okay. The floor is yours, mademoiselle.” Dove pulled me into a hug that made my drink slosh over the side a little. “Whoops, sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Ugh, I sounded melodramatic and like I was begging for attention. Not my usual MO.
“Seriously, Jess. We can tell something’s wrong. Are you okay?” Nikki asked, Winnie, Catherine, and Jo agreeing with the statement by leaning toward me, while Elise gave me a kind smile and patted my leg.
I couldn’t tell them everything about what happened—basically nothing about the hotel. Even though they were all trustworthy, information leak was an issue, and I couldn’t break our security protocols for my own gratification. But I could explain the basics.
“I had to work closely with Beast on something yesterday and… it was awful.”
Everyone reacted—Dove gasped, Elise let out a low, “Ohhh,” Catherine made a face, and Nikki and Winnie exchanged glances.
“Yeah. He’s just infuriating. And it’s not like, cute. It’s like, we have issues, and he won’t even acknowledge his role in it. It’s like he thinks it’s all me.”
Dove hooked an arm around my shoulders. “Can you tell us what happened?”
I tucked my lips between my teeth, feeling around inside myself for whether I had the explanation in me. But you know what? Yes. I needed to talk this through, and these were my closest friends—these were people who, even while I was gone for nearly half a year, didn’t abandon me. As much as I hated relaying this story, maybe it was time someone else knew what happened.
“Fast version? I was engaged to his best friend back in the unit. He and I were friends, too, though less so after I got engaged. Kurt and Beast went on a TDY and when they came back, Beast claimed Kurt had assaulted a woman. Kurt was forced to retire sooner than he’d planned. When that happened, he—” I cleared my throat. I would not cry over that jackass—not another single tear. “He kind of lost it. Lost his way. Broke off our engagement and ended things.”
Dove hugged me tighter to her and the others made sounds of shock and consolation. Elise spoke quietly when she asked, “Did he do it?”
I breathed through the flare of doubt and pain, the sickening feeling that I wasn’t sure. “He said he didn’t. He said Beast had always been jealous and it was his way of hurting him for things from their past. He promised me he’d never hurt anyone, never cheated, and told me that if I confronted Beast, he’d tell me otherwise.”
Elise deflated and Dove released me, then laced our fingers together and kissed the back of my hand. I chuckled despite myself—this sweet little affection gremlin just couldn’t help herself.
“And you believed Kurt?” Winnie asked, as much kindness in her voice as could be.
“For a long time, I thought I did. I think I still do, though I’ll never stop second-guessing myself.”
“And you don’t believe Beast?” Catherine asked gently.
Frustration shot through me. “If he was being honest, why would he have been so cruel to me for so long? Wouldn’t he be compassionate? Wouldn’t he have—” Wouldn’t he have warned me sooner? If we’d really been friends and he knew Kurt was a bad guy, why was he his friend anyway, and why hadn’t he tried to tell me before everything fell apart?
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Jo said, everyone mumbling their agreement with similar statements.
I took a deep breath and held up my glass flute. “He was particularly rude and maddening. And I finally let him have it—I finally said everything I wanted to say.”
And I wished I felt better about it, but I’d decided to take it as a triumph.
Until Nikki dropped her head and Winnie’s face nearly crumpled and she said, “Oh, no.” Catherine sucked in a breath and held it.
“Oh, no, what?” I asked, senses sharpening.
Winnie swallowed and Nikki took a big breath like she might explain, but it was Catherine who spoke up first.
“He’s going through a hard time right now.”
She looked… something. Regretful? Also, why the heck did she know anything about his life? Were they friends?
It didn’t shock me that Catherine would be friends with someone because she was lovely—quiet, yes, but so kind and steady. But friends with him? How?
“A hard time?” I managed to say while my brain ran through all the reasons it didn’t make sense that she would know anything about his life.
“He’s super private, you probably know. But his grandma just passed away,” Nikki said, genuine empathy etched into her features.
I sucked in a breath and held it, the stabbing sensation between my ribs an ugly byproduct of the news. It’d been years since I’d thought about them, but Beast’s grandparents were everything to him. Everything. They’d raised him. Would he have to travel back to North Carolina for the funeral? Or was that why he’d been out of work a few days last week?
“Oh, no.” I studied my hands, a slew of unwieldy sensations like sorrow and regret and sadness mixing with the frustration and hurt and anger I’d been wallowing in already. He… he’d lost the closest person to a mother he’d ever had. And he loved her, I knew that much if I knew anything about the man. I could picture the soft, at-home sm ile he gave her the day he introduced me to her, or how he’d hug her first, then his grandpa, whenever he saw them. No hesitancy, no pretense at being too big or old or tough enough. Just… love.
And she was gone.
And I’d effectively shoved every horrible thought I’d had about him in his face while he was grieving.
My stomach pitched.
“Gram said he was devastated. He was there visiting her constantly, and now…” Nikki cleared her throat. “She said he still comes and chats with her friends.”
Gram? “Wait, Gram as in your not-actual-grandmother Rosie? Who lives at Silverton Springs? How would she know that?”
How did she know anything about Beast when… wait.
Nikki’s head tilted as she studied me. “She knew Mrs. Rawlins. Rosie didn’t spend a ton of time with her lately because she hadn’t been well, but they all know each other over there, even between the retirement community and the nursing home side of things. Bruce and I go see Gram and Amir, and we often saw Beast coming or going. He was extremely devoted to her.”
Of course he was. He… he might’ve messed things up for me and I did still hate him for that, but one thing I knew down to the marrow of my bones was that Beast was a devoted grandson. More than I’d realized if he’d moved his grandmother here.
How had I missed that? How had I not realized she lived here, let alone that she’d passed? In this small community, there had to have been signs. Then again, I made it a part-time job to ignore his existence, to forget that my friends were his and my coworkers were his… I purposefully ignored any mention of him .
I was officially awful for not realizing any of this.
And so far, no mention of Mr. Rawlins, which probably meant he’d passed, too.
Oh, Jude.
Cue the flash flood of intense guilt.
Because I’d piled onto this man’s grief.
Yes, he was a jerk, but wasn’t he allowed to be? He just lost his grandmother and I’d… what? I’d accused him and insulted him. It didn’t matter that the words I said felt true— were true—I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have dumped that on him when he was struggling. I didn’t know it, but wasn’t I a trained operator? Hadn’t I built a career on being observant?
Thinking back on the last few months, he had been particularly grunty. Even less verbal. And these last few weeks… His eyes had been literally darker, not because of some new infestation of broody evil, but because he hadn’t been sleeping—he’d had thick smudges under his eyes. The fact that he’d taken the out-of-town job should’ve tipped me off to something major in his life, shouldn’t it?
All the righteous indignation I’d spewed had emptied me of the packed-full feeling I’d had around him for so long and now… there was space for nuance. Too much space to ignore how much damage I’d just done.
“I’m a horrible human being.”
“No, you’re not. You guys have history, and it came to a boiling point. I would guess if you’d known what was going on, you wouldn’t have said any of that, even if you’ve wanted to for a while.” Jo’s words were filled with compassion.
I didn’t deserve them. And I’d need to figure this out.
There was no going back to the version of me who saw him as an angry beast of a man and nothing else. I couldn’t pretend my actions were justified when, clearly, I’d hurt someone who was already hurting.
Maybe I was giving too much credence to our past friendship or my hope that I was a decent human being, but I couldn’t keep on like this. I’d chosen to ignore someone’s pain, then I’d piled on top of it. I didn’t want to be that person… I wouldn’t. It didn’t mean we’d be friends again, but I wouldn’t pretend he was just an inhuman beast who only served himself.
He’d doted on his grandparents, and he’d lost them.
Whatever version of a heart he had, it must be broken. No one deserved to go through this.
Somehow, I needed to fix this.