33. Day Four Player Four
Day Four: Player Four
“Don’t you fucking do it.”
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” Graham pleaded. “I have to see this through.”
“See what through?” Jase demanded. “There’s nothing to see through.”
“I’ll never be good for Lindsey, or anyone, unless I do.”
“Seeing Helen isn’t going to make you less of an asshole,” Jase spat.
“I have to go. No matter what it costs me.” He swallowed hard. “I still love her, Jase.”
Graham’s eyes had the wild look of a man at the end of his tether. Jase recognized it, usually across the poker table on a fool going all in with a desperate hand.
Wild, and determined to win.
“I know you don’t understand,” Graham said.
“Save it.” Jase stifled what was sure to be a string of bullshit a mile long he didn’t need to hear. Through a clenched jaw and a mouthful of self-loathing, he asked, “What do you need me to do?”
“Just tell Lindsey my old boss called with a problem, and I had to go back to the hotel to use a lobby computer,” Graham said. “Keep her entertained—a few hours, tops.”
“She’s not stupid. She’s never going to buy it.”
“She will. She will. It’ll be fine.” Graham pulled a small wad of money from his pocket and pushed it into Jase’s chest. “Take this. Drinks on me.”
Jase smacked it away. “I don’t want your goddamn money.”
“Okay, fine.” Graham shoved it back in his pocket. “Fine. Thank you.”
“You’re such a fucking asshole.”
“Whatever you do, don’t bring her back to the hotel until after I get back. I’ll text you,” Graham said, heading to the car. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me a lot more than one, fucker,” Jase hollered.
In the cloud of dust kicked up by the station wagon, Jase cursed into the encroaching night. How was he going to do it? Why did he agree?
“Got any advice, old man?” he asked the sky. “I’m all ears.”
His old man was fucking speechless too.
Jase forced himself into the tavern and slapped a ten on the bar, ordering two shots of whiskey from the bartender. Lindsey was alone in a booth in the back, waiting for her idiot boyfriend and his even bigger idiot brother to join her.
“Fuck,” Jase growled. He grabbed the shots, forced his jaw to relax, and eased into the booth across from her.
“Shots?” she asked. “You’re starting early tonight.”
“You’re going to want to take this,” he said.
The playful light slowly left her eyes. “Where’s Graham?”
He cleared his throat. And—
Nothing came out.
It wasn’t that he never lied to women, but the best lies were simple and usually laced with half-truths. This was bald-faced and stupid and completely unbelievable.
“Jase?”
Meeting her eyes, the lie dripped out of his face. This was wrong.
“You’re drinking with me tonight.”
“What?”
“Listen, Graham wanted me to come in here and tell you he had to run back to the hotel to do some stuff for work. But…” But I’m an asshole and he’s an asshole and here we are. “But I’m not going to do that to you.”
She studied him for a few beats, her eyes slowly falling to the table. “He’s going to see her, isn’t he?”
“Fuck him, Lindsey. I mean it.”
She nodded and downed the shot.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Jase tossed his shot back and reached for hers to get them another.
“Well, that’s it then.” Lindsey slipped her purse strap over her shoulder and stood. “I’m just going to go.”
“What? What’s it then?” Jase asked, choking on the whiskey. “Lindsey, wait!”
She didn’t, and he stumbled over his boots trying to hoof it after her. He finally caught up outside on the bar’s front steps. Her cell phone was at her ear, and he could hear it ringing, then Graham’s voicemail clicking in. Jase snapped the phone from her hand and held it away from her.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said.
“What are you doing, Jase?” she demanded.
“I’m saving you from something you’ll regret. Trust me.”
“Damn it, Jase, give it back!”
“I know, I know. Don’t do this. I promise you, nothing good will come of it.”
She looked like she wanted to crack him across the face.
“Hit me if you want,” he said. “You’re not getting this phone.”
She didn’t hit him. Instead, Lindsey screamed the loudest, most raucous fuck into the setting sun Jase ever heard and collapsed on the dusty steps.
He wasn’t usually around for this part, and it was ugly. Is this what I do to women when I leave?
Jase watched her shoulders shake. He could’ve killed his brother just then. Instead he stuffed her phone, twice as big as his own, into his pocket and sat beside her. “Don’t you dare cry over him. He’s not worth it.”
“I’m not crying,” she said, her voice tight and very obviously wet with tears. “I’m pissed. I can’t believe he just left me here.”
“I know.”
“A year. A whole fucking— I’m such an idiot—”
“No.” Jase put his arm around her shoulders and gave them a shake. “He’s the fucking idiot.”
“I knew he was still in love with her. I tried telling myself I was wrong. She was all the way out here, so what did it even matter? Then this map…I was so stupid…”
“He’s the asshole, Lindsey. Okay? Whatever you’re thinking, he’s the one with the problem, not you.”
She lifted her head. Her eyes were red and smudged with mascara.
“Look at me. I’m shaking.” She held out her trembling hands.
“Part of me just wants to go over there and bust in on them and call him out, you know? How could he just—” She dropped her head behind a curtain of hair and moaned.
“What am I even doing here? I never should’ve let him talk me into staying. ”
“Graham talked you into staying?”
“No. It was—something your dad said. I thought I knew what he was thinking. But here I am stuck in the middle of Texas while my boyfriend hooks up with another woman.”
“You don’t know for sure they’re hooking up.” He said it to make her feel better—they were definitely hooking up—but it had the opposite effect. Jase put up his hands to keep from getting slapped. “He’s still an asshole. No matter what, just a total, total asshole.”
“Yeah.” She let out a deep breath and whispered, “What am I supposed to do now?”
Her wet eyes searched him and fuck, he wanted to fix it all for her. Wanted to hold her hands until they stopped shaking, curl a fist into her hair and let her rest her head on his chest while she cried.
Knock his idiot brother upside the head for leaving, and himself for playing along.
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
I don’t know, but Christ, you’re beautiful.
It might’ve been the pink from the sunset coloring her cheeks or the early evening shadows or something. Lindsey was beautiful. And he wasn’t the least bit guilty for thinking it.
A motorcycle pulled into the parking lot, the biker plodding past them up the steps in heavy black boots identical to the ones Jase had on.
Lindsey was wearing jeans for the first time.
Finally, something she could wear on the back of a bike.
If his Electra Glide wasn’t parked back in Ohio, Jase would’ve taken her for a ride that would’ve made her forget all about Graham.
He didn’t care what his brother said, Jase was sure their dad never meant to leave Lindsey heartbroken while Graham rekindled the flame with this ex.
“I guess I’ll get a cab back to the hotel. There’s no point prolonging the inevitable, right?”
“Right,” Jase mumbled. But something was wrong. He didn’t want her to leave, but it wasn’t his call, and why wouldn’t she? Wanting her to stay wasn’t it.
It wasn’t only it.
“There’s got to be a bus station—”
“No,” Jase said abruptly. “You don’t want to leave like this.”
“Actually, I do,” she said.
“You’d let him off the hook this easily?”
“Jase, it’s over. It’s been over for a while. I don’t need anything else from him to prove it. I’m letting myself off the hook.”
“Fuck him. Stay and get wasted with me tonight.” He stood, and she looked at him as if he’d sprouted a pair of balls below his chin.
“The way I see it, you could spend the night on some smelly old bus with a bunch of people who haven’t showered in a week, or you can go inside this smelly old bar with me and drink with a bunch of people who haven’t showered in a week.
Present company excluded, I showered at the hotel. ”
He flashed his most devastating grin—the one that usually got him what he wanted—and she laughed. The balls below his chin were swinging now.
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Fuck my brother. Let’s go,” he urged.
“You can’t fix this.”
“I know. This is just me wanting to have one more good night with you before the shit hits the fan.”
“Oh, the shit already hit the fan, Jase. In fact, it’s all over your face.”
“Get up.” He held out his hand. “Get drunk with me.”
“Will I get my phone back?”
“Sure, when you promise not to use it for evil.”
She stared at his open palm as if it would bite her, then put her hand inside and let Jase pull her to her feet.
“Okay, one drink. Then I’m gone.”
“I can work with that,” he said, ushering her through the tavern doors with no intention of letting her go after just one.