Chapter 5 Friends Again #2
“No,” she said, too quickly. She swallowed hard.
“That’s not— I don’t feel that way at all.
If you want to be home, Jon, then be home.
That should only be your choice.” She couldn’t stop the tears as she laid her free hand over the one he still had curled around her other.
“I’m actually really happy … to have you back.
You know, in town.” Not back the other way.
Because she didn’t, and she knew that. She just needed to remember it.
Their food was delivered mere seconds after Jenna pulled her hands away, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
If Jon was back, if he was choosing to enter the next phase of his life in their little tucked-away hometown, then she needed to figure out how to get her shit together.
Because before they’d dated, they’d been friends—not joined-at-the-hip besties, but close enough that the dating had almost happened by accident. Almost.
Jon had always been direct about what he wanted, at least once he decided to reach for it.
And now he wants to come home, so don’t make it weird for him. She didn’t even know why she was so flustered over the idea, over him. A few days ago she would have told herself she’d moved well past those old feelings.
“Jen,” he said, an odd note to his voice that pulled her effortlessly out of her unhelpful thoughts.
He was staring at the plate of food, one half of his sandwich already gone and a strained pinch to his brow.
“I know you’ve got a lot on your shoulders right now, so tell me if you can’t, but I wondered if I could … ask a favor?”
The hesitancy in his words alarmed her. Jenna lowered the fry she’d lifted off her plate and gave him her full attention. “Of course,” she said. “If you think it’s something I can help with.”
He huffed out a breath, like her words amused him, and met her gaze again. “Remember how I used to just show up wherever you were after I’d had it out with George?”
Bittersweet amusement rippled through her. “My parents were convinced I’d end up pregnant before I could graduate, with all the times you snuck in through my window.”
Jon chuckled. “I’m pretty sure your dad didn’t decide to like me until the day I shipped out.”
“That was more of a grudging respect thing.” There had probably also been some sympathy, though, seeing as her parents had come along to see him off at the airport in the city instead of his own. She still remembered the way her mother had cried with her after he’d disappeared from sight.
Jon took a moment to devour two fries, chased them with a large swallow of his water, and when he spoke again the lighthearted life his voice had gained had vanished. “When I saw George today,” he began, fingers tensing around the glass, “I learned … that my mom’s gone.”
Jenna froze, the air rushing from her. It hadn’t even occurred to her.
How stupid was that? George had lied to everyone before Mama J passed.
Jenna had always believed it was the news of Jon’s terrible loss that finally pushed her over the edge—though even she hadn’t learned about any of it in real-time.
But she had just assumed he knew. Why had she assumed he knew?
“Oh, God, Jon, I’m sorry. It didn’t even occur to me you didn’t know.”
He gave a sharp shake of his head and released the water abruptly. “That’s not on you, and not my point.” He swallowed hard. “Apparently, she left me a letter. And I was sitting in my truck, staring at it like some chicken shit school boy, when I got your text.”
Her heart cracked at the visual and the way his jaw flexed as he spoke.
She couldn’t say she understood why his mother would have written him anything, but Mama J had become quite a notorious town drunk in her final years.
Her mind surely hadn’t been clear. That didn’t mean Jon wouldn’t want to read her words.
“Why don’t we follow this up with a couple milkshakes to-go, and you come over to my place?
My apartment’s nothing fancy, but it’s a little more private than here.
And a little more comfortable, probably, than the cab of a truck.
” She tried for a smile. “Also, I happen to not be working today, or tomorrow, so you can take as much time as you need. For reading, and processing, and all that.”
He clenched a fist for a long second. “You sure? I understand if there’s literally any reason you don’t feel up to it.”
“Jon.” She drew a breath, trying to figure out how to articulate herself, and lifted a fry. “That’s the thing about friendship. When it’s true, it doesn’t expire. It just goes quiet from time to time.”
Friendship.
It was an offer he should be grateful for, considering he’d left her in tears both of the last times he’d seen her. And she was right that they’d been friends, long ago. He ought to be satisfied with the implication of her words and drop it. He needed to drop it.
Except friendship was not what he wanted from Jenna Hodge.
He liked that she hadn’t pulled away from him when he’d come up behind her in the diner’s lobby space earlier, and that she’d allowed him to keep his hand against her skin for that brief time. He’d liked the feel of her heartbeat thrumming beneath his fingertips a little too much, really.
Same as he liked the view following her out once they finished their late lunch.
Jenna was tucked into a pair of illegally fitting blue jeans that cupped her rounded ass and lifted it like a damn offering.
An offering he wanted little more than to accept enthusiastically.
She’d been shy about her figure as a teen, and she dressed modestly as an adult it seemed, so he wondered if perhaps she still struggled with some of those insecurities.
He knew entire platoons of men who would line up for women that looked like her. What the hell kind of jackasses had she been dating that she hadn’t learned to be confident in herself?
He had to shake the question from his head before it accidentally slipped off his tongue.
The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable.
She was single, somehow. Or single enough, and if there was a man on the periphery of her life, he wasn’t doing his job right.
Either way, he had a potential opportunity he hadn’t expected, and he couldn’t fuck it up.
So, first, they had to reestablish a baseline friendship. He needed her to remember that she could trust him. Because whether or not he still wanted to fuck her, he would never hurt her.
“Seriously, at least let me pay next time,” Jenna whispered as Jon handed over his card.
“Not happening.”
The lady at the register paused, her gaze fixed on his card. “Johnson?” Finally, she lifted her gaze, looking him over, and offered a smile as she handed the plastic back. “You related to Old George?”
Jon grunted. “Unfortunately.” He didn’t recognize the woman, and he would prefer not to make a scene just then. Although LeeLee’s was a great place to be discovered as not dead. Maybe he should have told Mrs. Bell who he was.
The woman gave an awkward laugh. “He’s not that bad,” she said as she passed over the receipt and a pen with a cringeworthy topper.
Jon held her stare for a beat. “He’s never convinced an entire town that you were dead.
” Then he bent forward, scrawled his proper signature on the dotted line, and tucked away his wallet.
Really, lying about his death didn’t even rank in the Top Five of worst things his father had ever done, but Jon wasn’t about to get into that.
Instead, he scooped his fresh milkshake off the counter and shifted his focus to Jenna. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jenna smiled, her own milkshake in hand, and let him lead the way.
He tried not to wonder if she was looking at his ass like he had hers.
There were still a fair number of vehicles in the parking lot, and Jenna hadn’t even had a vehicle when he’d left town before, so Jon paused to let her reach his side once they hit the sidewalk.
“I’ll walk you to your car, but give me a second to double-back to my truck after so I can follow you out. ”
Jenna laughed and nudged him with her elbow. “That’s sweet, Jon, but this is Misty Glades, not L.A. or something. I think I can make it fifteen feet on my own.”
He hummed, sweeping his gaze around the lot. “Right. Nothing violent happens here, what was I thinking?”
“Okay, that was unnecessary.” She sighed, tucked her purse higher on her shoulder, and pointed with her free hand. “I’m literally right there. Blue SUV next to that tree.”
He spotted it easily. A midsize SUV, less than a decade old, pulled into a space almost directly across from them. Three spaces down and across the lane from his truck. He gestured to the truck at the end of the row. “That’s me.”
Her head turned, and after a moment she said, “It’s green.”
He blinked. “Yeah?” It was a deep green that fell somewhere between forest and combat fatigues.
She tipped her head back to look up at him. “I would have thought you’d get something blue.”
He grinned before he could stop himself.
He didn’t have to ask why she thought that, of course.
Instead, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Yours is blue.” He held the position long enough to watch her cheeks go red, forced himself to straighten, and stepped around her.
“But you’re right. You should be clear. I’ll follow you out.
” He got all the way to his truck, door open and milkshake set inside, before Jenna shouted across the parking lot to him.
“It came this color! That’s all!”
He chuckled to himself as he ducked into the driver’s seat, eyes on his rearview mirror as he rolled the engine over.
He watched her taillights come on, threw his into reverse to signal he was ready, and idled until she was out and moving forward.
It hadn’t been his intention to even mention the letter, but sitting with her at the diner had pulled up too many feelings.
And he hadn’t lied. He’d been sitting in a gas station parking lot, staring at that damn letter, debating whether he should hop out and get himself whatever greasy food they had in stock before or after he read the thing when her text came in. So, it had felt like a sign.
Snagging an invitation to her apartment—thereby not having to abuse skills learned for warfare to find out where she lived—was icing on the damn cake.
A handful of turns and four minutes later, Jon’s misplaced excitement ebbed.
It wasn’t that he’d expected her to be living it up in the lap of luxury.
Misty Glades didn’t have true luxury apartments.
But Misty Glades had better apartments than the damnable dive she pulled into.
It didn’t look like the owners had done a single repair since the days Jon and his friends had joked about it being haunted.
Why the fuck did Jenna live there?
He nearly forgot the damn letter as he jumped from the truck. His truck wasn’t new, though it was clean since it was only a few hours off the lot, and it stood out like a sore thumb. If she had homebody neighbors, they would notice.
Jenna met him on the broken concrete path leading up to what he assumed was her door.
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s weird, but that look hasn’t changed too much, and I guess it makes sense the Marines didn’t exactly train you out of being protective of people.
But I’ve never had problems since I’ve moved here. ”
He arched a brow. She wasn’t wrong in her estimation of his thought process or her base logic. “Which has been…?”
She rolled her eyes. “About four years,” she said, turning as she spoke and jingling her keys. “The cheap rent was a priority at the time. Now I just like how it affords me the ability to put more money elsewhere.”
There was more to that story. What was it she’d said the day before, about the gun in her face not being the worst thing she’d been through?
Jon scowled as he waited for her to unlock both deadbolts, then followed her inside. He made sure to relock them, as she hadn’t lingered by the door, then swept his gaze through the space.
A small foyer with two hooks on the wall above a half-sized bench for storage.
Beyond the foyer was the kitchen, with dated appliances and a peninsula on the far side.
There looked to be a table occupying the space on the other side of the peninsula, but no seating.
Jenna had continued down the hall, which opened on the other side to a sitting room about the same size as the kitchen.
A layer of cream-colored drapery obscured the windows, letting in light without allowing for views in or out, and more curtains were pulled back in waiting.
A television was mounted on the largest wall and a couple of older pieces of furniture that looked like they had come, one at a time, from thrift stores provided seating.
“I know it isn’t much,” she said as she motioned into the space. She’d already hung her purse on one of the hooks in the foyer. “But make yourself comfortable. And if you want to save your milkshake for later, I’m happy to put it in the freezer.”
Jon moved into the space, set his milkshake onto the coffee table, and stepped closer to her. He fought the urge to pull hers from her hands. “I’m trying to be reasonable here, Jen, but I need you to be honest. It’s just me right now, and I hope you know you can talk to me.”
Her brow furrowed and she gave a slow nod.
He rolled his jaw as he worked on not growling his question. “Are you okay?”
The crease in her brow deepened. “Jon—”
“I’m being serious, Jenna. Is there something wrong? Are you in trouble? Is someone threatening you?”
Her eyes widened and her grip tightened around the drink she still held. Her response was not what it needed to be. “Why?”
Fuck. “Tell me who. Tell me everything.”