Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Jackson
F uck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Fuck that video. Fuck that guy who reminded me and everyone else that I was the last to see T.J. alive. Double fuck him for destroying my last night with Maggie.
My shoulder blades are on fire, either from the weight of Maggie’s gaze, or from trying to hold myself in check as I stride to the exit.
I can’t get out of this fucking place fast enough. Can’t get away from that disbelieving look on Maggie’s face. Can’t get away from this reminder of my most epic failure in life.
I burst through the exit into the cool autumn night like the hounds of hell are after me.
The banquet hall parking lot is still packed.
Every jackass who graduated in those five years must’ve decided this was the year to attend a reunion.
Good news for Alice—and for Maggie too, I guess. Not so much for me.
I try to inhale, try to soak in a calming breath like I’ve seen Maggie do when her heart rate gets too high and she’s ready to freak out.
Twelve hours. That’s all I have to get through before I head west.
To hell with it. As soon as I get home and get my Jeep loaded, I’m out of here. I’ll grab a hotel somewhere, because I can’t stay in this town for another second.
I find my Jeep in the crowded lot and then speed off, knowing I’m leaving the only good things in my life behind.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Alice calling. I hit ignore on the dash display, but it immediately buzzes again. And again. I don’t have the energy for my sister—or anyone else, for that matter. I’ll call her tomorrow. Or the next day. Or in a few weeks after I complete this training.
When I reach my apartment, I turn my fucking phone off. There’s nothing to say and no one I want to talk to right now.
I’m hauling the last of my bags into the Jeep when a sharp bark of feminine laughter stops me in my tracks.
“So you’re just going to bail?” Maggie steps around the side of the Jeep. Fuck, I’m so distracted I didn’t even notice her there. “Is that what this is?”
“Mags—” I swipe a hand down my face, trying to wipe away the vision of her haunted, hurting eyes. It doesn’t help—she still looks like she might burst into tears at any moment. I’ve never seen her with this stricken look on her face, nor with angry, flashing eyes.
“Nuh-uh. Don’t you pet-name me.” Her nostrils flare as she takes a moment to inhale. “You were going to bail and ride off without a goodbye, without an explanation for whatever that was back there. Weren’t you?”
It’s the wobble in her voice that does me in. There’s no getting words past this wedge in my throat, but I grit my teeth and try to swallow anyway.
“You wanna know what I think?” she bites when I offer no reply.
“I think you’re not the man I thought you were.
I think you’re a coward who runs around playing at being a hero when it’s convenient and you can get all sorts of accolades.
You’re Kermit Jackson, firefighter superhero.
The first to put his life on the line. The first to do the stupid shit just to feel an adrenaline rush.
But when it comes down to the hard stuff, you’re shit scared of people finding out that you aren’t as brave as you pretend to be.
You’re an emotionally stunted coward. Otherwise, you would’ve mentioned that you knew about T.J. Why didn’t you tell me you were there?”
She stares at me, chest heaving, eyes glistening.
Maybe I should’ve been more open, but she would’ve shut things down between us in a heartbeat had she known the truth.
Maggie’s been an expert at avoiding the hard things.
And if I’m honest, I am too. I steel myself against going to her to hold her and apologize for all the ways I’ve let her down.
But it’s no use. She’ll never forgive me for not saving him.
“You’re not going to say a damn word, are you?”
My fingers fist involuntarily to keep from reaching for her as I remain frozen, ensnared by the emotion shining in her eyes. It rips my heart in two.
A heartbeat passes. Two.
The night is so quiet, even the nighttime insects have been stunned speechless by her outburst. And me?
I’m the coward she accused me of being. But she’ll see.
Once I’m gone, her life will go back to normal.
She’ll find some other guy to take her hiking, to push her out of her comfort zone, to get her out of her head and make her experience all the things she says she’s afraid to try .
Her eyes search my face. I don’t want to think too much about the longing I see in the depths of hers, pleading with me to have some kind of reaction. Eventually, she breaks the connection, looking at the ground as she shakes her head.
“Unbelievable.” When she meets my gaze again, gone is the sadness and longing, replaced by an icy cold that is so far removed from the Maggie I know that it twists the knife even more.
“Screw you, Jackson. For making me fall for you. For not being the man I thought you were.”
Gravel crunches as she spins away, scraping across my heart like it’s just gouged those sexy shoes. How is it possible that mere hours ago, I was balls deep inside her, and now I’m watching her walk out of my life?
But it’s better this way. In time, she’ll see that it’s better this way.
Maggie
“Sorry I popped out for a few,” I tell the girl who’s been assigned to be my helper this evening.
Keisha? Tasha? She’s a lovely girl, with the sweetest Southern twang and the nicest manners I’ve experienced in a while, and I hate that I can’t remember her name.
But honestly, this whole evening has been such a whirlwind of events, I’m doing good to remember my own at this point. “Everything still going okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. Nothing other than people stopping by to see if any more treats have been left out. Once they leave this station, they head to the cash bar, though. So I’m guessing they aren’t too mad that we ran out. ”
“Maggie!” Alice calls my name before I can answer. “There you are. Oh, and LaTisha, we’re ready to begin breaking down. You remember your team?”
LaTisha—I make a mental note to remember her name this time—nods and skitters away. “Sweet girl. Hard worker.” Alice nods in approval after her staffer.
“She’s been great. I’d love to have her come help me out in the shop sometime,” I say, trying to act like I haven’t just come back from sneaking out of the reunion to yell at her brother.
Like I conjured her perusal, Alice stops long enough to give me a once-over and a hard look. “Are you okay?”
I offer the fakest smile I can muster. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.” I have no idea if she knows if Jackson bailed already, but I don’t want to ruin her night if she doesn’t. But then again, if I were in her shoes, I’d want to know.
“Alice, Jackson left.”
She freezes at the news, but that’s the only reaction I get.
Then her attention returns to the event room, and she scans the crowd, no doubt monitoring that all her little minions are completing their tasks.
But she’s nodding too much, deflecting her emotions just like her emotionally stunted brother does.
“We’re in the home stretch. Cash bar closes in a half hour, and then we have another half hour to finish breaking down and cleaning up. And then we celebrate.”
Damn Jackson for being such a selfish little shit. My plan is to nurse this Big Mad for as long as possible to avoid the inevitable heartbreak that’s waiting for me on the other side.
“So, um… about earlier…” Alice starts.
“Nope.” I shake my head. “Not gonna talk about it.” I can’t right now. Especially when I’m terrified of both her reaction to walking in on us, postcoital, and knowing he bailed without saying goodbye.
“I was just going to say that you and Jackson make a cute couple, and you look so happy when you’re together.
” Oh god . She didn’t just go there. “I’ve been thinking about it all evening.
Not the walking in on you part, but all the times you’ve been together and how happy you both seem to be.
” Yep. The Big Mad has officially fizzled, and now my heart is cracking wide open, because he does make me happy.
Or he did. “I guess I’m just scarred by the one who came before you.
But really, I think you guys would be perfect together. ”
LaTisha comes running up with a worried look on her face, and before I can get a word in, Alice is following her to a group of catering staff huddled in the corner, acting like they don’t know what to do.
I’m waiting in my car when Alice finally comes out. She sees me and stutter-steps for a beat before she joins me.
“I’ve been trying to call Jackson all night, but it’s going to voicemail.
I wanted to check on him after that video.
” She doesn’t give me time to answer before she shrugs and dives immediately into a rundown of the good and bad elements of the event, already making notes about what could’ve gone better.
I listen and drive, letting her have her wind-down space.
But once we get home and we’ve had a chance to change out of party clothes, we meet on the couch for a glass of wine, and she asks what happened with her brother again. I can’t stall any longer.
“He left right after the memorial. I ducked out for a minute and sort of chased him back to his apartment. He was packing his bags into his Jeep like he was leaving tonight. Not tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Disappointment pulls her shoulders down and weighs on the corners of her mouth. It’s so hard to sit and watch the light in her eyes dim. I take her hand and give it a little squeeze. As much as Jackson hurt me with his disappearing act, seeing Alice’s heart break, too, is almost as bad.
“If it makes you feel any better, I gave him a piece of my mind.”
“ You did?” I don’t like her emphasis on that word. Like the idea of me telling someone off is a foreign concept. “I should’ve known I’d missed my chance.”
Wait. I feel like we are having two different conversations.
“Missed your chance for what?”
She takes a slug of her wine and watches it swirl as she lowers the glass. “To introduce him to Stella, my girlfriend.”
“Oh. Ohhh. ”
There’s so much I want and need to say about this, like why didn’t she tell me? How long has she had a girlfriend? Is Stella good to her?
This night has been such a whirlwind of emotions, but judging by her expression, she’s super nervous about coming out. “Well, I’d still like to meet her in person, if that’s ever an option.”
She meets me with a watery smile and squeezes my hand. “I should’ve known you weren’t going to be a judgmental prick like so many others around here are. This small town isn’t known for its acceptance. Thanks, Mags.”
The nickname makes my own eyes fill with tears because there’s only one other person in this world who’s ever called me that, and I’ll probably never hear him say it again.
Dammit. One escaped.
“What happened with my idiot brother?”
I swallow thickly and admit, “I don’t want to tell you. I remember what’s happened in the past, and I don’t want to be the one who comes between you two.”
“You won’t. I’d like to think we’ve matured since then.
That we’ve gotten past all the stupid bullshit.
That doesn’t mean I want the nitty-gritty details, but it’s easy to see you’re hurting and angry.
And if he’s taken off early, he probably is too.
He’s a champion avoider when things get emotionally hard.
But give him time to put his big-boy pants on, and he’ll come around. ”
Maybe he would. But that didn’t mean I’d be here waiting for it to happen. And it didn’t take away the sting of knowing he withheld his part in the night that had changed my life.
“I’m too tired to think about him anymore tonight.” I drain the last of my wine and stand. “But I’m serious. I’d really like to meet Stella. Whenever you’re ready.”
She’s picking up her phone and dialing before I clear the room.
It’s the first time she’s made a call where she hasn’t squirreled herself away, and I wonder if the weight of keeping Stella—and all that having a girlfriend means—a secret has taken its toll on Alice.
I double back and drop a kiss to her hair.
“Thanks for telling me about Stella. I can’t wait to meet her.”
I grab the remains of the bottle of wine and don’t even bother with washing my makeup off before heading to bed. Sleep will be impossible, but maybe if I polish off the rest of this bottle, I can pass out without crying first.