27. Jason
27
JASON
“ W ell done, Jason,” Mr. Jacobsen said as he handed me a crisp fifty-dollar bill.
I had been next door at the Jacobsens all day, mowing the lawn and weed eating around the perimeter of the house and the concrete pavers that encircled Mrs. Jacobsen’s flower beds. It was a sweltering Saturday afternoon. I was fairly convinced that I had sweated out every ounce of moisture in my body.
While all my friends were getting ready for a party down on Atlantic Beach, I was filthy from putting down new mulch. I was covered in dirt after getting down on my hands and knees to pull weeds around the azaleas. Mrs. Jacobsen was rather protective of her flowers. She didn’t want a weed eater to even come close to the blooms, so I did that part by hand.
If I had been a normal teenager, I would have been showering and sneaking liquor from my dad’s stash above the fridge. But there was no way in hell I was going to risk doing something stupid and not getting into the Naval Academy .
Two days prior, Mr. Jacobsen had helped me finish the last part of my application. Now it was in the hands of the admissions department.
I had the grades. I had the recommendations. Now, I just needed fate to smile on me and get me out of this hell-hole.
Missing a party and sweating through my shirt was all worth it.
Pops paid me under the table to help at the airfield. The Jacobsens paid me to do their lawn care and referred me to some of the other homeowners on our street.
Finally, I had made enough to fix up the beater truck I’d bought. It was worth all the blood and sweat. In a few months, Blue Betty would take me to Maryland. The next time I came back, I’d be a commissioned officer in the United States Navy—if I survived the four years of college.
I couldn’t wait for Annapolis.
“The yard looks great,” he said after having walked the property for a thorough inspection. We were standing in the backyard, right next to the swing set where I often saw Mel sitting when she wasn’t allowed to go out.
“Thank you, sir.” I held my damp t-shirt in my hand and used it to mop up the sweat on my face. “I, uh, I’m actually gonna miss sweatin’ it out over here.”
He cracked a smile. A rare one, but a smile nonetheless. “Don’t worry, Jason. Week two of your Plebe Summer, you’ll be too tired to miss cutting my grass. July temperatures in Annapolis are about as miserable as they are here.”
I had to crane my head up to meet Mr. Jacobsen’s intimidating stare. Mel definitely took after her mother. Mrs. Jacobsen was a tiny yet formidable woman, topping out at five feet tall.
He crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “But a piece of advice…”
I was all ears. Some guys looked up to Brett Favre or Michael Jordan. I looked up to Colonel Byron Jacobsen.
“Don’t get apathetic, son. Your application’s in, but the Navy has eyes and ears everywhere. If you slip up, they’ll know. Keep your nose clean. It’s not enough to be a high performer. You have to make them trust you, too. Officers who go into their time in the military as high performers but aren’t trustworthy end up being toxic leaders.”
“High performance, high trust,” I said, parroting him.
“That’s the goal,” he clipped. “Be the leader that everyone wants to guide their team. Don’t just do the job. Be a man who cares about the wellbeing of everyone under him.”
“Yes, sir.”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Want a glass of water?”
I looked down at my sweat-covered chest. Dirt was under my fingernails, and my sneakers were caked in soil. Grass clippings stuck to my calves like confetti. “I, uh, I probably shouldn’t. Wouldn’t want to upset Mrs. Jacobsen by trackin’ dirt through the house.”
He chuckled, a deep, rumbling roll. Mel always talked about how she liked the way her dad laughed but that he didn’t do it enough. How he was always so serious. How she didn’t know if he saw her as his daughter or just as one of the many people under his leadership.
Those were the things she whispered to me under cover of darkness. The quiet confessions were only made to me and the crickets.
“Smart choice. How about I go grab you a bottle?”
“I’d appreciate that, sir.”
He crossed the yard to the back door that led inside. I sat down on the swing, resting my legs. My thighs burned from push-mowing the Jacobsens’ property, but it was a solid workout.
I’d head home and shower. Play some video games and then scrounge up a sandwich or something for dinner. Mom would be at work tonight, and my dad was out on the road. If I had to guess, Bridget would go with Maddie and Heather to the party.
Kind of lame that my little sister had more of a social life than I did.
I accepted it, though. As reckless as Bee could be, I knew if she got herself in trouble, she was responsible enough to call me to come pick her up. If she didn’t call, I trusted Steve or Chase—or their parents—to get her home.
A lot of people mistook Bridget and me for twins. We were a few years apart but had the same hair color and eyes.
Sometimes I wished we were twins. I felt like a jackass for getting excited about leaving her behind, but the Navy was something I had to do. If I did well enough, I could get Bridget out, too.
Four and a half years from now, when I graduated from the Naval Academy and moved wherever they wanted me, Bridget would be out of high school. Maybe I could convince her to move to wherever I was and we could start over.
It wouldn’t be much different than it was now. Me and Bumble Bee against the world.
My only consolation was that our—her—group of friends were good people. Maddie Dorsey, Steve Pelham, Chase Brannan, Heather Daniels, and Melissa Jacobsen were the best friends I could have hoped for her to have.
Mr. Jacobsen returned with a cold bottle of water. I cracked it open and guzzled half of it down right there.
As I used the back of my arm to wipe droplets off my chin, a car pulled up, and Mel got out, walking to the front door. She was in a pair of white shorts and a pale blue tank top. She had the same butterfly clips in her hair that Bridget had. There were headphones on her ears, plugged into a Walkman as she bopped along to whatever she was listening to.
So fucking cute.
Mr. Jacobsen watched his daughter like a hawk as she made her way down the stone path that led to the front door. “Remember what I said, Jason,” he said sternly, never taking his eyes off Melissa. “High trust.”
I looked down at the patch of grass I was standing on; my brows furrowed in confusion as I tried to figure out what he was getting at. Maybe he caught on to the way I looked at her.
The way I always looked at her.
“You’re taking the right steps to become a better man than your father,” he said. “I’m not one to mince words. You may be better than your old man, but you’ve got his DNA in you. My girl deserves better than a man who only works so he can drink himself to death.”
Fury clouded my vision, but I tamped it down. I wasn’t going to fly off the handle. That’s exactly what my dad would have done, and I wasn’t him—no matter what Mr. Jacobsen thought.
And I was going to prove him wrong.
“Alright,” I hollered from the roof. “You ready to haul the next bundle up?”
Chase had his truck backed up as close to the cottage as he could get it.
Mel was on day two of her four-day stretch. I’d barely seen her except when she zombie-walked into the apartment, brushed her teeth, and promptly went to bed. The upside was that I got to sleep in the bed with her.
For being someone who claimed to sleep like a starfish, she was surprisingly snuggly. I fucking loved having her curled up in my arms, sleeping peacefully.
It felt so right.
But it also meant I was bored as hell while she was working during the day. So, when Chase called and asked if I would give him a hand putting some new shingles on his cottage, I stupidly said yes.
I had been regretting that yes ever since I’d crawled up the ladder in triple-digit heat this morning. I had to admit, though—he’d made the little guest cottage in his backyard look damn good.
Pale blue siding, crisp white trim, and warm brown cedar posts bracketing the front door made it look like the grown-up version of a dollhouse.
Chase had shown me around inside before we started on the room.
It was a studio—a central room with a sitting area, a bed, a kitchenette, and some storage. There was a small bathroom off to the side.
Hannah Jane had taken on the task of perfecting the interior design. She did a damn good job, too. It was breezy and light, yet cozy at the same time.
The cottage wasn’t big enough for someone to live there long-term, but it was nicer than a cookie-cutter hotel room. Chase had been listing it on one of those short-term rental sites and had been making a nice little bit of rainy-day money.
A storm last hurricane season had done a number on the roof, and he wanted to get it fixed before Jim Cantore and his blue windbreaker showed up again.
Chase grunted as he hefted a bundle of shingles out of the bed of the truck. A mountain of old roofing sat piled up in the grass at the corner of the cottage.
Luna—the German Shepherd he’d rescued when she had gotten herself stuck under Kristin’s single-wide—ran circles around the yard, barking at us.
“Luna, sit,” he said as he climbed the ladder propped up against the gutter.
Without so much as another wag of her tail, Luna obediently plopped her furry behind in the grass.
“You trained her good,” I said as I grabbed the end of the shingles and helped him get them up onto the roof. “She’s smart. ”
He let out a wry laugh. “It was all bribery.” He wriggled a dog biscuit out of his pocket and tossed it down to Luna, who caught it mid-air and gobbled it down with a snap of her jaw. “She’s still got a little puppy in her. Some bad habits. She’s really good around most people, but she still gets aggressive with strangers she doesn’t trust. Sometimes she still thinks she’s gotta fend for herself. We’re working on that.” He stopped at the top of the ladder and blew out a breath before climbing on the roof. “Damn near bit Kyle Kingsley when I brought her with me to the bar the other night.”
I snickered. Chase didn’t seem at all sorry that Luna had gone after Kingsley.
Peering over the edge of the roof, I spied Luna gingerly nibbling on a stuffed duck she had held down between her paws. “Yep. She’s ferocious, alright.”
Chase laughed under his breath.
Damn cute dog, I thought to myself before wondering if Mel ever thought about getting a dog.
One of our late-night conversations in our previous life had been how she’d always wanted a pet but couldn’t get one because of how frequently they moved.
“I’m surprised Bee let you bring a dog inside Jokers,” I mused.
Chase smirked as he shoved a row of shingles under the row at the peak of the roof. He grabbed a hammer and a box of nails and started tacking it down. “Please—a dog in there is the least of their problems. That place is a breeding ground for tetanus and every foodborne illness known to man. Besides, Luna’s real sweet on Bee. She can’t say no to her.”
I had spotted Chase slipping Luna treats to get her to go love on my sister, but I kept my mouth shut.
“So,” Chase said as I shimmied another row of shingles into place. “What’s been keeping you so busy other than you and Mel, uh, getting it on. ”
I chuckled, careful not to drop the nails that I had trapped in the corner of my mouth. “You heard about that, huh?” I mumbled.
He grinned from ear-to-ear. “Mel told Bee. She told Hannah Jane, who told Kristin. Kristin told Maddie, and she told Erica. Erica passed it along to Steve, who told me.”
“The grapevine is alive and well.”
“That’s an understatement.” He bit the finger of his work gloves and peeled them off. “Seriously, man. Y’all an item or just fucking?”
I swung my hammer and plowed a nail into a shingle. “Nah, it’s legit.”
“Good,” he clipped. “Now I don’t have to worry about her getting turned into chum by a dating app serial killer.”
I laughed under my breath as we got back to work, fitting the rows of shingles, and nailing them down. Hopefully, Mel’s days of dating shitty men were over.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was just the next in a long line of red flags. If I was actually good enough for her.
I’d been tempted to give her dad a call. Not that Mel needed his permission to date, but because I thought he should hear it from me.
I had chickened out, though. I was goddamn near forty years old, but I was still scared shitless that I wasn’t good enough for his girl. Maybe I would always be scared.
Maybe that was the point.
If I never let myself think I was good enough for her, I wouldn’t let myself get complacent. I wouldn’t stop putting in an effort to make her fall in love with me.
“Things serious between y’all?” he asked, bringing my thoughts back to the present.
I sat back on the roof, looking over the row of neatly kept trees that lined the road into downtown Beaufort. Part of me was curious why Chase had bought a house like this. It was way more space than he needed as a single guy with a dog. And that didn’t even count the guest cottage. Inside, his house wasn’t a bachelor pad. It was a family home if I’d ever seen one.
“Yeah. I’m not dicking around,” I said, hammering in another nail. “Coming back to Beaufort was only supposed to be a touch-and-go. Check on my sister, empty my storage unit, and move on to whatever’s next.” I paused, staring at the head of the hammer. “I dunno man. The minute I saw Mel again, roots sounded better than wings.”
“When it rains, it pours,” he quipped. “First, it was Maddie, then Steve. Isaac and HJ are getting married in a few days. Kris is engaged. Bee’s engaged…”
Chase looked down at the hammer in his hand, pausing for a moment before ramming it into the nail. He hit the head at an awkward angle, bending the nail in half. He spun the hammer around, using the claw to yank it out with more force than necessary.
“Sounds like you and Mel aren’t far behind.” He pinched a new nail between his fingers and hammered it into place. “That’s good,” he muttered under his breath. “Real good.”