Chapter 28
DEAD MAN WALKING
JESSE
Infectious by Imminence
The coffee shop is all exposed brick and succulents, the kind of place that tries too hard at being effortless. The espresso machine hisses behind the counter. An indie folk playlist drifts from somewhere. It all registers like sound through water—present, but not quite reaching me.
Sleep hasn’t come. Not really. A few hours before I followed Joey home, and nothing since.
The world has taken on a strange, hyperreal quality.
Edges sharp enough to cut. Colors bleeding into each other.
A dull ache throbs behind my eyes, and my skin has that too-tight feeling, like I’m wearing a suit made for someone smaller.
I drum my fingers on the table, focusing on the rhythm, but even that doesn’t ground me.
Dylan slides into the seat across from me, matcha in hand, and studies my face for half a second before wincing.
“You, my friend, look like a dead man walking.”
“Not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” He sets down his drink, his mouth twisting between sympathy and morbid fascination.
“You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“I’m enjoying no such thing.” Dylan shakes his head, but his lips twitch. “I kinda like having my best friend alive.”
“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic? This is Uncle Cash we’re talking about.”
“Uncle Cash!” Dylan’s maniacal laugh makes the laptop crowd glance our way. He leans forward, eyes gleaming. “This is your girlfriend’s father. The girlfriend you’ve been putting your dick in and he knows it.”
I smack his arm hard enough to leave a mark. “Fuck.” I drag both hands through my hair, tugging until my scalp stings. “What am I gonna do?”
“You’re gonna go there and take it like a fucking man.” Dylan’s amusement drains from his features. “And if he walks you to the pasture, run like fucking hell.”
I roll my eyes.
“Can I watch?”
“No!”
“For moral support?” He shrugs, palms raised in false innocence. “Or as a witness to tell your mom you died with dignity.”
“Dylan, I swear to fucking God.” I start to stand and he holds up both hands in surrender, but the grin stays plastered across his face. Asshole.
I wrap my hands around my untouched coffee, desperate for something to anchor me. The plastic burns against my palms. Good. The pain sharpens the fog threatening to swallow my thoughts.
“There’s more.” I stare into the dark liquid. “My dad was at the Fonda last night.”
Dylan’s grin vanishes. “What? How is that possible? I didn’t say anything.”
“No idea.”
“Shit.” Dylan drags a hand down his face. “So he knows about you performing and the mask?”
“Everything.” I give him a look.
“Shit.” He thinks on it a minute. “It was all gonna come out eventually.”
“I gotta get going.” Dylan rises with me. “I have to start planning your funeral.”
“Your faith in me is overwhelming,” I deadpan.
“Always, brother. Always.” He claps me on the shoulder.
The man who ruffled my hair at summer barbecues and slipped me extra cake at birthday parties studies me with unfamiliar eyes. In his place stands Joey’s father. Disappointed and dangerously calm.
“Walk with me.”
Not a request. A command.
I follow him out the door, across the yard, past the main barn where the horses hang their heads over stall doors, ears pricked at our procession. Neither of us speaks. The silence stretches thin as wire between us.
We stop at the pasture fence. The weathered wood is rough beneath my palms when I grip the rail. Splintered. Sun-bleached. Cash leans beside me, his gaze sweeping over my face instead of the hills.
His brow furrows. “You don’t look so good, Jesse.”
“Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
He turns toward the distant hills. Somewhere behind us, a horse snorts and stamps.
“I’m disappointed, Jesse.”
“This is on me.” I force the words out. “I should have…”
“Joey already told me it was her idea to keep things quiet.” Cash turns, pinning me with a stare. “I appreciate you trying to take the fall, but my daughter’s stubborn streak didn’t come from nowhere.”
“Still. I went along with it.” My head dips. “I apologize.”
“You should.” His jaw tightens. “Keeping her out until the early hours of the morning. Letting her lie to her parents about where she’s been, who she’s with.” He shakes his head, frustration bleeding through the measured tone. “Joey never did any of this before you.”
The accusation lands square in my chest. He’s right. She didn’t.
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s been sneaking around, lying about being with friends when she’s really with you.” Cash’s voice hardens. “The daughter I raised doesn’t behave this way, and especially not before the two of you started seeing each other.”
“I understand.”
Cash watches me for a long moment. His jaw works like he’s chewing on something he doesn’t want to say.
A long silence stretches between us. The horses drift closer, hooves soft against the dirt. One nickers low in its throat.
“Does she know?”
The question doesn’t register at first. Three words, dropped so quietly into the morning air that for a moment I think I’ve misheard him.
Then my brain catches up.
My grip tightens on the fence rail until a splinter bites into my palm.
He knows. Somehow he knows, which means my dad told him, which means this conversation was never just about the lying. Cash didn’t walk me out here to dress me down for keeping Joey out late. He walked me out here because he needed to look me in the eye when he asked this.
The horses have drifted closer. One pushes its nose against the rail a few feet down, exhaling slow and warm into the morning air. I fix my gaze on it because I can’t look at Cash right now.
I’ve started this conversation in my head more times than I can count.
Rehearsed the words, found the right entry point, talked myself into it and back out of it in the same breath.
What stops me every time isn’t the telling.
It’s the moment after. The way Joey will look at me once she knows, that quiet recalibration behind her eyes, the shift I won’t be able to un-see.
She spends her days rebuilding broken things.
She’s extraordinary at it. And I cannot be that for her. I refuse to be.
“No.”
Cash nods slowly. “Are you planning to tell her?”
“I was going to.”
“I love you, Jesse.” Cash turns to face me, his forearm leaning on the weathered fence. “But Joey is my daughter, and I need to believe she’s safe with you.”
Safe.
This is exactly what I was afraid of. The reason I spent years keeping my distance. The reason I should have never let myself touch her in the first place.
“I would never hurt her,” I say, steadier than I feel on the inside. “Never.”
Cash’s jaw tightens. “Not intentionally.”
He thinks I’m dangerous. He thinks I’ll hurt her. Maybe he’s right, but I’m already too deep in this, and I can’t give her up even though I should. Even though everything inside of me says she’ll be better off without me. I’m selfish in the worst way.
“I love her, Cash,” I say, exhaustion stripping away any polish. “I’ve loved her my whole life. You think I haven’t spent years staying away from her because I was terrified of exactly this?”
Cash’s expression doesn’t soften. “And yet here we are.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment. Something flickers behind his eyes. Not approval, but maybe something close to reluctant respect.
“She deserves to make her choice with the full picture,” he says quietly.
“I’m going to tell her.” The words come out unsteady. “I will.”
Cash nods once. “See that you do.”
Cash pushes off the fence and walks back toward the house.
Joey intercepts me before I make it to my car. She must have been watching from the window because she’s breathless, color sitting high on her cheeks, a strand of hair clinging to her lip.
“What happened? What did he say to you?” Her hands find my chest, pressing flat against my sternum. “Jesse, talk to me.”
“Everything’s fine.” I catch her wrists, gentle but firm. “We talked. He’s not thrilled about the lying, but he’ll come around.”
“You’re shaking.”
Am I? I hadn’t noticed.
“I’m tired.” I lift her hands to my mouth, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Didn’t sleep, remember? I need to go home and crash for a few hours.”
“Let me come with you.”
“No,” I say, sharper than I mean to. I soften my grip on her hands, forcing calm into my voice. “Stay here. Smooth things over with your parents. I’ll call you later.”
“Jesse,” she pleads.
“I love you,” I tell her, and it’s the only true thing I have left to give her. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
I kiss her forehead and climb into my car before she can argue.