Chapter 5
Chapter five
Jaxon
I can’t eat alone in my father’s house another night. The silence is so loud it’s jarring my bones.
Unsure who else I can talk to in this town, I call Carter, and after getting a lecture about being here for almost a week without telling him—and with no security, might I add—I’m able to goad him into having drinks with me at the bar in town.
Passing by my father’s door, I stop, reaching two fingers out to touch the handle. It’s my new ritual, touching the doorknob each time I go by but never having the courage to push the door open.
I throw on a pair of sunglasses and a hat as I leave, knowing I could blow my incognito stay here in Wild Bluffs, but I only have to last three more days until Andre said he’d book me a flight home.
Feeling like I’m a poorly trained spy in a comedy movie, I slink into The Cattlemens Steakhouse and find a spot in a booth in the back. The lights don’t quite reach me here, so I can sit in the shadows without having to worry about being spotted by a fan.
The waitress is a woman who could be anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five, and after staring at her for longer than is likely appropriate, I realize she was an elementary student when I was in high school. Fortunately, she doesn’t recognize me.
I order two gin and tonics.
One and a half are gone by the time Carter slips into the booth ten minutes later.
“Can’t believe I convinced you to join me,” I say.
“I can’t believe you’re hiding back here like some supervillain.”
“It’s best if I remain anonymous.”
“As the guy who oversees your security, I appreciate that, but I’m also seriously pissed you’re here alone. Where’s Annie? Where’s your security team?”
“I left them back home. Told the team I only needed the gate guard.”
Carter rakes a hand through his hair. “Jaxon, you need one of the team with you.”
“Is that really necessary? No one even knows I’m here.”
“Yes. Which is why one of my guys, who’s in town right now, is on his way over.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve been here for a week with no problems.”
“He’s coming, Jax.”
We shift to small talk, both half watching the baseball game on the TVs around the restaurant. I’m definitely drinking more than Carter.
I’ve lost count of whether this is my fourth or fifth gin and tonic when a burst of laughter draws my attention to the booth behind me. Something about that laugh yanks every nerve in my body taut. It draws me in, demanding my attention.
Unfortunately, when the women arrived a few minutes ago, I was staring into my glass, entertaining Carter with commentary about the little bubbles floating to the top, so I didn’t see any of them. I try to peek over, but the tall booth blocks my view.
Swirling winds hum your sweet refrain.
I jolt.
Holy shit.
The lyrics.
They’re back. Maybe Andre was right about connecting with my roots.
I grab the pen I always carry and shove my glass aside, hastily scrawling the single line on the napkin. The only line I’ve been excited about writing for the last eighteen months.
“Carter,” one of the women says, and I look at his face just in time to see his eyes widen, flickering over my head.
Wait, why do I recognize that voice?
I look up too, seeing the woman who is now leaning over the tall barrier between our two tables.
I’m caught. Completely captivated. And suddenly, it all makes sense. It’s Izzy. It’s her voice that I hear in my dreams, though the voice that haunts me belongs to the teenage version of the woman staring down at me, her eyes wide as her mouth falls open in an “O.”
“Iz,” I say softly, my eyes searching hers, needing her reaction to help me understand mine. “I…”
“Didn’t realize I’d be here?” Izzy asks, her face changing from shock to anger. “What a surprise. I’m sure if you had, you would’ve run the other direction.”
My heart is hammering, my stomach in knots—and it’s not just from the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed.
I lick my lips, and don’t fail to notice Izzy’s eyes following the movement.
“Can we…can we talk for a minute?” I ask, my tone slightly more desperate than I would’ve liked, but fuck.
Now that I’m in the same place as Izzy, I can’t believe I wasn’t going to try to reach out to her.
To apologize to her for all the unanswered calls and texts when we were kids.
“Yeah, I’ve seen how getting along with you plays out before. Spoiler alert: Disappointing ending. So, hard pass.”
“That’s not…” I start.
“What? True?” Izzy fires back.
My brain is trying so hard to sober up, but there is far too much alcohol for that to happen, even when faced with the wrath of Izzy.
Izzy continues, “Because a string of unanswered texts, calls, and even a fucking letter beg to differ.” She pushes the friend next to her out of the booth. “I’m going to the bathroom. Fuck off before I get back.”
“I…well, okay,” I say lamely, turning back in my seat, noticing for the first time that my favorite bodyguard, Nash, is sitting in the booth next to me.
I take one look at the sympathetic cringe on his face and want to vomit.
“Nice timing,” I say, pulling out my wallet to pay. If Izzy doesn’t want me here, then maybe I should leave.
Nash chuckles. “I fortunately made it just in time to catch the really good parts.”
“Fuck you,” I say, but there’s no heat in it. I know this is on me. Izzy has every right to be mad.
Carter offers me a smile that’s so full of pity I can barely stand it. “Are you really going to leave it at that?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me. It was the same when I saw her for those two minutes in Australia. I’m not going to force my company on her,” I say, staring at the door to the bathroom.
Carter stares as well before letting out a sigh.
“Since I’m here as your friend, not your employee, I’m going to tell you this: letting Izzy steamroll you with her anger is a mistake.
You need to talk to her. She needs you to talk to her.
I understand why she doesn’t like to even hear your name, but it’s been fifteen years. She needs to move on. You both do.”
I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad. “She can’t hear my name?”
Carter nods once. “Her family goes out of their way to avoid ever mentioning you. The town even stopped playing music stations that you were on because she started crying once when she was home from college and heard your song on the radio.”
Fuck. I can barely think past the guilt rushing through my bloodstream as a mental image of teenage Izzy forms, sitting in the coffee shop, tears dripping onto her chocolate chip cookie as my first single plays.
I’m a fucking asshole.
“I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure you’re the one who made millions of dollars off the lyrics ‘second chances are rare.’”
Staring at me like he expected quoting my own song to me would work, Carter finally gives up and sighs. “Just go talk to her.” He nods toward the door Izzy is now walking out of. “No one uses the patio outside, but the door is always unlocked.”
I stand, not giving myself time to rethink what I’m about to do. About the immense amount of groveling that needs to be done.
Izzy’s eyes narrow as I step into her path, blocking her way back to her table. The one I now know contains Izzy’s two sisters, Bryn and Kelsey; Kelsey’s employee, Lila; Becca Montgomery, another one of Izzy’s friends; and a man I’ve never met before.
“Can we please talk?” I ask her, pulling on the back of my neck as if that will ease the deep discomfort I’m feeling.
“No,” she says firmly, making to step around me.
I step sideways to block her, doing my best not to draw the attention.
“Please, Iz,” I ask again, my voice soft. “I just…I need to apologize.”
“No,” she repeats.
The Izzy I knew back in high school was unaware that “no” was a complete sentence. She’d ramble an explanation until she eventually worked herself around to a yes. Even though it’s actively keeping me from my goals now, I can’t help the little spark of pride that blooms to life in my chest.
Realizing I might have to draw attention to myself to get her to agree, I plead loudly, “Please, Iz?”
I guess I’ll need my security team, after all.
As I start to drop to my knees to fully commit to the begging, she grabs my arm, stopping my downward movement. “Fine. Fine! But don’t call me Iz. Only my friends call me that.”
Ignoring the sting of her words—ones I certainly deserve—I nod in agreement. “Thank you.”
I reach toward her, planning to guide her toward the door to the second-story patio, but when my palm grazes her lower back, she steps back, a look of horror on her face like I just punched her.
Lifting my hands in a placating gesture, I ask, “The patio work?”
She nods, and I let her lead, following her out the door.
“Okay,” she says as soon as the door slams behind her.
The sun is low in the sky, perfectly framing her head. She looks beautiful standing there with her arms crossed. Like a goddess sent to avenge womankind everywhere. It’s…shocking.
I shake my head, realizing I might be too drunk to be having this conversation if I’m suddenly fixated on the perfect curves of Izzy’s body. Curves that I’ve noticed exactly one time before—backstage at my tour in Australia.
“Mmk,” Izzy says when it takes me too long to respond. “Well, if you’re not going to apologize, I’m going to go eat my dinner in peace. Certainly going to order another hard cider or five.”
“No. Wait, I’m sorry, Iz. I’m so, so sorry,” I say, the words tumbling out.
And I realize just how true it is. I’ve missed Izzy Harper so much, and it’s all my fault. I’m a complete and utter dirtbag, and as much as I know I don’t deserve her forgiveness or friendship, I want it.
She shrugs like my apology means nothing. Maybe it doesn’t.
“Izzy,” she reminds me. “Or Isabel would be preferable.”
“Right. I’m so sorry I left without saying a word, Isabel.” I emphasize her name, trying to fight against the instinct ingrained in me to call her by her nickname. “I just couldn’t say goodbye to you, I couldn’t—”
She scoffs, cutting me off. “So you left me high and dry instead? That you could handle?”
“No, it’s not like—”
Izzy’s eyes blaze as soon as the word no leaves my mouth. “Do you know what you leaving did to me?”
As annoyed as I am that Izzy keeps cutting me off—that she refuses to let me explain—I want to know what she has to say. I need to know.
I need to feel the cuts of her anger across my flesh. To feel the burn of her disappointment in my soul. To know how irrevocably broken our friendship is.
“What did it do, Iz?” I ask, my voice so low I’m not even sure she can hear it. “Tell me.”
“It…it-it crushed me!” she huffs out. “I thought you were dead. And then I knew you left, and it was almost worse. Your dad told me you left without saying goodbye, and I could barely believe it. We were best friends—you wouldn’t do something like that.
But then I called you. I texted you. I wrote you a fucking letter.
And you couldn’t even spend six seconds to send me a hey, go fuck yourself reply. That’s how little I meant to you.”
“It’s not like that—” I start, but Izzy speaks over me again.
“I was devastated. You abandoned me. Oh! And”—she’s really on a roll now, barely even taking time to breathe—“in the actual midst of this, in between all the pitying glances from everyone in school and the tiptoeing around me at home, I had the biggest interview of my life. Of. My. Life. Do you happen to remember which one it was, Jaxon?”
It’s clear from her tone that I should know.
I wish I knew if only to give me a shred of hope that I’m not the worst person in the entire world.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve done everything in my power to block out those few months—both the ones leading up to my departure and the ones immediately following—so when I try to rummage through my mind, I can’t find anything.
“Haaa,” escapes Izzy’s mouth, like some amalgamation of a laugh and a sob. “Of course you don’t. Why would you?”
She runs her hands through her hair, and it takes everything in me not to jump in, to cut her off, to beg her to spare me from whatever horrible thing I did to her. But I don’t. Because I know I deserve to feel the pain of whatever disappointment she’s about to share with me.
“I had my interview for Harvard, Jaxon. Remember it? The one you told me you’d drive me to?
The one you knew how freaked out I was about it.
How big of a deal it was for me to get into a school that was as impressive as Kelsey’s?
How stressful it was for me to sit in a car with my mom or dad and have them prep me for the interview with practice questions.
So you were going to drive me. But instead, you left.
So not only was I stressed about the interview, but I’d also just found out I was the type of person whose best friend could just up and leave without a backward glance.
” Her nostrils flare as she chuckles. “So, as you may be putting together, it didn’t go well.
I failed. Spectacularly. Cried not once but twice during the interview. ”
As I imagine the scene, the tears dripping down Izzy’s face, everything around me goes muffled, like the silence of a recording studio before I begin to play, the only sound my own pulse thundering in shame.
My stomach churns so violently I half expect to throw up right there, punishment from the inside out.
“I forgot, Iz. I’m so fucking sorry. I—I forgot.”
“You know what?” Izzy asks, flipping long brown hair over her shoulder. “Apology not accepted. I was clearly too na?ve to see how big of a dick you were then, but I’m not now. I may be the least successful Harper sister, but I’m not an idiot. So, no. I don’t forgive you. Bye, Jaxon Steele.”
She says my last name like it’s a poisonous barb she’s trying to detach from her tongue.
I let her go, knowing this isn’t the end.
I knew I hurt Izzy when I didn’t return her calls or texts, but I didn’t realize the extent of it. I want to blame it on being eighteen and an idiot, but maybe my dad was right all those years ago. Maybe I was selfish. Egocentric.
A goddamn fool.
Not returning her calls tore out a piece of my soul, but I’d always assumed it was because Izzy was my lifeline. In my infinite asshole-ness, I’d never considered that I might’ve been hers.
She was right to turn down my apology. She deserves so much more than an impromptu I’m sorry. Unfortunately for her, I’m not going to let this be the end.