25. Chapter 25
“Drumroll?” Graham asked with a rare, relaxed smile.
Lindsey, several mint juleps in, slapped her hands on the tabletop in an uneven drumbeat, and Graham cracked the black wax seal on the next envelope.
While he read the letter to himself, Jase took the Polaroid from Graham’s hand.
Their parents, in head-to-toe leather, smiled in front of a biker bar.
“Hog Heaven,” Jase said. “Where’s it at?”
Graham’s mouth opened and nothing came out. His eyes kept skimming the words.
“Graham?” Lindsey pressed.
Finally he ran a hand through his beard, tossed the letter to the center of the table, and excused himself. Lindsey collected the discarded paper.
“Where are we going?” Jase asked.
Her mouth opened and nothing came out.
He tapped her leg with his toe underneath the table. “Sundress?”
“Austin.” Lindsey gave Jase the letter. “We’re going to Austin.”
“What’s wrong with Austin?”
Staring in the direction Graham disappeared, Lindsey said, “Helen lives in Austin.”
“Oh. Shit.”
Jase half expected to find his old man grinning and raising his glass across the room.
“Yeah.” Lindsey sucked a mint leaf up her straw. Another julep down. “Do you know why they broke up? Graham won’t talk about her.”
“You’re asking the wrong guy. In case you haven’t noticed, Graham and I don’t really talk, babe.”
“Hm.” She rested her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. “Would your dad want him to see her? Out of all the places in Texas, why would he send us there?”
“I wouldn’t read too far into it,” Jase said, except he was.
He thinks I should be with Helen. Graham’s cockeyed interpretation of whatever their dad told him was dangerous now that he could do something about it.
Jase shrugged and leaned back in his chair, doing his drunken best to seem unconcerned. “The map doesn’t end on her doorstep.”
“Close enough. Nothing’s been a coincidence so far.”
“It hasn’t been all smoke and mirrors either.”
Jase scanned the crowd for his brother. He didn’t believe their dad meant for Graham to hook up with his ex and dump Lindsey on the road.
Then again, a few minutes ago, that road wasn’t leading to Austin.
He tried re-reading the letter, but it was hard to focus with the swanky jazz pounding in his ears and the words jumping all over the page.
Jase rubbed his eyes and reached for his drink to find it in Lindsey’s hands.
“She’s beautiful,” Lindsey said with her mouth on his straw. “I’ve seen pictures.”
“She’s not half the woman you are,” Jase said.
“That’s the booze talking.”
He didn’t think so. At least, it wasn’t only the booze. He still hadn’t found another woman to distract him from the one in front of him. The short sleeve of her red flowered dress slipped off one shoulder, and he seriously considered hooking a finger underneath her black lace bra strap.
She took another sip of his drink and asked, “Do you think he still loves her?”
“If he does, he’s an idiot,” Jase said.
Lindsey was watching him over the empty glasses between them. If she was any other woman, he’d know what that look meant and what to do with it.
“You ready for another round, miss?”
The rickety man in the fedora was back. Jase wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
“Sorry, I’ve got this one covered,” he said.
The man moved on graciously, and Jase extended his hand. She took it and a small space cleared around them on the dance floor.
“Liar. You said you didn’t dance,” Lindsey said.
“It’s all part of the game. If you’re the only guy with moves, the babes flock in.”
Jase grinned, dipped her—they all went nuts for the dip—and pulled her into his body, catching a whiff of her perfume. It was something sweet and flowery he’d noticed a few times in the car.
“Swing dancing?” she asked.
“Do you think you can keep up?”
He swung her out in a twirl and reeled her back in. She tripped on the last step and stumbled into his chest.
“Can anyone?” she laughed, and he didn’t think she was just talking about dancing.
It reminded him he was supposed to be finding a distraction, not getting close to the only woman he wouldn’t be bringing back to his room.
The fast song with all its bawdy brass ended, and a sensual piano number took over. The crowd closed in around them, and without the fast swing steps, Jase was very aware of her waist in his hand, the blush on her cheeks.
“You want to sit down?” he asked.
He followed her eyes to the table and saw Graham wasn’t back yet. She shook her head. “One more?”
“You got it.”
“You sure I won’t keep them from flocking in?”
“Keep who from what?”
“You said women flock in when they see your moves.”
“Did I?” Bourbon was wiping the night from his mind. “They can wait.”
They swayed to the new, less demanding beat. Over her head, he scrolled through the women at the bar. Either his tastes were broadening thanks to the bourbon, or the clock finally struck the magic hour that brought the babes out in droves.
“Why do you hate each other so much?” Lindsey asked.
“Who?”
“You and Graham?”
He looked away from the redhead at the railing in front of the stage, her eyes rimmed in green pencil and a pile of green and purple beads around her neck, and down at Lindsey.
“Isn’t that what brothers do?”
“I have three brothers, and they all get along fine.”
“I don’t know. It’s been this way for a long time.”
A long time. Try a couple of decades. Since they stopped playing video games together and Jase spent most nights in the shop with their dad while Graham tied up the phone for hours, talking to girls.
“That’s too bad now that there’s only the two of you,” Lindsey said.
Only the two of you, without Dad— Jase didn’t want to think about his old man when he was this drunk, and his body was this close to a woman.
And they were close. The gap between them wouldn’t seem wide enough to his brother if Graham caught them.
“We’re dancing,” Jase said. “You going to answer my question?”
Confusion flashed in her eyes for a beat. She probably had to swim through a few feet of bourbon and mint leaves to remember what he asked at the table.
“How smart am I?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Graham—what’s in it for you?”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Yes it is.”
She exhaled and Jase got a whiff of mint and watermelon. “It’s been really hard for him, losing your dad.”
“Is that why he treats you like shit?”
He didn’t mean to say it. It was none of his business, even if it annoyed him. The redhead caught his eye, and he smiled. There was still time to salvage a night without Lindsey and Graham.
“Do you…” She stopped moving. “Do you really mean that?”
“No. What the hell do I know?”
“You do.” Her hips swayed again, the ends of her hair brushing his arms. “He’s been through a lot these past couple of months. I don’t expect things to be great.”
“Were they ever?” Jase fired back. “He was my dad too. Graham doesn’t get to be an asshole just because he’s sad. We’re all fucking sad.”
Lindsey stared through the bodies moving around them, out the open windows on either side of the stage letting in the sweltering summer heat, and beyond.
A million miles from Louisiana, and Austin, and ex-girlfriends.
No trace of a smile, the light inside her snuffed out.
He hated how he kept going too far, shutting her down.
He was too damn drunk and hot and why isn’t the redhead looking at me anymore?
“You know he wouldn’t even help me carry the suitcases to the car at Christmas?”
The orange and yellow lights behind the band were shining in her far-away eyes. Jase pulled her slightly closer, drawing his thumbs over her hips.
“My dad was really impressed,” Lindsey said sarcastically.
“We visited my family for the holidays, and when it was time to leave, I loaded up our stuff by myself. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but my dad sat me down and said a real man wouldn’t let that happen.
I thought he was just being critical. He—he never really hit it off with Graham.
Now I’m not sure. At Christmas, he didn’t know your dad was sick. ”
She looked up at Jase, her expression almost sober. “You don’t think much of me, do you?”
He filled his lungs with air as thick and warm as pool water. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be holding her hips. Her hands shouldn’t be resting on his arms. And he definitely shouldn’t be honest right now.
“I’ve never thought much of any of Graham’s girlfriends. But that’s not what I was thinking.”
“What is it then?”
Jase licked his lips and fought off a dozen bad ideas that were too slippery to catch and said the only thing that wouldn’t get him into trouble.
“He really, really doesn’t deserve you.”