6. Jameson
Jameson
I've been staring at the ceiling for an hour. Maybe longer.
The bedroom still has her absence in it — the cleared bathroom counter, the gutted closet, the side of the bed that's cold and smooth. Two hours of sleep, if that.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that photo of Selena with her arms around me and tried to imagine what Andy felt when she saw it. I stopped trying around four AM because the answer was making me sick.
I already know where she went. Copper Falls — the only place she truly feels at home. I'm going there today. That decision was made sometime in the dark hours between two and four AM. Not as a grand plan. Just as the only thing left that makes sense.
The house feels like a mausoleum around me, not a single sound except the hum of appliances I didn't pick and Andy never wanted. The wine fridge kicks on with a mechanical wheeze, and I want to put my fist through it.
Then — pounding on the front door. Loud, insistent, unmistakable.
I drag myself out of bed, still wearing yesterday's jeans and the wrinkled button-down I never bothered changing out of. My reflection in the hallway mirror looks like something that crawled out of a grave. Good. It matches how I feel.
I open the door.
Jacob stands there looking like he hasn't slept and hasn't stopped being angry about it, which, knowing Jacob, is exactly the case.
"You look like shit."
He storms past me into the house without waiting to be invited. He has the energy of a man who drove back specifically for this conversation.
"Yeah, good morning to you too, sunshine."
The words come out with the cadence of our old rhythm but my voice sounds wrong. Hollow. Like I'm doing an impression of myself.
Jacob stops in the middle of the living room and turns to face me. He doesn't sit down. He doesn't sit because this isn't a conversation that happens sitting down. His arms cross over his chest, and his jaw works like he's chewing on something bitter.
"Where is she?"
"Gone."
"I figured that much out from your phone call." His eyes sweep the room, taking in the expensive furniture, the empty spaces where Andy's things used to be. "Where?"
"Copper Falls."
"Good. That's where she should be."
The words hit like a slap. Not because they're cruel, but because they're true. Andy should be somewhere that feels like home.
"I'm going after her."
"Are you?" Jacob's voice is flat. "Or are you going to sit here feeling sorry for yourself until Vinny calls with your next project?"
My hands curl into fists. "I told Vinny to go fuck himself."
"About time." No praise in his voice. No approval. Just a statement of fact, like I'd finally remembered to take out the trash after letting it rot for weeks. "But that doesn't fix what you did to Andy."
"I didn't do anything to Andy."
The lie tastes like acid on my tongue the second it's out. Jacob's expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his eyes. Something cold and disappointed and done.
"Really? You didn't do anything?"
My jaw tightens. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't. Explain it to me."
"I never cheated on her. I never would."
"You think that's the bar? Not cheating?"
"It's not nothing."
"You're right. It's not nothing. It's the absolute bare minimum of being married.
" Jacob takes a step closer, and I can see the exhaustion in his face — not from driving, but from watching this train wreck in slow motion for years.
"But let me ask you something. When's the last time you had dinner with your wife? "
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Dinner. The two of you. At home. When?"
I open my mouth, then close it. Think. Try to remember. The silence stretches until it becomes an answer.
"Jesus Christ, Jameson."
"I've been busy. The shoot?—"
"The shoot ended."
"The meetings?—"
"There's always meetings."
Every excuse I reach for crumbles before I can speak it. Jacob watches my face like he's counting the defenses as they die.
"You know what Andy does while you're at those meetings? She sits in this house alone. She makes dinner for two and eats it by herself. She wakes up to an empty bed and does it all over again."
"I bought her this house?—"
"She didn't want this house."
The words land like a punch to the chest. Because I know he's right. Andy never asked for any of this. She asked for me to come home.
"I only wanted to work hard because I wanted to give her a good life. I promised her a good life."
Jacob's laugh is harsh. "Is this what you call a good life? A husband who misses anniversaries, gets photographed leaving a hotel with his costar?"
I flinch. The anniversary. The photos. I hear my own defense and Jacob's question side by side, and for the first time, they don't add up.
"It's not what it looks like, and you know I'll never do that to Andy. I love her."
My voice cracks on the words. Not dramatically — just the edge of it, the rawness. I'm reaching for the one thing I know is true: I love Andy. I have never cheated. I never would. But Jacob isn't done.
"Does she know you love her? Or have you just been telling yourself you'll make it up to her?"
The question guts me. Because the answer is: I've been telling myself. Every night. Every missed dinner. Every time I said "tomorrow." I've been telling myself I love her and assuming she could feel it from across a house I bought to prove it.
"Because you rose to fame three years ago, and the more projects you take, the more you cast her to the side.
" Jacob's voice is steady, factual. Not shouting.
Just stating truths, which is somehow worse.
"Jesus, man. She was supposed to join a ballet company.
She rejected it — even though it was her dream — because she wanted to support you.
The least you could do is be present. Be a husband, not someone she shares a house with. What are you, a roommate?"
My hands grip the back of the couch until my knuckles go white. The ballet company. I knew she turned it down. I knew it was her dream. But I let myself file it under "she chose to support me" without ever asking what it cost her.
Jacob is making me look at the cost. For the first time, I can't look away.
"She gave up everything for you," Jacob continues. "Her career. Her hometown. Her independence. And what did you give her? A big house and a husband who treats her like a roommate with benefits."
"That's not?—"
"When's the last time you asked her how she was? Really asked, not just threw it out while you were checking your phone."
Silence.
"When's the last time you took her somewhere she wanted to go? Somewhere that wasn't a premiere or an industry dinner where she had to smile and nod while people talked around her like she wasn't there."
More silence.
"When's the last time you made her laugh?"
The question breaks something inside my chest. Because I remember Andy's laugh — bright and sharp and slightly wicked. I used to make her laugh every day. Now I can't remember the last time I heard it.
I bury my face in my hands.
Every excuse I've used for three years lines up in my head like dominoes, and Jacob just tipped the first one. The career was for her. The money was for her. The house was for her. The dinners with producers, the photo ops, the smiling at people I don't care about — all for her.
Except she didn't want any of it. She wanted me. She wanted the man who used to come home at the end of the day and ask how she was and mean it, and somewhere along the way I stopped being that man and started being a provider who sends his wife gifts instead of showing up.
"You know what the worst part is?" Jacob's voice cuts through my spiral. "She tried. For three years, she tried. She learned to stay quiet, stay in the background, be whatever you needed her to be. And you let her."
I lift my head. "I didn't ask her to?—"
"You didn't have to ask. You just had to not notice. And you're real good at not noticing, aren't you?"
The words are a knife between my ribs. Because he's right. I didn't notice Andy getting smaller. I didn't notice her laughter disappearing. I didn't notice her learning to perform the role of supportive wife instead of being the woman I married.
"She looks sick every time she walks onto a set and sees you kissing someone else," Jacob says. "Sure, it's your job. But you could have treated her better. You could have checked on her. You could have at minimum walked her to her goddamn car."
That one lands different. I said it myself that night — I should have walked her to the car. But hearing it from Jacob, in this context, makes it not a single failure but part of a pattern I've been refusing to see.
"And Vinny." Jacob's jaw tightens. "You let that piece of shit treat your wife like she's a PR problem to manage. You let him give her rules. You let him talk about her like she's an obstacle to your career."
"I didn't?—"
"You didn't stop him."
The truth sits between us like a living thing. I didn't stop Vinny. I didn't stop any of it. I let the machine run over Andy and told myself it was temporary, that I'd fix it later, that she understood.
"She understood," Jacob says, reading my face.
"That's the problem. She understood that your career mattered more than she did.
She understood that you'd choose Hollywood over her every single time.
She understood that the man she married was gone, and she was married to Jameson Rivers the brand instead. "
I can't breathe. The air in the room feels thin, inadequate.
"That's why I'm going to follow her."
My voice is rough. Raw. But there's something underneath it that wasn't there before — not confidence, but conviction. The difference between having a plan and not caring about anything else.
"And then what?"
Jacob doesn't let me off easy. "Going after her" is not a plan. It's a gesture.
"Then I'll try to win her back."
"And then what?"
He pushes again. "Winning her back" is still transactional — like she's a prize to reclaim.
"And then I'll choose her. Every single time, from this moment forward, I will choose her."
The words come out quiet. Absolute. The only truth that's left after everything else burned away.
Jacob studies my face for a long moment, then nods once. "Good. Now why are you still here?"
The closest thing to approval he'll give.
But the fear hits me like a freight train.
"What if she doesn't want me anymore? I'd die without her, man."
The vulnerability in my voice surprises me. Real fear. The terror that the damage is permanent, that I broke something that can't be fixed, that Andy looked at the evidence of our marriage and decided I'm not worth the fight.
Jacob's expression doesn't soften. He doesn't offer comfort or false reassurance. He just looks at me with the clear, unforgiving honesty of someone who's loved me since we were sixteen and refuses to lie to me now.
"Then you should've treated her better. You live with the consequences of your actions."