Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Jail would be preferable to this busy steakhouse that is in no way the one Nash and I were supposed to be in. Alone.
Once the officer—who knew Nash—found out I didn’t have a record and was, in fact, looking for missing gold, he let me off with a good laugh and a warning.
But when I saw who he was turning me over to, I almost begged him to take me with him. Leeds Avenue, as Leroy called it, sounded like a night at the Ritz compared to this.
Yet here we are.
At a round table, I’m sitting opposite Sunny, whose brows are so high they might hit the ceiling.
On my left is Jonathan, who reeks of whiskey.
On my right is Nash and my dad, both of whom have eyes locked on Jonathan.
Everyone stares at me when I order straight tequila from the waitress and tell her to keep them coming. Only alcohol will get me through this meal.
Jonathan, who wanted to surprise me by coming down for the weekend, found me by tracking my phone with the location sharing app we use.
Which led him to meet Sunny and Cap.
Which led him to drinking half a bottle of whiskey as he sat in the office, insisting that me cancelling our engagement was a simple misunderstanding.
Which led them all to Nash and the cemetery of my crimes.
“This is a funny situation,” I hear myself say.
It must be opposite day because it’s the opposite of how I feel and the opposite of funny and the opposite of what I envisioned this dinner of just Nash and I being.
I’m wound more tightly than I’ve ever been wound.
And it’s not just Jonathan being here and hammered, making me cringe every time he opens his mouth, it’s the fact I didn’t get a chance to tell him Nash doesn’t know about Bennie.
In his oiled-up-on-whiskey state, he is in prime condition to spill every secret.
“Rue tells me you’re a dentist,” Nash says around the rim of his glass.
“That’s right,” Jonathan says, slight drag to his s’s and r’s. “And you’re a tour guide it seems?”
“It seems.” Nash sends a taunting glance my way that makes my stomach churn. “And married to your former fiancé.”
Cap grunts a laugh at this; I dump tequila down my throat and raise the empty glass.
I don’t care if Nash is a finger-sucking guru: I will kill him.
“Well,” Jonathan says, raising his glass. “To not-so-sloppy seconds.” He squeezes my knee under the table and I push it away.
“Definitely sloppy last night,” Nash volleys with a lift of his beer.
Sonofabitch. I kick him under the table. He merely smiles and pins my foot against the floor with his.
“I knew you still had some sex in you,” Sunny calls so every table in the restaurant can hear. “Honey child got her groove back. Hear that, Cappy baby? Bet she a real freak.”
Cap, that sicko, raises his glass my way. “Iris was a freak too.”
I will bleach that visual from my mind later.
“Jonathan,” I say through gritted teeth. “I said in my voicemail that I would see you when we got back and that—”
“He was here,” he finishes, eyes locked on Nash like he took a shot of testosterone with all that whiskey. “And now I’m here too.”
“Ah,” Nash says. “So you’re here to prove a point?”
“Nash.” I glare at him. “Don’t.”
He waves his palms like white flags.
“No, please,” Jonathan says. “I’m happy to answer. If by point you mean reminding my fiancée that she doesn’t need to be wasting her time here, then yes.”
“Can we not do this?” My shoulders are so tight they might shatter.
“Do what?” Jonathan asks, drunk and innocent. “Act like you didn’t come here with unrealistic expectations of finding gold then got swept up in make-believe?”
“Make-believe?” Nash asks with a laugh. “See, I was starting to think you were make-believe since you weren’t here to begin with.”
“Here I am.” Jonathan raises his hands like a magician just completing a grand trick. “And I think at the end of the day, Rue would prefer a man who shows up to work instead of letting her get arrested.”
“She wouldn’t need to get arrested if you would’ve been paying closer attention to her situation to begin with.”
Jonathan and Nash stare at each other like they’re about to exchange blows in a cage fight.
“You know what?” I slam my glass on the table, glaring at them both. “She can make her own decisions on getting arrested. Save the dick-measuring contest for another time.”
Nash stays cool. “I’m happy to put my dick away as soon as he stops acting like one.”
“Cappy baby,” Sunny says, tossing the straw from her daiquiri, gearing up to chug. “We got ourselves front-row seats to the show.”
Jonathan laughs. “Me not coming along on a treasure hunt doesn’t make me a dick.”
This pulls Cap into the mix. “You got something against treasure huntin’?”
“Other than it being a frivolous use of time?” Jonathan takes a cocky sip from his glass. “No.”
“Jonathan,” I whisper, pulling at his arm. “We should go.”
I start to stand; Jonathan shrugs me off. “Nonsense.”
This is a hostage situation.
Cap’s next grunt has the pitch of annoyed. “How’s that?”
“Things are crazy with Iris—things are always crazy with Iris.” Jonathan makes a swirly motion in the air with his hands and sticks out his tongue.
My hackles raise. Only I’m allowed to call that woman crazy.
“But—” He shrugs. “I think we can all agree that looking for lost gold with a man who spent his life looking for it is hardly the most logical approach to solving any problem.” He takes another hefty swig.
“Plus, I told Rue before she left that I think she should sell the store.” He smacks the table. “And I lined up a buyer.”
“You what?” It takes effort to whisper and not stab him with my spoon. “I told you no.”
“Ooh-wee!” Sunny sings. “Here we go. Barkeep!” she hollers. “Gonna need a couple drinks for me and the pirate.”
Jonathan’s smile smears across his face. “You said you’d sell after you were done here. And—”
“We aren’t done,” I argue. “We have more clues.”
Nope.
“You aren’t done,” he repeats with a scoff. “I showed up to you in cuffs, Rue.”
There are no words for the anger coursing through me.
“There’s a buyer,” Jonathan continues, “and you can get out from under the bills and do something other than spending your days in those dusty shelves wearing . . .” His voice trails off as he gestures at my overalls. “You won’t even have to work after we get married.”
I know he is drunk, and yet I am livid.
“We aren’t getting married,” I snap.
At the same time the waitress appears, Nash’s foot presses down on mine under the table, reminding me he’s still there. Our eyes meet.
To me, Jonathan says, “We can talk about it later.” Another raise of his glass. “Let’s just enjoy dinner.”
As everyone gives the waitress their orders, I’m boiling. I don’t want this dinner. I want him to listen. And leave. And talk to me when I get back to Fontain.
“Can we please, please go?” I beg him. “Eat somewhere else.”
“Bah!” Jonathan lifts his glass. “We’re just getting started.”
Nash asks, “How did you and Rue meet?”
I say, “We didn’t,” because I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk about anything. All I want is for them to leave and me to die.
“At a coffee shop,” Jonathan says. “She was ordering a cavity-causing concoction, and we struck up a conversation.” He winks at me. “Made a black coffee drinker out of her.”
Cap says, “Never heard how you and Rue ended up married, Nash. Bet your outfit was an eyesore.” He eyes my overalls. “Rue’s too.”
I pin my dad with a death glare because this is categorically not the time for that story—it’s not the time for any story—but when I look at Nash, his lips tug to one side and I melt a little; it’s a great story.
Next to me, Jonathan drapes his arm around the back of my chair. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
I’ve reached my limit of arguing with him and move to pretending he isn’t here. I won’t win. He won’t leave. He hates being wrong when he’s sober, so I’m never going to get him to listen to me now. My only play is to survive the night and deal with him tomorrow.
Nash leans into his elbows on the table. “You want to tell it or should I?”
“Oh please.” I gesture toward him with my refilled glass, lifting my foot against his. “You’re the storyteller.”
“Rue and I had been dating two months,” he begins.
“A month,” I correct.
He chuckles, looking at me like he already knew that. “Right. A month. And we were walking around Fontain—”
“Which was his idea of a date, might I add.”
“Only if the company was worth a damn.”
“And?”
“And?” He grins, foot wiggling on mine. “You tell me.”
Night after night of us just roaming around that tiny town—they were the best dates.
Jonathan chimes in with: “You would have walked right by my office.” He tips his glass. “Ironic.”
“We ended up in the courthouse,” Nash says.
“Because it started raining,” I interject between sips. “That’s why we went in there. I wasn’t in the mood to get soaked or struck by lightning.”
“That’s right.” Nash rubs his chin. “It was raining. That was your idea.” It was; he wanted to dance in the rain and I refused.
A choice that changed everything. “We get into the courthouse—tiny little building in Fontain—and the clerk comes out and says, ‘Marriage ceremony for—’ what name? You remember?”
“Sampsonite,” I say with a laugh. “Remember? We both thought of that scene from Dumb and Dumber?”
“That’s right,” he says, looking at me like we’re the only two people at this table. Like this story is the only one he wants to tell. “Anyway, the Sampsonites weren’t there and we just kind of looked at each other, like, hey, if they aren’t here, maybe we are.”
“And we were,” I say.
“We were,” he echoes, holding my gaze in a way I feel all over my body. “Then we had our reception in the janitor’s closet.”
“Reception?” I ask through a slight laugh. “That’s what you call it?” Because what really happened was we found the first door that would open, and Nash banged me until I could barely walk.
“You know what that look means,” Sunny calls, glass raised. “Dirty little white girl.”