So True

by Serena Bell

  Yup! Evan replied.

  Jax had turned back to the young woman perched behind the reception desk and asked her to check one more time that there was no Evan Walker enrolled. And there wasn’t.

  That was when Jax finally got it. He’d been had. Lied to.

  The woman gave him a long look, equal parts pity and curiosity, with some I’ll soothe your sorrows thrown in for good measure.

  Well, fuck. His brother had taken the tuition money Jax had given him and done a runner.

  Regretfully, he ignored the woman’s interest. She definitely wasn’t more than a year out of college herself, and smoking hot, but he had an asshole brother to chase down.

  He could have had it out with his brother by text or phone, but now he was pissed. His brother had taken thousands of dollars of his hard-earned money and done what-the-fuck with it, and Jax wanted to ream him out in person. So he holed up in his truck and made a bunch of phone calls, sent a bunch of texts. He finally tracked down a friend of Evan’s who was willing to spill the beans. And it turned out that Evan was in, of all places, Tierney Fucking Bay.

  Of course. Because it wasn’t enough that Evan had stolen Jax’s money and ditched his own education—no, he’d gone back to the one place that you couldn’t have paid Jax to set foot in.

  Maybe it was punishment. Because the last time Jax had been in Tierney Bay, he’d done the thing he regretted most in his life. And maybe he’d always known he’d have to face up to it at some point. You could only keep the piper at bay for so long before you had to pay.

  He put the truck in drive and drove from Portland out to Tierney Bay in under an hour and half, keeping an eye out for speed traps. And here he was, pulling into town, still raging hot under the collar at his brother. Because Jax had done everything he could to make sure Evan got a good life and didn’t end up like their parents.

  And what had Evan done? He’d taken his tuition money and opened a board game shop.

  Jax turned onto the street that Evan’s friend had directed him to and pulled into a parking space in front of the park. Like the town, the park had gotten quite a facelift, but its bones were the same, as were the distinctive smells of cool, green grass and dirty metal. He remembered walking across the woodchips, Chiara’s warm hand in his, her voice drifting to him as she told him about her day—

  He shut down the memories; replaced them with his anger at Evan.

  He turned and walked toward the shop. There was a sign, hung at a slight angle, just a cheap printed fabric banner. Oh, Evan, he thought. You pissed away your college education, and you couldn’t even make it look classy.

  He pulled open the front door of the shop, mouth already open to tell Evan what a dumbass he was. But it wasn’t Evan behind the desk. It was someone smaller, slimmer, dark-haired.

  Beautiful.

  She looked up, and God, it was like having someone slide a knife between two of his ribs. That deep and that sharp. How pretty she was, those blue eyes, and the way they made him feel like she could see into him. After what he’d done, it wasn’t fair that she still made him feel anything.

  She, on the other hand, looked pretty much like he’d just punched her. Which he deserved. He’d never had to look her in the face, tell her he was leaving, see the hurt. So this was as close as he’d get. And it sucked.

  He opened his mouth to say something that made sense, but the only thing that came out was, “Evan.”

  She shook her head. “He’s not here.”

  “Where—?”

  She hesitated. “If he wanted you to know that, don’t you think he would’ve told you?”

  “Look. I didn’t come here to fight with you. I didn’t even know you’d be here.”

  “If you had, you wouldn’t have come,” she challenged.

  It was true, and he deserved it. He deserved whatever she wanted to dish out. It felt good in a way, like finally letting out a breath. He almost hoped she would yell at him. Maybe then he could set down the guilt.

  “Did you know he was supposed to be at college?” he asked.

  He could tell from the way her big blue eyes got bigger that she hadn’t known.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Portland Community Yamhill. Summer session. I showed up today for a surprise visit. Thought I’d, you know, take him out to dinner, see his place. He’d sent me photos of his place. In fucking Portland. And photos of the campus.” He pulled out his phone, pushed it across the counter to her.

  She took it, looked. “That’s his apartment here. I don’t know where he got the campus photos, but anyone could pull them from online.”

  “So I tracked him here. His friend Asher told me where to find him.”

  Chiara nodded at that. She apparently knew Asher.

  “Where is he?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t—”

  “Where is he?”

  “It’s not my place to tell you that.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  Against his better judgment, his voice had risen, and her eyes narrowed. “You can’t just show up here and talk to me like that—after what you did—” She stopped. “Did it occur to you that maybe he doesn’t want to see you?”

  The anger in her voice cut through the thickness of his own frustration, shut him right down. He took a deep breath. There were freckles across the bridge of her nose that he didn’t remember. A smattering on her cheeks, the fair skin underneath bright pink with the heat of her emotion. Her eyes flashed with it.

  And suddenly he was so ashamed of himself that he could barely stand it. She was right, of course. After what he’d done to her, he had no right to speak to her at all, let alone demand anything of her.

  “He doesn’t want to see me?” he asked. “Or you don’t?”

  She stood very still. Only her fingers moved, fidgeting with something on the counter. A game piece, he thought. She turned it over in her hand, moved it between her fingers, set it down again.

  “Both,” she said. The heat had gone out of her voice. Which made him feel worse. She said it calmly, like she’d had ten years to get used to the idea. Like she didn’t much care anymore. Which he deserved, but still.

  He almost told her right that second, just blurted it all out. He’d always been a little bit afraid that the first time he laid eyes on her it would all come spilling out. The whole story—why he’d left, why he’d never gotten in touch. Right after he’d left, he’d fantasized that he’d be able to tell her someday. He’d pictured her listening—angry at first, but then, somehow, willing to forgive.

  That had been ten years ago, and he still couldn’t tell her.

  She was texting.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m asking Evan if I can tell you.”

  His heart started to pound. He wasn’t sure why. Something about the serious expression on Chiara’s face. “Tell me what?”

  “Tell you, uh, where he is.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be able to tell me?”

  She looked at her phone, then up at him. Her eyes were softer now.

  “He says I can tell you. He’s okay—but—he had to have emergency surgery. He’s recovering in the hospital.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. It was possible his heart had actually stopped and restarted, and now it was beating some kind of jerky tap dance that couldn’t be normal. “That—fucker.” He exhaled a ragged sigh. “He better fucking be okay—because if he’s not, I’m going to kill him myself.” He unclenched his fists.

  “That’s probably why he didn’t tell you, huh?” She crossed her arms.

  “Apparently he’s not telling me much of anything these days,” Jax said darkly. “So. Is he at North Coast Hospital?”

  She hesitated.

  “What?” he demanded.

  She texted something else.

  “Are you seriously asking him if you can tell me where he is?”

  Her expression tightened again. “I’m just warning him. That you’re fired up. And that you know abou
t the store.”

  For the first time he really looked around. From where he stood, he couldn’t see most of the shelves, but the ones he could see were pathetic and barren—comics spaced out too widely, games squatting too far apart. The window was filthy; the corners were dusty; the carpet was worn and rucked up in places.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “This is where my money went.”

  “Your—?”

  “My tuition money.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Yeah,” Jax said. “I know he’s your friend, but he’s my brother. And he used the money I gave him for college to fund this—” Words failed him.

  “Shithole,” Chiara said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Jax said again.

  They looked at each other, and a flicker of understanding jumped the gap between them. Her face softened, got pained. He’d always loved that about her, that her face was like a mirror. Back in high school, when he felt sad, she looked sad. When he felt angry, she looked angry. You couldn’t feel alone when there was someone willing to feel it with you.

  Not that this was anything like that. You couldn’t be lucky enough to have that, fuck it up, and expect it to happen again.

  She crossed her arms and stared at him. “You can’t yell at him.”

  She was still fierce. It made him want to laugh. “I raised him,” he said simply. “’Course I fucking can. But, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll wait till he’s healed up before I really rip him a new one.”

  “Just go easy on him. He’s had a tough time.” She reached for a stack of comic books. “He’s at North Coast, yeah.”

  She came out from behind the counter and headed away from him, toward the shelves. She turned her back on him and started shelving the comics. They didn’t want to cooperate. Some of them slid down, or folded in on themselves. She patiently straightened them.

  There were so many things he wanted to say. I’m sorry. I had to. I wanted to explain, but—

  Instead, he said, “Thanks for watching the store for him.”

  He saw and heard her draw a quick breath, but she didn’t turn around.

  He watched her back for a moment. The tilt of her head, her long, slender neck, the skin creamy. He still remembered the feel of that skin under his lips.

  He made himself walk away.

  Those goddamned bells tinkled on his way out.

  3

  She was still shaky when she walked into Beachcrest. She paused outside the dining room of the inn her sister owned and ran, took a deep breath, smoothed her hair down—it frizzed easily and tended to reflect her mood. Then she stepped inside. “Hey, guys!”

  Five heads swiveled, four pairs of cobalt eyes and one pair of slate eyes fixed on her face. They were all there—her two brothers, Levi and Mason; her two sisters, Auburn and Hannah; and Trey, Auburn’s new but very serious boyfriend. And she could tell from their faces that whatever expression she was wearing on her face, it wasn’t fooling any of them.

  “What’s wrong?” Auburn asked her.

  There was no point in evading. They’d all find out quickly enough. It was a small town, and Auburn and Levi were both connected deep into the heart of it. And then there was the fact that Chiara was apparently an open book.

  “Jax is here.”

  “Nooo,” whispered Auburn, all instant sympathy. “To visit Evan in the hospital?”

  Chiara nodded, wincing. She gave them a quick recap of what she’d learned about Evan’s deception and Jax’s detective work.

  Levi, their oldest sibling, whistled. “I don’t blame the guy for being pissed. I’d be pissed too if I gave one of you tuition money and you spent it on comic books.”

  Auburn glared at him. He shrugged. “I would.”

  Hannah, the youngest, at sixteen, wrinkled up her face. “Who’s Jax?”

  “You remember Jax,” Auburn said. “He used to sometimes come to dinner with Evan—”

  “Ohhhh,” said Hannah. “Was Jax the one who helped Evan and me that one time when we made the really huge sandcastle?”

  A perfect sunny day, already hot for early May. Six-year-old Hannah, eight-year-old Evan, Jax and Chiara had gone down to the beach with sand molds. They’d built an elaborate castle, with turrets and bridges and deep moats, and Jax and Chiara had been laughing and jostling each other, trying to shore up a wall that was sliding into the moat as fast as they could rebuild it. They’d given up and sat back in the wet sand, and he’d turned to her and grinned, all tanned face, green eyes, and straight white teeth, and said, “One day it’ll be us and our kids doing this.”

  She’d boxed up all those memories and folded them away in the attic of her mind. She had planned never to take them out again.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s Jax.”

  Trey was slowly absorbing the Campbell family reactions. “Long story?” he asked.

  Auburn and Chiara exchanged glances. Auburn’s said, Want me to? And Chiara’s said, No, I got it. “He worked for my dad at Cape House when I was a senior. He and I got—involved. And then he moved out of town, and I never saw him again.”

  “He disappeared off the face of the fucking earth without another word. It was a total dick move. To Chiara and our dad.” Levi’s voice was hard.

  When Jax had first left, she’d barely eaten for weeks. She’d lost eleven pounds. And cried until her eyes burned and her chest hurt. As bad as it had felt on the inside, she knew it hadn’t been easy for her family to watch her suffer, either.

  Trey raised an eyebrow. “Your dad?”

  Chiara’s throat tightened. “Dad kind of took him under his wing. Jax was—” She took a breath. “He was a good worker. Dad really liked him. And he found out that Jax was struggling with school and his family—”

  “Dad was a sucker for anyone who needed help,” Auburn said. “Our family pets were all strays. There was always someone at Thanksgiving dinner who didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Chiara picked up the thread. “Jax was basically supporting his mom and his brother, trying to get through school, barely holding on, in danger of not graduating, and Dad found out, and he started doing all this stuff for Jax. Giving him extra projects with big bonuses, arranging tutoring for him that was magically at these super-low rates, because Dad was supplementing. He called it all workplace benefits.”

  “Your dad sounds like a good guy,” Trey said. They hadn’t talked about the Campbell’s parents that often since Trey had started coming to family dinners. They had died in a boating accident during Chiara’s freshman year of college—Auburn’s junior year of high school. Levi had left behind his med school dreams to be there for Auburn and Mason and to raise Hannah.

  “He was,” Chiara said. “The very best.” She knew, after ten years, that she would never stop missing both her parents like a piece of her soul was gone.

  Trey’s eyebrows drew together. “So he must have been pretty upset when Jax left, too.”

  “Oh, he was,” Chiara said. “He was really hurt by it.”

  “And you and Jax—” Trey winced, seeing her expression, although she hadn’t even realized she’d reacted. “Sorry, sore subject?”

  She didn’t want it to be, not after all this time. “Not anymore. Jax was always around—around Cape House”—Cape House was the hotel her parents had run and Levi had inherited—“and around our house. He and I got pretty serious.” It was her turn to wince, at her own understatement. Because serious didn’t even begin to describe how close they’d been, how happy they’d made each other—or at least, how happy he’d made her. “He skipped town with his family without telling me—or anyone—they were leaving. And ghosted me.”

  That was all she was going to say about that.

  “That’s—”

  She’d managed to strike Trey speechless. “Yeah,” she said. “It sucked.”

  “And it sucks he’s back,” Levi said. “Let me know if you want me to kick the shit out of him.”

  “Thanks,” Chiara said
wryly. “He can’t be planning to be here very long, right? I mean, he visits Evan, yells at him, goes home? I’m sure he has no more desire to stick around now than he did then.”

  They were all silent for a moment, thinking about that.

  “Well,” Auburn said. “We have your back for as long as he’s here.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Levi said.

  Hannah, Mason, and Trey were all nodding.

  Chiara got hit with a big dose of the warm fuzzies—her siblings were such terrific human beings—and that, in turn, abruptly, reminded her that she was about to tell them something they weren’t going to like. Her stomach lurched. But she couldn’t put it off. It wouldn’t be fair. She took a deep breath and confessed, “I might be moving to Seattle.”

  Five mouths dropped open.

  “You what?” Hannah demanded.

  “I interviewed for a job in Seattle.”

  “Why. Would. You. Do. That?”

  “Shh, Han,” Auburn said. “Let her tell us.”

  “But—”

  “Let her tell us.”

  “I love my job. You know I do.”

  She owned her own business, doing books and accounting for small businesses in town—and a few clients she’d won online.

  “But lately, I’ve been bored. That’s the only way I can say it. It doesn’t feel like a challenge. I’ve been feeling like I need something—bigger.”

  Auburn was nodding. Levi was, too.

  “You know how Dad always felt like he gave up too much. He had all those big dreams, but he had to give them up to take over Cape House from his dad.”

  Auburn and Levi absolutely knew; for the three oldest kids, it had been one of the soundtracks to their childhood, their father talking about how he never wanted them to give up their dreams, not even for family obligation. How they should think big and dream big and act big. Mason had been old enough to remember his parents clearly, but by the time he’d come along, their dad’s refrain had mostly been aimed at the two eldest, not him. And Hannah, who’d been six when her parents died, barely remembered them at all.

  “And I guess I’m feeling like with Hannah old enough to really be independent, and Auburn back in town to help with anything she needs—”