by Tricia Mills
“Is that book ever going to get here?” I’d asked him in frustration.
Spencer had leaned across the counter and smiled at me. “When it arrives, I’ll bring it to you personally. We aim to please at Tundra Books.”
Sadness washed over me that he hadn’t been able to keep his promise. Guilt followed the sadness as I realized that a more-than-friendly interest was building between Jesse and me, despite how I still felt about Spencer.
I refocused on the fact that Mrs. Isaacs was standing in front of me. I’d deal with my own problems later.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to the store,” I said, unable to meet her eyes.
She placed her hand atop mine on the counter. “I understand. We both needed time.”
I looked at her and noticed how much older she looked than she had only two months ago. I’d lost a great friend, someone I’d loved, but how horrible must it be to lose an only child? I couldn’t imagine how she and Mr. Isaacs even got out of bed in the morning. There were days when I didn’t think I would be able to expend that much energy.
She squeezed my hand with gentle pressure. “I wanted to thank you for always being such a wonderful friend to Spencer. And I’m sorry you didn’t get the chance to be more.”
God, my heart nearly split at the thought that Spencer had told his mother about his feelings.
All I could do without breaking down was nod as she squeezed my hand and accepted her sandwich. Then she was gone.
Casey placed her hand on my back. “Do you need a break? ”
I shook my head. I knew if I started crying, I wouldn’t stop. “I’ll be fine in a minute.” Or a year, or maybe never.
As if fate hadn’t heaped enough on me, a little while after Spencer’s mom left, Jesse and some of his hockey teammates came in, their faces still flushed from practice. That scratched-out “J” on the back of the order pad taunted me. What had I been thinking?
I swallowed the fresh sorrow and forced myself to their table. Thankfully, Drew wasn’t with them, so at least I didn’t have to deal with him. My body felt like it was going to shake into jagged shards from the effort of holding in the urge to cry. God, I was so tired of crying.
“What can I get you all?”
“Large pepperoni, large supreme, and a pitcher of Coke,” Charlie said.
“And toss in some garlic bread sticks,” Jesse added.
I made the mistake of looking at him. His dark eyes showed an affection for me that was hard to accept. So I broke eye contact and turned away as I was still writing the final part of the order.
I handed the ticket to Casey, then went to the drink fountain for the Coke. I heard footsteps approaching, but I ignored them. I was so afraid they were his.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I kept my gaze focused on the steady stream of Coke as it filled the pitcher.
He took a couple more steps and leaned on the counter in front of me. “No, you’re not. What’s wrong?”
I tried to wave off his concern. “Nothing.” When I slid the pitcher across the counter to him, he caught my hand. He held it tightly, forcing me to meet his eyes.
Unable to hold it in any longer, I let out a slow, shaky breath. “I just talked to Spencer’s mom . . . for the first time since his funeral. It brought up a lot of the pain again.”
I wasn’t about to spill how I’d been thinking about his party and how I’d felt guilty about it the moment I saw Mrs. Isaacs. Or how much I’d really loved Spencer—still did. How I missed him as if some part of myself had been ripped away.
Or how he, Jesse, was making me feel things I didn’t think I had a right to feel.
As if sensing those feelings, he ran his thumb across the back of my hand. A warm, tingling sensation fanned out from where he touched me, swiftly spreading throughout the rest of my body.
“I hope it gets better soon.”
I met his gaze and realized that his words held a double meaning. While he might genuinely hope I’d get over my grief, I got the feeling he was waiting for some sign that he could make a bigger move.
Was I dreaming again? Because this scenario couldn’t be real.
“Come on, Jess, I’m thirsty,” Alex Mifflin called out from the table.
Jesse hesitated before letting go of my hand, and he held my gaze a few beats longer.
“Things happen when we least expect them,” he said. “But I think they happen for a reason.”
I found myself nodding, agreeing with his logic even though somewhere deep down I realized it meant that Spencer’s death had happened for a reason other than stripping him of his chance for a long, happy life.
Jesse reached forward and caressed my hand again. “If you want to talk later, when you get home, call me.”
A new emotion—gratefulness—bloomed, joining the others that were doing a turbulent dance inside me. I was touched by the sincerity of his offer and couldn’t believe this was the same Jesse Kerr I’d gone to school with since the sixth grade.
Accompanying the gratefulness, however, were nerves. Lots of them. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he’d like to do more than just talk.
And I was surprised by how much I was tempted to take him up on his offer.
“I bet you won’t be able to see the stars like this in L.A.,” Spencer said as he lay beside me in my backyard, staring up at the constellations blanketing the sky.
“No, I’ll see stars of the movie variety.”
“Maybe I’ll fly down, and you can show me all the homes of the stars.”
“And maybe, if you’re really nice, I’ll come home on occasion and we can watch the sky.”
“Then I’ll be really, really nice.”
The way he said it, deeper and slower than usual, made a delicious chill race across my skin.
CHAPTER 20
By the time I left Oregano’s, my common sense had begun to return. The idea of talking to Jesse—especially about Spencer—while knowing how Jesse seemed to feel about me was just too weird. Even if he wasn’t the least bit interested romantically—and the possibility that he was seemed surreal—what good would talking about my lingering sorrow do anyway? After all, discussing it with Lindsay had been difficult enough!
Mom and Dad told me that the only thing that was going to help was time. Maybe they were right, but I couldn’t imagine enough time passing that would erase my feelings for Spencer and my sense of loss.
I could have gone home with Lindsay, but I didn’t want my mood to bring her down. Mom and Dad had flown to a medical conference in Anchorage that morning, so tonight I’d have to stay home alone. It didn’t scare me. I mean, we weren’t in a crime-ridden city or anything. But being alone with my thoughts tonight made me want to be anywhere but my own mind. I was afraid the sorrow might fill up all the empty space in the house. That, or I’d have way too much time to consider the unexpected temptation that came in the form of the boy next door.
I didn’t notice anyone else on the street as I approached the house, not until Jesse spoke.
“Hey.”
I jumped, then immediately felt like an idiot. Though darkness lay heavy on Tundra, I could see him standing at his family’s mailbox, several envelopes in hand. His house shed just enough light to reveal his shape.
My face heated, and I wondered if he could see me glowing in the dark.
Just act normal.
“Hey. Little late to be getting the mail, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Brenda forgot,” he said.
I wondered if I should go inside. I was having to fight way too hard to resist thinking about him in a way I’d only ever thought about Spencer.
“She just made some brownies. They’re still hot,” he said. “Want some?”
I hesitated, but the lure of brownies and human interaction versus the loneliness of my house was too much to resist. “Okay.”
Once we entered the Kerrs’ house, Jesse led the way toward the kitchen, though I could have just as easily follow
ed the comforting smell of fresh-baked brownies that lingered in the air.
“Well, hi, Winter,” Brenda said from behind the kitchen counter. “Nice to see you.”
“Thanks. You too.” What an odd conversation. We saw each other all the time. You couldn’t live in Tundra, right next door to someone, and not see each other.
Jesse tossed a few brownies onto a plate before taking my hand. “Come on.”
I didn’t resist as he guided me toward the back porch. I felt oddly powerless to make any sort of objection. I didn’t want to, even though guilt burned inside me.
The porch’s screened windows were always open in the warmer months, allowing the Kerrs to sit outside and not be eaten alive by Alaska’s insatiable mosquitoes. But now the windows were all shut against the damp, chilly October air. Frost formed around the exterior edges.
Jesse released my hand as he placed the plate of brownies on a small, wooden table between two white Adirondack chairs similar to the ones on our back deck.
We sat in silence, chewing on our respective brownies for a couple of minutes, before the silence got to me. “These are amazing,” I said. “Just what I needed.”
He glanced over at me, and I noticed he’d let his long hair grow even more. The dark brown waves brushed his collar. It suited him, and I had to admit it was übersexy.
“Thought you could use some chocolate. And I like the company.” There it was again, a deeper meaning to words that were just friendly on the surface.
More silence stretched between us, and I struggled with my response. Flustered, I took a too-big bite of brownie and turned away so I could chew and swallow without him seeing how nervous he was making me.
Jeez, I felt like I was in Bizarro Tundra, where nothing made sense. Maybe when I’d slammed into him on Labor Day, I’d slipped into an alternate universe where Spencer was gone and Jesse Kerr was attracted to me instead of girls like Patrice Murray.
Even Patrice was crazy.
More details about the cause of the fight had leaked out and been whispered around school. Word was that Jesse wasn’t enough for Patrice, and she’d been seeing someone else behind his back. The gossip chain hadn’t revealed who guy No. 2 was yet, but it was only a matter of time. Secrets didn’t stay secrets in Tundra.
What was wrong with Patrice? Sure, I’d been in love with Spencer for years, but I wasn’t so blind that I couldn’t appreciate Jesse’s good looks. He was tall with longish dark-chestnut hair and eyes barely a shade lighter. And as I was figuring out, he was a decent guy. So unless Patrice had Paul Walker or Vin Diesel waiting in a hidden cabin somewhere, she was stupid.
“Are you doing better than earlier?” he asked.
I thought a moment, then nodded. “I feel like I’m riding a yo-yo sometimes. Up one minute, down the next.”
He didn’t respond immediately, so I looked in his direction. Something about the tight expression on his face made me wonder if he didn’t really want to talk about what I felt for Spencer. God, as impossible as it seemed, was I hurting him?
He met my eyes. “I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
I hadn’t expected that response. “Patrice?”
He laughed bitterly. “No.” Moments passed as he took another bite of brownie, chewed, swallowed. “My mom left when I was eight, just disappeared. We thought something horrible had happened, until a month later when we got a letter from Colorado saying she just didn’t want to be a wife or mother anymore.”
It took a moment for the shock of his revelation to sink in. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, pretty much sucked.”
Everyone knew his dad was divorced, and none of us had ever seen Jesse’s mom, but this had never entered my mind as a possibility.
“Have you heard from her since then?”
Jesse shook his head as he grabbed yet another brownie. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who needed a chocolate fix.
“Don’t really want to, either. I did at first because I missed her. Then I wanted to see her so I could tell her what a pathetic mother she was. Then I just stopped caring.”
I tried to imagine a child version of Jesse looking out the window of his bedroom, wondering when his mother was going to come home. Only she never did. My heart squeezed for that little boy.
“Things got better when Dad met Brenda a couple of years later, then bought the store down here and we moved. She’s always tried so hard to make me feel wanted, you know?” He glanced over his shoulder to see if Brenda was within earshot. “That’s why I go along with the pizza and games party each year.”
“It’s really sweet of her. Plus, what else are we going to do? Tundra isn’t exactly a hotbed of nightspots.”
“True. And this’ll be the last one.”
Next year at this time, Tundra would be in our past. Some would stay, but many of us were bound for other places. Anchorage, Fairbanks, Seattle, other points outside. I no longer knew where my own path would take me, but I doubted my parents would let me hide in my room the rest of my life.
“Does anyone else know?”
“Nope. You’re the first.”
“Why tell me?”
Our eyes met, and I experienced the oddest sensation that I could fall in and drown in those dark depths.
“I like you.” He paused for the briefest moment. “And you’re easy to talk to. More real than most people.”
I shifted my gaze to the windows, the clear night outside. If we shut off the house lights, we’d probably be able to see the stars. I heard a sigh from Jesse, one that sounded both frustrated and resigned.
“Spencer was a good guy,” Jesse said, abruptly changing topics. “I liked him.”
“He was the best.” I paused for a moment. “We were supposed to have our first date that night, to celebrate him getting his pilot’s license.”
Like Jesse, I’d shared something deep and personal. Something about the half dark, the shared sense of loss, the odd comfort made it easy to talk to him despite our unspoken feelings.
“You’d liked him a long time, hadn’t you?”
I hesitated, considered how sharing further information about Spencer might affect Jesse. I still could only half believe his feelings for me were a possibility. Finally, I decided on honesty.
“Since elementary school. I only got up the nerve to say something a few days before. . . .”
I left out the kissing and other intimate details, but otherwise he got the whole story of how I’d liked Spencer since second grade. I should have stopped right there, but it was as if my mouth were a runaway train.
“We’d planned to go to the Snow Ball,” I said. “I was so excited. Doesn’t seem important now.”
Jesse leaned forward, angling himself closer to me. “Maybe you’ll still go.”
I held my breath for a moment, afraid he might ask me. And afraid of what I might say in response.
“So what’s in the bag?” Jesse gestured toward my Tundra Books bag.
For a heartbeat, I hesitated before pulling out Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design and showing him the cover.
“It’s written by a designer who’s been nominated for an Academy Award.” I allowed myself to indulge in a brief glimpse of my own Oscar fantasy. “I used to think I wanted to be a costume designer.”
“You don’t now?”
I returned the pristine book to the bag, wondering if I’d ever take it out again. “I don’t know anymore. I haven’t drawn since before the crash.” I sighed. “Feels like that part of me died, too.”
“Maybe it’s just hibernating.”
I looked at his profile and realized Jesse was smarter and more mature than I’d ever given him credit for. “Waiting for spring, metaphorically speaking?”
“When you lose someone, lots of things go on hold. But you eventually come out of the fog and want to live again. New things replace what you lost.”
But no one could replace Spencer. It was cruel to let Jesse think he could, if ind
eed that was where his thoughts were leading him. How could I say that, though, when I wasn’t even sure of my perceptions? What if I was totally off base and made an enormous fool of myself?
“That sounds like it came from a self-help book,” I said with a hint of a laugh, trying to lighten the mood.
He shrugged. “For all I know, it did. It’s probably something I remembered from the counselor Dad made me see after Mom left.”
I could tell he was spinning a story. Not that he hadn’t seen a counselor, but that his words had been repeated from some long-ago session. He’d shared something profound with me, and I’d made light of it. I felt terrible.
Jesse pointed at the Tundra Books bag. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s cool. You should go for it.”
I picked at a stray thread sticking out from the side seam of my jeans. “It’s hard to imagine going that far away, leaving Alaska and everyone behind.”
“Why can’t you draw your designs here?”
“The school I’d planned to go to is in California. And if I wanted to work in the movie industry, Hollywood isn’t moving to Anchorage anytime soon.”
I thought I saw a flicker of sadness in Jesse’s eyes—another sign that this night had to exist in some alternate dimension.
“Well, Alaska isn’t going anywhere. You can always come back and visit.”
The strangest thought entered my head, that Jesse would be among the people I’d miss if I ever left Tundra behind.
“What about you? What are your plans?” I really wanted to know.
“File that under ‘I Don’t Know,’ too. Everyone probably expects me to take over the store when Dad retires.”
“Doesn’t sound too exciting.”
He laughed. “What? You don’t think a rewarding career in the grocery business is exciting?”
He said it with such a straight face that I laughed, too. I realized how little I’d laughed in recent weeks. It felt weird, and yet good at the same time. Yet another thing I should thank him for.
I still felt the tug of a smile on my lips a few minutes later, when I noticed how much time had passed. “I’d better get home. Thanks for the brownies.” I eyed the nearly empty plate. “I think I need to run to King Salmon and back to work off the calories.”