I open the passenger door and step out. I adjust my purse on my arm and toss on my sunglasses, then walk in a straight, swift line directly into the church. I don’t stop for him or anyone. My heart is hammering so loudly in my chest it’s blocking out all other sound.
The service is brief and simple. There are only about thirty people in attendance. Lily was only in Silver Bay for a few months a year, so she didn’t have a lot of close friends here anymore. None of us speaks, we just let the pastor do his thing—talking about life and death and loss and heaven.
My eyes well up so quickly and unexpectedly, I’m startled. Lily Grace Caplan is gone. She hasn’t been a significant part of our lives in years. I’m not sure she ever was, to be honest. And we haven’t legally required a guardian in years either but somehow, as I stare at the coffin, I feel a dark, lonely cloud cover me. It’s the same dark, lonely cloud the enveloped me when my mother died—because we’re alone. Again.
The pastor finishes, everyone stands and I wipe away my eyes before anyone notices. I almost wished we’d had hymns and eulogies, or even communion. Anything that would make the service last longer. Now that it’s all over, he will talk to me. I know it and I wish more than anything it won’t happen. But, at the same time, a part of me really wants it to happen.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Callie and Rose grab each of my hands as people wander over to our pew at the front to offer condolences and hugs. Eventually, Donna and Wyatt come into view. Donna hugs all of us, as does Wyatt, and then she smiles. “Devin and Ashleigh send their love. And Luc said to give you all big hugs. Their hockey schedules didn’t allow for them to come back, but they all wish they were here.”
“Luc called me this morning,” Rose adds, and smiles. “He’s been calling me a lot since he found out.”
I smile at that news. It’s good to know our childhood friends are still here for us, even if it can only be in spirit.
“Where’s Jordan?” Callie asks, barely keeping the venom from her voice.
“He stepped outside after the service,” Donna says. It seems she can barely keep the disappointment from her voice. “To get some air.”
Of course he went outside instead of facing me. Coward.
Everyone makes their way out. My sisters and I need to get back to our house to host the meager, but obligatory, wake. Outside, what started as an overcast morning has turned into a sunny afternoon. I squint into the daylight and step out into the parking lot.
My eyes find him instinctively. Old habits never die. Jordan is sitting in the front seat of his parents’ truck, directly in the middle, like a little kid would. He catches my eye when I step outside and straightens up a little. I stare back at him but don’t show any reaction. I offer no smile or frown. I basically try to look like I’m looking right through him; like I’m not noticing the sadness in his pretty blue eyes or the way his full bottom lip is sticking out more than it should.
Callie hooks her arm through mine and guides me to the other truck. “I can punch him again if you’d like.”
I smile. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Back at the house, the scene is subdued, as expected. Only about fifteen people show up, most of whom are our good friends rather than Lily’s. People like Callie’s high school friend Mandie; Cole and his girlfriend, Leah; and Rose’s high school best friend, Kate, and her brother, Bruce.
Donna and Wyatt show up and join the crowd in the living room. Everyone is munching on the sandwiches, fruit and veggie platters we’ve laid out. Jordan doesn’t seem to be with them.
Fucking coward.
“I’m going to go start the coffee and get out the dessert tray,” I tell Callie, and then get up from where I was perched on the arm of Rosie’s chair.
“Jessie, honey, can you also grab the Bundt cake I left in my truck?” Donna calls out to me. “It should be on the seat.”
I nod and smile graciously. Leaving the living room, I head into the kitchen, flip on the coffeemaker and head out onto the porch, making my way to the driveway.
Jordan is leaning against his parents’ old truck. He’s just standing there in his stupid knitted hat with his stupid broken foot and his dumb sad eyes. He came all this way and he can’t do anything more than stand there like he’s Krazy-Glued to a Ford? Suddenly I hate him more than I ever have before.
Without a word, I storm over to the passenger-side door—the opposite side from where he is—and open it. I see the cake and pull it carefully off the seat. When I turn around he’s standing directly in front of me, blocking the way back into the house.
I stare up at him as a flood of emotions roars through my body like a tsunami. I want to cry, punch him, scream and even laugh at the universe’s one-two punch to my gut. The sun is behind him, making the tips of his flippy blond hair glow. He needs a haircut. He looks like a Muppet.
“Hey.”
Hey? His big opening line after taking my virginity, breaking my heart and disappearing from my life for more than half a decade is “Hey?”
I think this, but I don’t say a single word.
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry about Lily.”
“Thank you.” I sidestep him but he moves with me.
“Let me carry that for you,” he offers, extending his long arms and big hands toward the cake.
“I have a dead grandmother, not broken arms,” I snap, pulling the cake closer to my body as I glare at him. “I can carry a stupid cake.”
He takes it out of my hands anyway. Asshole. I roll my eyes and storm back to the house. He hobbles behind me. Unfortunately, one of his strides is like two and a half of mine so although I am moving faster than him, he’s still right behind me when we get to the porch.
“Jessie,” he says as I reach for the door. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
I close my eyes, sigh and then turn to face him, crossing my arms over my chest as if to hide the scars on my heart…or protect it from new ones.
“I just wanted to say—” He moistens his lips and waits until I look up and meet his eye. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for what happened. You know, when we were younger.”
He’s sorry it happened. Jordan Garrison is sorry he took my virginity. Bitchin’. Now my day is complete.
“I’m sorry you’re sorry,” I reply coolly.
“What?” His blond eyebrows pinch together.
Rudely, I ask “Are you done talking?” and reach for the door again. “I have a roomful of people who care about me and my sisters inside. I haven’t seen them in years and will most likely never see them again. So, if you’ll excuse me…”
I swing the screen door open and slip inside, not waiting for him and the damn cake to follow. Cole and Leah and my sisters are in the kitchen. Callie is pouring coffee into mugs. She looks up and scowls as Jordan sticks his booted foot in the door to keep it from closing in his face. He enters the kitchen behind me.
“I thought you left,” Callie says flatly. “Doesn’t Seattle need you back?”
“I’m not ready to play yet,” he mumbles, motioning toward the boot on his foot as he places the cake on the kitchen table.
“Yeah, well, if you stick around here you might have a few more broken bones by the time you head back,” Callie mutters this coldly, and I place a soothing hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
Her brown eyes are angry but she shuts up. I fling open a drawer and turn to hand Jordan a knife. “Make yourself useful and cut the cake.”
“Remember when you two were best friends?” Cole blurts out with a big, dopey smile across his freckled face. If looks could kill, Jordan and I would be arrested for murder, and they’d be scraping Cole Garrison off the walls of this kitchen for weeks.
“Cole, baby. Shut up,” Leah says softly, in the same friendly voice she’s always had. She was one of my best friends in high school and has been dating Cole since our senior year.
Donna waltzes in with a pile of dirty plates.
“Oh good, you found the cake!” she exclaims, either not noticing the tension in the room or purposely ignoring it. “Cole, don’t just stand there. Help me with the dishes.”
Jordan turns his attention to the cake he’s cutting. Callie leaves the room with a tray full of coffee mugs, and Rose and Leah busy themselves getting plates for the cake.
“I’m not feeling very well,” I announce quietly, and all the commotion in the kitchen stills again. “I’m sorry, but I need to go upstairs and lie down.”
“Okay. If you have to. Callie and I can handle everything,” Rose says hesitantly as she gives me a light hug.
I hug Leah, Cole and Donna and then turn and head into the living room and up the stairs. I throw myself down on my bed and will back the tears. He doesn’t deserve them. He doesn’t. I just want to sleep. Sleep until this whole stupid wake is over. Sleep until he’s gone.
And then I want to leave this town and never ever come back.
Chapter 8
Jordan
It’s almost five in the evening. The fall sun is sinking from the sky and the room is in shadows. The people have all gone home, including my parents. About a half hour ago Cole convinced Rose and Callie to go to the bar with him. It wasn’t easy. Callie would much rather have stayed here and stabbed me with a fork, but somehow Cole convinced her to just leave me alone here to wait for Jessie.
It’s weird being alone in their house. Well, alone with Jessie, who is still upstairs in her room. I haven’t been inside this house since before I was drafted. Everything looks exactly the same but it feels different. It feels uninviting and uncomfortable, so I grab a beer from the fridge to take the edge off.
I thought I would be halfway back to Seattle by now. My plan was to head straight to the airport as soon as my parents were ready to leave the wake and jump on the first plane to Boston. I already knew I couldn’t get back to Seattle before tomorrow, but I figured I would grab a hotel in Boston, drink a few at a local bar, find a girl who knew hockey, knew who I was and was impressed enough to spread her legs, and then fuck this uncomfortable visit out of my head forever. But then I’d turned around in that church parking lot and my eyes locked with hers and all the anger, betrayal and frustration that’s consumed me was replaced by one thought: God, she’s beautiful.
It’s the first thing I used to think of every time I saw her every day of my teenage life, but I was shocked to find out that it was stronger than ever. She’d stared back at me with a look of confusion and shock, and as she got out of the car and walked closer, I could also see a glimmer of curiosity. She was searching my face for something the same way I knew I was searching hers…
She looked exactly the same as she did in high school. Same moss-green eyes, same lithe build, same pouty mouth, freckleless skin and long wavy auburn hair. It threw me for a loop because, although I didn’t expect her to look incredibly different, I didn’t expect her to look exactly the same—or for her looks to make me feel the same as I did in high school. But they did.
I’d kept my eyes fixed on her through the funeral service. It was impossible to pull them away, and the more I watched her the stronger the realization became—she didn’t just look like the same as the girl I fell in love with, she was the same. She still twisted her delicate fingers when she was anxious. She still tucked her hair behind her left ear as a nervous habit. I knew before she did it that she would cup the back of Rose’s head and smooth her hair in a gesture of comfort. And I knew she would hold Callie’s hand and not let go even as Callie tried to pull away. She was always more concerned about her sisters’ feelings than her own. I watched as she absently caught a tear with the back of her hand before it fell and I knew, without a doubt, her tears weren’t over losing the relationship she’d had with her grandmother but over the loss of the possibility of ever having one. I knew this because I knew her. This Jessie was still my Jessie, inside and out.
I had told myself the girl who left me and ran off to Arizona wasn’t the same girl who I thought I wanted to spend my life with, but after seeing her again, I was beginning to think I might be wrong. So I needed to talk to her—and do it much more meaningfully than that awkward encounter in the driveway.
I’m halfway through my beer when I hear her small feet on the stairs. For someone only five feet six inches and probably about one hundred and ten pounds, she walks like an elephant. Always has. The familiar heavy thumping almost makes me smile.
When she comes into the kitchen I notice she’s changed into a pair of faded and torn hip-hugging jeans and a light blue, V-neck T-shirt with a tiny logo on the right breast that I can’t read in the dim light. Her long hair is pulled back in a ponytail and what little makeup she had on for the funeral is gone. She’s still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Everything about her, even when she was staring at me like she was willing me to drop dead earlier this afternoon, lights something deep inside me like it did when we were kids.
When she realizes I’m sitting there, on the counter, she jumps.
“I thought everyone left.” Jessie gasps.
“They did. I stuck around.”
Her surprise morphs to irritation as soon as she calms down. “Why?”
“Wanted to make sure you were okay,” I say honestly.
“You’re about six years too late with that,” she responds sharply, and walks over to the fridge.
She pulls a beer out of the fridge, turns to face me again, twisting the top off with more force that necessary. As she takes a long sip, her eyes travel from my head to the countertop I am sitting on and then back to my head.
“We have chairs,” she states, gently kicking one away from the kitchen table toward me.
“I’m partial to the counter.” I shrug, and for a millisecond she freezes as she realizes I’m talking about exactly what she thinks I’m talking about.
She sips her beer again, so I sip mine. My eyes don’t leave hers and hers don’t leave mine. I’d give her an entire year’s salary if it would get her to tell me what she’s thinking.
“You should go, Jordan,” she says coldly.
“When are you going?” I counter with my own question. “You know, leaving the Bay?”
She glares at me in silence for a long moment. Even when she’s this hostile, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
“We have to meet the lawyer and deal with her will and then decide what to do with the house.” She sighs, and I can see for the first time a little bit of sadness in her face. I know it’s mostly sadness at losing her last living, known relative, but I hope some of that is for me too. Not that I want to make her sad, but…knowing she still has feelings other than anger for me would be a blessing. “I don’t know how long all of it will take. I’m hoping less than a week.”
“And where are you going after that?”
“Home,” she replies, and her perfect, plump lips flatten into a hard line.
“And where is home? Are you still in Arizona?”
She lets out a frustrated gust of air and rolls her eyes. “Look, Jordan, you’re an asshole. All the small talk in the world is not going to change that.”
“I was an asshole,” I agree freely. I pull off my hat and run a hand through my hair, knowing it’s probably all over the damn place. I should have gotten a haircut before I came here. “I want to not be an asshole anymore. That’s why I’m here. I regret what I did. I have since the moment it happened.”
“Yeah, you said that,” Jessie snaps, tugging her long hair out of the ponytail it had been in. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I regret it too.”
I smile with relief. “You regret leaving me.”
“No,” she snaps quickly with a look on her face like I’m insane. “I don’t regret that part. That’s the smartest thing I ever did.”
She finishes her beer and walks closer to toss the bottle in the recycling bin by the door. I can finally read her T-shirt: Sea-Tac Sports Therapy.
I cock my hea
d and my eyebrows pull together. “Sea-Tac?”
She glances down at the logo on her shirt and back up at me, her hand rising and covering the words as she turns away. Sea-Tac? That’s what they call the Seattle-Tacoma area. Why is she wearing a shirt from a sports therapy place in my…
“Would you just go already?” Jessie demands, her eyes narrowed on me in anger. “You said your piece. You’re sorry Lily’s dead. You regret sleeping with me. Thanks for coming all this way to tell me that. Now go.”
“Wait! What?” I try not to let my mouth hang open with my shock at her crazy rant. “Are you insane? Why do you think I regret sleeping with you?!”
“You said you regret what happened!” She bellows.
“I didn’t mean I regret slee—” A knock at the door stops me mid-yell.
She storms toward it and flings it open. I have the distinct feeling she’s thrilled there’s an interruption. She’d probably let a serial killer in if it meant I would go away. I see a shadow walk in and sweep her into a hug.
“What the hell…” she whispers, and wiggles out of the embrace.
“I came as soon as I found out.”
I lean over the sink and reach out to flip the light switch at the other end of the counter. The room fills with light and I can see the guest clearly. And he sees me.
“What the hell are you doing here, Echolls?” I ask gruffly.
I’ve run into Chance Echolls through the years because, although he didn’t make the NHL like I did, he got a broadcasting degree and works for NBC covering games. But I had no idea Jessie had stayed in touch with him, and the revelation makes me nauseous.
“Jessie and I became friends again a few years ago,” Chance says, an irritated edge to his voice. “I thought I would come support her. That’s what friends do, right?”
Jessie steps away from Chance and shakes her head, a bitter smile on her lips. “If I didn’t know better I would think this is some kind of practical joke.”
I kind of have to agree with her there.
One More Shot (Hometown Players #1) Page 8