by Penny Reid
“You will regret it. Those people aren’t your family, and they are all the same. He rejected you. They rejected you. I will never forgive him, and you shouldn’t either. They are bad.”
“No. NO! Grandma and grandpa weren’t bad. They loved me. And I loved them.”
She was quiet, but I heard her release another heavy sigh.
“And who do you think my father is? Was he voted by all Cubans as the most quintessential Cuban person in all the world? Because, if he was, I missed the election. Not that I could’ve voted, because I don’t know what it means to be Cuban! I grew up near Cleveland. I know more German than Spanish.”
More silence, but I wasn’t finished ranting. “Dad is a person, Mom. One person. He is not representative of an entire people. So, yeah, maybe I do want to know that side of myself. Maybe I feel so lost because half of who I am was never revealed to me. Maybe while I’m in Cuba, I will look up that side of my family.”
I sensed her withdraw with each word out of my mouth, but I hadn’t been able to stop. And by the time I’d finished, I felt exhausted. But also surprised by my words. I didn’t know I’d felt this way.
Do I feel this way?
“You do what you want. You are a grown woman, not a child.” She made a sniffing sound, or something like it, but her voice was cool as granite. “I have to go. I am working and have to get back to work.”
I nodded, saying nothing, my eyes flooding with tears. Whenever I did something that hurt her, she pulled away like this, reminding me I was responsible for myself. It made me feel so alone.
“Goodbye, Raquel. I . . .”
I waited. Rolling my lips between my teeth, I looked up at the ceiling. It blurred as I waited for her to tell me she loved me. Sometimes she would, but not always.
“Goodbye,” she said.
And then she hung up.
Chapter 12
*Jackson*
“If you’re going to do something wrong, do it big, because the punishment is the same either way.”
Jayne Mansfield
For maybe the tenth time so far this morning, I caught myself daydreaming about my kiss with Rae. I had no regrets about turning down her offer. A one-night stand, even with the woman of my figurative and literal dreams, wasn’t something I wanted for myself anymore. I wanted permanent, not temporary. I wanted real, not fantasy.
That said, I had no regrets about the kiss either. I knew I’d come crashing down from this high at some point, but that point wasn’t now. Hopefully, the high would last a good, long while.
It’ll have to. You’re never going to see her again. At least, not in person.
I frowned at the thought, immediately pushing it aside, and taking another sip from my thermos of coffee. It wasn’t a thermos brand container, but some hoity-toity version that looked sleek and kept my coffee hot for hours. My sister Jessica had sent it for my birthday along with two bags of coffee from Italy. She, her husband Duane, and my nephew Liam were now living there full-time, until Jess got the travel bug again and they went somewhere else.
She was an odd one, my baby sister. But I liked the cup she’d sent. You should get one for Rae.
Now that odd thought had me frowning again, and I decided to refocus my thoughts elsewhere. Like on work.
My eyes lifted to the horizon, expecting to find an empty expanse of road beyond the cruiser’s hood, but that’s not what I saw. Man, I really must’ve been distracted if I’d failed to notice Cletus Winston pull up in his Geo in front of me. Mind, he didn’t park directly in front of my car, but rather some fifty or so feet further down.
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I brought my fancy coffee container with me as I left the car and walked toward him. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you, my friendly, local public servant.” He also carried a coffee container, a pink and purple Hello Kitty thermos. Within, I knew he’d doctored his coffee with blackstrap molasses and apple cider vinegar. Since we’d become friendly, he’d made me taste it every so often, swearing that one of these days I’d come around to his coffee recipe.
He was wrong. It was disgusting.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“This is your area, isn’t it?” He motioned to the empty road.
“Yes. For today.”
“Well then, you just answered your own question.”
“Cletus.” I halted, not wanting to be out of earshot of the radio. “My coverage area stretches for miles. How did you know precisely where I’d be?”
He walked past me toward my cruiser. “You might as well ask me if I know where JT MacIntyre’s stolen gold coins are.”
“Wait. Do you?” I followed him.
“That’s a silly question.”
“I’m suddenly thinking it’s not so silly.”
“No. It’s definitely silly. Silly to ask, I mean. But maybe not silly in general. However, I’m not here to debate the silly quotient of questions with you. I’m here to deliver a warning and an invitation, but not in that order.” He stopped at the hood and leaned back against it—half sitting, half standing.
“An invitation?” I didn’t move to recline next to him, but instead stopped four or so feet away.
“Yep. To the jam session tonight.”
“Oh. Yeah. I was planning to go.” I sipped my coffee.
“I’d like your word, if you please.” He lifted his thermos toward me. “That’s a nice coffee carafe. Where’d you get it?”
“Jess sent it to me for my birthday. You want my word?”
“I’d like you to promise me that you will attend tonight’s music-making merriment, come what may.” He scratched his beard, which was always kept bushy and full. “My birthday isn’t until December. Do you think she’d send me one of those for Tracky Dack Day?”
“I just said I was going to the jam session. And what is Tracky Dack Day?”
“It’s an Australian holiday for pants. And now I’d like you to promise that you’re coming to the jam session.”
Confused—a holiday for pants?—I scrunched my face and shook my head. Cletus was always having two conversations at once. “Fine. I promise. I’ll go.”
“Excellent. Now to the warning.” Cletus drew in a deep breath, pushed away from the hood of my cruiser, paced to me, and placed his hand on my shoulder. Looking me square in the eye, he said, “Jackson James, everyone in town hates your guts.”
I reared back. “Excuse me?”
“Wait—” He let go of my shoulder and pulled out his phone. “I brought visual aids.”
I stared at him, waiting while he unlocked his phone, navigated to something he clearly wanted me to see, and then shoved his phone at me.
“Watch this.”
Moving my frown from him to the phone, I pressed the play button. It took me a few seconds to understand what I was seeing, and a few seconds more to understand where—and how—the video had been made, and less than a second after that to lose my breath with the weight of what it meant.
“Fuck.”
“No. I think y’all stop before that happens.”
I passed his phone back to him, not needing to see it again. Not now. My chest filled with lead. My stomach hurt. I needed to . . . I needed to think. Think.
“Jackson, I know you’re having a bad day, but now might be a good time to inform you that all ATMs have cameras.”
“Yes, Cletus! I know about ATM cameras. I knew we’d be recorded, but I wasn’t thinking someone would take the recording and share it!”
“Why not? You were kissing a world-famous actress. They probably got enough money from the sale of that video to quit their job for a while. Maybe a whole year’s salary.”
I’d known about the camera, and I’d dismissed it as inconsequential in the moment. All I’d been thinking about was kissing Rae.
“Jesus.” I covered my mouth with my hand, staring at the sky and the end of my career in law enforcement. How could I have been so monumentally stupid?
I’d be fired. I’d definitely be fired. Wearing my uniform, while on duty, indecency, conduct unbecoming an officer of the law, all caught on the camera of an ATM. What had I been thinking?
You weren’t thinking. Your dick was.
I shook my head. No. That wasn’t true. I had been thinking.
Yes, there’d been a fair share of dick-thinking involved, but I’d been thinking with my brain too. It’s why I hadn’t kissed her in the car. If I’d touched her in the car, we would’ve ended up doing a lot more than just kissing.
She’d asked me to spend the night with her, and I’d wanted to say yes—my God, I wanted to say yes so badly—but I knew, somewhere deep down, spending the night with Rae would absolutely wreck me and I’d feel nothing but regret after. I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. I didn’t want to just take whatever was offered and be passed around for a good time, but never for a real, lasting, permanent time.
Not just that, but I’d spent years trying to push Rae from my mind. If I slept with her? If I had that memory? I’d never be able to move on with someone else.
And I . . . I care about this woman.
I barely knew her, but I wanted her happiness even if I wasn’t meant to be the source of it. Sitting in the car with her, talking about things that should’ve been awkward and difficult but had felt so effortless, so easy, fun—that was Rae. That was all Rae. That’s how things were with her. Fun. Easy. Which should’ve been a big red flag. Nothing easy lasts. Except I was blind where she was concerned.
I’d meant what I’d confessed yesterday, Rae was sweet. Sunshine and rainbows. If caring could be measured in time spent thinking about somebody, she was probably the most important woman in my life.
That just makes you sad, Jackson. I nodded because, yep, that was probably true. But who was I except the guy who fell when I should’ve stayed upright?
And so I laughed.
“Something funny?” Cletus’s question was low, quiet. I barely heard the words.
“Oh. Just everything.”
“What happened?”
“You saw what happened.” I continued chuckling, opening the lid on my coffee container and dumping the contents on the ground. My mouth tasted like ash. “It’s all in the video.”
“I mean, what happened with Ms. Ezra? How long have you two been keeping in touch?”
I gave my head a subtle shake, glancing at Cletus briefly over my shoulder. “We haven’t.”
“Well. That’s a flagrant lie.”
“It’s not.”
“As you may recall, I was present when you met. I provided the introduction.”
“Yeah. But we didn’t keep in touch after that night.”
Cletus seemed to grow mighty still. “Y’all didn’t speak again after sleeping together?”
“No. We didn’t.”
He made a choking sound that had me looking at him again. His eyes were wide, his mouth open.
“What? What is it?” I asked.
“You just admitted to sleeping with Raquel Ezra.”
“I didn’t—I . . .”
He dipped his head, his eyes wide with meaning.
I cursed. “You tricked me.”
“I certainly did. Who else knows?”
“Absolutely no one.” I sliced my hand through the air, my temper rising. “And we didn’t—we didn’t—it’s none of your business what happened, but it’s not what you think.”
He straightened his spine, standing at his full height, which for the record was the same as mine. “Are you telling me that you’ve kept this secret for . . .” his eyes moved up and to the right “—five and a half years?”
“Yes,” I ground out. “And I don’t want you saying anything.”
“I shan’t tell a soul. Except for my Jenn. Because she shares my soul.”
“Cletus!”
“But you do realize this makes you one of—how many brothers do I have?”
“Five,” I grumbled. “Which you well know. And I don’t want you telling Jenn. Tell no one.” Jenn was his wife and a lovely woman, but I didn’t even want Cletus to know.
He ignored my order. “This makes you one of seven men on the face of the earth who would’ve kept this secret.” He nodded somberly and then stepped forward. “I’m ready to share the plan, Jackson.” His words were a riddle.
“Plan? What plan?”
“The plan to rescue your career and reputation.”
“How’re you going to manage that? I was on duty. I deserve to be fired.”
“Nah.” He shrugged, his eyes on his phone screen. “You deserve no such thing. Not for kissing your woman.”
“I was on duty. And Rae is not my—” I rolled my eyes. There was no use arguing with Cletus.
“No, you weren’t on duty. And yes, she most certainly is.”
“I’m not talking to you about Rae anymore, but I should know whether or not I was on duty.”
“No, you weren’t.” He lifted up his cell and showed me the paused screen. “Doesn’t your Thursday shift end at four?”
“No. Not if I—”
“Yes, it does. Yesterday, it did. You clocked in at six, that means—collective bargaining rules—your shift ended at four.”
I closed my eyes, trying to think. “No. Cletus. I was there on a call.”
“Were you? There’s no official log of it. Nothing on the radio—according to Flo. Your shift ended and then you kissed your woman.”
“You’re being too literal with the rules. That’s not how things work.”
“But that’s how your representative at the Association sees it.”
I reared back. “You talked to Mike?”
“I did. I work on his old Toyota Celica. He loves that car. I called him to check on the engine work I’d done and to give him a heads-up about the video and about how your ten-hour shift had ended. And he’s already called your father.”
“My father.” I groaned, pushing a hand through my hair, pain radiating outward from my chest. What must he think of me?
I’d made some dumbass, careless choices regarding public displays of affection with women when I was younger, but nothing like this. Nothing caught on video and broadcast everywhere.
“Anyway, the Association has your father’s hands tied.”
“He wanted to fire me?” I croaked, turning over my shoulder to peer at Cletus.
He looked at me for a stretch, gathering a deep breath before saying, “I don’t rightly know what the sheriff wanted to do. But I do know, you don’t wish to let your father down.”
Cletus didn’t usually point out the obvious unless he was setting a person up to take a verbal journey through his train of logic. I gritted my teeth and glared at him, waiting for the lecture I knew was coming.
Sure enough, he said, “You are your own man, Jackson. I freely admit—” Cletus lifted his hands, palms out as though to stop any argument I might launch “—I hero-worship the man too. Half the men in this town do. And none of us are his son. But you can’t make Jeffrey James happy one hundred percent of the time. It’s your life, not his. Mistakes will be made.” A hint of sympathy entered his voice. “But they’re your mistakes. They belong to you. Not to him.”
I released a shuddering sigh, the pain in my lungs persisting. “He’s my father, Cletus.”
“I know, Jackson.”
“I feel like—” I had to draw in another breath, working to release some of the tightness in my chest “—I’m never going to live up to him.”
He frowned. “You think it’s your job to be your father? You think that’s what sons are supposed to do? You live up to Jeffrey James, I live down to Darrell Winston?”
“No.” I shook my head, staring at the mix of grass and gravel under my boots. “Course not.” I knew I was lucky. Folks never let me forget it.
“Tonight?” My gaze shot to Cletus.
His eyebrows were suspended on his forehead. “Did you already forget your promise? The jam session?”
“Are you kidding? I can’t go now.” I paced back over to him gesturing wildly in the general direction of the Green Valley Community Center. “I can’t show my face there. It’s not just bringing shame to the county office that I’m talking about. Charlotte just broke up with me last week, now everyone is going to think it’s because of Rae. They’re going to think I’ve been stepping out on her.”
I’d have to call Charlotte and explain about Rae somehow. Without divulging too many details. I knew she’d forgive me, she’d probably even laugh about the whole thing. Except, she wouldn’t be laughing when folks started asking her how she was doing and whether she was hanging in there, like they’d done after Kevin left. Their pity pissed me the hell off, and just the thought made me sick to my stomach. She already had enough shit to deal with.
“You promised you’d come tonight.” Cletus held up a warning finger. “And besides, it’s phase two of the plan.”
“What plan?”
“You’ll find out tonight. Just. . . dress nice. But not too nice. And do your hair, but don’t make it stiff. Make it look done, but natural.”
“No one is going to care about my hair!” I yelled, feeling myself edge closer to losing my temper.
“I care about your hair, Jackson,” he said stiffly, lifting his chin like I’d offended him. “See? You’re wrong. I. Care.”
I narrowed my eyes on Cletus as he marched past, his boots crunching the gravel underfoot. I may have been at my wit’s end, but that didn’t mean I had a call to be rude.
After swallowing around stones in my throat, I hollered after him, “Hey. Thank you, Cletus.”