Indefinitely. What did that mean? And more importantly, he was here, in Butler Cove, right now. I blew out that breath I’d taken upon Joey’s news before I passed out.
“Keri Ann?”
“Yep,” I croaked, trying and failing, for a jovial inflection.
“You have a lot going on. You’ve accomplished so much. You start SCAD this fall. Please don’t let yourself get involved with him again. Please. For me.”
“Sure thing, boss man Joey. I can promise you, I have no intention of doing that.”
There was a long pause on the end of the line. “I guess that’s about as good as I could hope for.” He sighed. “Do you promise?”
“Joey. I can solemnly swear I have no intention of getting involved with, or even having a conversation with him. Does that ease your mind?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“Great,” Joey responded with a tone that said anything but. “I’ll be home in time for the event. Stay out of trouble until then?”
“I’ll try. Love you, big brother.”
“Love you too, kiddo.”
I hung up and stared at my phone then glanced toward my window and the darkness beyond. Jack Eversea was out there. I assumed at Devon’s beach house. So … less than a mile away. I fought the urge to go and bang down his door and scream obscenities in his face.
He was back.
And he had to know he hurt me.
Hurt? I snorted.
I thought of that smile I’d seen in the rear-view mirror. What did that mean? He wouldn’t have been smiling like that maliciously, right? I mean who did that? He was either back to rub salt in my wound, or he was back thinking I’d be a convenient layover again. How nice he had a break in his filming schedule to come and wreak a little more havoc. I knew my strengths, and I’d have a better chance of coping if he was just here to be a prick than if he actually tried for a repeat performance of his last visit.
I remembered telling him, back before we’d even kissed, that I was out of my depth, that I was not cut out for him. Not cut out for him to go back to his Hollywood life when he was done with me. I wished I fought harder and protected myself better. I couldn’t be sure why he was back, but if it was because of me, then I would fight harder. There was no way I would make the same mistake twice.
And what became of Audrey and Jack, or the baby she’d claimed she was carrying? I was guessing that was a fabrication, since there was no news of a pregnancy. And I would know. To my shame I’d trawled the Internet one particularly frigid and rainy day in winter for seven hours straight, not pausing to even pee or eat. Jazz finally staged an intervention by ripping the cord to the wireless router out of the wall, and I kid you not, cutting the plug off the end.
All I’d learned was that he was in England, filming some movie about a coal-miner turned artist, and out with a different girl what seemed like every night. In true British paparazzi style, it was a lurid splash-fest of debauchery, with them lapping up his antics. It was so unlike the Jack I thought I knew. It was like he was deliberately having his picture taken with as many slutty looking girls as possible.
In one picture he was in some bar or something, maybe a nightclub, and he had one girl in a short pink dress and platform stripper heels draped at his back, and a girl in front who was holding his head and sticking her tongue in his ear. And he was smiling—that devastating smile of his, dimples and all, right at the camera. He had to know people would see it. That I would probably see it.
I’d stared at that picture for a good hour out of the seven, with a rock in my chest, and I couldn’t decide which was worse—wondering if he was doing it to hurt me on purpose, or if it never occurred to him it would hurt me to see him like that. By the time Jazz made her dramatic statement of disabling my Internet access, I was barely able to take much more torture anyway.
Pulling myself back to the present, I brushed my teeth and changed into my sleep shorts and tank. I lay wide-awake watching the shadows of swaying branches on my ceiling and listening to the creaking of my two hundred year old house and praying for sleep.
At some point I may have dozed off, but the chirp of my phone at three in the morning had me jerking upright and fully awake.
When my phone beeped, I’d been in a semi-conscious state, so I was unsure if it was in my dream. But seriously, who could sleep at a time like this? Realizing it was real, I lunged for it in the dark, aiming for the glow of the incoming text.
Jazz: Hey, K! Hope this doesn’t wake u, but had to leave phone on charge, just got back in from amaze-balls beach party. I’ll call u in the am. Hope all ok.
Jazz. Perfect. I quickly typed back.
Me: No, nothing is ok. Can you talk?
I got out of bed and went to sit on my little window seat I’d made from an old bench and lots of pillows and stared at the bright screen on my phone. An incoming call sounded less than ten seconds later.
“Thanks for calling,” I greeted her.
Jazz’s voice was breathy, quiet, and worried. “Word, what’s the matter? Are you ok? Is Joey …?”
“Fine, he’s fine. Sorry to freak you out. I’m fine, I just … Oh, God, Jazz. Jack is back in Butler Cove.” There was no other way to say it.
“Oh my God. Seriously? Did you see him or you heard? Wait, start at the beginning.”
“I saw him.” Looking out the window, I could see the silvery dark silhouettes of the massive trees in my front yard as a sliver of a moon made it through the cloud cover. The rain looked like it was finally over. I sighed and told her the whole story.
When I was done, she chuckled. “Damn, girl. Most of us could only wish to have an exit like that. How freakin’ awesome.”
“It wasn’t awesome, Jazz. It was a nightmare. And he just stood there. Smiling,” I added disdainfully.
She laughed again, with glee and a few cocktails. “Oh, it’s priceless! Just in case he forgot who Keri Ann Butler is, you managed to remind him like a two-by-four to the head. Especially with the wet t-shirt.” She giggled, and there was a muffled thump. Then she whispered away from the phone, “Sorry, go back to sleep.”
“Is that Brandon? Sorry to make you call me in the middle of the night.”
“It’s fine. You know that. I would have called you back earlier if I’d had my phone. Yeah, big choco-eyes over here has been hitting the sauce since the pool this afternoon. He is baked and done. I better catch forty winks myself otherwise I’ll be unplayable tomorrow. You gonna be able to sleep?”
I sighed and looked out the window again. I could swear someone was leaning against the trunk of the live oak by the driveway. I needed sleep, and the darkness and shadows were beginning to seem weird.
“Yeah, I’ll sleep now. I feel better just telling you about it. Like I’ve made it into a manageable event. Not sure what tomorrow will bring, if anything, but I guess I’ll worry about that then.”
“Look, you’ve done enough waiting and wondering,” Jazz admonished. “The last thing you need is knowing he’s around and waiting for him to show up at any moment. This needs to be on your terms, not his. You need to go see him, ask him what his deal is, and then get on with your life.”
The thought that I should be the one to seek him out surprised me for a moment. But she was absolutely spot on.