“No, your mom said they have other plans.”
Good. The last person he needed to deal with tonight was his old man. “I may not be able to make it.”
“Oh.”
Damn that “oh” when it conveyed sadness instead of pleasure.
He grabbed his hat from the tabletop and positioned it on his head, brim facing backward.
“You need a haircut.” She tipped her chin.
“I need a lot of things,” he glibly said, turning his back to her to lay his hands on the pine that wouldn’t be touched again until he finished what he hoped would truly be his last job with Thatcher.
When he caught sight of movement from over his shoulder, his heart leaped from his chest as he moved into action.
“Ella, damn it!” He cursed again as she pinned the envelope behind her back. “You’re thirty-five, not five. Don’t—”
“Fuck with you?” she challenged, eyebrows raised.
Jesse didn’t move a muscle as he stared her down. Do not tempt me, darlin’, or I just might put you on all fours and take you right here.
“What? You don’t like it when I say ‘fuck’? You sure didn’t mind it while we were having sex that weekend.”
Ella’s sentence drifted off at the sound of an excited canine’s yip. She pressed up on her toes and peered over Jesse’s shoulder, lifting her chin to put eyes there.
“Jesse,” Rory hissed. “I flippin’ knew it. I knew you two had to have done something.”
Jesse looked back to see his pissed-off sister standing in the doorway, her Belgian Malinois obediently at her side.
Rory kept her eyes laser-focused on him. “I suppose you have some explaining to do. And you better talk fast before I give Bear orders to attack.”
Chapter Two
Ella breathed in the rich aroma of espresso and delicious pastries as she and Rory stepped inside Savanna’s café, located in an old Birmingham neighborhood. The bell attached to the top of the door still jangled as Rory grabbed Ella’s elbow and dragged her to a high-top table. She shoved her onto a stool and pulled another one close, plopping down in dramatic fashion.
“Well, we’re here now. No more stalling, spill the beans,” Rory ordered.
Ella glanced over to see Savanna moving from behind the counter to make her way over, eyes wide with curiosity as well as confusion at their abrupt entrance. Rory had barked a hasty Hi to Savanna and waved her over but hadn’t given Ella a chance to say a word, much less catch her breath. She was obviously itching to cut straight to the bombshell news she’d overheard at Jesse’s workshop.
Ella hadn’t wanted to “spill the beans” to one best friend and not the other, so on their thirty-minute ride into Birmingham, they’d sat in awkward silence while listening to Taylor Swift’s “Taylor Version” of the Red album.
Savanna lifted her brows, her attention ping-ponging back and forth between the two of them as she slid onto her own stool. Looked like they wouldn’t be baking anytime soon.
Savanna had pushed back her normal opening hours so the three of them could bake treats for their New Year’s Eve party without the interruption of customers striding in to buy coffee or a croissant. It was a good thing, too, since she preferred no one else get an earful about her wild weekend with Jesse in New York.
A weekend of sex that had alternated between spicy and sweet. A weekend during which his hands had touched every inch of her body, and he’d worshipped her skin like the finest silk beneath his rough palms.
She’d done her best to mute the warnings in her head and ignore the squeezing pain in her heart during those thirty-six hours with that man. But the moment they’d stepped foot on the plane to head home to Alabama, and his entire mood had changed, she’d known she was screwed six ways from Sunday.
“What’s going on?” Savanna whispered while placing her elbows on the table and leaning in.
Ella was glad Rory had made her sit down first because her legs didn’t feel all that steady. She might buckle from the weight of her emotions that the ten-minute version of Taylor’s “All Too Well” song seemed to drum up inside her on the drive.
Ironically, she felt more stable face-to-face with the problem himself than when she was away from him. Jesse stirred frustration inside her when he was nearby, and anger was easier to manage than sadness. And whenever she looked at the man, her blood boiled.
But when they were apart . . .
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
Feeling somewhat recovered, Ella stood and walked over to the bookshelf that held romance novels Savanna’s regulars were welcome to borrow and board games customers played while sipping their coffees and eating desserts.
She thumbed the spines of Savanna’s favorite books. Ella had always been more of a murder mystery girl. Give her a good crime show podcast or serial killer documentary. How many times had she read Stephen King’s The Shining?
Sometimes she swore she wanted to murder that man. Well, maybe just punch Jesse, but her hand would hurt more than his face. That bladed jawline would damage her fist.
Ella kept her back to her friends, not prepared to face them when she revealed the details of what she’d been hiding for three years. “I slept with Jesse,” she whispered.
Ella hadn’t given Rory a chance to work up steam to lecture Jesse back at his workshop. Or to hit him.
She’d quickly turned on her heel and left, and Rory had trailed after her, cursing her brother under her breath.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” Savanna was the first to respond since this was news to her and not Rory. “After the Christmas Eve party? You two danced. Did it happen then? Is Jesse finally coming to his senses?”
“God, no. I wouldn’t let that man touch me now. Screw him. I hate him.” Yeah, they danced the other night, but it was only because she’d asked one of Jesse’s new teammates at Falcon, Jack London, to dance. And Jesse, being a serious pain in her ass, didn’t like it when another man touched her.
“Oh-kay.” Confusion dripped through Savanna’s tone. Her romance-loving heart had been rooting for Ella and Jesse for years. Even after Savanna lost her husband, Marcus, to terrorists, her love for all things romance never waned. The woman loved love, and Ella couldn’t have been happier that her friend had found it again with Griffin.
“Teacups. Candy corn,” Ella began, speaking to the bookshelf, “overly sweet-smelling perfume. Fake smiles. The Jetsons. And oh yeah, Jesse McAdams.” She worked up the nerve to turn and face her friends, catching a whiff of the espresso she desperately needed. “That’s my list of things I hate. Although, I think Jesse ranks above teacups.”
Savanna rolled her lips inward as if torn between smiling and frowning at her comment. “The Jetsons? And what did candy corn ever do to offend you?”
“I mean, I’m still hung up on the teacups,” Rory said with a laugh, and hell, at least Rory’s murderous mood toward her brother had fizzled a little. “So, you hate some weird things, and I get why my brother is on your list,” she added a moment later in a more serious tone. “But when did you two sleep together? Was it just one time? Do I need to kill him? Should he be on my list? And I’m not talking about my own hate list. Sounds like he deserves to be on my hit list.”