He nodded.
“So…you still live at home?”
“Where else would I live?” Then he got it, and burst out laughing. “You mean with my parents. No. They moved to Minneapolis. My sister lives with me. Her and a rotating cast of about ten of her friends.”
Now that surprised her. Taking responsibility for an entire sister, that didn’t fit with the carefree Jason she remembered.
“And she tells them what to do?”
“She does. For some reason they listen to her.”
“Does she give good advice? Maybe she has some for me.”
“Oh, no doubt. If you’re really lucky, she’ll do one of her interventions and really whip your life into shape.”
“Hard pass.”
After a laugh, he sat back in his chair and gave her a thoughtful stare. “Maybe it’s just me, but you don’t seem as torn up about losing your relationship as about the rest of it.”
“You don’t know me like that,” she protested. “I don’t show my business to everyone.”
“Fair. Sorry.”
His quick apology took the sting out of his observation. Enough so that she didn’t mind sharing more. “I was crushed. I couldn’t believe it. It took me days to realize it wasn’t just a big prank. Then I was stuck in Minneapolis with an apartment I couldn’t afford and a business I couldn’t do anything with. Alone. That’s why I came back here. Running home to daddy.” She rolled her eyes a little.
His eyes softened with sympathy. “Who better to get you through a breakup than a blues legend? Alvin could write you a whole album about it.”
“My dad is like…my security blanket. I knew I could come back and he wouldn’t judge. He’s happy I’m back. But…”
“But what?” he prompted. He was such a good listener, and questioner.
“I feel like I disappointed him. I was supposed to go off and set the world on fire. Instead I’m back here working for him.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Is he disappointed, or you?”
Ohh, good point. She laughed ruefully. “Me. Pop would be happy if I stayed forever.”
“You wouldn’t want that?”
Their eyes met, and she couldn’t quite read his expression. Jason had never left Lake Bittersweet, and probably had no intention of leaving.
She let out a long sigh. “To be honest, Jason, I don’t know anything anymore. I’m a damn mess, but no one seems to realize it. And you can’t tell anyone,” she added quickly.
“No one would believe me anyway. Kendra Carter, a mess? That’s more of a Jason thing.”
“Maybe we’re trading places.”
“You’re saying that because you’ve always wanted to drive a fire truck, aren’t you?”
She laughed, already feeling lighter. Jason always had that effect. “No thank you.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. “Thanks for telling me what’s going on in your life,” he said finally. “I felt like something was off. I wasn’t sure what.”
“Well, thanks for listening. My friends know about the breakup with Dom, but I haven’t told them all the gory details about the business. It’s humiliating. But I know you can keep things to yourself.” Her gaze dropped to his upper lip, and lingered. His mouth had a nice shape to it, she noticed. The scar just enhanced his firm, full lines. No thin lips on Jason Mosedale.
“I won’t say anything. It’s your life.”
That phrase rang a bell.
She remembered the last time they’d talked at their lockers, just before she left school early for her accelerated college program.
“You should pay more attention in class,” she’d lectured him. “Or you’re going to end up running the cash register at the Quickie Mart. You’re better than that.”
“What’s wrong with the Quickie Mart? I like those little corn dogs they sell. The ones that rotate on little skewers, man, they’re good.”
“You’re impossible.” She’d grabbed the last emergency protein bar from her locker and tossed her lock in her backpack. “It’s your life. Good luck with your nowhere future.”
Her face heated again as she caught his eye over his glass of beer. She’d been pretty rude to Jason back then. Wrong, too. Being a firefighter wasn’t a “nothing” future. He was very good at it, from everything she’d heard. Where had she gotten off telling him what his future was going to be?
“That was the last conversation we had before I left, wasn’t it?”
He nodded with a wry look. “It had an impact, obviously.”
She dropped her head into her hands. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off on you the way I did.”
He shrugged. “No worries.”
“What do you mean, no worries? I had no right to come at you like that.”
“It didn’t bother me. I liked it.”
“You liked it?”
“I figured you wouldn’t bother if you didn’t care. When I passed the firefighter exam, I wanted to rub your face in it. Seemed a little immature, though.”
Oh, that twinkle in his eye, that dimple, that sexy quirk of his lips. No wonder he never had a problem lining up the next girl.
Rebound, rebound.
Shut up, Gina.
“Well, of course I cared. You have a scar thanks to me.”
“Yeah, and thanks for that, too. Really. It’s a great story. Girls love it.”
Of course they did. The heroic kid diving in front of a pool cue to save someone else.
“As long as you keep my name out of it,” she said lightly.
“It’s permanently redacted. I’m pretty sure that mystery girl was just a summer tourist who couldn’t handle her Jägermeister.”
They both took a pause, and she realized that they’d been wrapped up in each other to such an extent that Mariano’s was half empty now. The other firefighters had left. There was no sign of Galen. At the jukebox, someone put on an old country love ballad, which somehow made the lights seem dimmer. It all seemed calculated to create an atmosphere of intimacy, but it was probably just in her imagination. This was Mariano’s, after all, not some hipster cocktail bar in Minneapolis.
And she and Jason didn’t have that kind of vibe.
Except that he was looking at her as if she was a dessert he couldn’t wait to savor.
“What are you doing?” she asked bluntly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re looking at me different.”
“Different how?” He raised an eyebrow, but the look in his eyes didn’t change.
“Sexy.”
His lips curved slowly. “Are you saying I’m sexy? Or I think you’re sexy?”
Oooh, that sounded like a trap. But she’d had enough beer that she stepped into it anyway. “Both?”
“Huh.”
She waited, but he didn’t add any details to that frustrating “huh.” “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“For now.” He shrugged. “It’s hardly big news that I think you’re sexy.”
He was wrong there. Her eyes widened. “It’s not? Since when?”