I swiped under my eye and sniffed, careful not to smear my mascara.
Jack turned and grabbed my hand, lacing it around his arm. He escorted Sadie on one side and me on the other. “I’m sorry, Jules. Let’s go to my house and we’ll talk.”
* * *
Jack and Sadie were pretty serious I guessed. She made herself right at home when we got to his house, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and preparing herself hot tea since he kept it cold as the Antarctic. Jack must have a stash especially for her because he’s never drank herbal teas. A twinge of jealousy stabbed at me.
“Julia, do you want some?” Sadie lifted the whistling kettle off the stove and poured herself a mug of hot water.
“Sure.” My voice sounded like a recording. Nasal and flat.
She listed the options. Darjeeling, oolong, bingbong, and about ten other options I didn’t recognize. I chose the only tea I could pronounce: peach. Jack settled a couple cushions away from me on his big sectional. “You okay?”
“No.” I sniffed and reached for a Kleenex box sitting on the coffee table.
“I want to kill him for hurting you.”
“Me too.”
“I’m here to talk.” He sat back on the beige couch, and one ankle popped over his other knee. Typical Jack position.
I didn’t want to know anything about Pat. I didn’t want to ask questions. I didn’t want to have answers. I wanted to live in blissful oblivion. That’s where I was happy. But life didn’t work that way, huh? The truth always found a way out.
Even as I had the thought, my own secrets came to life on the screen in my mind’s eye. My truth hadn’t found a way out. Maybe it never would.
A deep, involuntary breath pushed against my rib cage. “I guess you need to tell me about him. Like what he got locked up for.”
“He was incarcerated at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville for just over fourteen years.”
The ability to breathe left me. I hung on to Jack’s every word. Praying, believing he’d say something to soften the blow to my heart. To make me feel like it was all a big misunderstanding.
“He should’ve been locked up a lot longer. I don’t know how he escaped prison so early. The Judge must’ve sentenced him a little lighter because he was a kid. Legally an adult, but barely.”
Sadie set the mugs on the coffee table. Jack thanked her, calling her “babe.” She plopped down next to him and curled her fingers through his. She possessed no qualms about being an uninvited participant in the conversation. Envy roared in my heart. Pat and I didn’t have pet names or anything dumb like that, but I thought we had something special.
“Just tell me what he did, Jack.” I jerked the tea bag around in my cup, trying to hone my thoughts in.
“He had two illegal drugs in a dealer quantity, and he burned a building to the ground. There were a few misdemeanor charges as well.”
My shoulders dropped, and my arms went slack. Tea sloshed out of my mug and burned the crap out of my hand. “Ow”—I replaced my cup on the table and rubbed the burn against my dress—“arson? Are you serious?”
“Yep. Aggravated arson at that. After he fled the scene, police found him in a ditch a few towns over. He was high on something. Got lucky hitting a ditch.”
“How do you know all this?” Maybe he got his information wrong.
He huffed in disbelief. “Sis, anytime I pull someone over, I scan their IDs and can see if they had previous warrants. I pulled Moore over for an expired temporary tag. He was sweating and shaking and acting so weird that I started asking him questions. He declined to talk about it, so I looked him up. His story was on the local news years ago.”
My stomach lurched with the urge to vomit. I tried picking up my tea again. The blazing hot sides of the mug were a decent distraction. How could this have happened? Why didn’t Pat tell me himself?
“You can look up the news report about it.” He put his arm around Sadie as she adjusted closer to him. “Are you okay, Jules?”
“Not really.”
“I understand. What can I do?”
“Nothing.”
As the conversation about Pat tapered, Sadie and Jack decided to put in a movie. Jack told me he’d drive me home when I was ready, but I wasn’t ready to be alone. I would put on a horror movie and attempt a post-adrenaline-rush sleep. Cameron’s gorgeous face would haunt me all night. And now? So would Pat’s. Wasn’t going to be ready for that for a while. Maybe forever.
