“Because you both talked about starting a charter boat business.”
Jesse threw his head back and laughed. “Oh my god. That was a joke! Something we talked about when we were bored. It wasn’t serious.”
“Wasn’t serious? Did it ever strike you as funny that one day you were joking about starting a charter business, and the next day, Kendra bought a boat?” I sat my bottle on a coaster beside the couch. “What did you think that was?”
He picked at the label on his beer. “I thought that was her following her dream.”
“Yourdream. Plural.”
Jesse frowned at me. “Listen, my guy, I don’t know why you’re busting my balls, but this is between me and Kendra.”
“Let’s talk about you and Kendra, shall we?”
“Why are you so jealous of our friendship?” He countered.
I huffed. “Is that what you call it?”
Jesse’s chin jutted out in defiance. “Yeah. That’s what I call it. We’ve been friends since middle school. What do you think it is?”
“I think she’s your backup plan.”
His head jerked back as if I had punched him, and I knew at that moment I was right. All the signs were there - picking women who looked like her, telling a random stranger that he was her first, and getting jealous when that random stranger turned out to be her fiancé, as far as he knew. I would put goodmoney on the fact that they never had sex and probably hadn’t even kissed. That thought made me smile.
Jesse slammed his beer bottle onto the side table and scrambled to his feet. “That’s about enough. You need to leave.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.” I squared up to him. “And I’ll leave.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Jesse poked me in the shoulder, but I didn’t budge.
“Whatever, my guy.”
I poked him back in his shoulder. “Stop calling me that.”
“Why do you care that she was my backup plan? It doesn’t matter. She’s getting married to you. Remember?” He poked me in the shoulder.
I stepped away from him, my hands balled into fists. I wanted to punch this smug son of a bitch for his lying and cheating and stringing Kendra along for years. When I was done with him, his mother wouldn’t recognize him.
The only thing that stopped me was how Kendra would react.
I released my fists and shook out my hands. I considered many things I could have said to him, but in the end, I knew it would fall on deaf ears.
So, I left and returned to Kendra’s houseboat to tell her the truth about her best friend Jesse, who’d been stringing her along for decades.
Chapter 36
Captain Kendra’s Log: I did not have that on the wedding BINGO card.
A blindinglight shone through the window in my bedroom, stabbing me in the brain, punishment for the eleventy-million Mangrove Meads I thought I could drink in between shots of tequila.
As I am no longer 21 years old, and my 44-year-old body can barely process alcohol when it’s one drink, eleventy-million drinks were eleventy-million too many.
I threw my arm over my eyes and groaned.
“Good morning, Goldilocks,” a deep, cheerful voice drowned out the thoughts of regret that were on repeat in my brain.
