“Yeah. Well, it would be simpler if I did.”
“Don’t you?”
“Sadly, kid, I don’t. They’re my family. I mean, I don’t think Danielle is good at her job, and I don’tlikeher.”
He hated his stepfather. He disliked Michael and Danielle. His mother … That was different.
“I dunno. Seems silly,” Cassidy said. “I think you should just write them all off.”
“If your mom came back,” he said, looking directly at Cassidy now, “and she said that she loved you, it was just that things were complicated for a while, but she wants to have a relationship with you, what would you think?”
Cassidy blinked, and he regretted the question when he saw his sister’s eyes go glossy. But just as soon as the sheen of tears appeared, it was gone. “Well, it’s irrelevant. Because that’s never going to happen. She’s never contacted me, not once since bringing me here. So I doubt that she would suddenly get a hankering to hang out with me after all this time.”
“Right. Well. That’s terrible. But my mom is here. And she hasn’t just cut me off. That makes it …”
“Oh, is it harder?” she asked. There was a hard edge to her voice that Cassidy never used with him. “Must be nice, actually.”
He felt like an asshole then, because maybe it was. Maybe he was the lucky one. It didn’t feel lucky. It felt like having two junkyard dogs fighting over you. Neither of them worked as pets, neither of them had any idea how to be what you needed them to be, and yet they tore violently, one at each arm. That was his childhood. His whole experience with his mother and his father, or rather his feelings for them.
He looked back at Jessie, who was ordering a beer. And he realized he couldn’t stay seated any longer. “I’ll be right back.”
He stood up and walked over to her. He stopped just short of invading her personal space, but he could feel that people in the bar were watching them.
As was West. Flynn looked up and met his gaze. “Howdy, West,” he said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“No,” West said. “It has been a time. Good to see you. Tell your brother I said hi.”
He knew exactly which brother West meant.
“Sure.”
“And his wife.”
“Now, now,” said Flynn. “Why don’t we avoid having a bar fight.”
“Why? Bar fights with the Wilders used to be my favorite part of high school.”
“Yes. I know you all used to punch each other up when you were in here with fake IDs. But I was too young.”
“Just a spring chicken. And apparently seeing my sister.”
Jessie turned sideways and shot West a deadly glare. “Is that what we do now, West? We comment on each other’s sex lives? Because if so, I do have some opinions.”
“No thanks,” he said. “Not at home to opinions. Which means I’ll be keeping mine to myself.”
“A blessed day indeed,” said Jessie. “Should we join you at your table?”
“You have some nerve, Jessie Jane, you really do,” Flynn responded.
“You already knew that. I’m here because I just announced my candidacy, and what better place to be than The Watering Hole. These are my people. My constituents.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that.”
The eclectic crowd tonight was definitelyhercrowd, and it didn’t surprise Flynn totally that this was her first stop after her online announcement. What did surprise him was that she hadn’t told him.
He hadn’t anticipated having to wrangle Jessie Jane today, but the truth was, he had been foolish for thinking he might be able to get around it. Shehadannounced her candidacy today. And he was now roped into all this.
“Yes,” he said, a little bit more decisively, now that he was getting his bearings. “Come on back to the table. We have so much to celebrate.”
