“Is it painful being that much of a cliché?” Jessie could definitely understand why Flynn was reacting this way, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of pretending she understood, even for a moment.
Because why shouldn’t she be mayor? That was the energy she was carrying herself with. If there was one thing she had learned at a very early age, it was that you had to fake it until you made it. You could never show that you were vulnerable, that you cared too much, that your feelings could be hurt.
When she was small, she had wanted nothing more than to be like all the other girls in her class. She’d wanted to have the same jelly bracelets, and the same kinds of rubber bands in her hair. She didn’t want to go to school with her mom’s hand-me-downs from the eighties combined with whatever random shit they could pick up at a thrift store.
She hadn’t wanted to bring any friends back home to the collection of campers and trailers where her family lived beside the Wild West Show. It was like living at a circus combined with a carnival, and although her parents had always been loving, involved people,they had also always been … unconventional. And for a good long while, Jessie had ached to be normal. To be included.
To get invited to a birthday party at one of the houses in the new gated community in town, where the houses were designed to look like historic homes, but were filled with all the modern conveniences. Once, she had been invited, and she had been amazed at how organized the house was. How much food was in the pantry.
How much space there was.
And the air-conditioning … Yeah. That had been pretty amazing.
But she must’ve done something to make it weird, because she had never been invited back again.
Her childhood had been crushing humiliation after crushing humiliation. She didn’t like to think about the time her mom had sprayed glitter all over her hair to cover up the fact that she had lice.
Worse than the glitter, which had been weird, was the fact that the front desk lady had been immediately suspicious. And had searched Jessie’s hair.
And then sent her home so she didn’t spread lice to anybody else.
One of the boys had started calling herContagionafter that.
Thinking of it made her skin crawl now, and it wasn’t the memory of the lice that did it.
But middle school had been the turning point. Where she had realized that if she acted perfectly okay with her own company, people would be a lot more interested in her. Interested in figuring out why.
She had started to imitate her dad, who conducted himself with cocksure confidence in all things. Wearing his fringe jacket, with his handlebar mustache, he was an eccentric. A cheerful con man. Mind you, the Wild West business was mostly legitimate, but were the games weighted in favor of the house? Maybe.
Still, her dad had a booming voice, grand gestures, and a larger-than-life personality that drew people to him. Even people who would normally avoid folks like the Hancock family were enticed by her father. Against their will, sometimes.
She had started carrying herself the same way. Dressing nothing like anyone else. Walking to the beat of her own drum. And she noticed that the more she didn’t try to fit in, the more people wanted to know why she didn’t care.
And the more she convinced herself she didn’t care, the more confident she became.
Which meant she wasn’t going to respond to Flynn’s shock now. “I’d be great for the job,” she said.
He stared at her. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he was looking down through layers of carefully crafted confidence. That he could see the Jessie Jane that had come before the one who stood before him now, and she didn’t like his penetrating gaze. Not one bit. It was one of the many things she didn’t love about Flynn.
Flynn cocked a brow. “I have seen no evidence of that.”
“Because you don’t actually know me, Flynn. You come into my bar—”
“It’snotyour bar.”
“Gus and I have an understanding. He doesn’t mind if I hang out and collect bets. It pays the bills.”
“Butch Hancock’s Wild West Show doesn’t pay the bills?”
“Not all of them.”
She had a horrible, tight feeling in her chest as Flynn looked at her. This was the problem. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her. That was a carefully crafted mantra she repeated every day.
She didn’t care. Fuck everyone.
And the more she thought that, the more she carried herself with that air, the better people responded to her. It was the damnedest thing.Caringdidn’t get you anywhere. The less hungry she was, the more magnetic, the more charming people found her.
Flynn’s eyes seemed to cut straight through her.
