“I’ll be there.”
Every year she and her kids spent the afternoon of the Fourth on the beach. While Harris had been playing baseball, it had just been the three of them, Ryleigh, and some friends from the neighborhood. Once he’d retired, he’d joined in. Since the divorce, they’d made a point of keeping up the tradition. Harris and her children would stay with their friends to watch the fireworks on the beach while she would return to the store. She could see the show from the widow’s walk just fine and while the noise didn’t usually bother Ramon, she wanted to be close, just in case. Then the kids would join her for their traditional bookstore sleepover.
“You okay?” Ryleigh asked.
“Fine, why?”
Her sister studied her. “There’s something. You look sad. Is it Ramon? Is he acting up?”
“No, he’s great. It’s nothing.”
Ryleigh ate her sandwich and waited. Jax sighed.
“Marcus broke up with me.”
She paused, waiting for a reaction. Ryleigh continued to watch her.
“You don’t have anything to say?” Jax demanded. “The guy I’ve been seeing dumped me and you’re silent?”
“There’s more to what happened. I’m waiting for you to say the rest of it.”
Jax shifted uneasily. “There isn’t anything. We were talking and then he said he was done and he left. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Uh-huh.” Her sister reached for her latte. “I’m not buying it. Marcus is crazy about you. From everything you’ve said he’s generous, kind, funny and easy to be with. He’s not a player, so he was looking to get involved. There’s no way he just walked out. So what did you do?”
“Why does it have to be me? Maybe we were wrong about him. Maybe he’s secretly a jerk.”
“Is he?”
“No.” She picked up her coffee. “He’s not.”
Ryleigh finished her sandwich. “I’ve got all the time in the world. Technically you’re my boss for the summer but we both know you’d never fire me, so I can be right here for most of the day. I would like to get to the beach and hang out with everyone at some point, but otherwise, I’m available.”
Which translated into her pointing out that she wasn’t going anywhere, so Jax could talk now or she could talk later, but she would be talking.
“He asked if I could see myself falling in love with him.”
Her sister winced. “You didn’t take the question well.”
“It’s a stupid question. Who asks that? It was basically a setupand that’s not my fault. Yes, we’ve been hanging out and stuff, but we’ve only been on one date. You don’t ask someone that out of the blue. It’s not right and, as I said, none of this is my fault.”
“Wow, so it really went badly.”
Jax hung her head. “I laughed, said of course not, that I wasn’t interested in falling in love, and that was pretty much it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That he was such a jerk? Me, too.”
“I’m sorry you can’t see yourself loving him.” Ryleigh shook her head. “No. I’m sorry you can’t see yourself loving anyone. That’s really sad. The kids are going to grow up and leave. Then what? You’ll live your life in that apartment upstairs, with a bird and a cat for your family.”
Jax stared at her. “What are you talking about? I have you and Mom and Dad and my friends.”
“We all have lives of our own. I’m hoping to have a family of my own someday. Who do you have?” She waved her hand. “I’m talking about a life partner. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want more than what you have?”
Jax didn’t like how this conversation was going. “Hey, I’m not broken. I’m just fine. Not wanting to be with Marcus is a personal decision, by the way. I decided.”
“I thought youdidwant to be with him. He dumped you, not the other way around.”
