Shaking her head, she brought the phone down and tapped it onto speaker, holding it between us.
‘. . . I get it, Lil,’ he sighed, his voice only just audible over the babble of talking and music around him. ‘I’ll be fine . . . I just – these winnings could really change things, you know? Not just for Mom, but me too. Did Lottie call you? She and Cole have been bugging me all the way up here.’
‘No, actually. I’ve been speaking to the one person you should be listening to. Hestia’s worried sick, honey.’
Silence followed. My jaw clamped shut as I heard a now familiar female voice in the background – the sound that had reverberated around my head all day.
‘Jesse?’ Lil prompted, reaching out to squeeze my arm, her eyes too taut to be reassuring.
‘Yeah, I’m here,’ he mumbled.
‘Listen, while you’re out there drinking with God knows who—’ she began, cut off by his angry sigh.
‘Lil, I’m not doing this,’ he growled. ‘I don’t know what to think about Hestia.’
I held my breath, trying to keep the hurt down.
‘Honey, she cares what happens to you. She told you, didn’t she?’ Lil swallowed, as though this conversation was unlocking her own memories from a different time. I took her hand from my arm and held it instead, touched that she’d make herself vulnerable for my sake.
‘She was just scared,’ he replied, his voice suddenly becoming unbearably soft. ‘Saying things to try and keep me safe, that’s all.’
I opened my mouth, half gasping, half trying to respond, his words like a sharp stab to my gut.
‘I don’t think—’ Lil cut in, but before she could finish, the sound of female giggling cut through; Chrissy was whispering his name.
‘I’ve gotta go,’ he said, his tone still despondent. ‘Have a safe flight home, Lil. See you at the rodeo, if you make it.’
The phone cut off, the screen fading to black between us.
‘Stubborn ass,’ she hissed, opening it back up, ready to press call again.
But I stopped her, my eyes widening as an idea bloomed, like ink dropped into water.
‘Your flight,’ I murmured, not quite knowing if it was possible, or even if she’d consider it. ‘When does it get into Jackson?’
Her eyes searched mine for a moment, widening.
‘Tomorrow evening,’ she breathed, taking back her hand and flicking away from the call screen and straight into another app. ‘Are we thinking the same thing here?’
‘I’m not sure I can pull off being you,’ I stumbled, ‘but if you can swap the name on the flight and don’t mind waiting a couple of days to leave . . .’
She fell into concentration, pulling up her flight details and navigating around until –
‘There,’ she said, her tone triumphant as she turned the screen towards me. ‘There’s a fee to change the name on my ticket, but yeah, if you want to . . . I’ll give you my seat home, sweetheart. You go rip that stubborn bastard a fresh one for me.’
With a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh, I grabbed her into a hug.
She chuckled, surprise turning to a tight squeeze in return.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, sudden guilt taking over. ‘It’s not too much? I mean, we can book you another flight right now, but . . .’
‘Honey,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Listen, from what I know about you, from everything Lottie’s said and what’s going on with you and Jesse, I’m guessing you’ve been looking after yourself forever, right? Sweetheart, I say this from a place of knowing that feeling too damn well – you need to let people in, let them help you in the way you do for everyone else, okay?’ She lifted her hand over her chest, staring at me square on. ‘I am more than happy to give up my seat for youandI am more than happy to organize you a visa to stay on at the ranch, if that’s what you want. I love Jamie’s idea of running artist and writer retreats. We’ve been testing the waters these last few days with a bunch of people he knows, and we’ve got people signing up on a waiting list already. The ranch is gonna get real busy, real quick, so the work is there.’
I just stared at her, silenced by the size of her gesture, her willingness to share. Just as Jesse had shown me, from day one.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I admitted, allowing myself to smile as she did.
‘Well, book me onto another flight for a start, then we need to go get our martinis. You need to go pack, and I need to tell Jamie he’s got a few more days to put up with me.’
