“I choked,” Jean confirmed. “Which pisses me off even more.”
“Because you’re sexually frustrated?”
“No!” Although that was also true. It was hard to fast after an all-you-can-eat buffet. “I’m mad because I was all over the place emotionally. Like a little bitch.”
Jean’s self-image did not allow for woe-is-me waffling. Her whole identity was about being bold and tough, with a take-no-prisoners attitude. It was Charlie’s fault she’d turned gelatinous on the inside.
“And he denied the Adriana thing? We’re supposed to believe she’s not here for him? Even after she did that poem?”
Jean waited in case Hildy wanted to stab her again. “He claimed he wasn’t sleeping with any of them.”
Hildy crumpled her cheese wrapper. “There’s something else going on here. With Adriana. Something we’re not seeing. I can smell it.”
“Yeah, it smells like horseshit to me.” This was a lie; Adriana smelled like ginger and cloves, and Jean had no reason to believe the pop star was pretending. Her performance at cowboy poetry night had seemed pretty direct.
“Even if they’re not together now, there’s no way he chooses me instead. ‘Sorry, smokin’ hot superstar, I prefer this random hotel employee I met on vacation.’”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“I give myself plenty of credit.” Jean pounded her breastbone with the flat of her hand, as if she could drive the words home. “I like who I am. Confident, freaky, talented. I don’t need to jeopardize all that by going after someone like Charlie. Why would I set myself up to fail?”
“So you’re afraid,” Hildy translated.
“Immune to reverse psychology is what I am.” Jean touched her bottom lip. Her mouth was still tender from kissing Charlie, but how long would the feeling last—a couple of hours at most? Their time together was a Polaroid in reverse, already fading back to black.
“It’s not even the losing that gets me,” she admitted. “I don’t like it, but I’ll survive. The problem with the Adriana Asebedo situation is that it changes who I thought he was. Knowing he was with her rewrites everything I thought I knew about Charlie. Like now he’s partly hers.”
Instead of all mine.
Jean had never considered herself a touch-him-and-die type. But Charlie had made her believe she meant more to him than anyone elseever, past or future. Finding out about Adriana Asebedo threw that certainty into doubt. Even Jean’s self-esteem was hard-pressed to imagine Adriana hadn’t left a permanent mark, her initials carved somewhere on his heart.
After all, there was a freaking song about it.
“It doesn’t matter what’s going on with those two,” Jean reminded herself. “I’m supposed to be making a dramatic exit.”
“About that.” Hildy tugged one of her curls.
“What?”
“I might have rear-ended someone.” She made a pinching motion with her thumb and forefinger. “A teensy bit.”
“How? When?”
“I had to move the Jeep so they could unload the trucks. Itwas chaotic. Also, what kind of car doesn’t have those little sensors that tell you when you’re about to crash into something? There should have been beeps or flashing lights.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Fine.” Hildy fluffed her hair, confirming that her most important body part had come through unscathed.
“I take it the car is not?”
“My family is extremely lawsuit cautious. My uncle sent someone to tow it back to town, just in case. We’ll let insurance handle it.” Hildy waved a hand like that solved the problem.
“We’re stuck here—no way out?”
“It’s not like we’re locked inside a haunted house with a serial killer on the loose,” Hildy said in her most soothing tone.
“What about calling a Lyft?”
