Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,35
come in.”
I considered this as I chewed. I hadn’t realized that about myself. Surely, that can’t be true, can it?
“It’s true,” he said, as though reading my mind. “I figured he’d still be with you by the time I finished the call I was on. Figured he’d likely be stretching things out. I knew you’d pull out the phone. And if it were me, reappearing after all those years, I’d make it my business to find out who was texting or calling my long-lost love.”
I speared a stalk of asparagus. “He saw it. I dropped my phone—”
Jackson’s rich laughter rolled through the deepening shadows. “Of course you did, Zora.”
“Shut up.” I couldn’t help cracking up at my own usual awkwardness. “I dropped it, okay, and he read it—”
“What did he say?”
“You are enjoying this way too much.”
“I’m sorry.” He made a half-hearted attempt to wipe the smile from his face with a large hand. “What did good ol’ Nick have to say when he saw you were on your way home to Daddy?”
I hurled a crumpled napkin at him. “You don’t want to know.”
Jackson’s fork paused midway to his mouth. “Actually, I do.”
“Please don’t make me.”
“Zora.”
I took my time chewing another stalk of asparagus. “He mentioned something about . . . your height in high school.”
An unholy light flared in Jackson’s eyes. “I blame you,” he said deliberately, pointing his fork in my direction.
“Why is this my fault?”
“First you tell all those people I don’t make you come—”
“Jackson.” I laughed helplessly. “I told you that’s not what happened. The computer came on all by itself!”
He shook his head. “So the computer can come on all by itself, but you can’t?”
Now I was laughing so hard I had to set my food to the side. God, what a crazy few days.
“They heard an early draft of an educational video. We were role playing. Literally no one thinks that video had anything to do with me in real life. It was scripted.”
He shook his head. “Everyone in that room, from now on, is going to look at you and think, ‘No wonder that poor girl is so uptight. It’s because Jackson James isn’t getting the job done.’”
“I am not uptight.”
He scoffed, sawing off another piece of meat. “Please. You’re far too self-aware to be pretending you don’t know that about yourself.”
“So this is about your pride? It’s important to you that three strangers at the university think you’re a bad lover?”
“Yes. I take that seriously. I don’t leave a job unfinished. Ever.” He watched me beneath lowered lids. “I’ll prove it right now. Take off your pants.”
I ignored him. “No, your timing was perfect. He saw it. And his face got all—”
“Jealous,” Jackson supplied.
“Yes,” I crowed, relishing the memory of Nick’s tight expression.
He studied me. “Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Your face is all scrunched up, like you’re confused about something.”
“I guess . . .” I thought about it. “He dumped me. He left me. And I still don’t know where he went for so many years or what happened.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I know I had unrealistic expectations. I had this stupid fantasy that we’d see each other again one day and it would just, I don’t know, work out. I was stupid, naive. Childish.” I couldn’t look Jackson in the eye. “I’m explaining badly. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t? Are we living in some revisionist version of history in which Ashley Winston did not return after eight years of being gone and immediately take up with Drew Runous?”
I winced. “Yeah, that’s right. And you still see her all the time around town. You do understand.”
He lifted a shoulder before going after more green beans. “Eh. She never made me any promises—not like y’all—and I’m happy for her. I really am. Not how I might’ve imagined things turning out all these years later, even with me being an idiot at times but . . . what can you do? Can’t fight fate.”
I watched him, taking in the drawn lines around his eyes and mouth, lines that even the deepening shadows of dusk didn’t hide. “You alright, Jackson? You have a hard day? A bad call?”
His sigh originated from the pit of his belly. “Just a crap day. People can’t take a speeding ticket with good grace.”
I fought back a smile. “You still lighting up anything that moves a single mile over the speed limit?”
He threw me a mock glare. “Rules are rules for a reason, cupcake. Everyone would do well to remember that.