The Davis Years (Indigo) (25 page)

“Just sometimes,” he said, sparing her. “No, not a lot.” She didn’t need to know the truth. He’d done this to himself. It was his job to bear the burden of his mistakes. Besides, it was kind of true. He hadn’t been drinking all that much for the past few weeks.

“Oh. Well. I really feel this is going to work out for the best.”

“I think it already has. I shouldn’t be getting into other people’s lives and ruining them, anyway.”

“You know what we’re gonna do?” Codie stood and placed her hands on her narrow hips.

“What?”

“We’re going to watch one of those awful, gross comedies you like, talk about stupid stuff, and order disgustingly greasy pizza because I’m a really, really good friend.”

Davis finally smiled. “Yes. You are.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

“Not even if you’d let me.”

Codie went to find her phone and order the pizza. Meanwhile, Davis called the restaurant to let them know he wouldn’t be in for the next few nights because he was sick. It wasn’t so far from the truth. His manager wasn’t happy.

“What do you mean, sick?” he said.

“I mean sick. As in I’m not coming in tonight. Probably not tomorrow night, either.”

“Don’t bother coming in Monday night then. I thought we were past this crap. Didn’t I tell you the last time I re-hired you that you were getting one more chance? Guess what? Chance blown.”

“Fine.” He pressed his fingertips to his forehead. He’d been fired too many times to be fazed by it. And it had been the “last time” many times before as well. The guy just needed a week or two to cool off.

“You can pick up your last check when you drop off your aprons. You won’t be getting it direct deposit.”

“I know the drill.”

His manager grumbled a few choice words before slamming down the phone. Davis shrugged and tossed his cell phone onto the coffee table.

He lay down on her couch and tried unsuccessfully to shut out pictures of the night before that he’d spent with Jemma.

***

Friday night, Jemma sat at a small table in a bar with Emily Rose and Meg. It was Emily Rose’s last night with them. The next morning, she would be leaving for New York. All night, Jemma kept telling herself she didn’t miss Davis. That she barely thought about him. So they’d spent a few fun days together. Fun was over. And it was almost time for her to leave anyway. She thought maybe if she repeated it to herself enough, she’d start to believe it.

Not far into the night, the conversation turned to the wedding and marriage in general, which turned into talk about Meg’s recent engagement to her boyfriend. Meg and her boyfriend had gone away for a few days after the wedding, and he’d popped the question at their favorite restaurant. He was being shipped off to Afghanistan soon and he’d wanted to ask before he went. They were getting married the first opportunity he had to come home—as soon as he got his first leave from duty over there. Nothing fancy. Just a trip to city hall.

“That’s so romantic,” Jemma said with a smile, stirring the ice in her drink with the cocktail straw, resting her chin in her hand.

Emily Rose turned to her and raised her eyebrows. “Says Miz Anti-Romantic? You must be drunk.”

“No, really, it’s sweet. He wants to be with you so much. And you’re getting married as soon as he comes back?”

“Yeah, pretty much. As long as he comes back in one piece,” Meg said with a worried laugh.

Emily Rose put a hand on Meg’s arm. “Oh, Meg. That’s so scary. I’ll be praying for him.”

Meg nodded, and shook her black hair over her shoulders. “Yeah, well, don’t let me kill the party. Em Rose, your wedding was gorgeous. I want Ed and me to have a reception like that one day. We’ve talked about it for after his tour is over.”

“Yeah.” Jemma pushed away thoughts of dancing with Davis at that very reception. “Everything was perfect.”

“I can’t take all the credit.” Emily Rose rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to thank Ms. Fletcher for taking over my wedding.”

“Aw. I’m sure things’ll get better now that she realizes you’re not going anywhere.”

“I hope so,” Emily Rose said with a sigh.

Emily Rose and Meg started talking about mother-in-laws and wedding decorations and Jemma sat back with a sigh. She realized at that moment just how much she’d screwed up. She wanted what Meg and Emily Rose had with their men. None of the excuses she’d given Davis that morning were good enough. She hadn’t given one good reason for her to leave him behind.

She wanted that one who made her heart jump. The one she’d run off. She didn’t even know where he’d gone. He refused to return any of her calls.

“What’s wrong?” Emily Rose asked. “You look so sad all of a sudden.”

Jemma was about to reply when a man put a hand on the back of her chair and leaned over to talk to her. “I’m about to leave, but I had to come over here to tell you that I cannot leave this bar tonight without at least saying hi to you.”

“Do I know you?” Jemma looked up into the man’s tan, handsome face. He had dark eyes and a wide, charming smile. She didn’t think so, but there was something familiar about him.

“I know I want you to.” He straightened and extended his hand. “I’m Alex.”

“Alex . . .” She bit her lower lip, thinking. She did know him from somewhere. Suddenly, it hit her. Davis, that clown Parker, and Alex had been co-captains of the lacrosse team. “Alex? From Derring High? The lacrosse team?”

Alex looked a little thrown off, but he nodded. “Yeah. You are?”

“Jemma Jenkins.”

“Jemma?” Alex took a step back and gave her a scrutinizing look. “Jemma Jenkins? Really?” He scratched the back of his head, still looking unsure of what he was seeing.

“Yeah.” She knew she looked different, but she hadn’t realized she looked that different.

A grin slowly replaced the look of confusion. “Well, you sure changed a lot, huh?” Alex moved closer. His friends waved to him and he held up his hand and mouthed something to them. “I guess they’re ready to go, but wow. You are smoking. If only Davis knew what he was missin’ out on now.” Alex walked back to his friends who were waiting for him by the door. Little did he know; Davis wasn’t missing it all that much, apparently.

Jemma pushed her braids away from her face where they’d fallen. “Alex Ford,” she murmured.

“How about that?” Emily Rose said, and Meg agreed.

Jemma had to laugh. “Yeah, how about it?”

Later that night, Jemma lay with the side of her head pressed to Emily Rose’s, their bodies in opposite directions. They were lying on Emily Rose’s floor. The room was eerily empty as Emily Rose had packed up most of her things and sent them either to New York or put them in her parents’ attic. The Bradens were going to convert Emily Rose’s room into a room for Branson as part of their effort to get Tara to bring him to visit more often.

“I’m sorry,” Emily Rose said.

Jemma put her hands up in front of her face, staring at her polish, wondering how much longer she could go before her next manicure. Otherwise, her mind would go where she least wanted it to. “For? You didn’t do anything.”

“I took you to that bar. Alex brought back bad memories. I could tell.”

“Like you knew he was going to be there.” Jemma laughed. “You’re a horrible person, Em Rose. I’m never speaking to you again.”

“Yeah, yeah. Still, I’m sorry you had to be reminded of, um, him tonight.”

Jemma dropped her hands onto her stomach and looked up at the ceiling. “So how’s Michael doing with the job stuff?”

“He’s still interviewing, but he has a couple coming up next week he has really good feelings about. It’s always iffy, though. And money is going to be really tight until he finds something. I’m probably going to substitute teach until next year. I didn’t jump on the job search right away because I wasn’t sure if I’d go to work this year. We’d talked about starting a family right away. But with Michael having such a hard time finding a job and his shrew of a mother threatening to cut him off financially, we need all the money we can get. It’s kind of late in the summer now, but I’m going to see what’s available. Maybe I can still find a full-time teaching position.”

“She’s worse than I thought. You two will make it, though. But in New York? Shouldn’t there pretty much always be open positions?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I want to teach in public schools.”

“That’s the problem. They need more good teachers like you.”

“Yeah, well. We’ll see,” Emily Rose said.

Jemma sat up and fanned herself with a folded piece of paper she’d taken from Emily’s box of miscellaneous things and packing supplies. “You really don’t want to, huh?”

“I have this conversation with Michael almost every night. I’m tired of having it. Can we please talk about something else?”

“Okay. For now.” Jemma lay back down.

Emily Rose nudged the side of Jemma’s head with hers. “So you thought any more about this Smooth thing?”

When wasn’t she thinking about her impending visit to the prison? Oh, right, when she was thinking about Davis. “Yeah.” Jemma heaved a heavy sigh and rested her arm across her face.

“And?”

“I’m going to call down to the prison soon. See when visiting hours are.”

She’d put off scheduling the visit ever since she decided to go see him. It was time to stop doing that, though. She had to talk to him and she might as well get it over with as soon as possible. Dealing with Smooth was the next step she had to take in confronting her past. Whatever came of it, she knew what she had to do. She couldn’t run anymore. Running had always caused more trouble.

Jemma woke up Saturday morning, still on the floor. She looked toward the rain spattered window across from where she lay. She’d been awakened by the sound of thunder, but the brief thunderstorm was already passing by the time she opened her eyes. She’d lain there for a while before admitting to herself she was awake.

She felt disgusting. She’d fallen asleep the night before without meaning to and was still in the same clothes she’d worn to the bar. Ugh, the bar. Her head hurt when she remembered seeing Alex. Because that, of course, led to thinking of Davis.

Despite her unsettled stomach and her cantankerous mood, she was going to see Emily Rose off with a smile on her face. She was going to miss Em Rose, but she reminded herself that it wasn’t going to be like their last goodbye. It wouldn’t be six years again before they next saw each other.

Jemma made her way downstairs and found Emily Rose in the kitchen with her parents. After chatting a bit with the Bradens and grabbing a piece of toast, Jemma wandered outside with Emily Rose.

“You okay? And by that I mean tell me what’s up with you. Because something obviously is,” Emily Rose said.

Jemma sagged onto the swing and pressed her chin into the chain that suspended it from the roof of the porch. “I blew my only chance at what I really want.”

“Are you finally admitting your real feelings?” Emily Rose sat next to her.

Jemma shrugged. “What does it matter if I am? He’s done with me now.”

Em Rose put an arm around her. “Don’t be so sure.”

She rested her head on Em Rose’s shoulder. “I haven’t heard from him since he left me at his house. He just—disappeared.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to call.”

“He wouldn’t answer when I called.”

“When was the last time you tried?”

“Yesterday. Afternoon.”

“Well, maybe after sleeping on it, he feels just as rotten as you do and he feels too stupid to call you first.”

Jemma chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. She wondered how much hope she should put into Emily Rose’s words. Hope had never gotten her very far in the past. Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about Davis and how if she already missed him so much, maybe going really would be worse than staying. Or at least going alone would be.

“You love him, Jemma.”

She looked down at her hands.

“You know he loves you, too, right? Anybody and everybody can see that.”

“So what do I do now?” Jemma asked, not really expecting an answer.

Emily Rose squeezed her shoulders. “This time, you stay.”

“Huh?”

“That’s it. That’s my advice. You stay.”

“That’s some crappy advice.”

Emily Rose laughed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the cool breeze that followed the morning’s quick summer thundershower. There were good reasons to leave Derring, weren’t there? But if she had to keep reminding herself of those reasons, were they really good ones?

“So you all were talking about Tara when I came in the kitchen this morning. Something about her calling last night?”

“Yeah. She only calls when she wants something.” After a brief pause, Emily Rose said, “I guess I do feel kind of sorry for her. I think I’m getting over any envy I ever felt for her. Thanks to—well, it’s not important who.”

“It’s okay. You can say his name.”

“Davis really did help me a lot on my wedding day.”