He was gone.
He was already at his table with his friends.
“That. Was. Awesome!” Ben breathed out and jumped to my side.
He sounded so excited, but the embarrassment was gone for me. Oh, no. Instead, I kicked myself. I should’ve known he wasn’t coming over to chat with me or see how I was. He found my shirt. Of course, that was the only reason he came over.
I felt the onslaught of a few tears. Hell no. I wasn’t going to cry over him. He didn’t deserve it and I knew that whatever twisted tradition we had on the days that celebrated Ethan’s birth and death was done.
As I watched him stand up with his friends and leave, I knew I couldn’t allow it to happen again. He didn’t give me a second look. He walked out as if we were strangers again, which we were. And I couldn’t forget it, even though I knew I was in love with Jesse Hunt. I always had been.
CHAPTER THREE
The rest of the summer passed uneventfully until the first week in August. I saw Jesse a few times at parties, but we didn’t speak until Angie asked me to attend one of Justin’s softball games with her. When I realized Jesse was on his team, it had been a shock, but it shouldn’t have been. Even though he was awarded a full scholarship to Grant West University for basketball, I knew he was talented in other sports. And baseball had been one of the others. He and Ethan would spend hours in the backyard pitching the ball to each other. Most of the times it was wiffle ball, but both of them played softball and baseball during the summers.
As I watched him, I swore I felt Ethan beside me. Everything was starting to tingle inside of me and I could smell his cologne. I swallowed thickly when I felt tears start to swell up. As I continued to sit through the first game, my brother’s presence was so strong. I couldn’t hold the tears anymore. After the last inning when Jesse’s team scored their last home run, I couldn’t watch him run the bases for home plate and I left the bleachers.
“Alex!” Angie called after me, but I kept going.
I brushed some of the tears away and hid in her car until the crowd had started to leave. It was twenty minutes later when I saw members of their team going towards their cars. As I hunkered down and waited for Angie, I looked up and gasped. Jesse stood in front of the car. His dark eyes held mine captive. Then he blinked and the small spell was broken. I held my breath and waited. A part of me knew he would leave and not care about me, but the other part of me thought he’d come to the window.
He did nothing. He stood there and stared at me.
I realized he was waiting for me to decide, so I opened the door and crawled out. My legs were unsteady as I leaned back against the car and he came around to my side.
He smelled of sweat and dirt. The front of his softball uniform was covered in the field’s sand from when he had slid to the bases. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead; his hair was drenched from it. Then he ran a hand through it and I saw it was water instead.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a low voice. He had no emotion, as always.
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Angie wanted to watch Justin. I came for support.”
His jaw clenched, he rubbed a hand over his chin.
Everything in me was chaos, but I rasped out, “I didn’t know you were on the team.”
“Why would that matter?”
My eyes jerked to his and I saw the question was real. I couldn’t stop a snort in disbelief. “Are you kidding? You hate me.”
“Oh.” Then he looked away.
My nerves were stretched to the max as I waited for him to talk. I needed something, anything. I wanted to hear that he didn’t hate me, but after another minute of silence I knew it wasn’t coming. My gut had been right.
When he turned back, his eyes were piercing. A dark emotion was there, but he held it back. “Come over tonight.”
“What?”
“Come over tonight.”
“Why? It’s not Ethan’s—”
But I was stopped as he stepped close. His body heat radiated off of him in waves and I held my breath. His fingers touched the side of my hip and he lowered his lips so they were an inch from mine. He said again, “Come over tonight.”
I closed my eyes when his hand touched the side of my face and I nodded. I would’ve given him anything in that moment. His lips touched my forehead in a soft kiss and then he ran his thumb over my cheek before he left.
“See ya, Hunt!” Justin hollered and I was jerked back to reality.
It was sweltering outside. I gasped for breath. As I fanned myself, I knew my entire face was red, but I couldn’t ignore Angie’s silence. I knew she had witnessed that and I knew she was biding her time until we were alone. And because I didn’t want to undergo an interrogation, I did something I hadn’t done in a year and a half.
I twisted around and shouted, “Jesse!”
He stopped and looked back, waiting.
“Alex?” Angie asked in a soft voice.
My heart was racing, but I took a deep breath. “Can I get a ride with you?”
He had pulled his black shades back on so his eyes were blocked, but he didn’t respond for a moment. And then his shoulder jerked up in a shrug and relief exploded inside of me. I trembled from the onslaught of it, but grabbed my purse and bolted around the car.
“Wha—huh?” Justin glanced at his girlfriend. “Ang?”
Her mouth snapped shut and she folded her arms.
I ignored it all and picked up my pace as Jesse had started for his car again. He didn’t wait for me until he got into the Ferrari. My fingers fumbled for the door handle. I cursed after the sixth try. It still wouldn’t open. He leaned across and opened it from the inside for me. When I climbed in, the air conditioner was already working and blasted me with cool air, but I glanced at him. I expected some scathing joke at my clumsiness, but there was nothing. His shades were in place and his lips were flat as he gunned the engine and we soared out of the parking lot.
When he went past my street, I looked over in surprise. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. He kept driving.
Then we went past his street. I sat forward. “Seriously, Jesse. Where are we going?”
The corner of his lip twitched, but he asked in a low voice, “How are your folks?”
“What?”
“Don and Shelby. Your mom and dad. How are they?”
He had
n’t asked about my parents since…I blinked. It’d been before Ethan’s death. A different tension filled my body and I was rigid from my eyeballs to my toenails. “Why are you asking?” I couldn’t keep out the anger and I grimaced against it. I hadn’t wanted him to hear that.
He looked over this time, but didn’t say anything for a second. When he returned to the street, I caught the slight frown on his face. “Is something wrong at home?”
That got a laugh out of me. “Are you kidding?”
The frown vanished. There was nothing again.
I couldn’t stop another laugh and the sound was ugly to my own ears. “No, Jesse. My family’s great. Don and Shelby have mourned the loss of their son in their own way, and me, I’ll be just fine.