Sweet as Pie by Alicia Hunter Pace
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jake swallowed four aspirin and chased them with half a bottle of water.
He hadn’t been drunk since six months ago when the Sound lost in the playoffs, and he hadn’t intended to get drunk last night, but his tolerance was down and one beer had led to another. The empty stomach hadn’t helped. He’d ended up sleeping facedown on the couch in the same sweatpants and T-shirt he’d been wearing for twenty-four hours. Or more. Yeah, it was more.
He switched the TV from the Cowboys/Packers game to The Weather Channel. He couldn’t concentrate on the game anyway. All he could think about was this damn storm and that Evie was out in it.
His doorbell rang. He couldn’t even pretend that it was her. She didn’t have the code to the elevator, and besides, about now she’d be doing whatever women did at showers. He was in no mood for company, but he was in no mood to be alone either, so he moved toward the door. Truth be told, he was in no mood for anything.
“You never called me to work out yesterday,” Robbie said when Jake opened the door.
“No.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “I did not. Sorry.”
“You look bad, Sparks.” Robbie followed him in and back to the den. “You don’t smell too great either. Are you sick?”
Jake sat in the big easy chair and Robbie stretched out on the couch with his hands behind his head.
“I’m not sick,” Jake said.
“Why do you have The Weather Channel on?” Robbie said with some alarm. “Is there a tornado coming?” As a rule, they didn’t get tornadoes in Scotland, and Robbie had an irrational fear of them.
“No,” Jake said. “Not that I know of. They haven’t said anything about it.”
“Then why are you watching The Weather Channel?”
Jake tried to think of a feasible answer, but was too tired to come up with anything but the truth.
“Because Evie’s in Nashville. She’ll be driving back in this if she’s not already.” He paused. “I’m worried about her.”
“Nasty weather to be driving in for sure,” Robbie said. “I wouldn’t want my sisters out in this. Maybe it’s not as bad where she is. What does she say?”
“She doesn’t say anything—at least not to me,” Jake said in a low voice. “We’re not speaking.”
Robbie narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”
Jake bristled. “What makes you think it was me?”
Robbie shrugged. “Just a guess.”
“Well...” Jake took a drink of his water.
“Jake,” Robbie said.
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on here?”
“What makes you think anything’s going on?”
Robbie shook his head. “Because there is.”
Jake took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
And he told him—told him all of it, his attraction to Evie, that she seemed to return it, the hiding from Able, and the fight yesterday. He left nothing out, edited nothing to make himself look better.
When he was done, Robbie let out a low whistle. “Can’t say I’m surprised. I could tell you were interested. I just wasn’t sure you knew.”
“I didn’t. Not at first. But it’s a moot point.”
Robbie sat up on the couch. “Let me see if I’ve got this right.”
“Okay,” Jake said.
“This woman, who has been your friend since the cradle, talked to you every night while we were on the road, came to see you play, drove you home, made you a chocolate pie, made you a pizza—” That thought seemed to distract him. “A real pizza, with dough and everything?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Pepperoni and sausage. No mushrooms.”
“I didn’t even know you could make pizza.”
“Did you think it grows on a bush?”
“No. But I thought it was like jam. Or mayonnaise. You buy it. You don’t make it.”
Jake shrugged. “My grandmother makes mayonnaise. It’s about the only thing she makes, but she says mayonnaise in a jar is an abomination. Some people make jam.”
“How about that,” Robbie said with some wonder. “But not the point.”
“Is there a point?”
“Yes,” Robbie continued. “This woman did all this for you. She let you stay over—”
“There was no sex,” Jake said.
“None?”
“No. Some fooling around, sure, but no sex.”
“Fair enough. Still not the point. She agreed to take off to New Orleans with you because that’s what you wanted.”
“But she didn’t go,” Jake reminded him.
“Because she had another obligation, one that it sounds like she momentarily forgot because her mind was on you—what with all the pizza making and hockey watching.”
“But her obligation was to go to Channing’s baby shower. She didn’t even want to go. She always does that—says yes when she ought to say no.”
“So what?” Robbie asked. “We all have to do things we don’t want to, and Channing is her cousin.”
“She was my friend first!” Then realizing how ridiculous that sounded, Jake added, “Not first, but more. She was more my friend.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Robbie said. “Lots of people are pleasers. Better than being a displeaser. I bet you like it well enough when she tries to please you.”
That struck a nerve. Hadn’t Evie said something similar?
“She needs to stand up for herself,” Jake said.
“As long as it’s not to you.”
“You’re twisting this.”
“That’s what people say when they’re not hearing what they want. Can’t you be glad she wanted to live up to her obligation?”
Just then, the lights flickered and thunder shook the house.
Jake grabbed his phone and looked at the weather app where he’d been tracking the storm—not that it mattered. He had no idea where Evie was. He could call, but he didn’t want her to answer if she was driving in this. He briefly considered calling Channing, but to what end? She might think she could control the weather, but that didn’t make it true.
“I might add: if you had changed your little trip to Nashville like she asked, she wouldn’t be in the storm alone.”
He sighed. “Yeah.” Which was what he should have done. In spite of what he’d said about the humiliation and showing his ass, there had been no good reason not to. He liked Nashville. They could have had fun there. He’d dug his heels in because he wasn’t getting his way.
“I would like to point out that you’re going to Nashville—and soon—unless you plan to sit it out when we play the Sound. I get that Channing is a sore spot for you, but she doesn’t own Nashville.”
That got his hackles up. “I do not have any baggage about Channing. I am over the whole thing.”
“Don’t get shirty with me. I didn’t say you had baggage; I said you had a sore spot.”
“And the difference is?” Though it didn’t matter. He didn’t have either.
“Baggage is like a broken ankle. It will keep you from playing. A sore spot is like a little muscle strain. It’s annoying when you move just wrong, but it doesn’t keep you from playing—or moving on. And before you start denying that, there’d be something wrong with you if you didn’t have a sore spot. Hell, I have a sore spot and she didn’t throw me out of the house on game day and get remarried before the ink on the divorce papers was dry.”
Or make you dinner and have sex with you, and then get up early the next morning and pack your bags.But Robbie didn’t know that; nobody did. Maybe Robbie had a point. Maybe his fight with Evie was about more than digging his heels in because he wasn’t getting his way.
“I wanted Evie to pick me over Channing.” And that was the truth of it.
“Are you fourteen, man?” Robbie asked. “Better question: are you going to keep being fourteen? You had a spat—an argument, a disagreement. You’re acting like she murdered your mum. And, Sparks, I’ve got to say—you’re making too much of this. People argue. If arguing was a sign of the end, I—or any of my sisters—would have never been born because I am here to tell you my mum and dad can go at it. Apologize to her. End the argument. Then get on with this relationship.”
Jake rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I guess I’m still a little stung. But apologize for what exactly?”
“The whole thing, but start with the melodrama. Did you really say to her that it had been good while it lasted and you thought it might have been good for a long time?”
“It’s true,” Jake said, but there wasn’t much conviction in his voice. Out of somebody else’s mouth, it did sound kind of like junior-high-speak.
“If only, if only”—Robbie raised a hand toward heaven—“she had done what you wanted, not carried through on what she’d promised, you maybe could have had life together.” Robbie laughed. “I love you, mate. Love you like the brother one of my sisters should have been, but if you can’t see what I’m talking about, you’re probably never going to have a relationship.”
“Yeah? You think you’re better at relationships?”
“Me?” Robbie said. “No. But I don’t want one. You do.”
“I don’t want just any relationship. I want one with Evie.”
“That’s the point,” Robbie said like he was pleased with himself.
Maybe this was salvageable. Maybe he’d talk to her.
Thunder rumbled again. “Don’t worry about the storm. I’m sure she’s fine,” Robbie said.
“Why are you sure of that?”
“If she’d so much as dented her fender, your mum would be on the phone with you. She’s that sort, your mum.”
“True.” The Delta Queen grapevine was always on high alert. For once, it made him feel better.
“Here’s something else that’s true. You stink. Go shower and let’s go get some food.”
“All right.” Surprisingly, that sounded like a good idea. By the time they finished eating, Evie ought to be back.