Cletus stood and I stood in unison. Jess turned to us with a small smile.
“I’m glad you’re okay and I’m glad you called Duane.” She gave him a tight hug. “Sorry for giving you a hard time.”
“You’re not sorry.” He lifted an eyebrow at her as she pulled away.
“You’re right. I’m not.” Jessica shrugged, grinning.
“Hmm. Well, regardless, thanks for letting me borrow Duane’s driving skills.”
“You know he loves to help.” Jessica turned to me. “I’m sorry about your brother saying nasty things, but I’m glad Cletus was there to break his jaw.”
A small burst of laughter tumbled from my lips. I didn’t know how to feel about Isaac or his broken jaw. The things he’d said . . .
Her eyes moved over me, then she tsked and gathered me into a snug hug. “Let me know when y’all are ready for Big Todd’s. Duane and I don’t mind going back, whenever.”
My expression was both a smile of gratefulness and a frown of confusion as she pulled away. “What’s Big Todd’s?”
Her gaze jumped to Cletus then to mine, her eyes wider than before and her voice an octave higher. “Uh, it’s a shop. And, when you’re ready to go, just give me a call. Cletus has my number.” She tossed her thumb over her shoulder and walked backward to the door. “I have to get out of here now, before I’m late for the thing.”
With that Jessica turned and fled, shutting the door firmly behind her, and leaving us alone.
Completely and utterly alone.
. . . yep.
After a full minute, I slid my eyes to the side and up to his profile. He was staring at the door with a thoughtful frown, and his gaze appeared to be unfocused. My attention dropped to his neck, where his jacket met his bare skin. I licked my lips. Now I knew what his skin tasted like.
The evening had been a turbulent ride of emotion and crazy. I was tired, but I was also wired. And sad, because of Isaac. And elated, because of what had happened in the car with Cletus. But then, sad again, because . . . what did it mean?
I thought about the words he’d said to Billy at the restaurant in Nashville, while everyone was pretending not to listen. If it’s an empty, physical attraction, then there was no point in persuing a relationship with the person. Paired with his comment in the car moments ago, about living in the fantasy, my heart hurt at the possibility that Cletus didn’t much like me.
He liked the way I looked, the thrilling grope-fest moments ago had made that fact abundantly clear; but how he felt—or didn’t feel—about me as a person remained a mystery.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true. His words at the Piggly Wiggly were still on my mind, but I hadn’t had the time to process them. Do you honestly think God would make a creature as lovely and talented and good as your sister, and then make the way she looks something sinful? Something to be ashamed of? No. He wouldn’t. If anything, your sister—her face, her body, her mind, and her heart—give glory to Him. And she shouldn’t be hidden. You don’t hide something that remarkable away from the world, like your parents have done, like you want to do. That’s the true sin.
Yet even though he’d said those lovely words in my defense, I wasn’t what he wanted. He’d made that abundantly clear.
Instinct and experience had me preparing my heart for rejection. But then a flare of anger surged and sent a spike of determination down my spine. I straightened, standing as tall as I could, and crossed my arms. I angled my chin, resolve chasing my fear away. I wasn’t going to twist myself into knots, try to be something I wasn’t. I wasn’t crying over him or anyone else.
I am who I am. I am who I’m becoming.
“I’d like to go home now,” I announced to the room.
Cletus flinched just slightly, as though I’d startled him. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then turned to me. He didn’t touch me, just moved his eyes over my face as though it might’ve changed in the last hour.
“Jennifer,” he started, stopped, pressed his lips together, frowned, swallowed, then began again. “We need to talk.”
“Fine. Talk.”
He gathered a large breath and adopted his thoughtful frown, it was the face he used when delivering bad news. “Here are the facts: you and I aren’t suited, but I—”
“Fine. I’d like to go home now.” I lifted my chin higher, calm detachment permeating every syllable. My heart hardened further, growing cold in my chest. If he didn’t like me for who I was, then . . . he can keep his bull, because the cow just died.
“Wait. I’m not finished.”
“I don’t care.”
“Hear me out.” His frowned deepened, looking more genuine, and his hand rose to my arm as though to hold me in place.