"Great. Now I have a girl's name."
"Shit happens, biker boy. My point before you tried to dick measure me was in Last Dollar no one knows you. No one cares about you either. There are no expectations, and you can grow the fuck up and find your balls. Once you figure out who you are, you'll know if you really want Sawyer. Who knows? You might even return to Ellsberg and pick a hairstyle based on your own taste rather than doing the fangirling crap you are now."
"You're a fascinating woman," I say to her, and she smiles at my sarcasm.
"Thank you, Jarvis Todds."
"At least I'm a guy again."
"Seeing your balls beginning to descend, I want to encourage you."
Bodie stands. "We're going to run around town again. As much as I know you love to follow us around, why not skip it for today? After our naps, we're going boating. It'll be a good chance to see how much you want Sawyer."
"Why then?"
"Three hot girls in bikinis. If you can see her past all this hotness, you might actually like her."
"Your confidence is admirable."
"Because it's real, Jace Todds," she says, giving me a wink. "Your confidence is a con. Work on that or else Stanley or some other guy will sweep in to steal away Sawyer."
Bodie walks to the front and pays for her coffee. After bullshitting with the waitresses, she leaves me to finish my breakfast. The food is cold, but I force it down because my adopted mom Toni hated when we wasted food.
Even after Bodie's speech, I still can't shake my frigging need to please people who aren't even in the same state.
Chapter 17
Sawyer
Anchor
Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls wakes me from my nap. Before deciding whether to get up, I reach for the phone and find my mom's picture smiling back at me. The pang of homesickness is undeniable, but I put on my happy voice when answering.
"How's the cruise?"
"Great. I met a few nice people. Also a lot of a stuck up assholes, but you know what I do with them."
I smile. "I miss you."
"I miss you too, baby. Cooper told me you're in Texas staying with the McLaughlins."
"Yeah," I say, waiting for the lecture.
"He also said you plan to stay there, so he sent Jace to bring you back. How you feeling about spending time with the ex?"
Realizing my mom knows not to give a lecture, I miss her even more. "It's weird. He wants to be friends again. He's also been kissing me."
"Do you want to be his friend?"
"Maybe."
I hear voices from Mom's end before she asks, "Do you want him back?"
"No."
"It still counts as lying when you do it on the phone."
Smiling, I sigh. "I don't know. The kissing feels good, but I still hate him. Besides, does it really matter what I want? It sure didn't when he dumped me, so I don't see why it would it now."
"Jace is still a young guy, and young men are stupid, Sawyer. When Tucker fell for Maddy, he messed with her birth control pills. When Cooper fell for Farah, he scared her and put Nick in the hospital. Jace is like most young men when they fall in love."
"Maybe," I say, thinking about my brother-in-law Nick who for some reason married Bailey. I've always suspected when Cooper hit him, Nick suffered a brain injury.
"Jace is impossible to read. He says he wants to be friends then he kisses me then he acts as if we're just friends and then he acts like he might be into Bodie. She might be into him too. They talked this morning."
"Have you asked Bodie?"
"No. I'm afraid she'll say yes, and I'll have a death match with her. I'm not sure I can win that."
"What can one of those crazy McLaughlins offer Jace that you can't give him two-fold?"
"He left me though."
"He's a messed up guy. His parents got massacred. The fuckers even killed their dog. That'll mess up a kid, and his fucked up brain never really got fixed. Therapy might help Farah and Tawny, but Jace seems as fucked up now as when he first came to Ellsberg. He just hides it better."
"So maybe I shouldn't want someone so fucked up."
"Maybe you shouldn't, but the heart doesn't take orders."
When I say nothing, Mom continues, "If your pop had dumped me, I wouldn't have moved on either. He was mine, and no other man would do. Holding onto what I loved wouldn't make me weak. It'd make me strong enough to be alone rather than with a man who gives me less than I need."
I think about how my parents didn't make any sense on paper. They made sense in every other way though. I always figured I'd find the same kind of right.
"Jace feels right to me, but he left me before, and I'm afraid to look like a fool by trusting him again."
Mom doesn't speak for a minute. "You're scary when you're pissed. Try being less scary and see what happens."