I pulled up a chair opposite her. “I’m stunned. In a good way.”
“Good.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“Yes, well, I could see he was upset, and,” she peered up at me through her eyeglass rims, “as crazy as it seems, just yesterday before he came by, I had my score book with me that I’d taken to Canasta, and blow me down if a letter didn’t fall out of it while I was standing in my own kitchen. And not just any letter, neither.” She raised her penciled-in brows.
“Not …” I was going the say The letter, one of grandpa’s letters, the one Nana says changed her mind about marrying him. I glanced over to the campaign desk. I could just see the edge of it in the parlor from where I sat in the kitchen.
Mrs. Weaton scowled. “I know. I know exactly where you keep the letters, where this one was. But I’m telling you it ended up in my scorebook.”
“The letter?” My skin chilled. “Really? You’re not messing with me?”
“Honey, I would’ve thought it a coincidence or whatnot, if that boy hadn’t but five minutes later been on my doorstep with pages of a letter asking to make sure you got them.”
“They were pages from his journal.”
“Oh. Well.”
“It was better than a letter. It was his diary from when he was away all this time.” God, it was so much more than some letter or email or text he may have conjured up in a fit of rejection and depression.
I still wasn’t totally sure about him and Audrey and the pregnancy, but whatever had happened before, I could tell from his journal that they were definitely over now. And that he’d struck some kind of deal for me.
The thought of sharing my diary, my innermost thoughts and insecurities with anyone, made me shudder. The fact that Jack, a guy who people sold out on a daily basis, whether for a picture, an autograph, or a sordid exclusive, gave me these pages was shocking. The fact he trusted me not to share them, or Mrs. Weaton, for that matter, was …
“What are you waiting for?” Mrs. Weaton asked, tapping her pencil.
“Thank you!” I yelled out over my shoulder as I jogged outside into the bright sunshine and jumped into the truck. To Mrs. Weaton or Nana, I wasn’t sure. Joey’s car was gone, and I was relieved.
I’d moved through a full spectrum of emotions as I read those pages—from happiness, to sadness, to anger—and realized at one point I had dried tears on my cheeks. It was impossible to tell if every page was there, but I had to believe if he was willing to share the part about almost doing something with that girl, that he was telling me everything. Everything he needed to anyway.
He’d come here afraid to face me, afraid I’d reject him, and I’d done just that. He thought I was dating Colt, and yet he still put himself out there for me.
My heart squeezed.
Winding back through what I’d read as I drove, I felt so proud of him getting involved in the writing and directing. Making a name for himself. Showing people he was capable of more. Man, and I was so sad for him when he talked about his father, proud he’d been trying to find out more, and understand more, in what I knew were difficult memories.
I came to a stop at the light on Atlantic and Palmetto and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. The window was still down in my truck from last night, and the cool spring sea breeze helped calm by impatience. How long could this traffic light possibly be?
And his mother? I wanted to hug her for understanding him so much and getting him to open up the only way she knew how. I laughed through my tears. A message in a bottle. That’s exactly what he was. He’d tried to open up to me and I’d been the one too afraid.
He’d hurt me. Nothing could be undone, but how I chose to move past it would change the rest of my life. I was still nervous about who he was, and what that meant for me. Especially now that I really understood how much he loved the craft of it. But I wondered if we could find a way to try and have a relationship separate from the celebrity-ness. We had to try.
Pulling into the driveway of Devon’s gorgeous beach house, I saw the silver Jeep pulled in under the house. That didn’t mean Jack was here, though. That thought sat menacingly in the back of my mind. What if he’d left?
I jogged up the stairs to the periwinkle blue front door, holding the white painted cottage bannister and knocked, my heart literally pounding in my ears.
Why was blood so hard to move when you were nervous?
After a few moments of thinking my head would explode or I’d get sick, the door opened.
Devon.
I tried not to let my deflating shoulders be too obvious.
“Hi,” I said as he stood there expressionlessly. Very different from the Devon I’d met previously who’d seemed to be on my, or at least “our” side. The side of us getting back together. I’d be pissed off at me, too. I hated to think what they’d talked about after I kicked Jack out of my truck. Now that I really understood how Jack felt …
I shifted my weight. “Uh, is—”