The pictures? The thought flitted through my mind.
Jack nodded. He looked destroyed. God, and in pain. He’d been betrayed again, but all I could think about was me right now.
Jazz stepped past him and marched to me, her face a mask of concern and rage mixed together. I shook my head, like if she didn’t get to me and show me, then it wouldn’t be real.
“I don’t want to see them, please don’t,” I said as Jazz got close. She wrapped me up in her arms. I buried my face in her vanilla hair.
“It’s bad,” she whispered against my ear. “Really bad. It’s a reporter. He showed up and spoke to Joey this morning, gave him this, he wanted a statement from you. Joey would have come here himself but didn’t want to lead him to you, so he called me. You can deal. Okay? You can totally handle this.”
I peeled back.
She grabbed my face, morphing into a pillar of strength as she realized I wasn’t coping. “Seriously. You can deal with this. You’ve gone through worse.”
I nodded, though I didn’t know what I was agreeing with.
Behind Jazz, Jack conversed briefly with Dan, the captain of the boat, then started talking on his phone. He paced back and forth and kicked an imaginary object. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms for having to always go through this. I wanted him to wrap me up and tell me it was all a joke.
Taking a deep and bracing breath, I looked back at Jazz. I needed to see it all and know what I was dealing with. What we were dealing with, I corrected myself.
“All right, show me,” I said to Jazz. The buzzing in my ears from nerves and dread made me feel off-balance.
The moment I saw the pictures of Jack and me from seven months ago, just as Jack described, my stomach finally rebelled. I turned, making it to the edge of the dock. As I looked down, the churning coalesced into a sharp spasm and I gave in to it, opening my throat and throwing up my breakfast and my worst nightmare into the marsh reeds and black pluff mud.
Nice.
Belatedly, the words accompanying the picture joined the throng of torture in my head. I wiped my stinging eyes and grabbed the paper from Jazz.
Jack approached, holding a bottle of water.
The headline, Audrey loses baby in grief over Jack’s cheating ways, was followed by a messy timeline dating back well before I’d met Jack. I was one in a long line of conquests, according to the article, but held particular significance because I caused such a rift in their relationship that she’d lost her baby. And in her grief she’d sought comfort and solace from the director of her new movie. Whatever. But it was all so … believable.
“Look, I can talk to him,” Jack said to whoever was on the phone. He handed me the water but didn’t look at me.
Please look at me.
“Have Sheila and my lawyer reach out to him. See if we can come to some kind of deal before he turns the story in. He can’t use the pictures without being sued. I own the rights. And I can promise you, I’ll sue the fuck out of him. But realistically, he’ll use them, then retract, so he’ll still get impact.”
“I can’t believe one girl can be such a bitch.” Jazz grimaced.
“Yeah,” Jack murmured. “She just waited until we were out of the contract and did exactly what she’d wanted to all along.” He turned toward the boat, looking out into the distance.
He hadn’t touched me since we’d left the cottage. I felt the loss of it keenly. At the same time I felt so irrationally angry and irritated with him, I felt if he touched me, I’d cringe.
“We need to get to Savannah.” Jack said to us, as he ended his phone call. “Devon will pick us up. I’ll arrange to meet this guy there instead of back in Butler Cove. Then maybe you guys can get home without him bothering you.” He headed toward the boat.
God. Was this going to be my life?
“How’s Joey?” I asked Jazz, my throat raspy.
She pursed her lips. “Mad as a yellow jacket. He said Jack swore to him this wouldn’t happen.”
“When did you do that?” I asked Jack’s back.
He shrugged, not turning around. “Yesterday. On the beach.”
Please look at me, I willed him again, to no avail.
We climbed on the boat and Jazz’s phone buzzed. She paused to pull it out of her back pocket. “Oh shit buckets,” she said.
“What?”