Jolene had finally agreed via text to come over, but she hadn’t added any cute smiling emojis or hearts at the end of her sentence, the way she normally would. He missed those damn kissing emojis so hard right now it was ridiculous.
The doorbell rang. When he pulled the door open and greeted Jolene, the look she gave him was cool and dismissive. Instead of coming in, she stood on his doorstep and stared at him like they were strangers. “May I come in?” she finally asked.
“What? Of course you can come in.” Chance was suddenly irritated. “Get your sweet little ass in here.” If she was angry, all this evasiveness pissed him off. Lay your anger on the table and hash that shit out. That was his feeling on it.
She brushed past him without a word. She rolled her hips as she went into the living room, and despite his bewilderment, he couldn’t help but think he was one lucky man to have her in his bed. Or at least he hoped she would still be in his bed. Something was up, and it wasn’t the price of gold.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, because he wasn’t going to spend his morning walking on eggshells. He didn’t do that. Jo would say he was the one who had screwed up, and maybe that was true, but he was too keyed up to drag this out.
“I got shoved by a photographer yesterday in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot.” She turned. “You want to know why?”
“Yes, I would. And I’d like to know his name so I can go have a chat with him. What the hell? They are supposed to respect your personal space.” That seriously scared him. “Maybe you should start using a bodyguard whenever I’m not with you.”
“He shoved me because I got grabby with his cell phone when he showed me a picture of you making out in a pool with Tennyson Mitchell. Care to explain yourself, Rivers?”
There it was. Damn it. Of all the goddamn lousy timing. Here he’d just found out himself, and some paparazzo had gotten the jump on him. Also, why hadn’t Ginny warned him? She had to know. She’d mentioned only the grocery store incident.
Chance held up his hands and started shaking his head, hoping like hell she would understand. “Listen, it’s not what it seems like. I just found out about it yesterday, JoJo, I swear to you.”
Jolene was wearing jeans, a tank top, and cowboy boots. She was grinding one of her boot heels into his hardwood floor. Her foot went back and forth, back and forth, in a restless rhythm that unnerved him. Her face was a cold, hard mask of anger. “So what you’re telling me is that you have amnesia? That you were abducted by aliens, and while you were up on the mother ship, the alien who took over your body got a hankering for a good old-fashioned pool-party fuck?”
“I didn’t have sex with her!” He didn’t think. Tennyson would have mentioned that. Wouldn’t she? “I was drunk. I honestly did not remember it until she asked me about it yesterday. She thought I was just being discreet, but then she realized I didn’t seem to remember, so she told me.”
“Who gets blackout drunk at a pool party? How the hell am I supposed to believe you?”
Shame and anger mixed in a way that made him defensive. He didn’t like being put on the spot and having to explain himself for behavior he didn’t even remember. It smacked too closely of his father, and that was the last thing he wanted—to be seen as the same kind of man Buck had been. Disrespectful of his woman in particular and of women in general. “Me, that’s who. I spent four months drinking because I was upset that we broke up, and I’m being honest when I say I don’t remember it. I was going to tell you about it last night, but you went AWOL.”
“So this is my fault? I made you drink. I should have waited patiently for you to tell me about this.”
There were alarms going off somewhere in the back of his brain, but Chance chose to ignore them. “No, I’m not saying this is your fault. I’m saying if you have a concern or an issue or you’re pissed off at me, you shouldn’t go all passive-aggressive and stop answering my calls.”
“Maybe I needed a minute to recover from the fact that I’ve been humiliated the last four days, sitting here in this house with you and Tennyson, while we discussed all our feelings. Do you know what a gigantic ass I feel like? She was sitting there all smug, knowing she had a piece of you while we were broken up, and yet she was picking at all my wounds. I have never been so embarrassed in my life, and we all know my dress at my first CMAs was a flouncy disaster, but that was nothing compared to this. I can never look that evil woman in the eyes again.”
He got it, but he wasn’t sure Tennyson had done anything wrong. “What was she supposed to say? ‘Hey, I made out with your boyfriend once’? I’m guessing she figured we’re all adults and we have a job to do.” It was awkward, but flipping out was going to make it even more awkward.
“Are you defending her? Are you defending Tennyson Tongue-Tango Mitchell to me?”
Jolene’s face was turning the color of a ripe tomato and her voice was deceptively calm. He had stepped in it and good, and the sad thing was he hadn’t even known it.