Clever men.
They drank beer and fished. They didn’t catch squat but with the way Max talked nonstop and Cole growled at him and James laughed at both of them, the fish heard them miles away.
“You are not going to read me the riot act?” Jack asked James while Max and Cole were busy bantering.
His longtime friend took a slug of his beer. “Nope.”
“How very evolved of you.”
James snorted. “Tomorrow that band that Elle follows around is jamming at their usual bar. She will be at the club.”
He knew. He had the calendar of hers engraved in his brain. Fucking photographic memory.
“Get your stubborn ass there.”
“What for?” Jack asked.
“Do I have to spell it out for you? You’re gone for her. Hook, line, and sinker. Be a man and go to her. Fix whatever the hell you fucked up.”
“You couldn’t text me that instead of coming?”
James gave him a duh look. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been answering his phone, but there was a damn good reason for that. He hadn’t wanted to talk to any of them. Not that the assholes had taken the hint.
“How’s she doing?” he found himself asking.
“She’s her old self, smiling and making jokes.”
“I see.” Why the fuck would he have to go talk to her then? She’d gotten over him fast enough.
“She’s faking it, you dumbass,” James said, reading his silence pretty well.
“How you figure?”
“Please. She hasn’t mentioned you, not once. Not even to make fun of you. In what fucking universe is this normal Elle behavior?”
Elle wasn’t the touchy-feely type, so yeah, avoiding the subject if it bothered her would be more her style. She didn’t like to talk about her feelings or open up, yet she’d done that for him. And he’d slammed that door in her face. But what was he supposed to do?
“She misses you,” James continued. “You might as well come back and face the music. You can’t hide here forever.”
“Of course I can’t, you bastard, because you’ve given the GPS coordinates to everyone but the pope.” Jack would have to abandon camp and find himself another stronghold. “Besides, Maldonado is dead; she doesn’t need me anymore.”
“If the witness had been anyone else but Elle you would have let the Feds stash her in some shitty safe house and forgotten about her. Or went along with Mullen’s plan and forced her into being a snitch for you, never caring what would happen to her after that. This thing with Elle might have started because of Maldonado, but it goes beyond that. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”
“You’ve been talking with Ronnie? You sound like her.”
“Baby sisters are smart,” James said with a nod.
“And speaking of baby sisters… Did you make any headway in finding yours?”
James shook his head. “Everything is sealed.”
“Pass me the info you have. Let’s see what I can do.”
At that moment they heard Max say to Cole, “You know what they do in Shanghai? There’s these swimming pools open twenty-four seven full of shrimp where you can fish anytime. I hear gangsters go there at four o’clock in the morning to relax and chat after work. Do you think we can find one of those in Boston? Or maybe we could make our own. Jack, do you have a hot tub?”
Man. He was so going for the guns.
He was not going to the bar, Jack repeated to himself while driving back to Boston. He was not. He was heading straight to his place, grabbing some essentials, and disappearing. Figure out how blown his cover was. Maybe create a new one. Something. Anything. He knew what he was doing among thugs and drug dealers. Feelings? Women? Total gibberish to him.
Lack of sleep wasn’t helping either. The Bowens had stayed until late. He would have thought the absence of TV and comfy chairs—oh, and a hot tub to stash shrimp—would have discouraged them, but no dice. They’d fished and grilled their measly catch. Thank God they’d brought some steaks because those men were shitty fishermen. Aunt Maggie and the extra food never arrived, so he wasn’t clear on the status of the sweet old lady.
As he was musing, he realized he was fiddling with the radio of his car. Bloody hell. What the hell was he doing? Losing his mind, apparently.