Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

THE MORE YOU PUSH, THE MORE SHE’LL PULL

Jack

H olly’s already been to the cottage and left. I can tell as soon as I walk in. The air smells faintly of that spicy/citrus scent that I identify only as “Holly.” That, and her laptop bag is gone. I’m sure she couldn’t get out of here fast enough after the way I treated her.

I stand in the doorway to the bedroom and give the king bed a baleful look. Had it really only been this morning when I’d had plans to take Holly into that bed and spend hours exploring every inch of her body? And now, I’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to me again.

I kick around the house, feeling sorry for myself for a while, then try to decide whether to open one of the bottles of wine or take a shower first. I raise my arm and sniff my armpit. Definitely shower first. But there’s no law against shower wine, I think. I’m headed to the wine fridge when someone pounds a heavy fist on the front door.

That does not sound like Holly. Not unless she’s even angrier than I thought. I crane my head to look out the window over the kitchen sink and see Nick Jolly standing on the porch. There are three or four figures behind him, but I can’t make them out in the snow. I square my shoulders. If Nick’s here to ice my cookies, I’ll take it like a man.

It’s not until I’m opening the door that I realize the Christmas near-swears are rolling off my tongue like I’m a native. So, I’m chuckling when the door swings open. One look at Nick’s thundercloud face and the laughter dies in my throat.

“Son, I don’t know what you did, but whatever it was, you messed up good,” he announces as he strides inside, bringing a gust of frigid air and the smell of wood smoke with him. “Now, where’s the bottle opener?”

He drops a case of Frosty lager on the kitchen island. Titus, Enrique, Enzo, and Christian MacIntosh file in behind him, stomping snow from their boots on the welcome mat, shedding their coats, and brushing melting snowflakes from their faces.

I hand Nick the opener and check the porch before shutting the door. “What, no Morgenthals?”

“They’re flying out to California to celebrate an early Hanukkah with Ryan’s mother. The holiday starts on Christmas this year, and Josh has his heart set on playing Santa, so they’ll do their holiday out there, stay to watch Lois’s roller derby championship, and then they’ll fly back here on Christmas Eve.”

“Ryan’s mother plays roller derby?”

“Correct.” Nick pops the caps off a half-dozen bottles and passes them around.

Once everyone is clutching a cold beer, Nick raises his in my direction. “So, what’d you do?”

Several beers later, we’re camped out in the living room and I’ve spilled the entire story about Anderson abandoning Tabitha on the trail, how that resulted in my finding out that Holly and Anderson had been engaged, and how I didn’t handle it with a lot of grace.

Enzo squints at me. “Never liked that guy.”

“Who? Jack?” Enrique points in my general direction. It’s a fair question, frankly.

“No. Ander son. ”

“Nobody liked Anderson,” Nick says evenly. “At least, not for Holly.”

There’s a general chorus of agreement. I’m about to ask Nick the most important question of the night, when Titus’s cell phone trills several times. He glances down at a text. Scrolls. Scrolls some more. Then he lets out a low whistle and passes it to me.

Delphina sent him a rapid-fire series of texts:

JACK BELL is the son of Holly’s favorite YA novelist. He let Holly talk about her AT LENGTH and NEVER mentioned that fact.

Oh, and he got into a FIGHT with that Woodlock jerk AT HIS MOM’S FUNERAL.

Don’t you think he should have told her???

Don’t you????

My stomach hits my knees. I hand the phone back and drain my beer.

“I’ve never seen Delph use so many capital letters or question marks in a text,” Titus observes as he hands the phone around the room, letting everyone read it for himself. “I think you might be in more trouble than you realize.”

“I’d say that’s a certainty,” Chris says, very judge-like. “I’m sure Holly thinks your former relationship with James Woodlock was at least as relevant to the case as her former relationship with the ADA.”

My stomach lurches again. Enzo passes me a beer.

“Better text your girl back,” Enrique counsels Titus.

“Should I defend Jack?”

“No!” the others shout in one voice.

“Thanks,” I say in a dry voice.

“There’s no reason for Titus to bunk in the dog house with you,” Nick tells me. “Why didn’t you tell her who you are?”

“I have … reasons,” I say lamely, knowing how hypocritical I am. I deliberately kept my past from Holly and lit into her for not spilling her history with me.

“What are they? We can’t help you unless we know what we’re up against,” Nick said.

I jerk my head. “You’re helping me? Even though Holly’s rightfully angry with me?”

“Well, that depends on how good your reasons are.”

So while Titus thumbs out a response to Delphina, I try to explain the mess I’m in.

“My brother Sam and I inherited our mom’s publishing, well, empire. But after the scuffle at the funeral, her estranged husband, who still has a minority seat on the board, convinced the rest of the board members that I wasn’t mature enough or responsible enough to run the company. So they voted to put the ownership into a trust run by Roger—that’s our evil stepfather—and give me until the end of the year to prove myself. Sam’s been working for the company under Roger’s thumb while I’ve been on this redemption tour. I’ve been distributing banned and challenged books all across the country and filming it as I go. The idea was to create a record of me defending my mom’s legacy and so many other books against censorship in a low-key way without drawing any attention to myself.” I hang my head. “So when I went and got arrested , the last thing I could do was say, by the way, I’m Jackie Samuel’s younger son, the one who’s a screwup.”

There’s a long silence. Then the judge grunts. Nick nods.

“What? What does that mean?”

Enzo looks from the judge to the innkeeper and then at me. “You need to call your brother and get him up to speed. Right?”

“Yup,” the judge tips his bottle in Enzo’s direction.

“Okay.” I don’t know how involving Sam helps, but I’m fresh out of ideas, so I’ll take what they have. “And what about Holly? Should I try to explain or apologize or?—”

“No,” Nick cuts me off. “I’m going to tell you what Holly’s mom said when the rest of us wanted to figure out a way to make Holly see that she shouldn’t marry Anderson. Carol said the thing about Holly is the more you push, the more she’ll pull. It’s just a fact.”

I stare at him. “So, what does that mean? What do I do?”

“You wait her out,” Nick tells me.

“Wait?”

“Wait.” He pauses, burps, and adds, “You can, if you like, drink while you wait.”

Wait. The word sits heavy in my chest and goes against my every instinct. I try to fix things, even if most of the time all I do is make them more broken. But considering how well that approach has worked out so far, maybe it’s time to try something different. So I’ll wait.