So instead of feeding my curiosity, I took a step back.
“Ma’am, I have the utmost respect for your daughter, but I’m in a place where I need to think long and hard about my next step, and it wouldn’t be fair on her if I jerked her around.”
By the time I got out of Mrs. Holland’s pacified （retracted） claws, I was about ten minutes behind on getting back home. I threw another annoyed look into the diner. Tennessee was now swatting away a truck driver who’d passed by town and looked to be persistently flirting with her.
Truth was, I didn’t feel powerful at all in that moment. I felt like a pushover. Cornered to let the townsfolk treat Tennessee however they pleased. And restricted by Tennessee herself to claim her as mine and protect her the way I’d always wanted.
But ultimately, answering Mrs. Underwood, or Mrs. Holland, or just taking whatever the fuck I wanted from my girlfriend was out of the question.
I was too good.
Too decent.
I shook my head and went home.
An hour later, I was in hell.
More specifically, in my brother’s Mercedes as we made our way to Winston-Salem to his bachelor party. I was the designated driver, because Dr. Cruz Costello—you guessed it—was always on DD duty.
That, in itself, wasn’t too bad.
I needed to cut back on the alcohol, anyway, if I wanted to keep that lithe runner’s body. But the fact Wyatt had gone ahead and invited Rob? That was unforgivable.
Downright stupid.
It was bad enough I’d had to endure the douchebag’s presence over dinner the other day while my mother fawned over him and moaned about what an embarrassment Tennessee was to Fairhope, but now I had to spend an entire night with him, along with Tim Trapp and Kyle, one of the useless sons who was responsible for Jerry & Sons’ title.
“Why’d your first marriage end?” Rob asked Wyatt from the passenger seat, cracking a beer open. He looked much less heartbroken than that day I’d found him on his ex-girlfriend’s front porch.
“She was a cokehead and bled me dry financially, but man, she was a hot piece of ass. How about yours?” Wyatt sucked on his vape pen.
“My first marriage broke up due to the fact that Julianna was a goddamn bitch.” Rob did a hiccup and snort kind of mix, that didn’t earn him any points, taking a pull of his beer. “She was straight up a moody cow and always bitched when we had to move places because of my jobs—how was it my fault that I needed to travel from school to school to coach? And Dani, well, Dani was a sweetheart.”
He downed the rest of his drink.
“Then what happened?” Kyle asked from behind, sitting in the backseat, rolling himself a joint.
“She found out I had a son.”
“Women.” Wyatt sighed, sucking on his vape. “Always so dramatic.”
Everyone laughed.
“She planned a trip to Fairhope to surprise me for my birthday, bring me back to my hometown, see my parents, and I had to explain to her why we couldn’t go,” Rob whined.
“You hid the fact you had a son from her?” I asked.
It was the first time I’d spoken since we hit the road, so everyone turned toward me to ensure they heard right.
Silence descended on the car before Rob answered.
“I’m not exactly proud of that, man.”
“Sort of sounds like you only came back home because every other plan fell through,” I said roughly.
Rob’s face sobered, and he put aside his empty beer can. “I came home because it was time to man up. I made a mistake. I’m paying for it now.”
“Water under the bridge.” Wyatt waved a hand, trying to calm things down. “You’re back, it’s all good.”
“Look, I know I really fucked it up with her. Nessy, I mean.”
Julianna and Dani, too, Sir Fucks-a-Lot.
“You gonna try to win her back?” Kyle licked the rollie paper of his joint from side to side.
Tim was napping in the backseat at this point between Kyle and Rob, totally checked out. That’s what happened when you had to pay child support to two different women and held onto three jobs.
“Hell yeah.” Rob chuckled. “Nessy still has a killer body, a sassy mouth on her, and she is the mother of my son. Bonus points—she pays her way through life, which can’t hurt in my financial situation. Figure if she hasn’t come for my throat financially yet, she’s not going to.” He cackled, shaking his head. “Though I mean it about helping her out. I’m going to start paying for Bear’s stuff. In the meantime, I’m going to play the tortured saint for a few months and hopefully crawl back into her bed for a bit, at least. Think she’ll have me?”