Let It Snow (The Hope Falls Series) (13 page)

Tonight, however, he had zero interest in starting up a conversation with one of the half dozen girls who had been undressing him with their eyes since he had been there. The only girl on his mind was Tessa. He didn’t want anyone else, but he couldn’t have her.

He also didn’t trust himself to leave right now. It was too early and he was sure that if he got behind the wheel he would drive right over to his house, the one that was currently being occupied by the one girl he wanted and couldn’t have. If he waited a couple hours until he knew she’d be asleep, it would be less of a temptation to go see her.

Well, that was his plan anyway.

So he figured that he’d hang out with Nikki. Her fiancé, Mike, was a senator and was back in Washington. He figured they could play some pool, maybe throw darts. Anything to kill some time.

“Sorry, guys. I’m slammed,” Levi said as he dropped off a pitcher they’d ordered about fifteen minutes ago.

“No worries,” Jake assured his friend. “You should really think about getting some help in here.”

“Yeah, I think it might be time,” Levi agreed before he turned and went back behind the packed bar.

“Do you want to dance?”

Jake felt a tap on his shoulder as he looked up to see Darla, who Jake lovingly referred to as the leader of the B.B.B. (Bleach-Blond Bimbo) clique.

“Not tonight, sweetheart.” Jake winked at her and smiled. He wasn’t trying to be a dick. It was just that one, the double run, no sleep, and physical basketball game was catching up with him, and two, he knew the only dance she was really interested in was the horizontal mambo and she needed to find a different dance partner for that one.

“Please,” she purred, “it’s my birthday.”

Shit.

“Come on, Jake.” Eric elbowed him with a challenging gleam in his eye. “It’s her birthday.”

Damn.
When had his brother become such an asshole?

“All right, birthday girl. One dance.” Jake stood and wrapped one arm around Darla’s waist, leading her to the dance floor as he flipped his brother off behind his back.

Jake could hear Eric chuckling. All the years Jake had been a smartass to his brother, he’d thought it was really funny, but now that Eric was stepping up his smartass game and Jake was on the receiving end of it, it wasn’t quite as amusing.

Just as he, Darla, and her fake double D’s reached the center of the dance floor, the music slowed and the opening chords of Peter Cetera’s ‘Glory of Love’ began playing through the speakers.

What the…? Is this some kind of a joke?

Jake looked around, but everyone was minding their own business. Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be? No one else knew that this had been Jake and Tessa’s song.

It had started out as a joke because the first time they’d hung out they’d watched The Karate Kid. It was one of the few VHS tapes Adeline had owned. Then, since Jake had done morning announcements at school senior year, he had taken the opportunity of dedicating and playing ‘Glory of Love’ to Tessa the next morning.

Since that day, it had been “their” song.

Darla wrapped her arms around his neck and began seductively swaying against him. Jake moved his hands to her lower back and held them there loosely. He tried to step away and put some distance between them, but the birthday girl was having none of it as she molded her body to his.

Jake couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard this song. It had to have been years. When it would come on the radio, he’d turn it off. If it started playing in a store he was at, he’d leave.

What were the chances he would hear it and be forced to listen to it the day after Tessa showed back up in town? A hundred to one? A thousand to one? A million to one?

Whatever it was, the chances were slim. Now, as he listened to the lyrics, he realized how much he’d wholeheartedly believed in them as a naïve seventeen-year-old. How much he had needed her and would have done anything for her.

You keep me standing tall

You help me through it all

I’m always strong when you’re beside me

I have always needed you

I could never make it alone

I am the man who will fight for your honor

I’ll be the hero

You’ve been dreaming of

We’ll live forever

Knowing together that we did it all

For the glory of love

But it really didn’t matter how he’d felt then or still felt now because she’d walked away. Left him. So now, here he was dancing with Darla. On her birthday. In a bar.

Life hadn’t quite turned out how he’d planned.

*

“No, it’s fine Amy. I don’t mind. Really,” Tessa assured Amy.

This
was why Tessa always drove her own car and never drank. Because of situations like this. Now she was stuck going to JT’s when all she really wanted to do was go home and go to bed. Well, maybe she’d take one more shower first because, seriously, that shower was incredible.

“Okay, good. I can’t wait for you to meet Matt,” Amy grinned and a blush rose up her cheeks.

Tessa was so happy that Amy had found someone who could make her blush at the mere mention of his name. She’d always been so sweet and quiet. Eric had been in college the year that she’d spent a lot of time at the Maguires’s house, so it had just been Jake, Amy, and Nikki there. And Tessa remembered thinking at the time that Amy seemed to be overlooked a lot or just not
seen
because her siblings were so loud and outgoing.

If the glow Amy had was any indication, Amy had definitely found someone who saw her. Tessa was looking forward to meeting him and the rest of her friends’ significant others. But there was a small voice in the back of her head—which happened to be screaming!—that Jake would probably be there.

No one had said as much and she hadn’t asked. But if he wasn’t at work, which he’d told her earlier during their grand tour that he didn’t go back to work until Sunday night, then chances were he’d be with his friends and brother.

What would she say to him? How should she be around him? What would he say to her? How would he be around her?

This whole situation was so bizarre. She didn’t know how to just
be
around him. Part of her just wanted to have it out with him once and for all. Lay all her cards on the table and let him do the same. But another,
bigger
, part of her just wanted to leave with the memory of who Jake had been to her intact and unvarnished. That memory had gotten her through so many bad times in her life that she honestly didn’t know if she could face the rest of life without having it to hold on to.

If they had it out, who knew what can of worms she would be opening. What if he hated her for what she’d done all those years ago? Or worse, what if he really didn’t care at all? Tessa knew that it probably wasn’t the healthiest or most mature thing to think that his not caring would be worse than hating her, but that is how she truly felt.

Her biggest fear was to find out that their one year together didn’t mean anything to him. As ridiculous as it was, that would devastate her.

“So where are you living now?” Amy asked.

“San Diego,” Tessa replied.

“Do you like it there?”

“It’s beautiful, and you can’t beat the weather,” Tessa spouted. It was her go-to answer whenever anyone asked her about San Diego. But the truth was the constant seventy-degree weather was kind of boring. She liked seasons and she missed snow.

She remembered the first time it had snowed the year she lived in Hope Falls. Jake had known that she had been waiting, like a kid for Christmas. So the first snow that year, he’d come over to Adeline’s and woken her up at five a.m.

If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his hand brushing against the side of her face as he’d whispered softly, “
Wake up, beautiful. I have something to show you.”
She’d thought it was a dream when he’d picked her up in his arms—not unlike he had earlier today—and carried her down the stairs. She’d only really woken up when he’d set her down and helped her into her coat, boots, and gloves.

Then they’d gone outside and played in the snow. Afterward, they snuggled under a huge throw blanket on the porch swing, sipping hot chocolate Gran had made them, and watched the sunrise while it snowed. It was one of the best memories of her life.

Jake had talked about their future. Getting married. Having kids. The same things he always had said when he’d hold her in his arms and promise her forever.

Honestly, a small, totally selfish part of her had been happy when he’d told her that he wasn’t married and didn’t have kids. Which she could fully admit was not only ironic but also insanely hypocritical since the reason she’d done what she had was so that he could be happy and have a family.

Gravel rumbled under the tires as they pulled into JT’s parking lot. Tessa’s head was spinning and she didn’t think it had anything to do with the two glasses of wine she’d had back at Amanda’s. Nope. Most likely it had to do with a certain brown-eyed, sinfully sexy, heartbreakingly hot man-of-her-dreams-slash-soul-mate.

She needed to stop thinking about him. Distraction. That was the name of the game from here on out. Looking around, she saw that the parking lot was just as crowded, if not more than it had been last night.

Holy cow!

She’d only been in town for twenty-four hours. How was that even possible? It felt like it had been a full week at least.

As she shut the car door, Tessa immediately put her hands in her jacket pockets as her body shivered from the cold.

“Looks like we beat the other girls here,” Amy observed as the two girls hurried across the parking lot as quickly as they could to get to the heated comfort inside.

As they stepped inside the dim bar, the level of noise was much higher than Tessa had remembered it being last night. But in all fairness, she had been mainly concentrating on not peeing her pants and then in just a little bit (a lot!) of shock at seeing Jake, so it could have been this loud.

Even over all the white noise of people laughing, talking, and playing pool and darts, Tessa clearly heard
their
song playing. She was trying to figure out if she was having stress-induced delusions or if by some crazy coincidence the song was actually playing as she followed Amy over to a table that was brimming with testosterone and ridiculously good-looking men, only two of whom Tessa knew. She was both relieved and disappointed that Jake wasn’t one of them.

She said ‘hi’ to the guys she knew—Eric and Justin, both of whom had odd expressions on their faces. She thought maybe she’d spilled wine on herself or something, but when she looked down, she didn’t seem to have any stains that she could see. Then Amy introduced her to Karina’s fiancé Ryan, Lauren’s fiancé Ben, Sam’s fiancé Luke, and finally her fiancé Matt. Matt was the only one Tessa didn’t recognize at all since she’d seen Ryan on YouTube video’s with Karina and Ben on the TV show ad with Lauren. She’d actually owned a Gatorade poster of Luke as a teenager when he’d won his first gold medal.

After all the introductions, Tessa excused herself to use the restroom because, let’s face it, she really did have a small bladder. As she weaved through the tables, she glanced up and her world stopped spinning on its axis.

Jake was slow dancing. With a blond. To
their
song.

Tessa would have thought it couldn’t get any worse but then…it did. The blond giggled at something he said, tilted her head up, and kissed him. On the dance floor. In front of everyone. With
their
song as the soundtrack.

Images of the night that she’d come back to Hope Falls before she’d left for New York, started flashing in her head. Jake in his truck with some blond. Two weeks after she’d broken up with him and left.
Two weeks.
Two weeks that she’d spent crying herself to sleep and woken up crying, and she’d come back to find him screwing some blond in his truck that was parked at
their
spot.

Tessa reminded herself that that was thirteen years ago. She might have had a right to be upset about him moving on so quickly then, but she had no reason to feel anything about his behavior now. Yet she did.

Turning on her heels, she quickly made her way back to let Amy know that she was tired and was going to call it a night. Amy tried to insist on driving Tessa home, but she lied and told her she’d already called a cab. Then she waved a quick goodbye, told everyone it had been nice meeting them, got the hell out of there, and didn’t look back.

‡