Page 21 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
“That’s what the bridge club at the retirement community calls you, you know, but don’t tell your aunt. No, I’m breaking the Valentine curse. Or I was, but I guess I didn’t, did I? Spencer still left me for a younger, richer thrill.”
“What is the Valentine curse?” Jake asked.
“You know how my grandfather died? Treasure diving Florida’s Gold Coast. Something went wrong with his regulator, a strong current came up, andpoof! Never even found his body. He would have liked that,though, belonging to the sea. Grandma always said the sea was his wife, and she was only his mistress. And my dad died in an offshore oil rig explosion, seeking his fortune on a different sea. Same water, though, I guess, so it still counts. We were never good enough to keep them around, the Valentine women. Never enough of a thrill. Spencer was supposed to fix that, but I guess even book editors get antsy.”
“Is that what you think?” Jake asked. “That you’re not enough of a thrill for me?”
Kate snorted again, a thoroughly undignified sound. “You forget I wrote the book on you. Literally. I’ve seen the photographic evidence. Running all over the world, seeking your next adventure, leaving a trail of beach bunnies behind? Always chasing something to fill that hole in your chest.”
Jake took a deep breath. “All right, I think we’d better get you up to the room now.”
Kate reached for him then, putting a hand on his cheek to turn his face toward her, to indulge the fantasy she’d carried for so long. But he took her wrist in his hand and sat her down on the stairs. “I’m not doing this with you when you’re drunk.”
Kate looked up at him, eyes big and pleading, too drunk to properly mount her defenses. “Please, Jake? Just for tonight? No strings, I promise. It’s not like we’re working together anymore. We don’t have to keep up a professional whatever. We can just… get it out of our systems.”
Jake looked at her for a long time, his fingers pressing into her wrist, his expression heavy. “Is that what you want, Kate? To get me out of your system? Would it make you feel better about your choices if I proved to be everything you’ve always told yourself I am?”
Kate didn’t care for his accusatory tone, nor for the sharp twist of guilt in her gut at the idea that she might have misjudged anything about Jake. She’d heard his stories, met his disapproving father and his high-achieving brother, knew that Jake often pushed himself to the limit to prove he wasn’t afraid. That he was just as worthy. He was always bringinggirls around, but never the same ones, and never anyone serious. He was allergic to responsibility, he’d told her once. Made him break out in hives. She knew plenty about Jake Hawkins, thank you, which was why her next words were so defensive.
“Would it make you feel better aboutyourchoices if you thought you actually were something more?”
Jake’s expression froze, but before Kate could rewind time or drop into a hole of self-loathing, a heavy set of boots interrupted them.
“Valentine, you sloppy slut, what the hell was that?” asked Marla, appearing from a nearby hallway with a huff. “I’ve been looking for you all over. You ran out of the rehearsal dinner like you were about to upchuck a frog or something. Are you okay?”
Oh, Kate was a lot of things, and okay had been torn from the bottom of the list. But she could hardly tell Marla all of that without those feelings—and all that wine—coming back up.
“I’m fine,” she gasped, like if she could just get the words out she might believe them herself. “This house is… really fucked up.”
Marla barked out a laugh. “So creepy, right? I stubbed my toe on a whisky barrel earlier and went face-first into a wild boar. I’ve never met anyone so obsessed with killing and stuffing things. Though I’d expect nothing less from Attila the Hunter.”
“Marla, can you get Kate back to the room?” Jake asked, straightening up. “I have something else I need to do.”
“Or someone else,” Kate muttered.
“Night, Kate,” Jake said curtly before disappearing.
Marla blew out a breath, making a face. “That was awkward. What the hell happened?”
“Nothing,” Kate said glumly. “Nothing at all. Same as always.”
“I meant what happened at the rehearsal dinner, but I see you’ve got a few things going on.” Marla plopped down on the stair beside her, pencil-thin brows crinkling in concern. “What can I do, babe?”
Kate groaned, dropping her face in her hands before realizing how much worse it made the dizziness. “I screwed everything up like I always do. I drove Jake away, I drove Spencer away, I even drove you away.”
“Me?” Marla said. “What do I have to do with any of this? I never boned you.”
Kate shook her head morosely. “I haven’t been a good friend, I know. Missing awards ceremonies, not answering texts, bailing on our weekends at Dive Bar. I just… I lost sight. Of everything. Of myself. Sometimes I wish we could just go back to the beginning, you know? Nights of the Round Table, talking craft, sharing our work. None of this… business bullshit.”
“Would you really do anything different, though?” Marla said. “You can’t tell me it’s not nice, the commercial fame and fortune. Shit, your writing pays your mortgage. That’s more than most of us can say.”
“I just miss it, that’s all,” Kate said, unable to put the intense feelings of nostalgia and regret into words. “I miss… I don’t know. I miss hanging out. I miss making fun of Jeremy’s terrible haircuts. I miss your dad’s weirdo friends bringing in their phallic pottery. I miss you.”
Marla twitched her lips in consideration before holding out a hand to Kate resolutely. “I can’t watch you mope all night. We need to do something mildly illegal and definitely fun.”
“How mildly are we talking?” Kate asked.
“I found out where they keep the Dom,” Marla said. “They’ve got a whole wine cave off the kitchen, used to be for whisky storage. Let’s do some casual burgling.”