Page 90 of Almost Beautiful (Beautiful 3)

“Has he called?”

“Jesse?”

“Mick.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Travis might kill him if he did, and you know Mick. Forever the coward.”

America stared at the pool. “Travis will have to get in line. You know what I was wondering about the other day? You and Travis getting married in Vegas.”

I tried to keep my face smooth, dreading the moment I’d have to remind her it was better if she didn’t fully know the truth.

America knew we were at the fight, and knew we’d run off to Vegas, but she could still play dumb if questioned by the Feds, and I wanted to keep her as far away from our mess as possible.

“Did you happen to run into Jesse?” she asked.

Her question took me off guard. Jesse hadn’t crossed my mind since he’d showed up with Benny’s offer to help Travis. “What made you ask that?”

“I don’t know. It just popped into my mind and I envisioned him seeing you in your wedding dress and throwing up.”

“Throwing up?” I sat up on my knees.

I pulled my hair to the side, combing it through with my fingers before weaving it into a side braid. Even then, the ends hung past my breast. It was getting longer and lighter in the summer sun, a blonder version of my normally caramel strands. I wasn’t model-esque like America, but I’d landed Travis Maddox. My looks clearly weren’t vomit-inducing, especially not on my wedding day.

“I feel like I should be offended.”

“No, stupid,” she laughed. “Throw up as in him being sick over you marrying someone else. He was fully convinced, until the day you left Vegas, that you two were getting married. And by the text messages for almost a year after, I’d say he hung on to that for a while. Do you think that has anything to do with why … why he started working for Benny?”

“Nice titties,” one of the Becker boys said, raising his eyebrows at me before running away and jumping into the pool. By the giggling and high fives, I imagined he’d been dared.

America opened her mouth, but I gestured for her not to speak.

“Just don’t,” I said. “And I know what Jesse thought. But no, I didn’t see him. And even if for some crazy reason he started working for Benny because he was heartbroken and thought being a made man would somehow prove himself, not my problem. He knows I would want the exact opposite of that.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s something else. It’s probably something else. I’m surprised he let you stay to win back that money for Mick. I figured he would have hated you.”

“He probably does.”

America stretched, letting her head fall back. “Oh, well. Not like I would’ve gotten to see that drama unfold, anyway.”

I craned my neck, glaring at her.

“What? He drove all the way to Wichita to see you. You didn’t even let him down easy. Even my parents were appalled.”

I closed my eyes, trying to keep the memory from forming in my mind. “Do wehaveto talk about it?”

“He just … I don’t know, didn’t look like himself. All that soft, sweetness in his eyes … gone.”

I frowned, watching Marsha Becker’s delinquents push unsuspecting little girls into the pool.

Jesse was in love with me, and I’d tried for a long time to be in love with him. Jesse was a safe place to fall when my mother was drunk, and Mick was on one of his benders. He was always kind and soft-spoken, thoughtful and affectionate.

It wasn’t until I married Travis that I realized why I’d found it impossible to love Jesse. I was meant to be Mrs. Maddox. And America was right, whatever had happened to him since high school, he wasn’t the same person anymore.

“Do you wonder what Travis and Shep would be doing right now if we hadn’t moved to Eakins?” I asked.

“I don’t wonder, I know. Shepley would be at your apartment—except it would still be his apartment—and Travis would be in jail like Adam.”

“Don’t say that,” I said, disgusted.