Shoe Strings

to sleep, but whatever was going on wasn’t
about him.  
    “Look.”   Bryce
slapped his hand on the bar.   “She’s
all yours.   She always has been and
from now on, she always will be.”
    “You know, for a smart man, you’re being incredibly
stupid.   I may have married her,
Bryce, but she’s always been yours.”
    “Ha.”   He turned
so quick in the chair he nearly tumbled out of it.   He poked Jesse in the chest.   “She’s been yours since we were kids.”
    “That’s bullshit.   She may have been my girlfriend, but you’re the one she wanted.   You just didn’t hang around long enough
to find out.”
    “Oh please.”   He
boosted himself back into the chair and shook his head.   “Just cause you don’t want her, don’t
try to distort the past.   I was
there.   I know what happened.”
    “Do you, Bryce?”   He took a sip of beer and thought about what he was about to say.   “You ever asked Kerri Ann about the day
Ty was conceived?”
    His face contorted into an angry grimace.   “Why the hell would I do that?   I know how it happened.”
    “You ask her and we’ll see how much you know.”
    Bryce picked up his drink, brought the glass to his lips,
and then slammed it down on the bar.   “No, you brought it up, you tell me what happened.”
    “I think you should ask Kerri Ann.”
    “I’m not speaking to Kerri Ann, so if you think this makes
some kind of difference, then you tell me.”
    Jesse took a deep breath and figured, even as wrecked as
Bryce seemed to be, he just might have enough sense in him to listen.   “It was a Friday, after school.   I’d gone home to help Cal with
something.   You two were going
downtown to get some ice cream.   About an hour later, she came barreling through the woods as if her butt
was on fire and jumped me behind the old shed.   Literally pulled off my clothes.   I didn’t know what the hell had gotten
into her, but at seventeen,” he shrugged, “I wasn’t going to argue.   The minute we were done she started
crying.   She damn near hyperventilated.”   He took a swallow of beer and thought
about how young and stupid they’d been.   “When I finally got her calmed down, she said she wanted to break up.   She said she thought she was in love
with you.”
    Jesse looked up at Bryce.   His eyes were narrowed, his brow
furrowed.   “I don’t believe you,” he
said.   “If that were true, she’d
have told me.”
    “I told her to.   When she left, she said she was going to talk to you.”
    “She never did.”
    “We broke up, Bryce.   We’d been heading that way for awhile.   I always wondered why you two didn’t
start going out, but I figured you were and just hadn’t let the cat out of the
bag.   Next thing I knew, she was
pregnant and she said you and her hadn’t been together.”  
    “Well…” Bryce shook his head, pushed his drink away.   “That doesn’t change anything.   She still doesn’t want to be with me.”
    Jesse finished his beer.   “Look, I’ve got no idea what’s going on,
but…whatever kept her from telling you all those years ago may be what’s
keeping her from you now.   You’ll
never know until you ask her.”
    “I’m through with her.”
    Jesse squeezed his shoulder and stood up to leave.   He looked at Patty and winked when she
held up Bryce’s keys.   “Then I guess
you’ll never know.”

 

 
    Chapter 26
    The drive to Jesse’s didn’t take long.   Just over a ridge of the mountain,
against the backdrop of enormous trees and soaring views, sat his farmhouse
nestled in a flat clearing, the lawn freshly mowed, the planters filled with
yellow and purple flowers.   Lita
couldn’t have been more surprised by his home than if he’d driven her to a tent
in the woods.  
    “You getting out?” he asked when she sat in the passenger
seat of the Scout and just stared.
    “This is where you live?”
    “Yeah.” He came over to her side of the car and took her hand.   “Is there a problem?”
    “I…” She looked at him.   His hair was tousled from the wind and his black sweater gave him a
dangerous edge.   But his house
resembled one she’d seen on late night television.   She half-expected to hear John Boy
whisper goodnight over the rustling breeze.   “You surprise me, Jesse.   I keep trying to pin you down and you
keep shifting on me.”
    “Disappointed?”   He led her up the three steps to the covered front porch.   It ran the whole