Page 130 of Flipping the Script

“I can’t report him without incriminating myself.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I thought ignoring him was the best way to discourage him, but I was obviously wrong if he confronted you.”

“To be fair, I confronted him. Wait.” I paused as what he said fully registered. “You knew he was stalking you?”

“Sort of.” He let out a frustrated grunt and rubbed his hand through his hair, fluffing it up a bit. “He showed up at the garage a few weeks after I told him I was getting out of the business and wouldn’t be able to meet anymore. Then he left some letters for me at my apartment. When I didn’t respond to those, he started texting me.

“I blocked his number, but he started using burner phones or cloned numbers or something, and they just kept coming. I should have talked to him or done something other than just block the numbers and pretend like it wasn’t happening, but I was so scared my secret would get out and I’d lose my job or friends or end up in jail. I panicked.”

“It sounds like you were in a tough place. You did the best you could.”

“Now you’re telling me to be kind to myself?” He arched his eyebrow, some of his sass coming back.

“Yup. And you’re going to listen because I just made you come hands-free.Again.”

He barked out a laugh. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Would you?”

“No.”

Silence descended on us.

“I got into some trouble a while back,” he said softly, his eyes trained on the fire and his tone hesitant.

I kept quiet. I knew him, and he didn’t talk about personal things. Ever. And especially not when he felt like he was being grilled or judged.

“I kinda stopped giving a shit about a lot of things,” he continued, not taking his eyes off the fire. “I was pretty good at hiding it from everyone, but I was struggling. I drank too much, didn’t eat properly, barely slept, and spent money I didn’t have.”

“When was this?”

“Four years ago.”

I paused as the pieces of information kind of slid together and clicked into place.

Jesse and Adam’s mom had gone no contact with them four years ago. I’d heard from my sister about how much it had devastated both men, but I’d really only heard about Adam’s struggles and hadn’t really considered how much it would have affected Jesse too.

“You heard about what happened with our mom back then?”

“Yeah. Not a lot of the details, but enough.”

“That kind of broke me. Adam too. But everyone was so busy making sure he was okay, they forgot about me.” He shrugged, his expression blank. He was barely blinking, and I doubted he was even seeing the fire anymore. “But that’s typical when you’re forced to become hyper-independent as a kid. People look right through you and assume you’re fine because you’re always fine.”

He fell silent for a few beats.

“You know why my parents divorced, right?”

“Not the full story, but some of it.”

He slid his gaze to mine.

“I know about her affair and that your dad moved here after everything was finalized to give you guys a fresh start, but not much else.”

“It wasn’t just one affair,” he whispered, returning his gaze to the fire. “Did you know my parents had broken up when Mom found out she was pregnant with me? That they only got married because of me? And Adam was an oops baby too.”

“I had no idea.”

“Neither did I, but I remember taking a DNA test when I was seven. They told me it was just a routine thing that happened when parents split up, but it was to find out if my dad is my dad, or if I was an affair baby.”

My jaw dropped.

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