Page 79 of All the Right Things

“Frankly, Jessie, I don’t know. Why are we here? Money? Do you need cash? Here.” Jonas pulls some bills out of his wallet and throws them on the table. “There you go. All the cash I have.”

Jessie shakes his head. “I don’t want your money.”

“Then what the hell is it?”

“Maybe I want to bury the hatchet.” Jessie’s volume rises.

Jonas matches his tone. “Easy for you to say when you’re the one who likes sticking that hatchet in people’s backs!”

They both stand up and are fuming across the table from one another.

They each start to open their mouths to say something, but Annie stands up to speak instead.

“That’s enough! You two can’t be together for more than five minutes without being jerks to each other. You two make me so mad I feel like I either want to curse or spit. Now, I’m not going to do either of those things because I’m a lady but know that I am not happy.”

Both men go to speak again, but she doesn’t let them. “Now. Jessie, you go back to work. Jonas, go take a walk and cool off.”

Jessie leaves the table, heading back behind the bar. Jonas holds out his hand for mine.

Before I can take it, Annie says, “Alone, Jonas Lee. You don’t need to take your bad mood out on Andi.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but after seeing the look on her face, he snaps it shut before storming out of the bar.

Jared excuses himself to use the restroom, leaving just Annie and myself.

Annie rubs her hands over her face and sighs. “I’m so sorry, dear. You shouldn’t have had to see all that.”

I shrug. “With the good comes the bad, I guess. I think Jonas is worth the drama.”

That puts a smile on her face. She pats the top of my hand. “He is, dear. He is.”

“Annie, I have to ask. What happened between Jonas and Jessie? I mean, I know Jonas disagrees with Jessie’s lifestyle, but it seems like more than that.”

Annie takes a deep breath before speaking. “If we were to get into their whole story, we’d be here all night. And honestly, there’s probably some of it that they haven’t told me. But I think a lot of it is that Jessie is a lot like his daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack, their father, was always a bit of a follower. He always wanted to be invited to the party, and then, he had to be the life of that party. That mentality got him involved with all sorts of the wrong type of people. Jessie is the same way. Hanging with the crowd that got him hooked on all kinds of things. Jonas has always been a leader, and he’s always had the most accurate moral compass I’ve ever seen.”

I laugh. “He is a ridiculously good guy, isn’t he?”

She nods. “Sometimes to a fault. All of that good can make it hard to step off his high horse. That’s part of his problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Andi, I’m not saying that Jessie hasn’t done some crappy things. He has. He’s hurt everyone around him, me included. But I also know that all those things that he did were when he was under the influence. I guess I’ve always looked at Jessie’s vices as more of a disease. Jonas views them as a personal choice. And I couldn’t tell you which one of us is right. It’s not my job to know what’s right. It’s my job to love my kids. I just wish Jonas could find that love for his brother.”

I’m not sure what to say. Maybe it’s because I can’t figure out if I agree with her or Jonas. Who the hell is right in a situation like that?

How would I react if I was Jonas?

I have no idea because I have no siblings. I’ll never know what it feels like to argue with one.

I don’t know if I should feel good about that fact or if maybe I can get through to Jonas just how lucky he is.

Chapter Thirty-three

Jonas

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