All That Jazz (Butler Cove #1)(62)

And so when I got my period, she was the first person I told. But after ten days I hadn’t stopped bleeding.

Mom took me to the gynecologist and held my hand while the doctor told me she’d given me a pregnancy test and it was positive.

I had elevated pregnancy hormones, but with the bleeding like it was, my body was probably spontaneously aborting the fetus. The way the doctor spoke was all so clinical. I was grateful because I couldn’t feel anything anyway. Someone else inside my head took the news. It had been like this since a few days after everything happened. I couldn’t feel much of anything either good or bad.

Apparently, I’d need another test in three to five days to determine if the hormone levels were indeed going down. My mom worked for a doctor in the hospital and our insurance wouldn’t pay for an ultrasound. Go figure.

As we left the office and made our way back out to the main waiting area, my mother’s hand gripped mine so hard, I lost feeling. “There’s no point worrying yet,” she said firmly.

“I know,” I said. I wished I could feel enough to worry.

“Or telling him.”

“Mom—”

“No, listen. You’ll spook him and he’ll run. They’re all the same, Jazz. He’s in college. He has plans. Plans that don’t include you.”

God, I knew that. There was no way I would be telling Joey unless there was something to actually tell him. But hearing my mom’s words was like a punch through my hard shell. “If he’s an * about it,” she went on, “it will break your heart. And if he’s the good guy, he’ll resent you forever.”

I swallowed. Looking up, I saw Lizzie, our school valedictorian, frozen in the hallway ahead of me. Oh shit. So much for keeping a secret.

She looked pale as a ghost.

“Lizzie,” I croaked.

She pushed past us. “We never saw each other,” she muttered and caught up with a nurse who was holding a chart.

“Will she keep it to herself?” Mom asked.

I nodded. “I think so.” I wasn’t sure how much she’d heard.





I MADE IT twenty-four hours before I went over to the Butler house. Between Keri Ann’s work schedule and my own, somehow I’d managed not to have to be there at all. We’d seen each other at our respective jobs only. And I hadn’t asked about Joey once. I could tell Keri Ann wanted to ask me or talk to me about it. She knew something was up. And I’d tell her sometime. Of course I would. She was my best friend. But somehow the longer she didn’t know, the less real it felt that I’d so royally f*cked up with her brother. So I shut it down whenever it got close. The future of the Butler family, and their home, depended on Joey’s success. Somehow I’d forgotten that fact.

Bizarrely, through my self-imposed exile from the Butler home, the person I missed the most was Nana. Her quiet, no nonsense, steady kindness. It was the thought of her that finally made me decide to go see Keri Ann at home.

Except Keri Ann was working at the Snapper Grill.

“Oh Jazz, sweet girl,” Nana pulled me into a soft lavender hug as soon as I walked into her kitchen. “I’m so sorry about your dad.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t been by, Nana. Work, you know?”

Nana released me and shuffled around the kitchen. “I’m baking. Come on in and sit for a while. I could use a little company.”

“What are you making?”

“Mini pecan pies for Canasta tomorrow. It’s my week to bring something. Something to drink?”

“Sure, thank you.”

Nana grabbed two glasses and the pitcher. Then she sat down opposite me at the kitchen table. “So what happened between you and Joseph?”

I blinked, and immediately felt ill. “How—”

“Honey. I don’t know what happened Memorial Day weekend, but he was just in such a state. He heard about your father, and your father’s boat, and he just stood right there,” she indicated a spot on the vinyl floor by the cooktop, “and just held his hand over his mouth for around twenty minutes. He was white as a sheet.”

She took a sip of lemonade and patted me on the hand. “Then a few days later he fed me some cockamamie bullshit—”

“Nana,” I choked.

“What? I can’t curse?”

“No, I mean, sure. Sorry, go on.”

“At my age, I think I’ve earned the right to say bullshit, don’t you?”

I nodded, a faint smile breaking through my lips. “Sure.”

“Well,” she went on. “He fed me some long song and dance about not being able to work for Dr. Barrett anymore because he was having an affair. It put him in an awkward spot.”

I winced but kept my mouth shut.

“Then he said a spot had opened up at his original choice in Columbia, and it was early enough for him to take it and still get full credit.”

My heart plummeted to the bottom of my stomach.

“Joey’s left?” I croaked.

Why hadn’t Keri Ann told me? Why hadn’t Joey told me? I hadn’t heard one word out of him. Not even to say he was sorry about my dad.

“He left a few days ago. You haven’t seen him?”

What a complete jerk.

But any real anger eluded me. I simply felt utterly crushed.