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“He got married last September.”
“Really? Who’d he marry? Someone local?”
Sawyer poured soup into two bowls, then brought them to the table. “Do you remember Joey Pierson?”
Jade nodded. “They dated in high school.”
“Yep. Then she left for six years.” He took a breath. “Then came back with a son. J.T.’s son.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” He got the bread from the refrigerator, then returned to the table. “It was a little tense for a while. But they worked it out. And once they did, they got married right away.”
“Wow. So you’re an uncle.”
“Uncle Sawyer. The kid just had his sixth birthday.”
She took a spoonful of soup and blew on it. “How’s your granddad?”
“All good. He had a stroke a year and a half ago. But he’s about ninety percent back.”
She shook her head. “The O’Connell clan keeps trucking on. There’s no stopping them.”
They ate their soup in silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence. Jade just seemed really hungry, so Sawyer let her eat. There were only two pieces of bread and he let her have them. He didn’t need to add bread to what he had to work off tomorrow.
When she finished the soup, she pushed her bowl aside. “I was starving.”
“Yeah. I noticed. So tell me about this guy.”
“Just think of every possible characteristic a guy could possess that is the opposite of what you’d think I would like.”
Sawyer frowned. “Huh?”
“Seth is everything I’m not. From how he grew up, to what his vision of the future is.”
“So, why were you going to marry him?”
She put her face in her hands and shook her head. “Because I’m a complete idiot.” She looked up at Sawyer. “I thought I wanted those things. All the stuff I didn’t have growing up. Money, influence, respectability.” She sighed. “Boring, boring, boring.”
She put her arms on the table and rested her forehead on them. “I learned to play tennis, for God’s sake.”
Sawyer started laughing. “Were you any good?”
She looked at him and scowled. “Totally not the point.”
“What happened to my free-spirited, borderline crazy Skittles?”
“She went to college and fell into the wrong crowd. Not the bad crowd, as you would expect. The preppy crowd. The kids with rich parents who majored in Art History, and Pop Culture, because their parents were paying for it and they were really there to find a spouse from another rich family. They wore designer clothing and drove expensive little sports cars. I lied my way in, then I got drawn in further. Then I met Seth, and it seemed like he was my ticket to an upper-class life with two point five kids, a summer house, and a boat.” She dropped her head back onto her arms. “It was like a cult for rich kids.”
“A boat? You hate the water.”
“Again. Not the point.”
“I’m guessing life with your aunt wasn’t much of a step up from life with your dad.”
She sat and leaned back in the chair. “She didn’t beat me. Or get drunk and pass out in the living room in her underwear.” Jade shook her head. “She did her best. She had to deal with me. I don’t blame her for not knowing what to do with me. I got worse after I left Castle Springs. It wasn’t pretty.”
Sawyer leaned forward on the table. “You were never a bad kid. You were just weird and kind of scary.”
