I was frustrated. My laptop screen eventually blurred because of my tears. So I had lain on my bed and stared at the sky. My heart wasn’t working properly. It was broken.
“Sienna?” Dave called again.
I shook my head, but that hurt my heart, so I stopped. A moment passed, and then I heard Dave’s retreating footsteps. Some more time passed. I honestly didn’t know how long. The sun was hidden by clouds and the skylight had tinted automatically.
I blamed my broken heart. Had it been working I might have been more capable of keeping track of time.
And then my door opened.
I turned my head—which hurt my heart. Cletus. He stood just inside my room, his expression inscrutable as he watched me.
“Cletus,” I said, not recognizing my own voice.
“Ms. Diaz.” He nodded once.
“My heart is broken,” I said.
He nodded again like he already knew, but now his eyes shone with sympathy. He crossed to the bed and sat next to me, grabbing for and holding my hand. “Yes. That’s why I’m here.”
“Please tell me you’re going to fix it.” My vision blurred because I was crying again.
The side of his mouth hitched though he looked troubled. “I’m going to try.”
Cletus made me take a shower. I cried a lot in the shower.
And then he made me a cup of tea and gave me a Tylenol. He ushered me to the back porch so we could look over the lake.
“A nice view always helps,” he said, adding sugar to my tea.
“I don’t take it with sugar.”
He pressed the cup into my hands. “Sweet tea always helps.”
I huffed a laugh and drank the sweet tea. It kind of helped.
“Now tell me what happened,” he instructed, using a grandfatherly voice. I lifted an eyebrow at him because I was fairly certain we were approximately the same age. And yet something about his somber expression and the brightness of his eyes made him appear so much older.
“Have you talked to . . . to him?” I asked, sipping my tea, the syrupy concoction coating my tongue with sweetness.
“Yes.”
I gathered a bracing breath. “What did he say?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I want to hear what happened from your perspective.”
So I told him. I told Cletus everything.
I started at the beginning, recounting how we’d met, how I liked Jethro so much from the start, and ended with how angry I’d been last night.
“Why won’t he even consider dating me in secret? It’s not uncommon in Hollywood. People do it all the time.”
“Sienna, pause a minute. You’ve just used a double negative; obviously you’re distressed. Think about what you’re proposing. You’re asking Jethro to deny the two of you are together. You’re asking him to lie about it, like it’s wrong and needs to be hidden.”
“But it wouldn’t be like that.”
“’Course it would. And you’d never be able to visit him here, not in Green Valley. This is a small town. There are no secrets here. People have already seen you two out and about. Right now they might be pacified thinking you’re just friendly. But he’s already been cornered more than once. Saying nothing adds fuel to the fire. It’s not a matter of keeping a secret, it’s a matter of lying all the time. To everyone.”
I couldn’t hold his earnest gaze, so I glanced at my tea. It looked like perfectly normal tea. But it wasn’t normal. It was sweet tea because Cletus had made it sweet.
“Jethro told me some of what he’s done, about his past.”
I heard Cletus shift in his chair, the sturdy weight of him causing the wood to creak. “Yeah. What about it?”
“Maybe if I knew more, I could mitigate some of the fallout.”
“Ask him.”
“I did.” I met Cletus’s gaze directly. “He hasn’t told me a lot about his penchant for stealing, his time in the Iron Wraiths, or much about your father. But enough that I can piece a few things together. I understand his shame. He also said he used to string girls along. He also said he used to use women, the women at the motorcycle club, treat them like they were disposable.”
Cletus scratched his jaw, his eyes losing focus as his thoughts turned introspective. “See now, that’s where things get messy. He might have guilt about that because our momma raised us better. But those women hang around that club for one reason only, and that’s to get laid by a member of the Iron Wraiths. He used them, and they used him. As long as both parties participated as consenting adults, rationally I can’t find any fault with his actions. Irrationally, though, I think both participating parties are gross.”