AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She sat with him for a while, nibbling and making small talk.
Finally Victor said, “What is this problem you wanted to discuss privately, baby sis?”
Teddy barked and the doorbell rang. Perfect timing.
Jinx got up, saying, “There is the other half of our the discussion. Be right back.”
She opened the door to Logan and gave him a big hug and a kiss, then led him into the kitchen. When he saw Victor sitting there, he stopped in his tracks. Meanwhile, Victor rose from his chair, ready to start a fight.
Jinx stepped between them and, despite the dog barking and the loud cursing that started flying back and forth after the first word uttered, she managed to shout over them. “Sit down and listen or I’ll put both of you in the hospital!”
Their obedience might have had something to do with the fact that she’d picked up a baseball bat and wielded it at them. Yes, they knew she could whack them, but she also guessed both of them would back off sooner than risk hurting her trying to get it from her hands. They backed off.
“I have some very important information for both of you, and, Victor, if you do not respect me enough to listen, then get out now and you can tell Mom and Dad they will never see me again and that it is your fault.”
“Because of him?” He pointed at Logan. “You little fool.”
“Are you going to shut up and sit down or leave now and give my message to Mom and Dad? Those are your two choices.”
Her brother slid into the chair he’d been in, mostly out of curiosity probably, but that was the first step.
When he sat, Jinx turned to Logan, who stood on the side of the room. “I’d like you to sit on this side of the table,” she said to him, “and do not say a word until I have finished.” She turned to her brother. “Vic, this is my home, so you also need to keep your mouth shut until I have finished.”
After refilling Victor’s coffee and bringing Logan a mug fixed the way he liked it, Jinx set her phone on the table and said, “I am going to play an interview with the person who is responsible for the destruction of your friendship.” Although she also faulted Victor for believing Darla over his best friend and never considering Logan might be innocent, she did not say it out loud or the tentative truce might break down.
“Luckily Conrad MacKenzie still lives on the North Fork, works in Manhattan three times a week, and he stops into Natalie’s Coffee Cove every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning to get his coffee and breakfast muffin to take with him on the jitney to New York City. Even better, his wife, Jody Botzer MacKenzie, and I were good friends throughout high school. And Conrad was already engaged to Jody while he was sleeping with Darla Henman. My promised silence concerning this is what prompted him to grant me this interview.”
Jinx held back her grin when she saw Victor’s jaw drop and the incredulous expression on his face. Logan stayed guarded. She began the recording she had made of her interview with Conrad. It had gone really well, with Jinx asking specific questions that she already knew the answers to because when she’d first approached Conrad she hit him with a lot of good guesses that made him think she had more info than she really did. Of course, her threat to tell Jody what she knew was the clincher.
When the “interview” between Jinx and Conrad was finished—with Conrad admitting he was the one having frequent sex with Vic’s girlfriend, and that he’d accidently left the T-shirt he’d borrowed from Logan in her room, never thinking she would make up a bogus story about Logan because of it—the two men on either side of the table sat in stunned silence.
Jinx spoke first. “Vic, why didn’t you ask Logan about that T-shirt from the MIT conference instead of assuming the worst? He could have told you he loaned it to MacKenzie.”
Victor’s tone was somber. “Because I believed Darla, and she said it was Logan and her.” He looked at Logan. “I’m sorry. Darla and I had been together since we started high school so I just couldn’t imagine…” His words trailed off as he blew out a sigh.
Logan turned his head and looked away, but his bitter tone carried what he had to say. “You couldn’t see the way she used to come on to me? And the other guys? Including MacKenzie.”
“I guess I was blind to it.” Vic rubbed a hand over his face and Jinx thought he looked almost as if he might cry. He controlled it, but his voice cracked when he said, “I was more hurt that you would do that to me than over Darla and I hated you for it. That’s why I kept pounding on you. I was so mad that my best friend had…”
“But he didn’t,” Jinx said.
Victor gave her a sad nod. “I am so sorry, Logan.”
“Yeah, you almost broke my nose,” Logan said, “but I managed to turn my head enough. You did leave me with a scar to mess up my pretty face though.”
Vic looked at the scar Logan pointed to and frowned. “What made me even crazier is you wouldn’t fight back. That made me think you were guilty.”
His cheek lifted in a half smile. “No, it was because of Jinx. I loved her and didn’t want her to be angry at me for punching her brother.”
“I never believed it was Logan,” she said. “I knew who he really was inside.”
Victor looked from Logan to Jinx. “So, you two are a couple now?”
“Yeah,” they said simultaneously.
Jinx got up and walked over behind Logan’s chair and draped her arms around him. “Victor, I’m going to ask you to explain this to Mom and Dad and tell them they need to invite Logan to an apology dinner.”
“They don’t have to do that,” Logan said.
