“I’m never saying anything in front of Corie again.”
Zach laughed as they walked across the driveway.
* * *
Dinner was good, but something about the mood was different. Maybe because Zach was married, and now there was a sense that in a few days, the next time he’d join Miss Leona’s table, it would be with his wife. Zach told them about their trip to Barbados, and they caught him up on everything he’d missed, most importantly the wild night that had unfolded at the date auction. Zach shot Jesse a look when Jesse mentioned he was teaching Lily-Grace to swim. Corie, in a wise move, kept her comments to herself.
Jesse sat by quietly as Lilah went on and on about how well things were going with Fetu. Jesse made a mental note to ask her later if she planned to tell Zach the truth about her elaborate scheme to pass the veterinarian off as her boyfriend. Miss Leona announced her officially taken status, which was actually true, and her plans to have Mr. LeRoux join them more often around Pleasant Lane.
Seemed like love was in the air for all of the Charming Pleasants. It was good, but Jesse knew things would never be the same. Maybe this was what his mother was waiting for, for her boys to pair off so she could see this clear shift and adjust accordingly. Or maybe she just liked lavish weddings and the idea of grandchildren.
After they finished and helped Miss Leona clean up, she asked Zach and Jesse to join her in the den so they could talk about Golden Gulch. Senior had emailed her too, asking her to give the boys a nudge in what he viewed as the right direction.
Jesse walked down the hall toward the guest wing of the house, absently noting that she’d added theVanity Faircover celebrating Sam’s Oscar win and the People magazine cover featuring Zach and Evie’s wedding photos.
He glanced at theEssencecover he and Zach had graced four years ago where’d they’d been interviewed for their take on being successful young Black men in the world of luxury hotels, and suddenly the walk toward that wing of the house made that feeling he’d been carrying since the start of dinner even heavier. So much had changed. So much was changing, and it was definitely time for him to catch up.
When they reached the den, Miss Leona took a seat in the large armchair she’d recently replaced his grandfather’s old recliner with. Clementine and Poppy made themselves comfortable by her feet. Zach and Jesse carefully sat down on either end of the new matching sofa. The old furniture had been old, but broken in. He didn’t think anyone had been in this room, filled with their old sports and rodeo trophies, since the delivery guys had dropped off the new stuff.
“So let’s talk business.”
“You wanna start?” Zach asked.
“Sure.” Jesse had a feeling Zach was gonna drop the pregnancy news at some point during this conversation. But he wasn’t ready yet.
Jesse slid forward to the edge of the couch, which wasn’t designed for his long legs. He couldn’t talk to his parents, but even if they didn’t understand him all the time, he knew he could talk to Zach and Miss Leona. “Before we talk about Graham’s offer, I think we should have a conversation about everything that’s going on right now. Zach’s a husband now, and I’ve been considering some changes of my own.”
“Okay,” Miss Leona said, her tone carrying a positive lilt to it.
“Right before the wedding, A New Way Forward approached me and asked me to consider filling Paul Cogger’s seat. I have until the end of this month to decide.”
He glanced between his grandmother and his brother, trying to read the wide-eyed shock on both their faces. Zach spoke first. “Wow, Jess. That’s huge.”
“I don’t think I can do it. You weren’t here for the date auction, and Miss Leona, you missed the aftermath backstage. I had a panic attack, a bad one. That’s why I was MIA for so long. The auction was bad, but the attack started before I got on stage. I want to help people and I want to do great things for Charming, but public speaking for a living sounds like my own personal hell.”
“That’s fine, baby. Do you feel bad for wanting to turn it down?”
“I feel—I was trying to understand why I wanted to run in the first place, when it’s clearly not for me. This is difficult to say, but I wanted my chance to get away from Charming.”
Zach let out a pained sigh as he turned to face him. “Evie and I talked about this.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. You do everything around here. Everything. Make adjustments for all of us, including Mom and Dad, all the time. And no offense to you,” he said to Miss Leona, “but Evie pointed out that Jesse somehow became the family rock, and maybe that wasn’t exactly fair to him. We’ve spent the last three years just coming and going; and your trip with Sam, Jesse, was the last time you even left town for yourself.”
“And that trip was cut short because of that mess with Amanda’s boss,” Miss Leona said, nodding slowly. Sam had been nice enough to plan a brothers’ trip to Bali for just him and Jesse, but his girlfriend’s then boss thought that would be the perfect time to try and ruin Amanda’s life. Jesse had been glad to come back to support her, and them as a couple, but afterward things had gone back to normal, with Jesse left behind.
“You’ve been holding everything down at the ranch and here at Pleasant Lane. You’ve even taken Lilah under your wing in a way I haven’t,” Zach went on.
“During dinner I realized how everyone seems to be moving on and I need to decide what I want for me next,” Jesse said.
“Do you want to walk away from Big Rock?” Miss Leona asked.
“No. I wanna buy Golden Gulch.”
* * *
They spent the next two hours talking about pretty much everything. Miss Leona was admittedly glad they were almost done filming the current season ofRory’s War.She was feeling stretched a little thin and wanted to spend more time with them and August, as she wanted them to call him now. Jesse still couldn’t believe his grandmother had a boyfriend.
