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I laugh at the look of horror on his face, but before I can come up with a snappy comeback, the sound of someone shouting my name makes us both turn.
“Jackson,” she shouts again as she jogs across the parking lot.
“Who the fuck is that?” Alejandro snarls.
“Shannon.”
“Ah, I didn’t recognize her with her clothes on.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Just don’t.”
He holds his hands up in surrender.
“I’ve been wanting to speak to you,” she says, slightly out of breath when she reaches me.
“Here I am.”
“I kind of wanted to talk catch you on your own.” She looks over at Alejandro who crosses his arms over his chest and glares at her.
“There’s nothing you can’t say to me in front of him,” I tell her. It’s the truth, but also he would roast my balls on a skewer if I asked for a minute alone with her.
She licks her lips as she looks at him and then sighs. “I did something kind of stupid,” she finally says.
Well, now she has both of our attention. “How stupid?”
“Like, I may have gotten you into some trouble, stupid. I’m sorry, Jackson, you know how sometimes my mouth runs away with me.”
“What did you do, Shan?”
She chews on her bottom lip, looking up at me through her thick, dark lashes and I feel the anger radiating from Alejandro like the heat from an open fire.
“Shannon?” I snarl.
“I was talking to the sheriff. He came to the store asking about the ad your daddy placed, and then he was asking about the two of you…”
“And?”
“I kind of told him that you hate him and haven’t spoken to him properly in years,” she breathes.
“For fuck’s sake, Shan.”
“I know, Jackson,” she sniffs. “I’m so sorry. You know I’d never get you into trouble on purpose, I just didn’t think.”
“You have no right talking about me and my business to anyone.”
“I know,” she nods. “I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do to fix this, I will. I should have kept my big mouth shut, but then Ed was talking to the sheriff and they were talking about you and then they asked me…” she starts to babble.
“Ed was talking to the sheriff about me?”
“Well, they were talking about your daddy being in hospital is all. The whole town is talking about it.”
“Yeah,” I say with a frown.
This whole thing is fucked up and it’s driving me crazy. I feel like the answer is right in front of my face but I can’t connect the fucking dots right. I wonder if I should tell her about the photograph of the two of us. I hadn’t even considered that if she’s not involved in any of this, she’s as much a victim as the rest of us.
But, I don’t know that she’s not involved yet. And I definitely have a feeling in my gut about Ed. I’ve met him half a dozen times or so. He seems like a nice enough guy. She says he’s not the jealous type, but who really knows, right? If Lucia was friendly with a guy she used to fuck, I’d be pissed as hell and I’d be ready to slit his throat if he so much as smiled at her again.
The irony of that doesn’t escape me. Maybe it’s time to put an end to this friendship Shannon and I have too.
