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Gabby
Two days later, when Gabby got the text from Jessa about meeting again, she almost ignored it. They didn’t have a lot to say to each other, and Gabby hated being near Jessa. Something about her drove Gabby to lay out every fault and jump up and down on them. It was rude and unnecessary, especially because Jessa wasn’t going to change... but she was punctual.
They met on the sidewalk out front of the coffee place Gabby liked. A different one from where they’d met last time.
She’d arranged to meet Rob at the same spot later. Since last time, she’d looked over every piece of paper he’d given her and was ready to talk. She’d also read articles about Tami. Seen their engagement photo. Felt the loss of a woman she’d never known.
Rob had to be trapped in a grief spiral. She knew how profound a shocking loss could be. But believing the words and having them be true were two different things. She’d originally suspected the former was at play, but now she feared the latter.
Gabby and Jessa walked to a small table on the patio out front without saying a word. Jessa finally broke the silence. “This is a courtesy meeting.”
Good Lord.“I will never understand you.”
Jessa made a strangled sound. “What is your problem this time?”
That fast Gabby flipped into offensive strike mode. The urge to lash out and take Jessa down swamped her. “With you? Do you want the list or are you looking for an abridged version?”
“Because you’re so freaking perfect.”
That stopped her. Jessa wasn’t wrong. Gabby didn’t exactly have the high road. She’d made plenty of mistakes, but the similarities between them ended there. She refused to believe otherwise. “I never pretended to be.”
“Guess the rumor about how you gave in to your attraction to your brother-in-law and engaged in a fling does suggest you screw up now and then. Literally.” Jessa smiled as she shook her head. “You should know that bit of gossip provided the law office with hours of speculation and amusement. Trying to figure out how you hid it, how you strung both men along. The logistics.”
Don’t react.Gabby repeated the refrain over and over until it echoed through her entire body.
“I thought you didn’t hear anything about my case at the firm,” Gabby said, desperate to bring balance back to the conversation and gain the control position. “See, this is what happens. You lie, you get caught. You get that look on your face. That one.” Gabby pointed at Jessa’s strained expression. “Then you crawl out of the hole by throwing other people in it.”
“You wonder why no one liked you in law school,” Jessa mumbled.
“That kind of childish taunting stopped working on me in junior high. We both know I had friends. We sat around and talked about how you magically passed criminal law after failing the midterm. Two tests in the class and you failed one, yet you ended up with an A.” Every conversation seemed to bring them to a new, hateful low. Gabby despised who she was with Jessa and how the fury welled inside her and fought to break out. “Quite impressive.”
“I studied.”
One time.Gabby made a silent promise that she’d say this one time then let it go. She was closing in on forty and too old for this nonsense. “You stole the test, and when things got hot, you blamed someone else. What was his name? Grant? I can’t remember because you got him expelled, the poor bastard.”
“He cheated, not me.” Jessa’s words stayed calm, but she started to shift in the small chair.
All of it.Gabby decided to tell it all. To let Jessa know what shaped the negative view of her. “Then there were your private lessons with our contracts professor. Those certainly seemed to help your grade.”
“What are you insinuating?”
Oh my God.“That you slept with him for a good grade. Wasn’t that clear?”
“Sex shaming?” Jessa slipped into a chastising tone. “Really, Gabby? From you?”
“I don’t care who you slept with or why.” And that was thetruth. Gabby didn’t have a problem with sex and clearly had made some questionable choices on that score in her life. She didn’t judge others for that. “It was your condescending ‘I get this class better than anyone else’ bullshit. Strutting around like you were a genius when, in reality, you got an early peek at the test at the professor’s house. That’s a pattern with you. All that lying and cheating. It makes me wonder why you really left your first law firm. Did your partners catch you doing something very bad?”
“You’re such a . . .” Jessa’s voice cut off when she looked past Gabby. Whatever she saw made the color drain from her face.
The tone and mood morphed from taking shots at each other to what looked like panic. Gabby turned around, trying to see what had caused the shift. “What is it?”
“Is that Rob Greene? That reporter?”
“Probably. When you texted, I was already supposed to meet with him to talk about some information he gave me.” Seemed reasonable to combine the two meetings, but then Gabby hadn’t expected this odd, undefinable reaction from Jessa.
“Why here?” Jessa glared at Gabby. “Is the goal to ruin my reputation?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
