True believer - Nicholas Sparks [105]
“I do. She understands this place better than you or me, and she hasn’t led me wrong yet.”
“So she’s smart, too, huh?”
“Very,” Jeremy said.
Alvin broke into a wolfish grin. “I take it you two were together last night.”
Jeremy said nothing.
“She must be really something . . .”
“I’m right here, you guys!” Lexie finally interjected. “You do realize that I can hear everything you’re saying.”
“Sorry,” Jeremy said. “Old habits and all that.”
“Can we go now?” Lexie asked.
Jeremy looked at Alvin, who seemed to be considering his options.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “And not only that, I’ll forget any of this ever happened. On one condition.”
“What’s that?” Jeremy asked.
“All this talk about Italian food has made me hungry, and I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Buy me lunch, and not only will I drop the whole thing, but I’ll tell you how the filming came out last night, too.”
Rodney watched them go before heading back inside, tired from lack of sleep. He knew he shouldn’t have arrested the guy, but even so, he didn’t feel too bad about it. All he’d wanted to do was exert a little pressure, and the guy starts running his mouth and acting all uppity . . .
He rubbed the top of his head, not wanting to think about it. It was over now. What wasn’t over was the fact that Lexie and Jeremy had spent the night together. Suspicions were one thing, but proof was another, and he saw the way they were acting this morning. It was different somehow from the way they’d been acting at the party the other night, which meant something had changed between them. Still, he hadn’t been completely certain about them until he heard the tricky way she’d tried to answer without answering. I didn’t go with him, if that’s what you’re asking. No, he’d wanted to say, he hadn’t asked her that. He’d asked if she’d been at the beach with Jeremy last night. But her vague response was enough, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.
The realization nearly broke his heart, and he wished again that he understood her better. There’d been times in the past when he thought he was getting closer to knowing what made her tick, but this . . . well, this just proved otherwise, didn’t it? Why on earth would she let it happen again? Why hadn’t she learned from the first traveling stranger who’d passed through town? Didn’t she remember how depressed she’d been afterward? Didn’t she know she was only going to be hurt again?
She had to know those things, he thought, but she must have decided—at least for an evening, anyway—that she didn’t care. It made no sense at all, and Rodney was getting tired of caring about it. He was tired of being hurt by her. Yeah, he still loved her, but he’d given her more than enough time to figure out her own feelings for him. It was time, he thought, for Lexie to make a decision one way or the other.
His anger fading, Alvin paused in the doorway of Herbs when he saw Jed sitting at one of the tables. Jed scowled and crossed his arms as soon as he saw Alvin, Jeremy, and Lexie take their seats at a booth near the front windows.
“Our friendly concierge doesn’t seem too pleased to see us,” Alvin whispered across the table.
Jeremy stole a glance at him. Jed’s eyes became little slits. “Gee, that’s strange. He’s always seemed so friendly before. You must have done something to upset him.”
“I didn’t do anything. I just checked in.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like the way you look.”
“What’s wrong with the way I look?”
Lexie raised her eyebrows as if to say, You’ve got to be kidding.
“I don’t know,” Jeremy pondered out loud. “Maybe he doesn’t like Metallica.”
Alvin glanced at his shirt and shook his head. “Whatever,” he said.
Jeremy winked at Lexie; while she smiled in return, her expression was distant, as if her mind was elsewhere.
“The filming went great last night,” Alvin said, reaching for a menu. “Caught it all from two angles and watched it on playback last night. Amazing stuff. The networks are going to love it. Which reminds me,