Page 163 of Dirty Like Zane
As we all piled into the waiting cars, Jesse got in with me and shooed everyone else into the other ones. He even asked Shady to follow in acab.
“What’s up?” I asked him, as he settled in next tome.
“Just wanted to talk toyou.”
“Cool.”
“You know,” he said, “I’ve gotta bust your balls and all that. Because… I don’t know. It’s like, the law of nature between us orsomething?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Orsomething.”
He eyed me sidelong. “But you’ve been doing really good. You know, giving uppot.”
“Thanks.”
“And if Maggie’s gonna put up with you, hey, you’re one lucky son-of-a,right?”
“Yup.” We’d already talked about that, actually. About a week after I’d kicked weed, when maybe he felt certain enough that he wasn’t gonna send me spiraling off a cliff by coming down on me, Jesse had told me exactly what he thought of me marrying Maggie in Vegas and keeping it a secret from him all thistime.
And putting Maggie through what I did the night I took off into the desert withSeth.
And all the times he’d seen me at some party with some chick who wasn’t Maggie in the time since I’d marriedher.
If memory served, he’d dropped the wordassholea few hundredtimes.
Not sure what else there was to say aboutit.
“So, uh… what I’m saying is…” he went on, looking anywhere but at my face, “I know you’ve been working hard. Taking care of yourself. Going to meetings and keeping clean and taking shit seriously. We can all feel it, and it definitely shows onstage. To be honest, I never would’ve thought you could get any better than you already were at what you do, but you actuallyhave.”
I stared at him, taking that in, and he finally looked me in the eye. “Thanks,man.”
“You miss it?” he askedme.
“What, the devil’slettuce?”
He smirked at theterm.
“Yeah. Sometimes. The ritual of it. The habit, more than the high,maybe.”
He nodded like he understood, but I was pretty sure he didn’t. Jesse had never had any issues with drugs orbooze.
“Clean and sober is good on you, Zane,” he said after a moment. “And when I think about it, I can’t really remember the last time you showed up somewhere with some random chick on your arm. It’s been a long while. And from what I gather from Katie, Maggie wants this. She wants you. So you must be doing something right there. I guess I’m trying to tell you I’m proud of you… and all thatstuff.”
Wow.Watching Jesse Mayes squirm his way through a heart-to-heart? Awesome and painful at the sametime.
“Thanks, brother. You really don’t have to say allthis.”
“Sure Ido.”
I put him out of his misery and gave him a damn hug. Which felt pretty awkward in the back of a car. Plus, he was wearing his sexy-ass leather pants, and we were both in short sleeves so there was some definite skin-on-skin. Only saving grace was I knew it was more awkward for him, so I made sure it lasted a little toolong.
“You’re shit at this,” I told him. “You know that,right?”
He pushed me away. “Just want you to know I love you and all that shit. Alwayshave.”
“Yeah. Samehere.”
“I know I rarely say it. But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. You know, half the time I’m pissed at you because I envyyou.”
