Page 61 of Snowed Inn

I’m more pleased about this then I thought I would be, because that’s what I was hoping he’d say. “Seriously? I can visit?”

“Sure. Why not?” He takes a seat next to me. He’s so close his thigh touches mine. “I mean, you’ve already seen this place. It doesn’t get any worse.”

“It’s nice in here. Did you remodel it?”

“I did a lot of it,” he says. “Aiden made the drawers and shelving. He’s a terrific woodworker.”

“Where do you sleep?” I ask, only catching how rude and intrusive it sounds after the question is already hanging in the air.

He pats the cushion beneath our thighs. “Right here. It pulls out to a queen-size bed.”

“Oh.” I definitely feel my face heat because I’m sitting on Jesse’s bed next to him with our thighs touching.

Cool.

As if on cue, Christmas gets up and jumps over to the top of the cabinets across from us. For the first time I notice she has a tiny pillow there and an itty-bitty lavender blanket. It’s adorable. “That’s her bed,” Jesse says. She curls up on it and purrs some more. “There’s not much space in here, but she seems to like it.”

I turn and meet his eyes. I want to make myself perfectly clear. “You don’t have to be ashamed of your place, Jesse. What I see here is a man who is such a hard worker, he put his business—his future—ahead of his own comfort. It’s admirable. And pretty rare these days. You’ve obviously got your priorities straight, and I have a feeling that you’re going to make it.”

He doesn’t speak but his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. I hope he believed what I just said. I’m not a bullshitter. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.

“Thank you for that,” he finally replies.

The mood has shifted between us. It’s unmistakable. The time is right to ask him something I really want to know.

“So, why aren’t you and your sister close anymore?”

He’d been taking a sip of water when I asked, and he starts to cough. When he finally has his voice back, he says, “Uh, it’s kind of a long story.”

I grin at him and glance around. “I’ve got time.”

He sets down his glass and scratches the back of his head, wrinkling up his nose. “My family is messy,” he continues. “The short of it is, my dad drank a lot and my sister . . . well, let’s just say alcoholism runs in the family.”

Oh. Wow. It’s not easy to render me speechless, but I think he’s just done it. “But you’re a bartender!” I blurt. Though now it’s painfully obvious to me why he doesn’t drink much.

“Yep,” he agrees, nodding again.

And even though I know I need to stop being so nosy, I have to ask, “Why did you choose to be a bartender if your family has a history of alcohol use disorder?”

A smile passes over his face but it’s a humorless one. He settles his shoulders. “When we were little, me and Carrie, we made a pact. We’d never be like Dad.”

Oof. I press my lips together and nod.

He blows out a breath. “I guess I always kinda thought that opening a bar would prove it. You know? That I could handle being around alcohol and not turn into Dad. Only since Carrie’s been drinking too much, it’s really made me stop and think.”

“And that’s why you want to open the Mockingbird?” I press, though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.

“Yep,” he says. “I want a place where people can still have fun and socialize without the pressure to drink, without alcohol being the center of it all.”

I can tell by the look on his face that he’d rather wrap up this particular topic, and I can’t blame him. I feel slightly guilty for pressing him. And now it’s clear—his mocktail bar is so much more than just a business idea. It’s personal for him. I really hope he goes for it.

But it’s obviously time to change the subject, and I choose the one I significantly blundered last time. I lower my voice. “Is that why you think you’re not good enough for me? Because of your family?”

He takes another deep breath. “Look. I grew up poor, Maria. Like really poor.”

“I did too.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think you understand. I grew up so poor I didn’t have shoes sometimes. My dad spent the money Mom saved for our school clothes on booze. Sometimes we didn’t have anything to eat. He took the grocery money too.”