by Jessa York
“I’m going out,” I snarked at Jack, and he actually chuckled. The asshat laughed at me? “What’s so funny?” I glared at his brashness.
“I can guarantee you that you’re not going out anywhere.” He smiled. What a jerk.
“So, now you’re in charge of where I go?” I ground out, mad as hell that he’d even think to boss me around.
He didn’t say anything before he pulled his phone out and passed it to me. It was on camera mode. I stared into it and saw the reflection of a poorly paid, small-town pole dancer. Jack got me so angry and flustered that I forgot all about my heinous pancake makeup job and the curlers in my hair. Dammit.
After chucking his phone back at him, I scampered across the hall to my apartment.
24
Jack
If the woman thought she was turning me off with her anger, she had another thing coming. The more pissed she got, the harder I got. There was just something extremely arousing about her attitude and how she carried herself when she got that murderous glow about her.
“I need a cloth to wash this crap off.” She snarled at me like an angry wolf, then hurled her poor purse to the couch.
“More like a sandblaster,” I muttered, not intending for her to hear, and hung up my suit jacket.
“What did you just say?” She stopped in the hallway with her hands holding onto her hips for dear life.
This wasn’t helping. “It’s a lot of makeup. That’s all I meant.”
“Do you have to be a douche about it?” she asked, jerking her head around.
Nope. I blew out a blast of air and apologized. “It was a mean thing to say. I’m sorry.” The makeup she had plastered on her face was the funniest thing I’d seen in a while. Maybe ever. My best guess was that Roza and a very large putty knife had something to do with it.
Holy shit. Her hair was rolled up in some kind of animal snare. If you thought about it, I deserved a medal for not running away screaming when she opened the door. My ribs strained at the sight of her.
“No, I look like a clown. You’re right.” She puffed out and dragged herself back into the living room and sat her fine ass on the sofa.
Relieved that she didn’t run away and lock herself in the bathroom, I grinned and joined her. “The most beautiful clown I’ve ever seen,” I said and risked touching one of the curlers tightly bound to her head. It didn’t budge.
“More like a clown from a horror flick. Roza just kept layering shit on, one thing after the next. If you protest too much, she gets all grouchy,” Harper said as she picked off imaginary fuzz from her skirt. There was no holding it in, so I laughed and put my arm around her. “I’m still mad at you, so don’t think you’re forgiven because I look like some dime store hooker,” she said and, oh shit, that made me laugh even harder. The glare she threw me did nothing to stop my laugher either.
“I’d definitely pay way more than a dime for you,” I said and hugged her into me.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” She narrowed her eyes at me and elbowed my ribs unkindly.
“Yes?” I said, not sure what to say after yet again digging myself into a hole. “I’m sorry. The way I acted at lunch was unforgiveable, but I was fucking shocked to walk in and see you hugging my dad. Can we talk about that now?” I lowered my voice to a gentle tone. My dad was a bastard, but there was no way I was losing the woman I loved over him.
She exhaled heavily and drew her legs up, taking on a protective shell. “He came to the office a few weeks ago. At first, I told him to beat it, but after he talked and explained himself…well,” she said and shrugged, “I felt sorry for him. He knows how much he messed up, and he really does want to make it up to you.”
Hmm. Creative son-of-a-bitch for targeting my girlfriend and making her believe his shitty lies. “So, you’ve been having lunch with him every day for weeks and you didn’t tell me?” My lips curled, and I made a tight fist with my free hand.
“Yeah, I know I should have told you,” she said, and I practiced my deep breathing instead of getting up to smash shit. “But the more I got to know him, the more I liked him.” Liked him. Good God. He brainwashed her. “I am sorry that I didn’t tell you what was going on. You need to know that,” she said and gazed into my eyes. “Over the weeks, we’ve become friends. And I really don’t want to stop our lunches. I know it pisses you off, but it’s the truth.”
Motherfucker. I took my arm from around her and put my hands on my face. If I ordered her not to see my father again, she was either going to hate my guts or do it anyway. This was my father we were talking about. No way could he keep up a nice guy act for very long. If he had been behaving for a few weeks, it was just a matter of time before he broke down and went back to his old ways. I’d wait him out and look like the good guy, even though I wanted to strangle the piece of shit.
“Can we compromise?” I peered over at her. “You know I don’t like the man, but I can’t stop you from being friends with him,” I said as bile rose in my throat. “If you insist on spending time with him, I want to be there. Not one bone in my body trusts him, and I sure as hell don’t trust him alone with the woman I love.”
“He’s changing. I’m not kidding. Every day I see him, he’s making some kind of breakthrough.”
“I still don’t trust him alone with you. Can you do this one thing for me? For now? It’s making me crazy thinking of you with him and I’m not there to protect you. I need you to agree to this. At least for a while. Then we can re-evaluate things later.” Like after he had a temper tantrum and scared you away for good.
She scanned my face, and I could tell the second she decided to let it go. “Okay.”
Relief coursed through my veins, and I pulled her in for a kiss. Kind of. “Honey, is that lipstick safe for human consumption?” I pushed away and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The taste of musty bitter perfume infiltrated my mouth.
“I can’t guarantee that,” she said with red biohazard lipstick smeared over her lips. At least I thought her lips were under there somewhere.
“You know I love you, but this,” I motioned with my hand, “is a bit distracting.”
“Trust me, I know.” She sighed. “I’ll go shower. It might take a year to get these curlers out and this face off.”
“I can help if you want?” I asked, more than willing to get my natural Harper back.
She pushed up and started down the hall. “Fine. But bring the sandblaster,” she called over her shoulder.
“I can definitely do that.” I smirked and followed her, looking forward to a nice, long, steamy shower.
25
John (Jack’s father)
It always seemed funny to me, how certain sights and smells took me back to a time or place, like some kind of cosmic time machine. That’s how I felt stepping back into the old office we shared with Bill. Suddenly, I was back to a time decades earlier. A new grad with hopes and dreams of changing the world. Or at least changing someone’s world, like mine had been changed. Giving the gift of a second chance, no strings attached.
The old guy behind the cluttered desk looked the same, just older. To be fair, he had less hair, and what was left was pure white. More wrinkles and worry lines, but essentially the same.
He looked up at me and did a double take before he smiled. “Get out of town,” he said, still trying to be the cool hipster, almost thirty years later. “Knew you’d come back, begging for a job,” he bellowed, standing up to shake my hand.
“Bill, good to see you. It’s been too long,” I said and felt my throat clench.
“Nice of you to visit,” he teased, throwing my last words to him back in my face.
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain, did I?”
“Life happens, I get it,” he said and sat back down.
“It does,” I agreed.
“Sit, sit.” He pointed to the worn chair beside me. “So, what brings you here today? I’m sure it’s not a social call.”
/> “I screwed up again,” I told him, and he frowned, not understanding what I meant.
“You’re in trouble? I find that hard to believe.” He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes.
“Elaine left me.”
He audibly gasped. “What are you even saying? That woman thinks you walk on water, for Christ’s sake. There’s no way she would leave you,” he said, slamming his hands on the desk, causing the mess of papers to fly.
“I screwed up when I left here.” I swung my hand out. “It was a mistake. She never looked at me the same way again. You know that. The money I made…good God, the cash I earned never changed a thing,” I said and gripped the arms of the chair. “Not in her eyes. I thought eventually she would change her mind, understand that we needed the income, but she never did.” Of course, that didn’t mean that I stopped chasing the proverbial American Dream, all the while watching my family slowly self-destruct.
“I’m sorry, man. Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, eyes full of remorse, not for him but for me. Somehow, I held myself together.
“Hire me back.”
He chuckled and pushed his squeaky fake leather chair back from his desk. “Right. You’re going to leave your entire firm to come back here. Makes perfect sense,” he said with a sarcastic tone.
“I left my firm to come back here. If you’ll take me?”
His eyes squinted at me as he tried to figure out if I was being sincere or not. “The kids need stability, John. They’ve got nobody. Some of them have not one person in this world who gives a shit if they live or die. Whoever I have in my office needs to get that.”
“You don’t think I understand that?” I laughed mirthlessly at the irony of his statement. “You were there for me when nobody else gave one shit if I lived or died,” I said and slumped down further in my seat. It squeaked with the effort.
“That’s all in the past,” he said dismissively. “I offered you a hand up, and you took it. You are the one who deserves the credit for that, not me.”
“If you hadn’t been the one to take my case, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to my pathetic life,” I said and pinched the bridge of my nose. “You made all the difference. I told you I’d pay you back one day. And I did for a while.” I nodded. “But then I left you, too. I never should have gone. It was rewarding as hell, but I traded it in for the almighty dollar. Me, Bill. Fucking me,” I yelled and slapped my chest. “I turned into an ungrateful bastard. My wife left me. My kids won’t speak to me. But I’ve got money. All the goddamn money any man could ever want, but nothing to show for it.”
“You lost your way for a while. You’ll find it again,” Bill said in a calm voice.
“I found it. Thirty years ago, I found it. I want it back.”
He’d think about it. What does that mean? Christ, I wanted a yes or a no, not some vague, pansy-ass answer like, “I’ll think about it, John.” I tugged at my tie and loosened it. Fuck, I still couldn’t breathe, so I ripped that bastard off and threw it on the sidewalk as I stomped off to find my car.
The ringing in my ears got louder the more I admonished myself for freezing up in front of Bill. The slimeball in me wanted to rip the guy a new one for not bowing down to my offer, but the good, decent part of me understood his hesitation.
How did everything get so screwed up? A growl burst out of me from the depths of my soul as I kicked a half-full pop can with enough force to smash it against a building. The crushed can dropped with a hollow clank on the cement, and dark liquid dripped down the brick wall.
A young child screamed in surprise from his stroller while his angry mom threw me a scowl. I rubbed my face and slithered over to the empty park bench.
Well done, shithead. The outburst, while not unusual for me in the past, caught me off guard. Since I’d been seeing my therapist and cut out the booze, I found my anger was more than manageable.
Sadness crept in often, of course. The house wasn’t a home without my wife there with me. What I wouldn’t give to have her back and for the constant silence surrounding me to end. Stillness mocked my every move, my every thought.
I was alone. And it was all my fault.
26
Jack
“I think I might get those lash extensions,” Harper spouted out for no apparent reason. Our shower required a bit more elbow grease than I originally expected. Whatever was in Roza’s makeup products seemed to be immune to regular remover products. We had to think out of the box and into the kitchen.
A wet, hot, soapy Harper was not a problem I needed to fix quickly, so I may have taken my time.
Now, after a few sessions of extremely gratifying make-up sex, she lay with her head on my chest, and all was right with the world. Until she uttered that shit. I just spent how long getting crap off her face, and now she wanted to put more stuff back on?
“Gorgeous, what I’m going to say might piss you off, but I’ve got to tell you anyway, even though we just made up… a few times.” I chuckled, and she slapped me on the chest. “It also makes me an asshole for caring what you do and what you don’t do to your body, but I’ve got to say it anyway. We agreed to honesty, right?” I nudged her head with my shoulder.
“Of course,” she said, looking at me doe-eyed and satisfied. I could live to be a hundred and never get sick of seeing that expression.
“Every morning when I roll over and look at you, I love your naked face. No makeup, nothing. Natural. I see exactly what I’m getting, and I’m over-fucking-joyed.” I kissed her. “I also love when you go all out and doll yourself up when we go out. But if I could never see your naked face in the mornings, or on Sundays when you laze around in your sexy nightgowns or my shirt from the night before…I’d miss that. Like a lot.” My fingers traced up and down the soft skin of her back. “Do what you want, eyelashes, hair, whatever. I’ll still love you and think you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen, but don’t do any of that shit for me. All you need to do to turn me on is smile.” Or have an epic temper tantrum. Or simply breathe.
“That’s nice of you to say, but your track record says different. You haven’t exactly stuck to natural beauties,” she replied and played with my chest hair.
“Because I hadn’t found you yet. I didn’t know someone like you existed, or I would have held out.”
She snorted her dorky laugh and climbed on top of me. “I’m sure you would have saved yourself for me.” I opened my lips to respond, but before I could, she slapped her hands down on my mouth. “I’m not getting the eyelashes, but not because you said not to,” she said and glanced off to the side. “Well, okay. Maybe because you said not to. Vivienne also mentioned that you have to go get them filled like every few weeks. That’s just more commitment than I’m willing to give right now. How stupid, me doing something to impress you.” Her hands massaged my chest, and feeling that incredible ass of hers on my cock stirred certain things up. Again.
“Not stupid, just insecure. And Harper, if you’re feeling insecure, that means I’m not doing my job. So, from now on, I’ll work on that.”
“You will?”
I pulled her down flat on me. “Mhmm. Starting now,” I murmured against her neck, and I felt her shiver all over.
Then for the next half hour, I worked on her insecurities. Twice.
27
Harper
“All right now, class. Let’s all line up for the balance beam,” the young, red-headed, perky teacher said. She was just way too happy for nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. Yes, I said nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. Why Brooke decided that this would be the optimum time for a gym class, we would never know.
Jack had work to catch up on—as usual—so here I stood with Ava while we waited for the class to begin. The teacher was so loud, you could hear every word she said even though they were half a building away on the beams. In the front were the warm-up play mats, and to the left, trampolines of various shapes and sizes. A giant foam pit was pla
ced in the middle of the huge renovated warehouse.
“Where’s Brooke?” a mom snarked behind me. This wasn’t the first time today the members of The Bitch Crew talked behind my back. They’d been hard at it for a good twenty minutes, pretending to lower their voices.
“Well, why isn’t he here then?” another Bitch Crew member voiced her concern. From what I gathered, they were bemoaning the fact that Hot Dad wasn’t here. Apparently, Jack had quite a following with the BC gals, and they missed him terribly. While I completely understood this, it also weirded me out to be surrounded by women who openly perved on my boyfriend. Ick.
None of them had any shame whatsoever. I could not wait for this class to be over.
Ten minutes later, we were herded like cattle through the indoor chain-link fence. My fingers grazed over the cool metal, and I wondered what went on here at night that they would need such sturdy fencing.
“Let’s begin with our big kid stretches,” the teacher said before breaking out into song. Something about how we were all friends and should play nice with each other. Maybe the Bitch Crew needed to listen to it?
After stretching, we lined up to march toward the trampolines. “Um, excuse me,” Queen Bitch said before stepping directly in front of me. “I was here first,” she added with a sneer and a flip of her fake ponytail.
“Oh, sorry.” Yeah, sorry you were ever born, you heinous cow. The last thing I wanted to do was cause a scene and embarrass Ava, so I kept my mouth shut and let her butt in line.
I was busy counting the very visible hair extensions on Queen Bitch’s head, when she turned around and said, “Can I help you with something?”