“Oh my God.” I drop my head into my hands, feeling my face flame.
As if the entire exchange didn’t even happen with the poor, scarred older woman, Paige says, “So, seriously, what’s up? Is everything okay?”
And that’s why I love her, why she’s my best friend. She can go from funny and carefree and completely inappropriate to caring and concerned in a second flat.
Sighing, my shoulders sag. “I don’t know. Nothing’s wrong. And that’s kind of the problem.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Nothing is wrong and that’s the problem,” she repeats. “I’m gonna need a definition of that from the Tessa Dictionary, please.”
“I just . . . I don’t know. I was anticipating this thing with Jason to be full of complications, and it’s been . . . easy. Too easy.”
“Honey, that’s not a bad thing.”
“I know it’s not a bad thing. I just can’t stop from waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Are you waiting for him to screw up?”
“No . . . Yes . . . I don’t know.” I sigh, my shoulders dropping as I stare at her. Her face is completely free of scrutiny, and I know whatever I tell her will stay in the vault. Whatever I tell her will be accepted without any kind of judgment. I can bleed in front of her, show her all my ugly insecurities, and she’ll take it all in stride, not blinking an eye as she soothes my fears. “He’s new to all this, you know? Me, I’ve done the relationship thing. But him? His longest relationship lasted about two hours. What if I’m just, I don’t know, practice?”
“If you’re just practice, that boy is an amazing actor and needs to go to Hollywood to get started on his journey toward an Oscar. He’s into you, Tess. Like, really, really, totally-head-over-heels-in-love-with-you into you.”
“What?” I’m shaking my head, rejecting her answer. “No. I mean, I know he’s into me. I get that. But he’s not in love with me.” And then I think back to the shiny metal object he left under the bright pink Post-it note I may or may not have kept and tucked into my nightstand drawer. Did giving me a key have as much meaning to him as it did to me, despite trying to stop myself from reading too much into it?
“Okay, what’s with the face? What were you thinking about just now?”
Worrying my lip, I glance up at Paige, knowing she’s going to be furious with me for keeping this from her for so long. “He, um, he sort of left something at the house the day after Thanksgiving.”
“What, like a stash of condoms?”
I huff out a laugh and shake my head. “No, not condoms. He left a key.”
Her eyebrows furrow, and she leans back in her chair. “The key to your place?”
“Nope, the key to his.”
“He what?” she screeches and bolts forward in her seat. “Hold the fucking phone.” She slams her hand on the table with every word. “He gave you a key to his apartment—two fucking weeks ago, mind you—and you didn’t tell me until right now? That’s it.” She sits back, directing her pointed stare at me as she crosses her arms against her chest. “Your BFF privileges are revoked.”
“I know, I know.” I lean forward, trying to reach across the table to tug her arms away from where they’re held tightly against her. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you right away, but I was kind of worried it was a fluke, you know? Like, maybe he didn’t really mean it and he’d take it back when he came to his senses.”
“Has he?”
“Has he what?”
“Come to his senses and taken the key back.”
“No. He just asks when I’m going to get around to using the damn thing.”
“Well,” she says as she finally removes her arms from their prison against her chest and leans toward me, “looks like you need to make a surprise trip soon.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
jason
I walk out of my last undergrad class . . . ever. All the other students around me hustle out of the building, excited to get on with their winter holiday plans. Meanwhile, my feet are dragging, my steps slow and shuffled as I force myself away from the one place that was mine for the last five years. Too long? Maybe . . . probably. It was something I did to put off the inevitable, but something I loved nonetheless. My grandpa understood it; my parents tolerated it. But it was mine and mine alone, something my parents couldn’t touch. Or I didn’t think they could, anyway.
And now, the days are ticking down to a future I don’t want, a future I can’t stop. Two short weeks, and I’ll be walking the path my father set out for me, following behind his footsteps to take over a company that no longer resembles the one my grandfather started, all because I’m standing by a family who hasn’t ever stood by me.
The whole scenario makes me want to jump off a bridge.
I pull out my phone on the walk to my car, calling the one person I know can take me out of my shitty mood. Tessa answers on the third ring. “Hey, are you done?”
“Yep, I’m officially done with my undergrad.”
“You actually don’t sound too happy about that.”
A humorless laugh slips out. “What’s there not to be happy about? In a couple years, I’ll be making six figures, wearing a suit every day, eating at expensive restaurants, and flying all over the world running a multimillion-dollar company while shitting all over people to make sure my pockets are lined. Sounds stellar.”
“Jason . . .”
Not liking the concern I hear in her voice, I cut her off. “Can I come over tonight?”
She lets me change the subject, not pushing me on what she’s already said a hundred times over the last two months: that I should just tell my parents I don’t want any part of it. That I want to do my own thing. But I already know exactly how that conversation would go—it’d be the last one I ever had with them.
“I have to work late tonight.”
“I don’t care if it’s midnight.”
She laughs. “Okay. I’ll text you when I’m done, and you can meet me at home. Becky’s watching Haley tonight, so I’ll let her know you’re stopping by in case you get there before me.”
“Sounds good. See you in a couple hours, baby.”
We disconnect the call, and I continue on my path straight for my apartment. I have roughly six hours until Tessa will be at her place. A lot of hours to try and forget about what’s going on in my life right now before Tessa can distract me.
• • •
I’M ON MY second beer, having decided I had enough time to drink a couple and allow the effects to wear off before I need to go to Tessa’s, when there’s a knock at my door. I glance at the time, hoping Tessa figured out a way to slip out of the salon and surprise me. I’ve been waiting for her to use that fucking key I gave her for two weeks. And the thought of her showing up here, unannounced, doesn’t even break me into a sweat. All I keep fantasizing about is her using it on the nights I don’t stay at her place and waking me up with her lips around my cock.
I stand with a groan and adjust myself, tossing my game controller on the couch before walking to the door. A quick look out the peephole dashes any hopes of my girlfriend—fuck, it feels weird to say that—giving me an afternoon quickie. And the person on the other side of the door effectively deflates any stirrings of a hard-on I had.
Opening the door, I meet the cool, appraising eyes of my mother. “Hey, Mom. What brings you to my awful neighborhood?” I ask as I lean against the doorjamb. In truth, it’s a great location, but it’s not brimming with doctors and lawyers and CEOs. With multimillion-dollar homes and five-acre estates. It’s a nice, middle-class neighborhood, and the one place I could get my parents to concede to when I moved out of the dorms after freshman year.
She sniffs as she walks past me, all prim and proper in her pressed suit, her hair up in some kind of twist, handbag that no doubt costs as much as my monthly rent hanging in the crook of her elbow. “I can’t stop by and see my only son without a motive?”
“Well, you never have before, so . . .” It’s the truth
. In the four years I’ve lived here, neither she nor my father has ever graced me with their presence. My grandpa used to come here sometimes, before he died, but not my parents. Never them. I walk past her, down the long hallway and into the kitchen. “Wasn’t exactly expecting company.” I open the fridge and gesture inside. “I’ve got beer and water.”
“Nothing, thank you.” She looks around, taking in the plain white walls, the distressed leather couch, and an entertainment setup to rival that of a sports bar. No chandeliers hanging from the ceiling or fifteen-thousand-dollar pieces of art adorning my walls. My place is nice, and I love it, but it’s not the mansion I grew up in—far from it—and I can tell she’s looking down her nose at it. Just like everything else in my life.
“Yeah, well, if you don’t mind, I’m kind of busy . . .” I gesture vaguely to the space around me, hoping she gets the hint and leaves.
“Doing what?”
No such luck. Shrugging, I say, “Fucking around.”
She looks affronted, her eyes going wide as she places a hand at her chest. “Jason, watch your mouth.”
I bark out a laugh and shake my head. “Nope, sorry. You can pull that at your house, but not mine. And you don’t own me quite yet, so if I want to spend the afternoon playing video games and coding a website for fun, I can. Now what do you need, Mother?”
She smooths a hand over her impeccable hair, not a strand out of place, and asks, “How’s Tessa?”
The question startles me, halting my steps. Not because I don’t want her asking about Tessa, but because she never would. Not without an ulterior motive. My voice is laced with heavy skepticism when I ask, “Why do you want to know?”
She tsks and shakes her head. “Always with the suspicion.”
“For good reason.”
Undeterred by my tone, she continues, “You two seemed cozy at Thanksgiving.”
“Where are you going with this?” I lean against the wall in my living room, arms crossed against my chest as I wait for her to finally say what she wants to say.
“I understand Charles discussed the . . . concerns of the partners with you.”
“The concerns that I’m a glorified playboy? Yeah, he might’ve mentioned it.”
“He also mentioned something else, didn’t he?”
My slightly buzzed brain finally picks up on where she’s going with this. Pushing away from the wall, I clench my jaw. “No.”
“He didn’t mention anything else?”
“He did, and the answer is still no.”
She heaves a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about this. It could be the answer we’ve been searching for . . . finally put the partners’ unease to rest.”
“I don’t give a shit what the partners think of me. If they’re uneasy with me, that’s not my problem. It’s you two who are so insistent on putting me in this position. I would be just as satisfied working in the mailroom, like you not-so-subtly suggested for Tessa. I’m not dragging her into whatever bullshit you have worked up in your mind.”
“But she and Haley are perfect, Jason. Already a built-in family. We thought this would take years to coax, and then it fell right into our laps.”
My blood runs cold, my entire body stilling when her words sink in. “What do you mean, you thought this would take years?”
“Maybe now isn’t the best ti—”
“What did you mean, Mother?”
She leans forward on the couch, her purse resting in her lap like a shield. Clearing her throat, she says, “Well, of course your father and I have a future we’d like for you to consider.”
Of course they do. They’ve always had a future planned out for me, for as long as I could remember. Whereas my grandpa always encouraged my interests, encouraged me to pursue my dreams, the two people who were supposed to support me unconditionally encouraged me only if it had the desired impact on what they wanted for my life.
I barely resist the urge to punch a hole through the drywall behind me. “A future where I’m married to a girl of your choosing who’s popping out at least one heir, am I right?”
“But don’t you see? Now that doesn’t have to happen. It can be someone you’ve chosen. All the better that it’ll fast-track the family portion, at least in the partners’ eyes. Of course, I’ll have to . . . finesse the truth of Tessa’s history with the girls at the club, just to make sure she’s accepted, you understand.”
And I do. I understand every word that comes out of her mouth, because it’s some version of the same thing I’ve heard my entire life. It’s then that I realize this is never going to end. None of it. They’ll always have a stake in my life, always pull the strings whenever they get the inkling, whenever they think I won’t fight back. And the thought of them doing this to Tessa and Haley . . . the thought of my parents tainting the two most vibrant and beautiful women I know, the two girls I love most in the world, bleeding their toxic nature into them . . . No. It can’t happen. I won’t let it happen.
Quietly, calmly, I say the words that will get her off my back. The words that will make sure Tessa and Haley stay mine and mine only. “There is no me and Tessa, Mother. There’s nothing there for you to build into something it’s not. There’s no wedding bells and no built-in family coming my way.”
“But . . . but you invited them for Thanksgiving. Surely it’s serious. I’ve never once met a girl you were seeing.”
A bitter laugh escapes my mouth. “Like I would willingly bring someone to meet you two? I invited her because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. That’s it.” I step toward her, not caring that I’m towering over her as she sits perched on the couch, and I’m finally pleased to see a crack in the facade she wears all the time. And then I say whatever I have to so I can keep the only pieces of light in this life my parents are bound and determined to orchestrate for me. “Let me repeat it for you, so you can run off and tell my father and the partners: There is no me and Tessa. She was there to scratch an itch, and I let her. That’s it. I learned a long time ago not to get involved with anyone. She’s no exception.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
tessa
Paige’s words ring through my head as I take the elevator up to the third floor, the surprise trip she urged me to make showing up sooner than I expected. With Becky watching Haley until after nine—when my shift was supposed to end—and a cancellation for a cut and full foil leaving me a huge chunk of my evening wide open, I have time to kill. And after talking to Jason earlier, I know exactly how much he could use a little distraction.
I repeat my mantra since leaving the salon—this isn’t a big deal—over and over as the elevator slowly climbs to my destination. Jason left me his key because he wants me to use it. In fact, he’s asked me repeatedly when I’m going to get around to using the thing. With this in mind, I take determined steps toward his door—317—but hesitate when I finally get to it. I don’t even know if he’s home, if he came here after talking with me earlier this afternoon, or if he’s out with friends, trying to forget what awaits him in a couple short weeks. I don’t know if I should knock and wait for him to answer, or if I should go ahead and use the key he gave me. But then I figure it would sort of defeat the purpose if I came all this way and just knocked, waiting for him to answer.
I imagine a hundred different scenarios if I were to use my key and let myself in, just like I’ve done every day since finding it under that bright pink Post-it note. Where he’s in the shower and I strip naked before walking in behind him and wrapping my hand around his length, stroking him into a frenzy until he spins and takes me right there against the shower wall. Where he’s sitting on his couch, watching TV or playing a video game, and I surprise him by licking, then biting his earlobe like he loves before I walk around the couch and straddle him, rocking against him until we both get off.
With renewed urgency, I finally slip the key into the lock, holding my breath as I twist it and turn the knob, pushing through into his space.
His building isn’t what I’d expect, having seen where Jason lived for eighteen years, but it’s exactly what I’d expect knowing just Jason. It’s nice, but not ostentatious, a solid brick building with large balconies and a small outdoor pool and clubhouse. I passed a tiny gym with only a couple machines on the way to the elevator. No sprawling indoor pool. No Jacuzzi. No on-site spa like I would expect from someone coming from the wealth Jason has available to him. His parents probably shit a brick at the non-extravagant conditions he’s living in, and I smile at the thought—his subtle way of giving them the finger, of keeping some of the control he’s so desperate for when it comes to them.
I take gentle, tentative steps down his hall, the plush carpeting under my feet muting the sounds of my footfalls. A long corridor leads to what I assume is the kitchen and living room. No pictures hang on the white walls, but that doesn’t surprise me. Jason’s a no-frills kind of guy. He’d want everything simple and uncluttered.
The sound of muted voices reaches my ears when I get closer, and for a minute I think it’s the TV until I recognize one of the voices as Jason’s. A soft, feminine voice sounds next, and my stomach jumps into my throat, fear and uncertainty paralyzing me at why a woman would be alone in Jason’s apartment with him. And then I catch the end of something he says— “. . . me and Tessa, Mother.” I breathe for half a second as I realize who he’s addressing until the rest of what he says registers, and then I’m frozen once again, braced against the wall, but for another reason entirely.
“. . . something it’s not. There’s no wedding bells and no built-in family coming my way.”
“But . . . but you invited them for Thanksgiving. Surely it’s serious. I’ve never once met a girl you were seeing.”
Jason laughs, the sound bitter and so unlike the man I’ve come to know, the man I’ve come to love, and my heartbeat speeds into a gallop, my palms sweating. “Like I would willingly bring someone to meet you two? I invited her because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. That’s it.”
Tessa Ever After Page 20