“What?”
“Why don’t you host it? The camera loves you.”
How did he know that? Had he seen the show? Had he googled me? If he had, then had he seen the sex tape?
No, I reprimanded myself. It didn’t matter if he had. That was not the important thing. The important thing was I had a job to do and I couldn’t be distracted by Jackson Briggs.
“I’m not…I prefer to be behind the camera.”
He remained quiet for a beat, still holding my gaze with his. “I think we’d make a good team.”
So did my lady parts. Which was exactly why I needed to find a replacement.
Chapter 11
Jackson
“People are like books, you can’t judge them by their covers, not the picture on the front or the description on the back. You have to read all of the chapters of their life to get the full story.”
~ Josephine Grace Clarke
I walked by Josie’s room and saw that the bed was made and there was no sign of her. It didn’t surprise me that she was up for the day since it was past ten. I’d woken up much later than I’d planned.
Sleep had eluded me the past couple of nights with Josie in the house. Not only in the house, but just ten feet away from me. In bed. My mind was stuck on that particular fact. Last night, around one in the morning, I’d gone to her door and pressed my ear to it, just to see if she was awake. I’m not even sure what I’d planned on doing if she had been, but I hadn’t heard anything, so I just went back to my room.
Yesterday, after I’d almost kissed Josie by the water tower we’d come home and she’d gone into her room to work, and stayed there all night. I’d never been a paranoid person, but the thought had crossed my mind that her hibernation may have been to avoid me. I told myself that I was being ridiculous, she was working. Still, I couldn’t shake the suspicion.
Running my hands through my hair, I headed downstairs, hoping I’d find her in the kitchen.
As I walked down the hallway, I saw the sun shining through the large bay windows above the sink as a delicious aroma of brewed coffee beans floated through the air. My dad would be on his second cup by now since he woke hours before the sunrise at 3:30 a.m.
I walked into the kitchen and found my mom sitting at the breakfast nook knitting, but Josie was nowhere to be found.
My stomach knotted in disappointment.
Without so much as lifting her head from her needlework, my mom announced, “She’s not here.”
“Who?” I asked lamely.
She raised her head and gave me her classic you-know-exactly-who-I’m-talking-about look. Instead of answering me, she continued, “She walked over to Mia’s for a meeting.”
I crossed to the cabinet and grabbed a mug. I tried to ignore my body’s response to hearing that news, but the knot of disappointment wasn’t loosening. If anything, it was growing tighter. I was leaving tomorrow, and from the way Josie shut down after I’d suggested that she step in as the host, I guessed there was no way she’d be joining me.
Which meant today might be my last chance to see her. I had another job lined up after this one, and one after that. I wasn’t going to be in the country for the foreseeable future. So I had today. And realistically, I only had half of that. Sunday dinner was a big deal in the Briggs’ house. People started arriving for it in the early evening and stayed well past sundown.
If I wanted to have any time with her, any quality time, it needed to happen this afternoon.
“I heard Madison gave you a ride home from the proposal the other day,” my mom commented as I poured my cup.
Turning around, I leaned against the counter and tilted my head. There would’ve been a time that she would’ve grilled me about the ride the day of. Pointing it out might irritate her and get her off the last topic I wanted to discuss.
“Wow. That was two days ago. You’re slippin’.”
Instead of taking my bait, she continued. “Are you planning on seeing her before you leave tomorrow?”
“No.” This really was one of the things I hated about growing up in a small town. People made a big deal over things like someone giving you a ride home.
“Hmm.” The ambiguous sound had my guard up.
Dolly Briggs saying “hmm” was equivalent to a woman saying “I’m fine” when you asked her how she was.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“No.” My mom rarely, if ever, asked me about my personal life. I wasn’t sure if it was because I really didn’t have one, or if she was just distracted by my brothers and sister who were in town with her. Maybe she confined her meddling to a ten-mile radius.
“Hmm.”
Shit. There it was again. This topic was far from over.
“You and Josie seem to get along.”
Aha, so that’s what this was about.
“We do.” I sipped my coffee.
“Be careful there.”
The warning hit me the wrong way. I thought my mother liked Josie. She’d called her sweetie pie. Hell, she’d had me give her a tour of the property and the town. What could’ve possibly made her do a one-eighty?
If it was any other woman, I’d have dropped the subject and been relieved that she’d let me off with a warning, but there was something different about Josie. I felt defensive, protective of her. I’d never felt like that about any other woman, that I wasn’t related to, of course.
“Be careful how?” As defensive as I felt, I made sure my tone remained respectful. I might not agree with what my mom was saying but I was raised better than to let that show.
“I heard you creeping to her room last night.”
Damn. How had she heard that? I was like a ninja. I felt like a teenager getting caught sneaking out.
“You need to keep your distance.”
I honestly could not believe what I was hearing. My mom wanted me to stay away from Josie? What could possibly have made her change her mind about her?
“I’m serious, Jackson. No funny business. She’s a nice girl.”
“And what am I?” I teased.
She didn’t smile. Instead she set her knitting needles down. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Holy shit. It wasn’t me she was trying to protect, it was Josie. My mom actually thought I wasn’t good enough for her. I hadn’t seen that coming. Needing a second to gather myself, I set my coffee mug down and crossed my arms. “Yes.”
“You are a man that has never had a relationship last more than three months. You are a man that prioritizes his career. You are a man that has a P.O. Box because he travels so much he doesn’t have a permanent residence. You are a man that is not available. She deserves better than that. She’s been through enough. And I will not allow one of my sons to be something that brings any pain to her life. Not as long I’m drawing breath.”
The not-as-long-as-I’m-drawing-breath card was the big guns. It was Dolly Briggs’ version of ‘over my dead body,’ which she didn’t like to say because she thought it was morbid and didn’t want to speak that over herself.
Confusion over what she was talking about overrode my defensiveness about her not being on Team Jackson. “What are you talking about? What has she gone through?”
A tiny crease appeared between my mom’s brows as she studied me. It felt like she remained silent for an hour, but in truth, it was probably closer to sixty seconds before a realization dawned on her. “You don’t know, do you?”
Panic was rising in me as my mind started running wild with guesses of what my mom was referring to. Was Josie sick? Had something horrible happened to her? Had she been a victim of some sort of attack?
“Know what?” I demanded.
“Do you know she was on a reality show?”
“Yeah, some girls at the airport wanted to take selfies with her.”
“Do you know about what happened after the reality show?”
“No.” I had no clue and I was quickly losing my patience. If my mom didn’t spit it out I was
about to go drive over to my brother’s house and find out for myself from the source.
“There was a—” My mom paused and I found myself holding my breath. “—video leaked of her.”
“Okay.”
“And in it, she was…being intimate with someone.”
“What are you talking about? Like a sex tape?”
“Yes.”
Josie didn’t strike me as the type to do that. That wasn’t a judgment, it was just an observation. She seemed too private for that.
“It was of her and her boyfriend, who she met on the show, Gio Alexander.”
That explained why she’d gotten weird when those girls had asked about him. I remained silent, waiting to find out why that information had inspired my mom to warn me about Josie.
“It went viral. Josie had no part in releasing it. She hadn’t even known that she was being taped. Gio recorded it without her knowledge.”
I saw red. All I could think about was all the horrific ways Gio could die.
“And that’s not all. She was a virgin. It was a huge plot point in the reality show. Gio denied knowing how the video got leaked but it was pretty obvious by all the press he did that he’d done it to capitalize on his fifteen minutes of fame.”
My blood was boiling, but before I tracked that fucker down and beat the shit out of him, or worse, I needed to make sure I had the facts straight. “That asshole took her virginity, secretly filmed it, and then released it to get fucking publicity?”
“Yes. She sued the distributor and got an injunction to have it removed. But by the time she got the video off the site, it was everywhere.”
My hands balled into a fist and I could feel my nostrils flaring. I felt like a bull in an arena with a red cape being waved in front of me. I was ready to charge and destroy anything in my path.
“I’m gonna kill him.”
“Don’t worry.” My mom began knitting again. “I already took care of it.”
I doubted that my mom was an undercover Dexter, murdering scumbags without anyone knowing. But then again, if anyone could do that and get away with it, it was Dolly Briggs. That woman could do anything she set her mind to.
“How did you take care of it?”
“I prayed that he would be castrated in a horrible boating accident,” my mom replied as casually as if she was asking me to pass the salt.
“Wow. That’s oddly specific.”
“I saw it on Strangest Emergency Room Visits.”
I had to smile. “I don’t think you’re supposed to pray for things like that.”
“Prayer goes both ways.” She shrugged. “And disregard what I said earlier.”
My mom had said a lot of things in this conversation, and I had no idea what she was referring to. “Disregard what?’
“You don’t need to keep your distance.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
“I saw what I needed to see.”
My mother didn’t normally speak in riddles. But I had no idea what she was talking about. Sadly, before I could ask her what she meant, the screen door opened and my dad walked in.
“Look who’s finally up!” His large hand landed on my shoulder. “Half the day is gone, son!”
My dad poured his second cup of coffee and he and my mom talked about whether they thought their next grandbaby was going to be a girl or a boy.
I sat quietly, sipping my coffee, battling between rage and protectiveness. Every Cro-Magnon cell in my body was screaming for me to take action. I wanted to get in my truck, drive to my brother’s, throw Josie over my shoulder, drag her off to my cave and kill anyone, with my bare hands, that ever tried to hurt her.
I couldn’t wrap my head around my reaction to her. It was so completely out of character for me and also massively out of proportion. How was it possible to feel this much intensity, this much possessiveness about someone I’d known for less than forty-eight hours?
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea that I was leaving tomorrow. Maybe it was exactly what I needed.
Chapter 12
Josie
“When faced with two paths, always choose the rougher terrain, it will lead to the more breathtaking destination.”
~ Josephine Grace Clarke
“What about Skylar?” I suggested weakly. The girl had zero charisma and couldn’t read a teleprompter to save her life, but beggars couldn’t be choosers at this point.
“No.” Mia shook her head as she clicked through several more submissions.
We’d watched and rewatched all of our options. I knew that there was no one in the bunch that had everything that we were looking for.
“We can’t delay production,” I said out loud, mainly for my own benefit. I needed to remind myself that wasn’t an option. We only had Jackson for two weeks. I wasn’t sure what he had lined up after that, but I knew that he had a hard out.
Jackson. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since our “moment” at the water tower. Oh, who was I kidding? I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since he’d picked me up from the airport. But it had gotten worse since I was ninety-nine percent sure that we would’ve kissed if I hadn’t gotten the message from Randy.
What would his lips taste like? Would they be firm or soft? Would he pull me close to him?
“I just wish I could do it.” Mia sank down in her dining room chair and let her head fall back. We’d met for breakfast at her house for our final production meeting before principal photography started, which was happening tomorrow. We were running out of time and options.
Besides being my producing partner, Mia was my closest friend. And she was pregnant. I hated that she was stressed, and I did feel like I was letting her down, but I just couldn’t do it.
“Wait!” Something—or I should say someone—I’d totally forgotten about popped into my mind. “What about Clancy? Her tape was amazing!”
Clancy was a local news reporter in Chicago whose reel we’d been sent by a friend who knew we were looking for a host. The only reason we didn’t initially go with her was because she didn’t have the same experience and following that Seraphina had. But I believed that she would do a better job. I’d totally forgotten about her because her tape hadn’t been in this round of submissions.
“Randy looked into it. Her station won’t let her out of her contract.”
“Damn.”
“Okay.” Mia sat up and slapped her hands on the table. “I know you keep shutting down the idea, but you should do it. You have everything we’re looking for in a host. People love you and they love opening up to you. Do you remember the time at CVS when that woman went into graphic detail about her yeast infection and the sort of sex she was having so as not to aggravate it?”
“That’s a conversation I’ll never forget.” It’s not every day that a complete stranger tells you that she and her boyfriend are doing anal to avoid a feminine issue.
“And that time we were at The Phantom of the Opera and you missed the entire second half because at intermission you asked a man if he was okay and he ended up telling you how he’d lost his wife to cancer but he’d bought the tickets for her birthday. That was ten years ago, but I bet you still remember his name.”
“Greg, he lost his wife Naomi. We keep in touch on Facebook.” I smiled. “He just became a grandpa. His son had a baby girl and they named her Naomi.”
“Do you see what I’m saying?” Mia’s arms flew up. “And I have dozens of stories like that. You have this magical way with people and I think the magic is that you actually care.”
“It’s not magic, and everyone cares.”
“No.” Mia shook her head, her eyes widening. “They absolutely do not. I promise you. Most people only care about themselves and maybe a handful of other people. Not strangers that they meet at the store or a Broadway play.
“You have a degree in communications, and I read your college admission paper, remembe
r? You said that you wanted to be the next Oprah or Barbara Walters.”
That was before House of Love and everything that came after. “You know why I can’t.”
“No, Josie, I honestly don’t.” Mia shook her head. “That was so long ago. You can’t let it define your entire life, can you?”
Up until now, I’d always loved that Mia always said exactly what she felt, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But right now, I wasn’t a fan of her tough love. Her words hit me like a slap in the face, because the truth was, I had let it define my life. I kept my composure, not letting her see how deep what she’d said cut. “It may have happened ten years ago, but now that the show is streaming there’s been a resurgence in attention. It’s found an entirely new audience who is interested in my relationship with Gio. But guess what comes up when you search our names?” Tears pricked the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
Mia’s face softened as she reached out and put her hand over mine. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I sniffed back my unwanted emotion. “But I just don’t think that I should be the face of the show. I don’t want that sort of negative publicity.”
“First of all, we are living in the post hashtag-me-too era. Everyone is woke, whatever that means. And I’m not trying to minimize the trauma that you experienced and are still experiencing, but that video is tame compared to peoples’ Only Fans, or half of the TV shows and movies out there.”
I doubted that.
My expression must’ve given my thoughts away, because she shot back defensively, “I’m serious. Have you seen Normal People?”
“Yes, and I read the book.” And I loved them both.
“They showed the whole kit and caboodle.” She waved her hands over her boobs and lap.
She was right, but that didn’t change how I felt.
“Look, if you really don’t want to do it, that’s fine. We’ll figure it out. Or not. It doesn’t really matter. But don’t not do it because you think it will tarnish the show. It absolutely won’t. Honestly, though, I don’t think it’s that. I think you’re scared, and you want to keep hiding in your shell.”
Loving Jackson (Wishing Well, Texas Book 10) Page 7