NOT SO Innocent (Bay Falls High Book 4)

by Jaxson Kidman

  I kept my feet up on the seat, after kicking my shoes off, of course.

  We each drank two energy drinks and after a solid thirty minutes of music, Jo pressed a button on the steering wheel and the music was instantly gone.

  “There’s one thing,” she said. “And I’m making this clear to you, Belle. Well, maybe there’s more than one thing. I am not going to force you into anything. If you want to go back there and finish up and live life, then go. I can be… I don’t know. Someone to call. An ear if you need one. When I’m around. My life is busy. Very busy. I wasn’t lying when I said I was in surgery this morning. My hours are crazy and unpredictable. When dealing with the human heart, you never know what’s going to happen. A simple visit to the doctor could end up in a twelve hour surgery. But that’s not my point. My point is this… if you stay with me, you finish what you started.”

  “You want me to go to class.”

  “Just get the fucking thing over with,” Jo said. “I’ll handle everything. You’ll get the classes you want. Whatever you need. Just get it done. To be fair, you’re going to be living in a huge house. Right on the beach. With an in-ground pool. And a hot tub. Deal?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “I, uh, I don’t know how this works with the old place…”

  “Doesn’t need to,” Jo said. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Well, I have a way out.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Someone painted a red V on my locker. That’s why I came back home. It was a guy who did it. At least I think. We were kind of dating. But…”

  “V,” Jo said. She sighed. “Do I need to go down that road with you?”

  “No,” I said in a hurry. My faced became warm. “Please. No. I know it all. I’m… things are… it’s all good, Jo. I swear to you.”

  “Okay. So this little dick prick wanted to make a statement and did that to you.”

  “Yeah. You can probably use that to get me out of there for good.”

  “That’s good thinking,” Jo said. “But don’t let that rest on you.”

  “You want me to get revenge on him?”

  “Why not?”

  I laughed. “Are you really a doctor?”

  “Correct,” Jo said.

  “You don’t act like one…”

  “How’s a doctor supposed to act?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure.

  I thought about it.

  I had no answer.

  Jo smiled. “I already said more than I planned on saying to you. Stay out of my way. Stay out of trouble. Don’t get involved with any of the rich boys at Bay Falls High either. Or if you do, make sure it’s for fun. Enjoy the sun. Enjoy the beach. Enjoy the house. Just do that for me, Belle. I’ve been hearing so much about you for so long and now I get a chance to know you.”

  “You just said to leave you alone,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “So how do we get to know each other then?”

  “We don’t.”

  I opened my mouth but stopped once again.

  Jo was fierce, cool, and ridiculously pretty.

  She was honest yet confusing.

  But she had a mansion. A pool. A hot tub. The ocean as her backyard.

  And when it came to any of the douche rich boys at Bay Falls High…

  I was ready for anything.

  Could it really get worse than I had already been through?

  I hung my head when I saw the size of the house.

  It looked like a damn hotel.

  The driveway itself… with its curved, wide opening, black brick pillars with a thick, iron looking gate. Without hesitation, Jo typed in the code to open the gate and gave me a number that I locked into my mind. There were trees on each side of the driveway, not very tall, but taller than me, hanging over the driveway with big, white flowers and buds on them. When they blew in the wind, it was like it was snowing.

  That part was beautiful.

  But seeing the house…

  It was too much.

  I reminded myself what class I was supposed to be in at the moment. Or actually, I should have been with Sarah, outside, smoking an early afternoon cigarette. Complaining about everything in our lives. Making those empty promises to escape it all together.

  And now I was here.

  “No use in hiding, Belle,” Jo said. “And I really hope you aren’t crying. At least over a house. You’re not going to live here forever. Consider it an upgrade from your apartment. So pick your head up. We need to run through all of this quick. I have to get over to the hospital. You don’t want someone to die because of you, right?”

  I gasped and lifted my head.

  What a bitch thing to say to me.

  I thought for a second maybe Jo had a very dry sense of humor.

  But when she got out of her car and walked toward the house, I wasn’t sure of that.

  As I entered the house, Jo began to point and talk. I really didn’t hear much of what she had to say though. Her voice was monotone, almost annoyed that she had to point out the rooms to me one by one. I didn’t ask for the tour of her mansion. I didn’t ask for her to save me either. I was perfectly fine back home.

  Home… what the hell is home?

  “Back that way is my part of the house,” Jo said. She snapped her fingers at me. “Don’t go near it, Belle. I have my own space. My office. My bedroom. My kitchen. My living room. I have my own garage. Pool.”

  “You have two pools?” I asked Jo.

  “Of course I do.”

  “What do you do with the other one then? Is it just for show?”

  Jo paused for a second to think. “I guess it’s your pool now.”

  “What?”

  “Let me show you to your room,” Jo said.

  There were three sets of stairs to get upstairs.

  Three.

  Jo took me up the main set of stairs. There was probably some fancy name for them but I didn’t know it. Fancy wasn’t my thing. The fanciest thing in my life was on Christmas Eve, my mother would buy a shrimp ring and serve them on gold colored paper plates. We’d eat them with our pinkies in the air and try to talk in a cliché rich voice.

  But this house…

  Everything was big.

  The stairs were big. They were wide. The landings were big enough for a chair on one. A table on another. There were windows that gave a look to different parts of the world. One window faced a bright garden of flowers. Another window gave a hint at the ocean. Which made me gasp.

  “Just wait a second,” Jo said to me.

  The upstairs hallway was big enough to fit a car through it.

  That whole hotel vibe went away when there wasn’t a door every few feet.

  “This is one of my favorite rooms,” Jo said.

  She pointed to a French style set of doors.

  Two damn doors to my new bedroom.

  What?!

  I opened the doors and let out a breathless sound.

  It wasn’t a room.

  It was an apartment.

  The ceiling was high. Really high.

  Straight across from me was a silver stone fireplace.

  “No way,” I whispered.

  “It works,” Jo said.

  My eyes looked right to left.

  It was like a really expensive studio apartment.

  Everything in the room was obviously staged though. Jo probably paid someone to decorate the room. All the rooms. The entire house.

  My eyes moved back to her.

  One woman with a house this big.

  I opened my mouth.

  “Why not?” Jo asked. “I told myself I was going to live someday where I didn’t have to worry about anything. Is this house part of that plan? Maybe. It works for me. My mind has to stay sharp and focused on what I do. So does this work for you?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

  Jo then pointed.

  When I looked, I had to do a double take.

  There was a large
window, a half circle, with a daybed built into the window and the wall. The daybed bigger than my bed back at the apartment. But the window… the view…

  I covered my mouth.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  I shut my eyes, realizing I was now the girl crying over the sight of the ocean.

  But it wasn’t the ocean.

  At all.

  I didn’t want Jo to see me crying.

  Why do I care about her opinion so much?

  Maybe because she’s giving me a place to live?

  And she’s a doctor… she’s rich and beautiful and successful…

  “Belle, I’ll make you a deal,” Jo said.

  I turned and Jo stood near the middle of the room, arms crossed, one leg slightly sticking out, her entire posture and stance was as though I was wasting her precious time.

  “I’ll tell you a quick story about your mother to make you smile,” she said. “And then you’re going to tell me something about yourself.”

  “What about yourself?” I asked. “I think I’d rather know about you.”

  “No,” Jo said.

  “Okay. Deal.”

  “When your mother and I first met, we got into a fight. A real fight. Fists. Her boyfriend at the time - this moron named Tim - wanted to give me a tour of the school. And his pants. His words, not mine. He didn’t know your mother was watching. She thought something was happening. But I punched Tim in the face for his comment. Then your mother came after me. We started fighting until we realized Tim’s bloody nose had dripped to the front of his jeans. Someone then made a comment that Timmy got his first period. It also helped that when I clocked him in the nose his eyes filled with tears. So there’s Timmy standing there, crying, his nose bleeding, blood on his jeans. It definitely looked like he got his period. And your mother and I started laughing at him. She had a small cut on her lip. I had a scratch on my cheek.”

  Jo smiled and looked down, shaking her head.

  “What?” I asked.

  Jo lifted her head. “Timmy made a comment to her and she punched him again. Same spot. Knocked him right down. Then she announced to everyone standing there that his… well, the tour of his pants… the end result wasn’t big. She then introduced herself to me and asked if I wanted a cigarette. That’s how we became friends. My point there is that she was always fierce. She’d fight for love even if it didn’t exist. That was one thing she believed in. And I know it always had a way of biting her in the ass. Just… just thought you’d like that story.”

  “Meaning she was once a fighter,” I said. “Instead of getting beat up by men now, right?”

  Jo didn’t reply.

  We stood in silence for a few seconds.

  “I like to write,” I said. “Anything I can. A couple years ago, we lived with this guy who had a nice house but was a bad person. Really bad. There was this little cubby under the stairs. Like a closet or something. I used to hide there when things got bad. And one time I found this book. A poetry book. It didn’t rhyme though. It was just… words. On different places on the page and stuff. And I liked it. I read it. I started doing the same thing. It sort of helped me. So, yeah, I like writing.”

  “I wouldn’t lead with that, Belle,” Jo said.

  “What?”

  “In this town. Bay Falls High. I wouldn’t lead off that you’re some dorky writer girl. That’s not a good look.”

  My jaw dropped.

  Jo walked to the door.

  “Wait a second,” I said.

  She stopped and looked back at me. “Problem?”

  “You’re a bitch, Jo. Like… a really big bitch.”

  “I know,” Jo said. “I’m not afraid of who I am, Belle. And I hope you end up the same way. Also, before I forget…”

  Jo took out a see through blue credit card. She put it on a small table just inside the doors. A table with a vase and flowers and a picture of a sunset. All staged.

  Next she took a car key. Well, not a key, but one of those fancy not key things that controlled a car.

  “Now you’re settled,” she said. “Just don’t do anything stupid with either thing, Belle. You can go get your bag. The car is yours. Anything you need, go shopping or order it online. Or send someone out to get whatever you need. I’ll leave you my cell number too. And my emergency number. That number is only if you’re about to die, okay? I don’t care if the house is on fire, you don’t call that number. Got it?”

  “Okay…”

  “I’m leaving to go back to the hospital. I don’t know when I’ll be home. There’s food in the kitchen. If nothing is there you like, then order something. There’s always someone here to cook and clean and fix something that’s forever broken. The pool is warm. The beach is warmer. You have nothing to worry about right now.”

  “Even if I take my dorky notebook down to the beach and write free verse poetry?”

  “Just as long as you’re not going to drink some vegan smoothie out of a metal straw while petitioning something stupid.”

  “You’re a doctor… don’t you want people healthy?”

  Jo grinned. “I don’t give a shit what people do with their lives. My job is to try and save their lives when shit goes bad.”

  “Well, thanks for saving mine.”

  “I didn’t save your life, Belle.”

  Jo left the room and shut the fancy doors behind her.

  I looked around the room again and took a deep breath.

  I moved to the daybed and sat down.

  I bit my bottom lip and stared out to the ocean.

  The clear blue sky. The whites of the caps of the waves. The sand with a mix of light tan and white colors.

  It was perfect.

  Serene.

  Almost too good to be true.

  My phone vibrated with a text from Sarah.

  OMG. Heard ur mother went 2 the hospital. R u okay? Where r u?

  I laughed when I read the text message.

  Oh, Sarah, wait until you hear this story…

  four

  I had a towel under one arm and my dorky notebook under my other.

  I passed by the pool and paused to take it all in.

  The area around the pool was made up of a tan concrete that looked like rocks. And the pool had the same feel to it. Like it was some exotic location in Hawaii or something. The pool was far from the cliché oval shaped pool. It had an odd shape to it, including a rock wall canopy kind of thing that went into some kind of cove.

  This was all part of Jo’s backyard area.

  It was unbelievable.

  I stared for way too long before continuing my walk toward the beach.

  She had privacy from the beach with a custom walkway that curved like a road to keep her house hidden but gave easy access to the ocean.

  That made me stop again and catch my breath.

  Ten seconds of walking and there I was.

  My toes curling against the grainy sand, my eyes looking through my dark sunglasses as the waves rolled toward the shore.

  I looked back and up and spotted my room.

  It was the only room with the half circle window.

  The rest of the back of the house was made up of square windows.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  Which felt so badass to say.

  Sarah couldn’t talk because she was in the bathroom and just wanted to make sure I was okay. I gave her the quickest story I could, which was that an old friend of my mother’s came to get me and I was staying with her for the moment. That I was okay. That my mother was going to be okay.

  I didn’t say a word about the mansion.

  The card.

  The credit card.

  The crazy pool.

  The beautiful ocean.

  I walked the beach totally alone.

  I felt a little anxiety creep up the back of my neck but then I realized…

  I was alone.

  I didn’t have to hear my mother’s sob stories. Or hear the sound of stupid fucki
ng Joff’s voice. Or enter that apartment building and smell the foyer. Or listen to the guy above us blast his reggae music at all hours of the night. Or see Gray ever again. Well, at least for now.

  Jo made it clear this arrangement wasn’t forever.

  But if she wanted me to graduate…

  If she had the ability to arrange things at this Bay Falls High place for me, and I could just breeze through and graduate, then I was so in.

  I could handle living this kind of life for a little while.

  Maybe I’d even crack Jo’s shell a little and get to know her.

  That was, if I ever saw her again.

  That was a harsh reality too.

  Not to mention the fact that my mother was in a hospital and I was at the beach. I had been offered to go in the ambulance with her. But I didn’t. I debated it and the ambulance drove away. And then Jo showed up.

  I picked a spot to put the towel down and settle.

  The towel had been waiting for me on the large, white kitchen counter that was curved like a bar. Actually, the counter made a snake shape.

  But whatever, the counter didn’t matter.

  I was on the beach.

  I fell to my knees and took out my phone.

  I texted the main number for Jo.

  I should be with my mother, Jo. I appreciate what you’re doing here. She shouldn’t be alone right now. I don’t want her to do something stupid - like find another guy. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for everything.

  I sent the message and felt like I was going to throw up.

  Which made no sense.

  It was the truth.

  But I kind of didn’t want to leave the beach. Or that house. Or that bedroom. My new bedroom…

  My phone buzzed with a reply.

  It was too much text to type that fast.

  I pictured Jo in another fancy vehicle, yelling for it to text me.

  You are not leaving. Your mother is fine. I already talked to her. I talked to the hospital. I told you I was taking care of this. Do not second guess me or question me. Your mother told me to come get you. She wanted this. Don’t duck this up. I meant fuck. Nobody ever means duck. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t go right like she did. Don’t go left like I did. Find your direction. Don’t text me again.

  I swallowed hard and wasn’t sure what to feel.