by Susan Stoker
Blade was normally extremely blunt. He didn’t have time for games, but he had the urge to see this fake Wendy squirm a bit. “How’s Josh?” he asked.
“Josh?” the woman asked in a high-pitched tone. “He’s good.”
“Is he enjoying fifth grade?”
“As much as anyone can, I suppose. Hey, what do you say we get out of here and go someplace where we can get to know each other better?”
Blade’s eyes narrowed. With every word she spoke, she confirmed his suspicions. “Where do you want to go?” he asked, leaning close as if he was encouraging her.
The hand on his thigh moved again, and her fingers brushed against his cock. The thick jeans he was wearing kept him from actually feeling the gentle caress, but even if he could’ve felt her touch, he wouldn’t have reacted. He was so angry with whoever this was, he couldn’t have gotten hard if his life depended on it.
“There’s a hotel near here. We could go there.”
Blade’s hand squeezed the one at his cock. Hard. “How much?” he bit out, not bothering to pretend he didn’t know she wasn’t his date anymore.
“What?” The woman’s eyes widened in surprise.
“How much do you charge?” Blade asked again.
“But…this is a blind date,” she stammered, trying to pull her hand out of his grasp, but Blade didn’t let go.
“Cut the bullshit. You aren’t Wendy, obviously. His name is Jack, not Josh, and he’s definitely not in the fifth grade. You’re dressed like a whore and you’re coming on to me so hard, almost desperately, you can’t be anything but a prostitute. I figure you thought you’d get me into the hotel, tease the shit out of me, maybe suck my cock a bit, show me your tits—which are about to fall out of your shirt as it is—then you’d spring your rates on me. So, I’m just wondering how much a lying, conniving bitch charges these days.”
At his words, the mask she’d been wearing disappeared in a flash. She might’ve been pretty before, but now her ugliness came through loud and clear. Her lip curled. “That little mouse wouldn’t have satisfied you for a second,” she hissed. “Why would anyone want someone as clueless and naïve as her? Stupid bitch made it too easy to intercept you. Besides, who wears fucking pajamas to meet a blind date?”
At her words, Blade had confirmation the woman he’d locked eyes with was the real Wendy. His Wendy.
Knowing he needed to ditch the whore so he could find his date, he flung her hand away from his body and stood. Then he leaned in and brushed a finger over the top of her tits, which were heaving up and down in her agitation, and said quietly, “I would fuck Wendy in those pajamas every day and twice on Sunday before I’d even think about sticking my dick in your nasty-ass cunt.”
“Asshole!” the woman spat.
“You’re going to want to take your business elsewhere, because I’m going to make sure the bartender and owner know who you are and that you’re trying to pick up unsuspecting men in their establishment,” Blade threatened. “This is a friendly neighborhood bar, not a pickup joint.”
“Fuck you,” the woman said, but she put the strap of her purse over her shoulder and stalked away from him toward the door.
Blade forgot about the prostitute as soon as she turned her back on him and frantically looked around the bar for the woman in the green scrubs. After two circles of the crowded bar, he realized she was gone.
Running a hand over his face, Blade swore under his breath. She’d seen him with the whore and had obviously gotten the wrong idea. Not that he could blame her, really. Pulling out his phone, Blade checked for any messages. Nothing.
Not even a “fuck you,” which he wouldn’t’ve been surprised by. Pressing his lips together, he shot off a quick text.
* * *
Call me, Wen.
* * *
He waited for five minutes, and when Wendy didn’t respond, he sighed in frustration. He texted again. Then again. And again.
* * *
I thought she was you.
Please talk to me.
Are you okay?
Where are you?
At least let me know you got home all right.
* * *
She didn’t respond to any of his texts, and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t even read them. Since she was ignoring his texts, he tried calling her.
But she didn’t pick up. He left a message.
Then he called back and left another.
All in all, Blade left five messages for Wendy, getting more and more concerned with each one. He was also slightly irritated.
He was the one who’d been duped. Why should she be mad at him? They hadn’t exchanged pictures, so he didn’t know what she looked like. He’d been carrying the chocolates; she should’ve come up to him. And why did she just stand there, staring at him with the whore? Why didn’t she come up and tell him she was the woman he was there to meet?
All she had to do was approach and he would’ve known. But she didn’t. She’d stood back and watched him, then left. Just fucking left.
Blade slammed his fist on the steering wheel of his Jeep. This was stupid. She was the one in the wrong. Why was he spending so much time being pissed about what had happened?
Because he’d been looking forward to this date for a long time. Because he hadn’t felt a connection with another woman like he felt with her.
* * *
Wendy closed the door to her apartment as softly as she could. If Jackson was in his room, she didn’t want to make him aware of the fact she was home already. It was way too early. She should’ve driven around longer, but gas was expensive and the only thing she wanted to do was crawl into bed and cry.
Of course, she wasn’t lucky enough for her brother to be in his room. Nope. He was sitting at the dining room table.
“You’re back early,” he observed unnecessarily.
“Yeah.”
“Things didn’t work out?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Not really? Either they did or they didn’t,” Jackson said in exasperation.
Wendy dropped her purse on the table and headed into the small galley kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water and chugged it down as she leaned against the counter. She refused to look at Jackson and just stood in the kitchen, trying to put off the inevitable.
“What’d he do?” her brother asked. He’d stood and was leaning against the wall leading into the kitchen. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring at her.
Wendy stared up at her brother in surprise. Sometimes just looking at him took her breath away. He looked so much like their dad, it was eerie. He had dark hair and eyes like she did, but his facial features were more like their dad than hers were. Full lips, square jaw, and even now she could see the scruff of his beard from where it had grown during the day. Their dad had told her once that he got so tired of shaving, he’d grown out his beard just to give him a break from it.
Wendy had loved his beard, and she could totally see her brother wearing one just like their dad had.
But she didn’t have time to appreciate the similarities between her brother and their dad for long because Jackson was obviously impatient. He shifted on his feet and continued to glare at her. Jackson was normally very easygoing. Like her, it took a lot to rile him up. But unlike her, once he was riled, he acted on it. It had been a while since Wendy had been called down to school to deal with the aftermath of him getting into a physical altercation, but it had happened enough that she knew her brother wasn’t afraid to jump in and fight if he needed to.
And right now, he looked like he wanted to fight Aspen for whatever he might’ve done to her.
“He didn’t do anything,” Wendy said with a sigh. “I did.”
“Come on,” Jackson said, grabbing hold of his sister’s elbow and steering her to the table. He pulled out a chair and helped her sit. Then he grabbed the chair he’d been sitting in when she’d arrived home and turned it around. He straddled it and leaned his elb
ows on the back. “Talk, sis,” he ordered.
Wendy looked down at her hands in her lap. She saw the green scrubs and felt humiliated all over again. Without prevarication, she told her brother about how she’d been puked on at work and didn’t have anything to change into except the scrubs. She told him about being early to the bar. About meeting Christine, and how stupid she’d been, and how she’d told her all sorts of stuff about Aspen.
“She told me I had something in my teeth, and like the good little naïve girl I am, I trotted off to the bathroom to check it out. I guess she saw Aspen outside or something, because by the time I came out of the restroom, she was sitting with him at the bar.”
“What? Are you serious?” Jackson asked, his hands clenching into fists. “What did Aspen say when you confronted them about it?”
Wendy looked away from her brother and studied the old, faded wallpaper as if it held the answers to life’s toughest questions.
“You didn’t confront them,” Jackson concluded. “Oh, sis…seriously?”
Wendy turned to look at her brother. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me,” he begged. “You were so excited about this. You’ve been talking to Aspen for months. I can hear it in your voice when you tell me something he said. You like this guy. I mean, like him. You even told him about our parents, and I don’t think you’ve told anyone about them since we moved. I can’t believe you let that bitch steal him right from under your nose, and you didn’t do anything about it!”
“I couldn’t,” Wendy told him.
“Bullshit,” Jackson retorted. “I’ve been telling you for years that you need to stand up for yourself more, but you just don’t do it. And look what happened.”
“He looked happy,” Wendy blurted. She couldn’t stand the sad look on her brother’s face anymore and turned away. “I was going to go up to them. I swear. I stood there, working up the courage, and as I was watching them, he laughed at something she said. He was smiling so big, it almost blinded me. Jackson, he was obviously satisfied with her. They were practically holding hands. Yeah, she was a bitch, and she intercepted him when I was in the bathroom, but the bottom line was that Aspen looked absolutely content to be there with her.”
“But she was pretending to be you.”
“I know. But, Jackson, what if I went up to them and told him that I was Wendy, not her…and he was disappointed? I couldn’t bear that. And you didn’t see this other woman. She was beautiful. Short skirt, boobs out to here.” Wendy waved her hands in front of her, demonstrating how big Christine’s chest was. “The last thing I wanted was to see his happy countenance turn into disappointment that the woman he was talking to wasn’t the one he was supposed to meet. I didn’t want to be second best…and I’m always second best.”
“But what if he wasn’t disappointed?” Jackson argued. “It’s you he got to know, not her.”
“I know you’re my brother, and you’re kinda required to defend me no matter the situation, but seriously, Jackson, let it drop.”
The teenager shook his head. “I can’t believe you, sis. Seriously. I love you more than anything, but you were in the wrong tonight.”
Wendy stared at her brother. She didn’t like to see the look of irritation on his face, especially not directed at her. For most of his life, it had just been the two of them. They’d been through some pretty serious shit, and to see the disappointment on his face almost killed her.
“If I was Aspen, I’d be pissed,” he said.
“But he thinks he’s with me,” Wendy said, her brows furrowed in confusion.
“I would bet a million dollars that he figured out that bitch wasn’t you pretty quickly,” Jackson said without a trace of doubt.
“Why?”
“You said that you had like a five-minute conversation with her before you went to the bathroom. You’ve talked to Aspen for hours and hours over the last couple months. You think he’s really that stupid and won’t figure out that she isn’t you?”
“He’s not stupid,” Wendy defended quickly. “And, yeah, I figured eventually he’d realize it, but I also assumed by then, he wouldn’t care.”
“No, Wen. I bet if you had hung around for a bit longer, you would’ve seen him ditch her. And since you left, he didn’t find you. He was probably worried. Then mad that you stood him up.”
“I didn’t stand him up,” Wendy protested weakly. “In fact, he looked right at me and then turned back to her.” Wendy didn’t know when her brother had gotten so mature. He was only a sophomore. However, he was actually seventeen, even though the school thought he was a year younger. The deception had been necessary after their parents had died and they’d left town. But most of the time she still saw him as a little boy.
At the moment, she realized with a jolt that he was almost a man. That he was actually older than she’d been when her entire life had changed on a dime.
“He saw you?” Jackson asked.
Wendy nodded.
“Jesus, Wen. Then I bet he’s really pissed you didn’t come up to him. Didn’t stick around. That was a shitty thing to do.”
Wendy should’ve been mad, but she was too exhausted and heartsick. She realized Jackson was right, but didn’t know what she could do about the situation now. “I’m going to bed,” she informed her brother. “Make sure everything is locked up and maybe get a start on your homework.”
“Wendy—” Jackson began, but she held her hand up to stop him.
“I can’t right now,” she told him. “Please.”
“What are you going to tell him when you call him next?”
“I’m not.”
“Wen—” he started again, but she cut him off once more.
“I can’t. You’re right. I stood him up. I left and didn’t tell him about the mistaken identity. He’s probably pissed. Hell, for all I know, he’s in bed with that bitch right now. I can’t bear to talk to him again. To hear him yell at me. I’m embarrassed and disgusted with myself and if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t want to talk to him again. I’m sure he feels the same.”
“He deserves an explanation,” Jackson insisted.
Wendy shrugged. She knew her brother was right, but she couldn’t think about it at the moment. “I’ll see you in the morning.” And with that, she turned and walked down the short hallway to the bedrooms. There were only three doors…two bedrooms and one bathroom. The apartment was small, but it was cheap. And cheap was all Wendy could afford, even with two jobs.
She wanted to slam the door in frustration, but refrained. It wasn’t Jackson’s fault she was too trusting. That she was naïve. And it wasn’t his fault she was so devastated that Aspen looked happy with a woman who wasn’t her.
Without bothering to change—what did it matter if she slept in the damn scrubs?—Wendy crawled into bed and hugged her extra pillow to her chest. She brought her knees up to curl into a ball and cried.
* * *
Jackson Tucker glared at his sister’s back as she headed down the hall toward her room. He loved her but she was so clueless sometimes. He knew why she didn’t like conflict, why she felt the need to fly under the radar, but it still frustrated him. All she had to do was walk up to Aspen and tell him that she was Wendy, and everything would’ve been okay.
He’d heard enough about the kind of man Aspen Carlisle was to be ninety-nine percent sure of that. His sister gushed every time she hung up with him. He knew Aspen was in the Army, had a sister who had recently gone through something horrible, although Wendy wouldn’t tell him what…he wasn’t sure she knew. Jackson had even talked to Aspen one night. Wendy had forgotten her phone, and he’d answered when Aspen had called so he wouldn’t be worried about his sister.
They’d talked for about ten minutes. Not about anything in particular, but the fact that Wendy didn’t freak out when he’d told her about their conversation said a lot. Usually, Wendy was super protective of him. Not that she dated much, but in the past, she hadn’t tol
d a man that she was raising her little brother until at least the fifth date.
And just from that short conversation he’d had with Aspen, Jackson had a feeling the man would be pretty upset when he found out the woman he’d been talking to wasn’t Wendy.
Just then, the phone in Wendy’s purse began to vibrate.
Jackson looked down the hall and saw that his sister’s door was still closed.
She’d be mad at him for butting in, but he couldn’t let this rest. Not after he’d seen the sadness in his sister’s eyes. If Aspen did figure out that the woman he was talking to wasn’t Wendy, and he didn’t care, Jackson needed to find out now. Aspen wouldn’t be the man for his sister if he’d done that.
Reaching over, Jackson pulled Wendy’s old, beaten-up black purse closer. He unzipped it and reached in to grab her phone. It wasn’t top of the line, and his looked just like hers, but he knew it was all she could afford, and he’d never complained.
As he was pulling it out, it vibrated in his hand, scaring the shit out of him. He tapped in the password—Wendy insisted they both have access to each other’s phones, just in case—and he clicked on the text icon.
She had several missed texts, as he’d expected, all from Aspen. All six messages seemed fairly calm. He was worried about her.
Jackson scowled. The least his sister could’ve done was let him know she’d made it home all right.
Then he saw that she also had at least one voicemail message.
Reading her texts was one thing, listening to her voicemail was something altogether different…
Just when he’d decided that it was in her best interest that he listen, the phone vibrated once again with an incoming call.
Jackson saw it was Aspen, and made a split-second decision. He stood and went into the small foyer of the apartment. Wendy might still hear him, but there was less of a chance here than sitting at the table.
“Hello?” he said quietly after he’d swiped to answer the call.