“—what?” She jerked away from me, rubbing one wrist with her other hand.
“No, don’t be mad. Please.” Why did I feel like getting on my knees and begging? “I wouldn’t survive it if you said you hated me right now. I know it’s what I deserve. I know I’m an ass. I’m a whore. I’m all those things, but please, please don’t say this changes anything. I can’t…” Dammit. “I can’t lose you, Pris. You’re the only real friend I’ve had.” Other than the guys, but they were more like family, she had to know that.
“I’m not,” she said softly, touching her fingers to her swollen lips. I’d done that to her. I’d branded her with my mouth and I didn’t feel sorry. I refused to feel sorry.
“Friends.” I reached for her hand and gripped it. “Right? Besides, you like Smith. I’d just get in the way.” Lies, all lies. My body responded with a violent shudder. Her, it said, it begged, it screamed like a bloody gladiator. “Seaside… this is your home. This is your life.” I tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m just a distraction.” I wanted to hit myself so hard. My heart — bloody thing that it was — slammed against my chest in madness as if it was so upset with what I was saying that it was getting ready to burst from my chest and find the words that I couldn’t.
No. I told my brain, I told my damn heart. No. It would be stealing — it would be wrong. Because I knew my priorities were still me. I knew they were still movies.
I had no room for her in my life.
And until I did…
Until I was fully ready…
She’d be the one to suffer for it.
“Say something…” I whispered.
Her eyes were cold, distant. “We’ll always be friends, Jaymeson.” With a sad smile, she shrugged. “Sometimes I just wonder if that’s what you really mean. You say friends, you act like—” She held out her hands, palms up… and shook her head helplessly.
I knew how I acted.
Like a man obsessed.
“I know.” I tilted her chin toward my face. “Will you accept my apology for not making the line clear?”
“What if I like blurry?”
“You say that now,” I said sadly. “But in the morning, you’ll wish it was still there. You’ll wish you’d seen it before you took the leap.”
With a slow nod, she got up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek, whispering, “You make it impossible to hate you, but right now, I really want to. I want to kick you. I want to slap you. I want to murder you.”
“Because I’m an ass?” The air stilled.
“No.” She stepped back. “Because you make decisions based on your own insecurities, your own reasons, without once thinking about what the other person may want. I feel sorry for you.”
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve had enough sex, money, and fame to last a lifetime. The last thing you should feel is sorry. You know nothing, Pris. You’re eighteen, for crying out loud! You haven’t even lived!” My voice took on a desperate tone. “You haven’t suffered. You haven’t—” I smacked the counter with my hand. “You’ve lived in Seaside, Oregon for your entire life. You know nothing of the horrors of life.”
“Wow, you’ve done it,” she whispered, her voice hollow.
“What?”
“Made me hate you.” Her eyes blurred with tears. “Night, Jaymeson. It seems I have a life to experience, considering I’ve never even lived or suffered. Great advice. How about I stay in my small town with my small-town boyfriend and my sad pathetic existence? Will that make you happy? Maybe Smith will help me experience some of those things — even if it’s heartache, apparently it would still make you happier than you are now.”
“But—”
“Go to bed, Jaymeson.”
The last thing I heard was the bedroom door slamming. It may as well have slammed in my face; I swear I felt the wind from it.
Good. Let her hate me. I’d take her hate over her shattered heart any day.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Priscilla
I made it as far as the bedroom door before I fell onto the bed and burst into tears. What was wrong with me? Was I that terrible of a prospect that we only ever got as far as the abrupt first kiss and I was pushed away?
Again.
A girl can only take so much rejection before her heart starts to wilt. Mine was dead. It felt dead. I hated that he did the right thing. Jamie Jaymeson, whore of the year, was trying to protect my virtue. Imagine that.
He had no idea how my body responded to him. With Smith it was like getting a nice hug from a family member. Ugh. I hated that I felt that way.
With Jaymeson? It was like touching a hot stove — and liking it.
My body burned everywhere he touched. I didn’t even understand the feelings that were racing around my head, around my heart, just everywhere.
I sniffled as a few escaped tears hit the pillow, and pretended to sleep when I heard the door crack open.
Light filtered into the room.
I froze.
And then muscular arms wrapped around my body, and Jaymeson whispered in my ear, “I’m sorry, love.”
I hated that having him near calmed me immediately, almost as much as I hated how clueless he must be about how I felt. Because the last thing I needed to be reminded of was how it felt to be in his arms — when he was pushing me into someone else’s.
****
“Are you sure you’re okay taking over the last few boxes?” Stella asked, filing her polished pointer finger. Today the color was red; tomorrow it would probably be orange. She claimed she hated keeping up with clothes trends — so she used polish as a way to express herself.
“Yeah.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead. “I’ve only got four more boxes and then I’ll go grab us some lunch. How does that sound?”
“Great.” She beamed, setting down her nail file and opening her desk, “Here’s a twenty.”
“Stella—”
“Take it or I won’t eat.” She dangled the money in front of my face.
I snatched it and rolled my eyes.
“And don’t roll your eyes at the elderly.”
“You’re seventy-two, that’s hardly elderly.”
It was Stella’s turn to roll her eyes. “Hurry back, sweetie.”
“Will do!” I waved goodbye and walked outside to my car. It was my first day working without Jaymeson.
This morning he’d acted like nothing happened, while I had stared at the countertop and almost erupted into flames.
His hands had been all over me.
His mouth too.
In that same kitchen.
How could he eat? I’d barely choked down the eggs he cooked before making up some lame excuse about showering and drying my hair.
And he’d let me leave. No hug, no nothing. The only highlight of my day had been that Jamie Hudson had been constantly messaging me. He’d even told me some funny stories about on-set catastrophes. I liked him. He made me laugh. He reminded me a lot of Jaymeson, and it wasn’t just the same first name. They both called me love.
When I asked him about it, he said that’s what his grandma used to call him, so it just stuck.
Made sense.
The drive to The Goodwill took three minutes. I got out of the car and rang the bell on the back door.
No one came. Grinding my teeth, I marched over to the front doors and walked in. The bell chimed but I still didn’t see anyone.
“Hello?”
I walked around to the front counter, just as a figure with a pirate patch popped up and held out a sword.
“Holy crap!” I shouted.
“Ahoy matey, where be yur bootey?”
“Jaymeson?” I croaked.
“It’s Captain Jack Sparrow, and I be wantin’ me treasure!”
Leave it to Jaymeson to make a Goodwill costume look so hot I wanted to launch myself over the counter and attack him.
“You’re sure working hard.” I pushed his sword away and leaned on the coun
ter. “Playing pretend, are we?”
“Pirates don’t play. We plunder,” he said in his normally accented voice, his eyes darkened a bit before he cleared his throat and looked away. “So how’s your day been?”
“Awesome. I won the lottery.”
“You should buy an island.”
“So you can bury your treasure?” I asked.
He laughed. “Aye.”
“I’ll get you, Captain!” another male voice shouted across the store. “I’m going to cook your parrot and eat it!”
I burst out laughing as Evan appeared in his own pirate garb. He didn’t pull it off as well. His patch kept falling off his face, and his sword was plastic instead of wood like Jaymeson’s.
“Evan…” I sighed. “Always good to see you making the world a better place, one sword fight at a time.”
He immediately pulled off his patch and threw his sword behind one of the rows. “We were bored.”
“Right.” I nodded. “I do that too. Resort to swordplay when I’m bored. I have at least ten costumes at home ranging from cop to Batgirl.”
“Really?” His interest seemed piqued.
“I think she’s joking.” Jaymeson rolled his eyes and then said under his breath. “You are joking, right? Because a Batgirl costume would be badass. Don’t tease if you can’t follow through.”
Wow. They really belonged together. It was almost as bad as watching Demetri and Jaymeson interact. I swear when men bonded it was like taking ten years off their age.
“Sorry to disappoint.” I tapped the countertop with my hand. “No costumes. No masks.”
“Pity.” Jaymeson sighed.
“You have the rest of the boxes?” Evan asked.
“Yup in my car.”
“Jaymeson, go get the boxes,” he ordered.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re donating your time to The Goodwill and lovely city of Seaside, and because I’m your boss.”
Jaymeson made a big show of taking off his pirate patch and setting his sword down then with a sweeping motion bowed in front of me. “My lady awaits.”
“You guys been drinking?” I asked curiously.
Evan snorted. “No.”
Jaymeson patted him on the back, then walked around the counter, and offered me his arm. I didn’t want to take it because that meant touching him again.
Maybe I should just accept the fact that he’d never be mine. If I accepted it, I could enjoy the little moments, store them up in my brain, and then when it was time to move on with reality and life, I’d have at least those memories to keep me warm at night.
Wow. Depressing.
We walked arm in arm to my car. I unlocked the doors as Jaymeson walked around and grabbed two of the boxes.
“Am I too late to help?” Smith’s voice broke my concentration and I pulled my eyes away from studying Jaymeson’s biceps.
I pivoted on my heel. “Not at all! We have two more boxes.”
“Perfect!” Smith leaned in and kissed my mouth before I could stop him, then went over and grabbed the other two boxes. I could have sworn I heard Jaymeson say ‘jackass’ under his breath, but then again, I was probably imagining his jealousy.
Movie stars didn’t get jealous of mortals.
I closed the doors and locked the car, following them both into the store as they deposited the boxes near the counter.
“So…” Smith wiped his hands on his ripped jeans. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Doubtful,” Evan muttered under his breath. Jaymeson hit him across the chest while Smith glared.
“We should go out tonight.”
“Again?” Jaymeson and I said in unison.
I laughed it off and sent a seething glare toward Jaymeson.
“What did you have in mind?”
Smith wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest. It felt wrong. Physical contact with him felt… cold.
He cupped my face. “Bonfire.”
“I like fires.”
“Good.” He smiled that beautiful blinding smile. “How about I pick you up around seven? We can toast marshmallows and tell ghosts stories.”
“She’s scared of ghosts,” Jaymeson piped up.
“I’ll be fine.” I gave Smith my best smile as he bent down and brushed a kiss across my lips.
“Great. See you in a bit.”
“‘Kay.”
He waved goodbye and sauntered out.
I watched him the entire way — only because I couldn’t face Jaymeson. I felt embarrassed, like I somehow betrayed him even though I was doing exactly what he’d asked me to do.
When I finally looked back at him and Evan, they were both wearing the same worried expression.
“What?” I stuffed my hands in my back pocket.
“He’s too old for you,” Evan blurted.
At the same time, Jaymeson said. “It’s going to freeze tonight.”
“Thanks, Dads.” I saluted. “But I think I’ll be okay.”
Evan nodded. “Just… promise me you’ll be careful, okay, Pris?”
“Evan, he’s your brother.”
“My point exactly.” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them with his hand. “Just promise you’ll be careful. Like I said, he’s older.”
“And that’s code word for what? He has wrinkles?”
Jaymeson swore. “It’s code word for he’s probably a lot more experienced, Pris. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”
My heart sunk. So that was it. I was still a hormonal teenager in Jaymeson’s eyes, a plaything. A friend, but not his equal, never his equal.
“What if I want him to?” I shrugged innocently. “I’m eighteen. I’m not a child, and you guys can’t stop me. Thanks for the warning though. I’ll be sure to bring my pepper spray in case he pulls down his pants.”
They winced.
“After all, I’m so innocent to the ways of the world. We don’t want the nice pastor’s daughter getting taken advantage of on the beach.”
I shook my head and walked toward the door. “Have a nice night, boys. I know I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jaymeson
I watched Pris leave. I was drowning with worry, as she took steps away from me and toward him.
“Is he bad news?” I asked Evan. “Tell me the truth.”
Evan was silent a minute then shook his head. “I wouldn’t say he’s bad news. He’s just used to getting what he wants.”
“And he wants Pris,” I said dryly.
“It would appear so.” Evan yawned. “But I wouldn’t worry. I mean, he just broke up with his last girlfriend. It’s not like he’s going to want to jump into anything.”
“Is that code for he‘s going to go slow with Pris?”
“No offense.” Evan held up his hands. “But should you really throw stones in that glass house of yours?”
I ground my teeth together. “I don’t screw virgins — or take advantage of them.”
Evan’s eyes widened. “So that’s what’s bothering you?” He burst out laughing. “Wow, do the guys know?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Evan’s smile grew wider. “That you’re obsessed with the local pastor’s daughter. Wow, that’s awesome. You want her but can’t have her? How’s it feel? I mean, have you ever even faced rejection before?”
“Don’t you have work to do?” Glaring at him, I changed the subject.
“Nope.” He pointed to the boxes. “But you do. So work, bitch. I have some forms to fill out.”
“Great.”
“And Jaymeson?”
I looked up.
“I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s not like Smith has the same background you do. He doesn’t screw girls for sport. If there’s anyone you should be worried about, it’s yourself.”
Ouch. “What the hell, man?” The guy barely knew me.
He shrugged. “There’s nothing worse than wanting something you can’t have. It’s li
ke waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
“I do possess self control,” I seethed. “Believe me, I’ve been doing nothing but exercising that self control for the past week!”
“My point exactly.” Evan picked up his sword from the floor. “Pretty soon you’re going to run out, then what happens?”
My entire body deflated as the breath left my body.
“Right.” He gave a firm nod. “I’ll be in back if you need me.”
I smacked the countertop with my palm. I could do it. I had to do it. Because she deserved better, though I wasn’t totally convinced better was Smith. At least she was dating someone who could give her what she needed.
And that someone? Not me.
A scowl pinched my forehead as I started unpacking the boxes. Three hours later, they were emptied, and I was tempted to burn secondhand donations. People really didn’t know how to give good stuff. A lot of the things had to be tossed because they either couldn’t be cleaned or they were partially used.
I grabbed the last empty box and started to pull it apart when I noticed a twenty-dollar bill at the bottom.
Pris must have accidently dropped it, either that or someone wanted to make a donation to the church.
I explained to Evan that I was taking a break and drove over to the church to drop off the bill. Ridiculous that my heart sank when I didn’t notice Pris’s car in the parking lot.
With a grunt, I got out of my car and walked briskly through the doors, this time not pausing under the light — you know, just in case it decided to fall on me again.
“Hello?” I called.
I heard talking toward the end of the hall where the office was located. Sighing, I headed in that direction, but stopped when I heard crying.
“No, I understand, pastor.” More sniffling. “It’s just, are you sure there’s not enough money to fix it?” She stopped talking, her agitated breathing the only sound for a few moments.
When she spoke again, she sounded defeated. “I see. No, but, surely if you tell the church members they’ll want to help.” More silence. “I know times are tough but maybe if you explain—” She let out a heavy sigh. “So where will Pris stay? You can’t sell the house in that condition.”
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