The Girl with my Heart (Summer Unplugged #8)

by Amy Sparling

  I find my phone in my pocket. It is six in the morning. Zero eight zero nine. The password works this time. Twenty three missed calls from Park. I press his name and put the phone to my ear. He answers almost immediately. “Jace? Are you dead?”

  “Maybe,” I say and my voice is raw. “I need you to come get me.”

  Chapter 27

  Like a good friend, Park doesn’t say a word when he picks me up on the side of the road. I climb into the passenger seat and buckle my seatbelt. The band scratches against my bare chest but I don’t care.

  “You hungry?” Park asks, casting a sideways glance at me as he pulls back onto the road.

  I shake my head.

  “Okay. Just checking.” We drive in silence, the only sound coming from the breeze of the air conditioning through his dashboard. A few minutes later Park pulls into the shopping center parking lot, right up to where my truck waits for me in front of the BMX park. Everything is closed at this hour. Park stops his truck and cuts the engine.

  I look over at him. “I would never hurt her,” I say, opening the door.

  He nods once. “I know.”

  I climb out and close the door behind me. I don’t have to say anything else to him. He knows to keep this between us. That’s what a good best friend does, even if their best friend doesn’t deserve the courtesy or respect.

  The apartment is a barren wasteland, or at least that’s what it feels like when I trudge through the front door and look around at all the emptiness. All of our stuff is here, but she’s not. I am alone and I deserve to be alone. Clenching my jaw, I strip off my jeans and my socks and my boxers. I throw them all into the trash and then I put on a robe and carry the trash out to the dumpster—the one that’s the farthest away.

  Then I shower until the hot water runs out and my bar of soap has disintegrated into nothingness. My head rests against the tiles in the shower as cold water pours over me, chilling me to the core. I do not feel clean. I am not clean. I’ll never be clean again.

  I cry until there is nothing left to cry.

  And then I haul myself out of the apartment and head to the local clinic.

  “Takes about a week,” the nurse says, peering at me over her knobby nose. She’s a large woman with some kind of cartoon monster decorating her scrubs.

  “I need to know quicker than that,” I say, shifting my weight on the thinly padded table. “Like by Monday.”

  She snorts. “STD tests take longer than that, honey. There’s a lot to process and many diseases to test for.”

  My stomach churns at the thought. In the hours since I’ve woken up, I’ve thought it over a lot. It’s all I’ve thought about. There’s no way I had sex with her. There’s no possible way on this freaking planet that I would have agreed to that with someone like her. I am not a cheater. I’m not a man whore and even if I was, I’d still never sleep with her. Even if I was a damn porn star—the world’s greatest porn star—I wouldn’t get close to Natalie. I hate her enough to know that as a fact.

  But a mammoth-sized weight of doubt creeps into my heart and settles there for the long haul. I know I wouldn’t have slept with that bitch, but I was drunk. I can remember the bar and I can remember the camera flash of taking pictures. Everything else has been wiped from my memory. How I got there in the back room of the smoke shop, where my shirt went and why I was too drunk to function. It’s all gone.

  What if I did sleep with her?

  What if I have ruined every single thing I hold dear in this world?

  “I’ll pay whatever it takes,” I hear myself saying as I glare at the nurse. This bitch is lying to me. She’s lazy. She doesn’t want to help but I’ll make her help. “You want ten thousand dollars? Twenty thousand? Whatever it takes. I need these results by Monday.”

  She gives me a dismissive glance and then checks her watch. “HIV results won’t even show up until six weeks after you’ve had contact with an infected person,” she says.

  And this is it. Right about now my entire world collapses.

  I can’t stay away from Bayleigh for six weeks. She’ll know something is wrong. She’ll know I lied to her that I betrayed her and took all of her love and faith in me and threw it to a pack of wolves.

  I swallow and close my eyes. “Just fucking test me for everything.”

  And she does. She takes my blood and I pee in a cup and I’m swabbed and prodded and then sent on my way. I don’t know how I’m alive right now—how I’ve managed to keep breathing beneath the weight of what I’ve done.

  Somehow I get home and my head is still an ocean of pain. I lie down on the couch because I’m not worthy of being in the bed I share with my wife. And I sleep for the next two days.

  Chapter 28

  Someone is slapping my face. Fingers in my mouth and on my eyelids. I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking out the intruder. A tiny hand slaps my cheek. I open my eyes. I’m lying on my back on the couch and Jett is sitting on my chest, smiling at me. He squeals when he sees me awake and slaps my face again.

  “Hey little man,” I murmur. My voice sounds like it hasn’t been used in ages. Jett falls forward, his face lying on my chest and I hold him close. My heart finds a way to break again.

  I sit up, holding onto my son. Bay smiles at me, seeming to be a hundred feet taller than usual now that she’s standing over me. “Hey, babe,” she says, leaning down and kissing me on the cheek. “Jett was excited to see his daddy. What are you doing sleeping on the couch? It’s like four in the afternoon.”

  I swallow but it doesn’t help my throat. It’s still dry as hell and there’s an entire mountain lodged in it just beneath my Adam’s apple. I try to force a smile. Jet’s fingers play with my hair, pulling it and trying to put it in his mouth. “Um,” I say, vaguely remembering that she’d asked me a question. But all I see is Bayleigh, beautiful and innocent. Sweet and loving. And so very perfect in every way. “I didn’t feel very well so I laid down,” I hear myself saying.

  Her eyes go wide and she yanks Jett away from me. “Are you sick? Do you have a fever?” She touches my forehead with the back of her hand and then rushes into the kitchen where she sets Jett on the counter and begins wiping down his hands with an antibacterial wipe from his diaper bag.

  I shrug. And then I decide to go with the lie. “Yeah, I feel kind of hot. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

  “Baby,” she croons. “You should have called me and I would have come home to take care of you.”

  I shake my head and everything inside of me hurts. “I don’t want you to get sick. I’m fine. Maybe I should just sleep out here for a while.”

  She frowns and swings Jett over to her hip. “I’m here to take care of you, babe.” She gives me a little pitying smile. “That’s my job.”

  I can’t even meet her eyes. I’m the worst fucking person in the world. My expression must reflect this because she walks over to me and goes to the loveseat across from my couch. “You look like shit.”

  “Yeah,” I nod. “You could go back to your mom’s if you want. That way you and Jett won’t get sick.”

  She shakes her head. “We’re a family. If we all get sick, then so be it. So what’d you do this weekend?” she asks all casually like it’s not a big deal. And I guess to her it’s not. When I don’t say anything she keeps talking. “You and Park get any business stuff done? Becca was saying something about closing on the land.”

  I nod. “Yeah we went out drinking on Friday night.”

  My blood freezes. Why did I say that? Oh shit why did I say that?

  Bayleigh just laughs. “Where is there to go drinking around here besides Big Max’s?”

  “That’s where we went.”

  Her lip curls. “Damn you must have been hard up,” she says with a laugh, again as if it’s no big deal. As if her husband getting wasted without her is nothing. It’s not nothing. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.

  I run a hand through my hair. “Well we were celebrating quitting my job but Park
can drink a hell of a lot more than I can.”

  She lifts an eyebrow and Jett grabs her face, making her beautiful lips stretch into odd shapes. “Since when? You better not have let him drink you under the table, Mr. Adams.” She shakes her head. “You know how competitive Park is, he’ll be rubbing it in my face for months if he beat you at something.”

  I force a smile and I figure that she should know as much as I can possibly tell her without breaking her heart. “He definitely won. I passed out at some point and don’t even remember how we got home. But I do remember a ton of camera flashes.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You have a lot of fans, Jace Adams.”

  I snort and I think an actual smile tugs at my lips even though I don’t deserve the happiness. “Park has more fans.”

  She points a finger at me, donning a stern look on her face. “You better get more fans because I won’t let Becca’s boyfriend beat you at everything, okay?”

  I smile. “Okay.”

  An entire week later, I’m getting dressed in the living room, still faking the idea that I’m sick with something that might be contagious. Although the clinic called and said my STD results came up clear, I can’t face my wife in the bed we used to share. I just can’t, knowing that I’ve betrayed her so much.

  Bay has spent her nights watching TV with me, sitting on the opposite couch from me, just to be as close as she could before she finally goes to bed. God, I love that girl so much. How could I have done this to her?

  You didn’t, a voice says in my head. You would never cheat on your wife.

  I draw in a deep breath and step into my shoes. I know I wouldn’t. I know I’d never hurt her, never want to be with anyone else. Some moments I feel so confident in this that I want to rush over and tell her everything I remember and hope she is confident in me, too. But then I am overcome with the worry that maybe I am wrong. Who knows what I did when I was too drunk to realize it?

  But your heart, the deepest most sincere values you hold to be true, should always be there, right? I would never want to be with anyone besides my wife. That should mean I wasn’t with anyone besides her.

  But waking up next to a naked bitch shatters even the most confident hearts.

  I brew a pot of coffee and fill up the largest travel mug we have after downing a cup. The hot liquid makes my stomach hurt, but lately everything makes my stomach hurt. My phone beeps and I open it.

  Park: Want to get some donuts before we head to the title company?

  Me: Nah… I’ll just meet you there.

  Park: K. Don’t forget your checkbook fool!

  The sound of footsteps makes me turn around. I slide the phone back into my pocket and reach for the money order I had secured yesterday. Fifty thousand dollars—my half of the down payment for our business.

  “Good morning, business owner,” Bay says with a coy smile. She’s wearing one of my Mixon t-shirts as a sleep shirt. Her cell phone glows in her hand.

  “You didn’t have to wake up this early, babe.” I fold the money order in half and slide it into my wallet. “Enjoy your sleep until Jett wakes up.”

  She shrugs. “I was sleeping but then my phone went off and look at this shit.” She turns the phone out, facing me, but I can’t see the screen from the other side of the kitchen.

  I fit the lid on my coffee mug. “What is it?”

  “Natalie just added me on Facebook. Like seriously?” she scoffs. “That girl is so pathetic. Like now she wants to be my friend? PLEASE.”

  The entire world seems to go in slow motion. Fear rakes its way up my back, piercing into every nerve ending. My heartbeat slams into my chest, so loud and erratic that I’m sure she can hear it from across the room. “That’s weird,” I manage to say.

  Bayleigh shrugs. “I’m gonna accept her and then constantly post about how handsome and perfect my husband is.”

  “I don’t—” I say, stopping when I realize I shouldn’t finish my sentence.

  “You don’t what?” she says. “I just can’t believe she wants to be my friend. Like really? She called me fat, the stupid bitch.”

  I shrug. “It was probably an accident. She probably stalks your page because she’s insane like that.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Bay’s face lights up from the glow of her phone. “Okay I’ll ignore her request. Fuck her.”

  I force a smile. “Probably for the best.”

  She walks up and grabs my shoulder, lifting up on her toes and planting a kiss on my cheek. My body aches for her touch, desperate for more. But I don’t deserve more of her. Not until I find out what really happened that night—but the evidence doesn’t look so good. Maybe I’ll never deserve Bayleigh again.

  “You look so terrible,” she says, pulling away. Her eyebrows pull together and she frowns. “My poor baby. You shouldn’t be sick on the day you’re becoming a business owner,” she says, squeezing my arm.

  “I’ll feel better after a few cups of coffee,” I lie.

  She smiles. “Good luck today.”

  “Thanks,” I say, wondering if she’d still be wishing me luck if she knew what I did.

  The title company is a small office nestled in the middle of a shopping center and the walls have been freshly painted a mocha color judging by the smell of it. Another scent, the smell of vanilla candles nearly overpowers me as I walk into the small waiting area. A woman with ridiculously huge boobs greets me with a smile and a, “Hello there! You must be Jace Adams!”

  I shake her hand and wonder how she stands on those tall freaking heels without toppling over. “That’s me.”

  “Your partner is in this room over here,” she says, leading me through a small maze of chairs and end tables. We enter an office with a desk and two chairs in front of it. Park sits in the chair closest to the wall, a box of donuts in his lap. He’s eating one and waves at me with his other hand.

  “Hey man,” he says with a mouth full of food. “Donut?”

  I take one, figuring the calories will be good for me. I haven’t eaten much in three days and god knows what that’s doing to my muscle mass. I probably can’t even bench three-fifty by now.

  The woman introduces herself as Mary and takes a seat across her desk from us. She gathers up a bunch of legal-sized papers in a manila folder marked Park/Adams. “We just need a few signatures and then you guys will be land owners.” Her bright red lipstick smiles at us. “Are you excited?”

  “Hell yeah,” Park says, leaning forward. He grabs a pen from the jar on her desk. “Let’s do this.”

  A dozen of our signatures later, Mary stands and shakes my hand. “Congratulations,” she says. “Good luck with your business, gentlemen.”

  Park thanks her and starts talking about our plans for the land and the business. My phone vibrates and I pull it from my pocket. The message is from a number I don’t recognize but it has the same area code as Mixon. It’s probably a client, wondering when I’ll be training again.

  I click on the message and the words make by heart seize up in my chest.

  Hey Jacey I hate to break it to you but it looks like I’m pregnant. We should talk. -N

  Chapter 29

  The next few moments are a blur. I rush out of the building, into the parking lot where I throw a hand onto my truck and lean forward, pressing my forehead to the hot metal on the door frame. My breaths are shallow and hurried. I can’t get enough air. There isn’t enough air in the entire world right now. I’m dying.

  I can’t breathe.

  A hand grabs my shoulder. “Dude.”

  My legs give out and I’m on the concrete in the parking lot, my knees burning from the fall, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

  “Shit, man,” Park says, kneeling down beside me. “What’s going on? Are you freaked about the business?”

  I shake my head. I try to talk. I come up with nothing. I gasp for a breath and then another; each painful inhalation threatens to be my last. Park shakes me, repeatedly asking me questions I can’t understand over the thump
ing of my own heart.

  I want to run away from him, from my life, from everything. But deep down I know that Park might be my only ally right now. I reach into my pocket and hand him my phone.

  A few moments later he says, “Shit.”

  I find the strength to drag my eyes away from the concrete and look over at my best friend. He watches me with disbelief and confusion. “There’s no way she’s actually knocked up,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s lying.”

  I say the only thing I’m thinking. “But what if she’s not lying?”

  Tears well up in my eyes. Park’s lips press into a thin line and he grabs my arm, hauling me up to my feet. He turns and opens the passenger door of his truck which is parked next to mine. “Get in, bro.”

  I do. Because there’s nothing else to do. If he’s a good friend he’ll take me to a river somewhere and shoot me. Put me out of my misery.

  Instead, he drives us to our land.

  The field is a vast square of possibility. There’s trees dotting the grass and overgrown weeds as far as the eye can see. The scorching hot summer air feels good on my skin. My entire body has been freezing since I got that text. I walk away from Park’s truck, venturing into the land that is now partly mine. Park pops open the cooler in the back of his truck and tosses me a water bottle.

  “Alright,” he says, walking to the back of his truck. He pops the tailgate handle and lowers it. “Sit,” he says and I go ahead and do it, although running away sounds like a better idea. His phone rings and he ignores the call. “Tell me everything.”

  I draw in a deep breath and spill my guts. I tell him everything I remember about that night at Big Max’s and how the last thing I can actually remember is taking pictures with him. Then I explain how I woke up with a massive headache in a tiny room in the back of a smoke shop next door. “That’s it. I was completely repulsed, Park. I hate her. You have to believe me.”