Next to Never

by Penelope Douglas

  I spent the next hour researching a couple of cases as well as answering a few e-mails and finishing my opening remarks for the GM lawsuit. The proceedings would start next week, so I’d be home even less than I was now. I was half tempted to just get an apartment in the city. The commute was starting to take too much of my time.

  Rummaging through the papers on my desk, I stopped. Where is the hell was that fax? I’d grabbed it before I’d left work.

  “Briefcase,” I mumbled, standing up. I headed back into the foyer and popped open my case, sifting through file folders for the white piece of paper I needed. But then I noticed a flashing red light from inside the dark case. I picked out my cell phone and turned it on, seeing a missed call from twenty minutes ago. It could’ve been any number of people—a client, Maddie, my father . . .

  But my heart suddenly skipped a beat. I didn’t recognize the number, and I couldn’t stop myself. I redialed.

  “Denton Auto Repair,” an out-of-breath voice answered.

  And I closed my eyes, fighting the heat drifting over my body. Shit.

  “Hello?” Kat said when I didn’t say anything. She sounded stressed.

  I cleared my throat. “You called me?” I forced myself to say, knowing I should hang up.

  She was silent for a moment, and I could hear her labored breathing. My guard went up. Was something wrong? It was after ten. The shop closed two hours ago. Why was she still there?

  “Look, I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I shouldn’t have called. Forget it.”

  “What’s wrong?” I barked before she could hang up.

  “Nothing. I’ll be okay—”

  “What happened?!”

  I heard her suck in a breath, and I immediately picked up my keys and grabbed my wallet out of my briefcase, not even thinking.

  “Are you close?” she asked, her voice sounding hesitant. “I’m at the garage. My ride never showed, there’s no one else I can call, and there’s a weird car sitting outside. I just—”

  “I can be there in ten minutes,” I said, already walking out the door and not even caring why she’d called me of all people. “Don’t go outside.”

  “Thank you.” I heard the relief in her voice.

  I hung up and hurried into my car without any hesitation. That repair shop was off a secluded country road. No way in hell was she walking home.

  I sped the entire way there, punching the stick shift into fourth and then fifth, my headlights falling against the blacktop highway and no other cars in sight. I wondered who her ride was that didn’t show. Probably the ex. Right now, I wouldn’t mind running into him again.

  Finally, I spotted the lights of the repair shop ahead and slowed the car.

  I swung into the parking lot and immediately noticed Kat, ripping her arm away from a man who’d grabbed it, another man standing beside him. I slammed on the brakes and yanked up the parking brake, jumping out of the car.

  “I don’t have your money!” Kat yelled, trying to walk around them. Why the hell had she come outside?

  “Then maybe we’ll have you work it off for him,” one of the guys snarled. “Huh, honey? Now tell us where he is, because one way or another we get paid!”

  “Go to hell!” she barked, and I raced up, putting myself in front of her and shoving one of the guys back.

  “What do you want?” I demanded, my shoulders squared and rage pouring out of every goddamn pore on my body.

  Both guys were dressed like street thugs, ratty clothes and greasy hair, once of them sporting a huge tattoo on his neck.

  “Fuck off, man,” the dark-haired one growled. “She owes us money. Our business is with her. Not you.”

  “I don’t owe you anyth—”

  “How much?” I asked the guy, cutting Kat off.

  He stared at me, narrowing his eyes and looking like he was debating whether or not to deal with me.

  “Four hundred,” he finally answered, his voice growing calmer.

  I held his gaze and reached into my pocket, pulling out my wallet.

  “What?” Kat cried behind me. “No!”

  But I took out four bills and handed them over to the punk. “You don’t come near her again. You understand?”

  But he just took the money and smiled lazily, like all was right with the world now. “Thanks,” he replied and then looked around me to Kat. “Nice doin’ business, Kat.”

  And they both turned and headed back to their car. I stayed in front of her, feeling the heat of her anger on my back.

  But I had my own fury swirling like a tornado under my skin. What the fuck was the matter with her? Why would she come outside the shop if she’d noticed a car lurking around? And what the hell would she have done if I hadn’t shown up?

  What would they have done to her?

  She came around me, her face twisted in anger. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Then why the hell did you call me?” I barked.

  “I forget!” she yelled back, spinning around. “Screw off, College Boy.”

  I widened my eyes and ran my hand through my hair, fisting it. Jesus Christ! What did I do wrong? She called me.

  I watched her walk back for the garage, her tight blue jeans ripped to hell, grease stains up her forearms, and her dark gray T-shirt falling off her shoulder, exposing her skin, and I didn’t know if I was angry or turned on or both. Every single one of my muscles was hot and as hard as a rock. Every. Single. One.

  Charging after her, I grabbed hold of her arm, twisted her around, and threw her over my shoulder, hearing her yelp as I stood there, wrapping my arms around the backs of her thighs.

  “What are you doing?” she screeched, and I saw her black baseball cap fall to the ground and the ends of her dark hair sway around my waist.

  “I don’t know, but it’s fun,” I told her. “I can hold you like this all night. I’m kind of enjoying it, actually.”

  “Let me down!”

  “Not likely.”

  “Jase!” she protested again. I actually don’t think I ever introduced myself. But then I remember having written my nickname with my cell number on the back of my business cards.

  I stood there like I was waiting for the fucking bus until she calmed down and stopped acting like a child.

  “Actually, you are getting kind of heavy.” I grunted and shifted her on my shoulder. “Maybe if I stripped you down, it’d be a lighter load? You game, Trailer Park Princess?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Then stop calling me College Boy.”

  She tried to twist out of my hold, throwing my balance off. “Please!” she cried.

  And when I didn’t budge, her breathing slowed, and she finally lowered her voice. “Jase?” she said, and my fingers tightened on her, loving the sound of my name on her lips. “I’ll let you take me home, okay?”

  Okay. But I didn’t put her down.

  Instead, I carried her all the way to the car, hearing her angry little growl behind me, because she knew I didn’t trust her to not run away. She dragged my ass all the way out here and put me in the middle of her drama. I was taking her home safely.

  I put her feet on the ground and opened up the car door, letting her climb in. More like she just plopped down in the seat, pouting, but she was in the car, nonetheless. Walking around to the driver’s side, I climbed in, fastened my seat belt, and started the car.

  “Who were those guys?” I asked her, turning on my headlights and pulling onto the dark road.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I arched a brow, turning to look at her. “I asked you a question.”

  I’d forked over four hundred dollars to get her out of trouble—what she did with the other four hundred I’d left last week, I had no idea—so she could damn well give me some answers.

  “Dealers,” sh
e finally answered. “My ex owes them money, so they were shaking me down, trying to find him.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “He’s never far.”

  I shook my head, turning my eyes back out to the road.

  Dealers. She said it as if it’s all so normal.

  What would they have done if I hadn’t been there? What if they’d shown up at her goddamn house with her son there? Is that what she wanted him growing up around? Fucking losers and trash and drama . . .

  I tightened my fists around the steering wheel, hearing the leather grind in my fist. “You’re a mess,” I bit out in low voice. “How the hell can anyone live like that?”

  I saw her turn to me out of the corner of my eye. “You don’t know me. Don’t forget that.”

  And then I saw her put her baseball cap back on, folding her arms over her chest.

  We sat in silence, and I stared ahead, the white lines in the middle of the road racing past my car as I considered what the hell I thought I was doing. She had a point. I had no right to judge her. Her reality was far different from mine. I had money, an education, experiences that constantly reminded me how big the world was. She was a teenager who would probably struggle for everything for the rest of her life.

  But . . . given our very different lives, we were both here, weren’t we? She, coming to me, because even though she would never admit it, and given how little she knew about me, she did know I would come through for her. And me, racing to her in the middle of the night, because all the money, education, or experiences in the world couldn’t buy what she made me feel.

  “I do know you,” I admitted. “Because I’m just as much of a mess as you are.”

  I could feel her eyes on me, and I wondered what she thought of me. Was I the asshole rich guy trying to prey on her? Was I some idiot she thought she could hustle to feed her kid?

  Or could she feel me as much as I felt her on every inch of my skin? Had I been in her head at all over the past week? Because she was constantly in mine.

  I saw her pick something out of the console and glanced over to see her open my wallet.

  “You’re right,” she said, pulling out a picture of my son. “He’s about the same age as mine.” And then she put the snapshot back and set my wallet back down. “Someday . . . they’ll be all grown up, with their own problems, and all of this will be over.” She leaned her head back, musing. “Sometimes I just pray for time to go quicker, ya know? Like I just want to fast-forward to forty, and hopefully the hard part will be done.”

  I nodded. “Like this is all just a shit preamble to something better.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was gentle and soft. “We’ll have it together, we won’t be confused anymore, we’ll be excited about tomorrow . . .”

  I kept driving, letting her words linger in the air.

  She knew. She knew exactly what I was feeling, because we weren’t so different.

  I turned into town, heading for her house, and she didn’t seem to notice that it was odd I knew where she lived without her telling me. Sprinkles of rain started hitting the windshield, and I turned on the wipers, slowing my speed.

  “Why did you marry him?” I asked her.

  I heard her take in a deep breath, but she didn’t seem angry I’d asked.

  “I thought he would change,” she answered. “In his rare, genuine moments, he convinced me he loved me. But if I were listening more closely, I would’ve realized that he just wanted to bleed me dry. Cooking, cleaning, my paychecks from the garage, sex . . .” She drifted off and then continued. “He barely even remembers I exist anymore, except when he needs money. He hasn’t touched me since I was five months pregnant. He didn’t like the way my body looked anymore.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I looked over at her, gazing at the smoothness and glow of her bare skin where the shirt fell off her shoulder, and the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. She had a beautiful figure, and he was a fucking idiot.

  “Why did you marry her?” she asked me in return.

  I turned my eyes back out to the road as I wound my way through her neighborhood.

  Because I didn’t see you first.

  “Because I love her.” I told her the truth. “I grew up with her, she comes from a good family, my father thought it would be—”

  “Yeah, I get it,” she cut me off.

  But I wasn’t sure she did get it. I loved my son’s mother, but my love for Maddie was like everything else that never changed in my life. It was constant and routine. It never challenged me or hurt me.

  Or excited me.

  I was never hungry or wild for it. I never longed to feel her.

  It was just there. Like my house, my job, my car . . .

  I pulled up to the front of her house, a small light shining through the living room window, but the rest of the street was dark. Rain poured down heavily now, blanketing my windshield in sheets of water.

  We sat there silent for a moment, and I turned to look at her, knowing she wanted to say something.

  She stared out the window, making no move to get out. “What do you want with me?” she asked quietly.

  I almost laughed. Not because I found the question amusing, but because I found it far too tempting. What did I want? Nothing. Everything.

  “When I know, so will you,” I told her.

  She smiled to herself and looked over at me, holding my eyes.

  “What?” I asked.

  But she just shook her head. “It’s weird. For a single moment . . . I didn’t want to fast-forward.”

  And my stomach flipped as she held my eyes, everything in them telling me she felt what I was feeling.

  I could touch her. I could reach over and take her, and guide her into my lap and touch her if I wanted to.

  “You’d better get out of this car,” I warned.

  She tried to hide her smile, but I still saw it. And I watched her finally climb out of the car and into the pouring rain.

  I didn’t want to fast-forward, either. In fact, I wanted time to slow as much as possible.

  She rounded the front of the car, her hair turning black as it got wet, and came to stand at my window. I watched as the rain drenched her clothes, the shirt molding to her breasts and running down the olive-toned skin of her chest. I tightened my fist around the steering wheel again.

  And then slowly, she leaned down and placed her lips against my window, closing her eyes and kissing it.

  I watched as she backed away, holding my eyes, and then spun around and ran to her house, disappearing into the warm glow.

  Now I knew.

  I put the car in first gear and drove off, knowing exactly what I wanted from her.

  Chapter 4

  “Damn.” Dylan glances at me, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing.

  “Don’t worry,” I tease. “Someone is going to want you like that, so badly Jared will go crazy. Be careful what you wish for.”

  She scoffs and turns the page to the next chapter. Dylan really has no clue.

  All she sees is what’s right in front of her. Guys are drawn to her, because of her spirit and smiles. She’s a happy person, and she makes people feel good when they’re around her.

  I’m not like that. I’m just kind of there. Like empty space.

  And my mind circles back to Dylan’s question. What if Jase was Lucas? Would he see me as anything other than his friends’ kid sister? Would he feel that kind of physical pull to me?

  I doubt it.

  Lucas knew me when I needed to get pushed on the swings and all I wanted to watch on TV was the Disney Channel. I’d been kissed, I’d been touched, but I’d never felt compelled to experience more.

  What did Jase want with? What did he want to do to her? She was only slightly older than me, so what did he see in her that men di
dn’t see in me?

  But I guess that’s not true. There were boys who had been interested in me.

  I was still curious, though . . . what did desire feel like for someone when one woman could give him what he needed but not another?

  • • •

  Jase . . .

  Stepping through the front door, I walked into my home and immediately saw Maddie sweeping into the foyer. Our son sat on her hip as she swung his diaper bag on her other shoulder. “You’re home early.” She forced a small smile, her voice light.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, setting my briefcase down.

  I reached out a hand and rubbed Madoc’s bald head.

  “We have a doctor’s appointment,” she said, wiping some drool from the corner of his mouth. “Just a checkup, and then we’re going to the library before I drop him off with my mother, so I can meet with the caterers for my sister’s wedding.”

  “Well, here then.” I held out my hands, ready to take him. “Just leave him with me, and you can do what you need to do.”

  Just because we were practically roommates these days didn’t mean I wasn’t still my son’s father.

  “Oh, Jase.” She laughed like it was a joke. “Have you ever changed his diaper? You’d be calling me in ten minutes, breaking down.”

  “I think I can handle it.” I reached out for him again. “I went to Harvard.”

  But she just shook her head and walked around me. “I don’t have time to show you where the formula is, how to make it, the toys he likes to play with . . . trust me,” she said, kind of sounding like she was talking to a child. “Use the peace and quiet to get some work done. I’ll be home in a few hours. We have dinner with your parents later, so I laid out a suit for you. Just don’t forget to shower,” she instructed. “You kind of smell like that cologne your mom bought you last Christmas that I threw away. Did she buy you another bottle?”